About Me and About Fashion Pt. 1

As you may or may not know, for the past year or so my taste in fashion has actually become more than "mens size nerd tee + jeans + makeup that is just to fab for the outfit" (though that's still my staple look lol). Heck, I joined the new fashion club at school and will be writing a section in the newsletter about fashion subcultures!

So, my own quick personal history in fashion:

I loved it as a kid. I drew all sorts of amazing outfits and my parents were pretty sure that I'd grow up to be a designer. I loved to play dress-up (what little girl doesn't?), thoroughly enjoyed theater, would have little "fashion shows" with my friends... oh what joyous memories! I even made dresses for my dolls!

Here's a drawing from when I was about 6.
You can see my 14yr old re-do here

Then I went through the tom-boy phase. You know the one... reject everything feminine to appear "cool" and unlike other girls... i have only one thing to say to that...

But, me being me, and artist and a lover of fashion at heart, it didn't last long... unfortunately the ending of my tom-boy phase led straight into my "when I was 12" era... oh what dark times those were :p

I listened to a strange mix of Christian pop and Christian metal... I cut my hair short (super, super short), wore a heck of a lot of purple (it is my favorite color so it made up 90% of my closet back then), but, again, had no sense of style. It was pretty sad. 

Fortunately, I survived that first half 8th grade with horrible taste, but when I turned 14, I realized that I needed to get my act together. I got some new clothes, let my hair grow out long (i had been keeping it shoulder length most of the year) and learned how to properly style hair and use mascara.

 It was that summer after 8th grade, though, when things got oh so much better. I went to Europe, and had no time or need for makeup or fashion. When we returned, I went shopping with some cousins and got my first eyeliner (can you believe that I learned how to do eyeliner with black liquid?) and some lipgloss. I also bought a dress that was nice/casual, because I didn't own any casual dresses. 

600 steps my dad and i walked down in Greece

Next came two months of me working on my CVI cosplay, Ahsoka.Through the cosplay process I learned about makeup and fashion in general. (Fun fact: 80% of my makeup skills are modified from what I learned in cosplay. That's why a)my makeup skills are hella rad and b)my eye makeup is always pretty heavy). 

That all led into my 9th grade year, when I owned a good supply of Star Wars shirts, leather boots, eyeshadow pallets, and eyeliner. I also started painting my nails every week (school didn't allow it in 8th grade) and wore my leather jacket almost every day. I cut my hair short again and had a "fashion revival". 

I still wear my leather jacket every day tbh...

Part 2 Coming soon!

look who's not dead

hey there

so yeah.... i guess i've been gone for a while now, but life has been busy.

-three clubs
-two honors courses
- one college level italian course

and a partridge in a pear tree (no seriously we have a pear tree that we used to put a fake partridge in... i wonder where that little bird got to)

i guess it's that time of year again, "currently" and "life update" posts taking over my dash, all with the customary "sorry i've been gone for so long"

it's totally fine, dude, i feel ya
this is the first time i've gotten on blogger in over a month and i'm only on now because i'm sick and avoiding homework.

ok, enough ranting. i have stuff to say

-my hair is now red (a natural copper tone, like amy pond)
-i'm submitting to the Scholastic Arts and Writing
-i have a job (tutoring the third grader across the street)
-i finished Stargate
-i went to Kraken Con (if i ever find the time i'll post about that)
-yeah
-korra
-korra is literally my life my entire week is "oh thank god just __ more days till korra"

oh and i saw big hero 6 and it was amazing

hope y'all are doing well

see you next time (and i'm going to re-do my blog a bit now)

Thanksgiving and the beginning of the Christmas season!

Thanksgiving was wonderful! I went over to help my Uncle make dinner, and I learned quite a bit, it was really fun! Here are some pictures of our huge Thanksgiving feast :)

I made the yellow squashes, Dad made the green ones. They were really good!

Onion rings!

Jenna and Darby want the whipped cream...

Ham! Yay! It was sooooooo good

Turkey! Meh! Lol I don't really like turkey, but I ate some, of corse. 

So much food! This isn't even all of it!

Beautiful sunset from the porch

 After dinner my brother, Gino, the two exchange students and I went to feed the neighbors horse. Yep.


And now that Thanksgiving is over....


IT IS NOW THE CHRISTMAS SEASON YAAAAY!!!!
I leave you with the most amazing Christmas song ever

Merry Christmas!

Something Rather Funny

So I was going through some documents on my google drive, right? Who knows how old they were, who knows what was saved in there, so I decided to go through and look.

I came across an old folder.

I came across an old doc.

On this paper was a list of links.

No joke, one of these links had the heading of "Damn Sexy Man Walks By".

What on earth is this?

I was already laughing at the title, so when I opened it  I nearly died. Here's what I found:

WHAT

I don't ship Murther. Arthur isn't a "damn sexy man" (in my opinion). I'm not even the type of person to say "damn sexy"... what on earth is this!? When did I put this in my drive? I was laughing for a good 5 minuits after I saw this. I still am!

Oh, the joys of looking at old documents

SNK and other things

I watched the first episode of Attack on Titan (or SNK, whichever you prefer), and I loved it.

This is a problem.

I don't want to get emotionally involved with characters I know are going to die.

But I need to watch this show.

I need to cosplay from it.

Cosplay

*evil cackle as I begin to draw plans for cosplay stuff*



So, I'm still a bit under the weather, and as you can see from above, I started a new show...
Not much else has happened. I did finish my Spider-Man comic, and now I can't wait to go back to the comic store!

I need to finish drivers ed, so that I can be driving by next April... it's a bit off from my birthday, but that's OK. I will still be driving.

I can't think of much else that's going on, other than I'm starting to get my college list together.

Alright, have a great week, everyone!

September and October Arts

Yoooo

Found my camera, yay!

So this means... ART LOTS AND LOTS OF ART!!
Two months worth in one post!

SEPTEMBER ART

Fem!Merlin Cosplay

Sketched this out for Mom, who wants to be Merlin for SDCC

Classic Lolita design page

Jason and Piper

A pathetic attempt at drawing them.

Grey and Blue Dress

Not entirely sure what's going on with her face.

Steampunk Lolita

I had a worksheet that had various emotions to draw your character in. 

Blue Dress/Purple Hair

Korra book 2

I was super excited for Korra! Loving it so far!

Untitled

I really should have a title for such a cool pic... oh well

i am proud of the bones :)

The Sea, Land and the Sky

Attempt and Fail at drawing Mei... kind of

Drew Mei from ATLA

Box and Colors

I'm just getting bad at titling things.

Picture

More than a picture, actually... but you will find out about that later

Mystique Cosplay

It turned out great, btw

OCTOBER ART

Korra and Asami 20's

Picture 2

Pacific Rim

My new goal is to draw a pacific rim piece each month. 

Inktober Worksheet (NO PENCILS ALLOWED)

Older Ahsoka

Not much older, maybe a few years after TCW.

Fem!10 Planning

Going as Fem!10 for the 50th 

Math Fall Notebook Cover

I also did one for Halloween. My math notebook's theme this year is Korra and Asami.

Royai Painting

No clue when I'll finish this, but I will. Some day.

So I don't have my notebook and have no idea if these pics are actually in the right month or not. I took my best guess. No idea how much time I spent on arts... probably a good 35 to 40 hours (Sep. and Oct. combined).

Hope you liked it!

(haha sorry if this doesn't make any sense I'm not feeling well.)

Changes

Yep. Exactly what the title says.

I've started deviating from my usual makeup routine, sacrificing grey eyeshadow for teal and plumb for lavender. But that isn't really a big change. No, my big change would be cutting a good 3 to 4 inches off of my hair.

That's right, I cut off the hair that I had waited for so long to grow out. I don't know why, I just did. Oh, well, I'll just wait another few years and do this all over again. I also did a henna tattoo, but that's not really a permanent, or big change. It just looks cool :)

Obviously I changed my blog's look a while back. Steampunk, steampunk, steampunk. I just love steampunk! That is another change: I'm going Steampunk- Lolita. Not full time, of corse. I couldn't live without my jeans and fandom shirts, but after years of being one of the annoying "omg i don't wear dresses that's too girly" (ok, so I left that phase by the time I was 13, but I still never wore dresses) I have decided it is time to try something new and just go for it. So dresses it is. Lolita, specifically, because that's what captured my heart first ;)

Possible first Lolita coord!

Ok, so those are all changes biased on my appearance, are there any other changes?

OMG YES FREAKING COLLEGES

I am beginning to look at colleges and majors that I may be interested in. It's fun, but a little bit terrifying. Right now the Academy of Arts in San Francisco and MIT are my two tops. but there are quite a few other cool ones that I'm looking at, as well! If I go into art or animation, I want to go to Florence for a semester or summer to study there. I would be only a 45 min. train ride to Lucca, where my family lives, so I would be able to visit them!

Unfortunately, I'm not doing NaNoRiMo this year. I was planning on it, but the Scholastic Awards are coming up soon, and I haven't even started my project! I do have some sketches and ideas, though.

So, changes, changes, changes. That's all life is, a succession of changes and events, one after another, I guess.

And pasta. Pasta's good too. Good lord am I hungry.

(Yes, I'll have the arts up soon. I found my camera, took the pictures, and then lost my second notebook with the times. joy. Planning to have it up by Wednesday.)

In other news, I'm still crying over Hakuouki.

Fall Days and Family Diners

One of the few trees around here that turns colors.

Ah, fall, what a wonderful time of year... not like I haven't said that already... But I love fall!

This weekend was great! Friday was Dad's birthday, so I attempted to make a cheese cake for him... but that failed. Fortunately we had a regular Safeway cake in the fridge! We had fun with a little celebration for him, and I can't really remember much else :p

Saturday was busy, but fun! Dad and I went to karate in the morning, and then I worked on my Mystique cosplay, and then I went to music lessons, then worked on my costume again... actually, I finished it! 

In our family, we have multiple birthdays in October-- my Dad, brother, and Zia Linda, so we have a birthday dinner for all of them. We went over to Zia Linda's house for dinner. Uncle D.L. had made gnocchi (my favorite!), salad, fried egg plant, and a tone of other food. He is an amazing cook. 

At various intervals throughout the dinner, I was getting ready for a Halloween party that Jaymes was putting on. Seeing my friends again was awesome! I haven't seen lots of them since the end of summer. There were quite a few impressive costumes! Syrena was Fem!11, her brother was Spock, Jaymes was Deadpool, Ollie was... himself...

When I finally got home, it took me past midnight to get all of my makeup off!

Didn't do much Sunday, just hung around the house and then watched Hook. It was a pretty fun weekend :D

This week is...

Asexual Awareness Week

And I felt like I needed to mention it. Yep.

Fall Break and Mystique Progress

Helloooooooooo.....


So I was on fall break last week, AND IT WAS FREAKING AWESOME!!!! Like, I don't know what made it so awesome, I didn't do much other than work on my costume or go to that anime convention, but it was really fun. You know, sometimes it's nice to just sit at home and not have to worry about doing much.

The pile of stuff I dumped out of my bag from the con. Signed poster in the middle, a cute little Totoro  sketch, my notebook, lanyard and wallet. After the con I picked up some new wig caps, blue face paint, and liquid latex.

I honestly can't remember much about Monday, but I didn't do much. I finished up sketching the Mystique picture, and watched Agents of Shield. I think I may have watched a movie with Mom... yeah, we watched "The Great Gatsby". I loved it! I feel like it really captured the spirit of the book. It was funny how all of the music had such modern sounds to it, instead of a 20's soundtrack, but it worked. It was beautifully done, and absolutely one of my favorite book-to-movie adaptions.

And then from Tuesday to Friday I worked on my costume!

Setting up!

So I did end up using Mom's shirt. A friend asked me the other day on how I got good materials for my costumes. Start with a base, then modify as needed. It helps a lot for a beginner cosplayer like myself, and it saves a lot of time.

Time to cut that shirt up!

So, as you can see, I took out the sides and most of the sleeve. I regretted not making a custom dress form over summer... this would have been so much easier!

 After cutting out the sides and making sure they were porportind right and all that jazz, it was time for *cue dramatic music* ... FABRIC GLUE

That stuff is amazing! Instead of having to hem the shirt by sewing by hand (my machine is in the garage under a pile of stuff -.-), I could just glue it! It still took a quite a bit of time, but there were no needles involved, which was nice.

Ok, so after hemming the shirt, it was time to move onto the sleeves. I had an old pair of dark wash jeans that I used. Surprisingly, making the sleeves wasn't that hard, but I did have to hand sew it (needles hurt, btw).

Yeah, thats GreedLing in the background. The FMA gang was keeping me company :p

Next: the side panels. I used the top part of the jeans that I used for the sleeves, so I had to deal with pockets and buttons and thick material and ugh it was reallly difficult. But! It worked! So who am I to complain. By this time I had almost completely run out of fabric glue, so I returned to sewing.

So, I'm almost done with the top! I just need to attach the arms and do the other side panel and it will be done! Oh, yeah, and the zipper... but that shouldn't be too hard (I hope).

So that's it for cosplay right now...

Other cool things that happened: I went to the County Libraries Fundraiser. The author speaking this year was Dom Testa. I bought his series, "The Galahad Books", which are pretty good.

On Thursday I got the "House of Hades" ...OMG IT WAS FANTASTIC I WILL RIDE OF INTO THE SUNSET ON THE ARGO II CRYING FOR A YEAR YAYY... and finished it Saturday morning before going to Karate.

Then on Sunday I got a new phone! This one has a nice screen... I can actually see it. Haha, I had slammed my old phone in a car door, so the screen was all shattered and unresponsive.

I also talked to my friend Jaymes about San Diego Comic Con, which we're planning on going to. I registers, and am praying that I get ahold of tickets!

God bless!