Potential Next Massive Costume Project?

Aside from Costume Con's big group costume coming up, I've also been wracking my brain for a good costume to follow up my 40K costume. I'd hate to disappoint by not going all out and trying to take Best in Class: Journeyman, Best Workmanship: Journeyman, and Best-in-Show all at once :D Will I succeed? Well, probably not, but what's the point if you don't try?

So here's one of the ideas I've had: Warmarshal Varesh Ossa from Guild Wars: Nightfall. She's the boss bad guy you have to defeat before going on and defeating her patron diety in the game.





I love all that gold work and flowy purple fabric. It really would be a lot of fun to make. I would need to get a wig and headdress to get the hair right though.



But then she's also got this secondary form as she gets more and more evil and less nad less human. Now this version would be both tricker and easier at the same time. There're less gold accessories and no stand up collar. However, I'd have the fun and joy of figuring out how to glow white and purple. I've got a couple ideas already, but they need a lot of research still. I'd also get to have fun with prosthetics and probably do a full facial cast to get the six eyes. Can't really tell with the hood up, but I like the idea of doing a bald cap with this version too. It'd make her look a lot more alien/demonic. I met a guy who did a live casting demo and panel at the con. He apparently is or was a member of the NY/NJ ICG chapter and could probably be convinced to help me out a bit. ^^

So what do you guys think?

Balticon Pictures

Digging through Flickr brought up a couple pictures so far from one person. I'm sure more will be up tomorrow and throughout the week. But here we go to start off!



Here's Ricky Dick's costume. He was the one right in front of me and won the Master Workmanship award. The picture looks awesome and even it doesn't do it justice. You can't even see any of the little beading details.



And here's the picture of the picture of the lady with the peacock dress that was right behind me in the masquerade.



I'm sure you recognize the Llama Emperor. ^^ Awesome fun costume.



Another costume whose pictures don't do it justice. All those little fish, seaweed, and other bits of detail were hand appliqued, beaded, embroidered, ribboned, whatevered. And I love that wig.



This Sleeping Beauty group took the overall Best in Show award and completely deserved it. I mean check out the fairy's costumes! And the Prince's. Alone they're award winning at a Master level. Together and with Aurora's dress... well, it's down right jaw dropping. Not only did she have that green dress there's also this:





The dress is incredible. It actually switches back and forth between pink and blue, and they can perform the switch so quickly and smoothly on stage that you couldn't tell how it was performed. A wave of a wand, perhaps? Heck, I got a close up look at how they did it later and still know if I could duplicate it yet. I can't wait to get a video of their masquerade entry to show you what I mean.

Cooooooon!

Balticon 2008!

This weekend was crazy. Most cons are 3-days longs, Balticon is four days of awesome - and a sorely needed vacation and relaxation time for Seth. For me though, it was a little more stressful. This was the first masquerade I've competed in, and I was wearing my 40K Adepta Sororitas costume. But starting off at the beginning so I can make you suffer through everything that happened in order to get to the good part...

We left Alexandria around 1:30 on Friday and immediately hit rush hour traffic on the beltway. At 1:30! *facepalms* Five hours later, we made it to the hotel just up north of Baltimore. I immediately started pulling out my costume to double check it arrived in one piece and to let the wrinkles fall out, and realized that my left glove wasn't there. Seth had done a bit of touch up on the paint of the St. Celestine icon for me, and when I'd packed up the rest of my accessories it was still drying. Neither of us very happy about it, we headed back to get it. *sighs* Fortunately the drive only took an hour and 15 minutes each way. But still. Not fun. Seth deserves major props for how well he took it.

Saturday was a lot more fun. Great panels to attend, got myself signed up for the masquerade, and then began the agony of waiting. I was so rediuclously nervous. Around 5 I got changed for dress rehersal, and then hung out in the green room. The GCFCG, my chapter of the International Costuming Guild, was amazing. All of them, but Ann especially really took care of me. She came with me for the workmanship judging to help me out and keep me calm. Never having done it before, it was nice to have someone there who knew exactly what the judges wanted to hear about and who could give me some cues. Then she took me and raided a couple of the other guild member's make up bags for me. I usually never wear make-up. It just makes me break out, and I really don't need it. However, when you're on stage make-up keeps the lights from washing you out to an indistinct, pale, blob. Ann did an amazing job with it too. When the competition was over Seth came back and the first thing he said was how good the make up had made me look up on stage. "Intimidating," apparently. It was perfect. My only minor disaster was when my necklace broke and the beads went everywhere- including down the front of my shirt to get stuck in my corset (now that was interesting to try and get out.) fortunately it happened well before I went on stage, and I had four or five people scrambling to help me get it fixed in time. I love costuming geeks, they're the nicest people. Even when you're competing against them they still want your costume to be the best it can and everthing to go perfectly for you because if it didn't and they won, it would take away from the quality of their victory.

My presentation was really simple. (I'm hoping it'll get up on youtube eventually so I can post the video of it.) Just a simple walk with the MC introducing me majordomo style, and walk off. I'd ripped some music for the background from an old 40K video game too. I was in the Novice category, obviously, this being my first masquerade, and in the line-up I was lucky/un-lucky enough to be placed between two really amazing costumers. Ricky Dick is a Super-Master, and his First of November costume was awesome. (Pictures to come when they get up) He ended up taking the Master Craftsmanship award home for it, actually. He helped keep me sane right before going on stage though, playing the 'what if' game. You know, what to do if something goes drastically wrong with my presentation. His suggestion for what to do if I fell on my face was the best though. Jump up, point an accusing finger at the floor where I fell, and scream "heretic!" (my costume being of someone who's a member of the Inquisition in case you missed that...) The lady behind me was similarly impressive, though her costume was just for exhibition rather than for competition since it'd already won elsewhere, I believe. But her dress was a gorgeous peacock dress, all feathers and gemstones and beautiful detail work. I was just glad she didn't go on before me. That would have been intimidating to follow up on.

I really don't remember much past my initial cue to go on stage. I was just trying to stay 'in character' and not fall on my face - which was close a couple of times. I nearly tripped over the front of my hem a few times, but I made it and everyone tells me it was good. phwew! I figure it had to be decent or I would have remembered more of it.

But once it was finished I was able to calm down a bit, got a few photos taken, and went to play the waiting game again in the green room. I was hoping to win a workmanship award of some sort, but when they finally got through the half-time auction and started announcing awards, I took the Best Workmanship in the Novice Division. I was so excited. Ecstatic, really. I wasn't really paying attention when they announced the presentation awards. After all, my presentation wasn't exactly thrilling here! People were coming over to congratulate me and get a closer look at all the detail work on my dress. Then Seth pushed me forward again and told me to get up on stage against since they'd called my name. Well dang. I took Best in Class! Both major awards for the Novice Division! At a regional competition too! Balticon isn't a little tiny local con. Either award would have been enough to make me a Journeyman level, but both? wow. When I went up to accept the Best in Class for the Novice Division I had people in the crowd calling "Not a Novice anymore!" *laughs* How awesome is that? Journeyman.

I've still got a heck of a lot to learn, but I had Masters impressed that this costume was my first attempt at beading and embroidery. :) And now that I've shown everyone what I'm capable of, I feel like a real member of my guild chapter. I was even told to make sure to save my costume as-is so it can go up on display at future cons as an example of a Novice Best-in-Show.

Sunrise and Glorious Progress

So I don't know if you knew this, but Stephanie Meyer's book came out on Tuesday. No, not Breaking Dawn. The Host. It's not part of the Twilight universe, but something completely new and wonderful. Where the Twilight series got you to actually give a fantasy book a chance, The Host does the same with a soft and fluffy sci-fi. I ended up working really hard to get my hands on this book too. It was quite the ordeal. *sighs* As a borders rewards member, I got a 40% off coupon for the book in my email. However, I never print these coupons out. They *always* keep copies behind the counter so why waste the ink? Besides, we were out of paper again. So there I went, off on my shopping expedition for velvet and The Host, and I stopped by Borders first since it was on the way. They didn't HAVE the coupon behind the counter, and while I don't mind spending money on books, I wasn't about to buy it for 30% off- the sticker price there for new releases- when I could get it for 40% off. Annoyed and grumbly, I left to go drool over fabric and pick something new for my doublet and plunderhosen. I'd looked up the other G-street locations, and I was not going to drive up to Maryland or way out to Centerville alone. I'd get lost or worse. I hate driving.

So I brought my swatches again, and tried to go into it with an open mind and not regret not being able to have my first or second choices too much. It came down to a two-way between a deep plumish purple and a berryish brown-purple. I finally decided to go with the berryish brown-purple. It depends on the quality of lighting what shade really pops out to the eye. I really like it.

So then on my way home, still wanting that book, I decided to stop at the bookstore again and called Seth. Now, I don't know if I've ever spoken about just how bad Seth's computer at work is, but it's pretty terrible. Slow as molasses and several several years beyond the replacement date. It also crashes regularly because it doesn't have the specs to run the programs he needs it to. Like Word. And Excel. Happily, I manage to catch him as he's waiting for an email from someone and wheedle him into opening up my email and getting me the coupon code # so I could buy my book. He's such a sweetheart. ^^ And I got my book.

I tried to put off reading the book for as long as possible, knowing that if Stephanie Meyer did as well on this one as she had on Twilight, I wouldn't want to put it down. So I pre-washed the velvet (now it's *super* soft... ahhhh) and was going to start cutting or surfing online, but my heart wasn't in it. The book was right there! Calling to me!

I mostly resisted the siren call until after Seth came home and we came back from hanging out at Alex's house. Then I jumped in and let the aliens in the book eat my brain. 7 hours later the sun was starting to rise, and I closed the book. I even managed to squeeze in 3-4 hours of sleep before I had to get up and go to work. I managed pretty well the next day, thankfully, though it helped that only one guy came in to buy anything before the Magic players and my replacement showed up around 5pm.

The Host was a great book. It's a body snatcher alien invasion scenario, with the main characters being the alien named Wanderer and her human host, Melanie, who refuses to just disappear when Wanderer tries to take over her mind. The book raises some fun ethical questions and makes you empathize with the alien 'souls' as well as the plight of the last handful of free humans. What makes a person a person, and all that. Then there're the love stories. :) With Melanie and Wanderer two separate minds in one body, it gets interesting. Not going to spoil it though. It even had me tearing up at parts, although that could be chalked up to lack of sleep. ^^

Yesterday I really got down and got a lot of work done on my doublet. I love that collar on it. It rocks. Hopefully the rest of it will go together as smoothly as it has so far. *knocks on wood* Here's a progress shot from last night. I've since been working on the peplum (the flaps at the waist for the sewing-term challenged) and will then be jumping into the lacing band to attach the plunderhosen to, and then the sleeves and wings on the sleeves. So lots of fun! :D After that I'll finish attaching the lining and a few little details, and the doublet will be done! Hopefully that'll happen by next week. I'm really looking forward to starting on the pants.




Oh, and one more thing. Dad told me about the 'manga' version of Twilight you found on the amazon.jp site, and although I hate to burst your bubble... It's not a manga. It's just the Japanese version of the book chopped up into several smaller books with sporatic manga-style illustrations throughout. This site here has scans of all the illustrations if you're interested.

Grrr. Argh.

Went and deposited my latest paycheck this morning and then went to go get the dark teal velvet that I've been drooling over, and it was gone! Well, not all of it, but enough that the yard and half left on the rack is only useful as a tool to taunt me and the fact that they can't reorder it in that color. Now I must begin to plot again, and hope that they get new colors of velvet in soon. I'll go again on Tuesday to check when I go to pick up Stephanie Meyer's new book, The Host - she's the author of the Twilight series that Abbey loves so much though this particular book is a completely new series. *sighs* And if they don't have it in, maybe I'll go track down the other G-Street locations in the area and see what they have in their stock. But wow, that'd be a pain.

Now I just need that velvet!

Today was a much better day than yesterday. :) I got our state tax return form sent off, went and deposited my last three paychecks (It's a real pain to get to our credit union's branch since they're closed Wednesdays when I'm actually in that town and close at noon on Saturdays.), and then went fabric shopping. 50% off on linen too, so I got a couple extra yards of some nice medium-weight black and super light-weight white linen/cotton blend. It's lovely stuff. I didn't buy the velvet since I'm going to wait until my next paycheck which should come this Saturday, but since I now have all the fabric for the guts of the outfit I was able to get a good start on it this afternoon when I got home.



See? I'm very sylish. That there are just the front and back pieces, of course. I also got the front collar pieces (except the velvet, of course) cut out, pad-stitched the interlining to the interfacing, and am all ready to sew on the velvet once I get it. Not much else I can do until then either, but I can get started on the pants tomorrow and do quite a bit on them before I need the velvet. Guess we'll see how it goes.

Sometimes life is just a wee bit frustrating...

even if I can't quite figure out why I'm frustrated at the moment. I've been feeling grumpy all day. Maybe it's the fact that I didn't feel like being around people and Wednesdays is the day I work, maybe it's the fact that I spent a good 8 hours doing those freaking annoying eyelets by hand (finished all of them too!), or maybe it's the fact that I after an annoying day and a headache I just wanted to go to Alex's place and hang out and play the Scion game he's running. Of course my frustration is quite possibly born from all of them all at once, and yes I know I'm whining, but if you don't like it you don't have to read this. What I really wanted to do today- instead of finishing those eyelets- was start working on the short story idea I had that I plan on submitting to the Writers of the Future contest. Never did get around to that.

And at work the new inventory didn't come in until around 3. *sighs* I hate when it comes in late. It usually comes in around noon- which is nice and slow and gives me the chance to browse through anything new of interest before any people really start showing up. When people started showing up around 5 for Magic I hadn't even gotten 1/4 way flipping through the new WoD Innocents RPG book. It was a good book too, from what little I saw. Yes, I'm a geek. You all know this already. But anyways, I could sew and be social at the same time... so... voila. Here it is at least.