I NEED COSPLAY HELP!! (it's more of an opinion thing)

As I may have mentioned before, I have two cosplays I'm trying to make before the end of the year. They both need to be done by the end of the year. The first is Captain Amelia, which is for October Kraken Con and Halloween. The other is a steampunk dress for the Dickens Fair.

Cpt. Amelia

She's not the one I really need help on (though if you have suggestions i would love to hear them!)

My steampunk outfit is white. I have a plain white skirt, I have white boots, I have a white hat, I have a cool off-white lace overskirt, I have white fabric with a cool blue-grey design that I'm going to use for the corset. I don't know which style of corset to do.

I have it narrowed down to 3 patterns, but I don't know which one I like the best, so please choose one!

all of the boning (dark stripes) will be pale pink. the "frill" on top will be leather, as well as the busk (the parts that close it together)

CORSET A

CORSET B

CORSET C

So, yeah, just let me know which style is your favorite! Hearing other opinions will just help me decide which one I want to do in the end :) 

(and "whichever you want to do" is not an answer :p I've been through plenty of patterns, so these are my "top 3"- and their all relatively easy patterns, as far as corsets go)

~ShaakThusa

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.)

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

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!

It's October...

Which means fall and pumpkins and Halloween and costumes and candy and pretty colors and cool, crisp air and caramel mochas and dorky sweaters and (for me at least) going steampunk!

Like, it's this weird thing I have... I tend to get into steampunk around the end of summer each year, and go at it during fall and winter, and when spring comes around I go back to normal... or some other subculture. I tend to incorporate little steampunkish things in my wardrobe/accessories all year though.

I've been listening to this a lot... it's the only Halloween song out there.

But that's not the point of this post. It's Halloween season, and that means costume making! I'm going to go as Mystique (First Class version), and I shall document my costuming process. I have break next week (YAY!) so I'll hopefully have enough time to make the whole thing.

First, I gathered some reference pictures:

 

So I also have references from here. It's a great help, because it has little details that I can't really see on the pictures I posted.

Next, Mom and I came up with a list of what I will need:

• short red wig from here ($18)
• Yellow Vest (have to cut out side panels)
• Black belt/suspenders... it looks like it also goes part way down her legs
• black leather material
• Jeans for pants+sleeves (?)... need zippers for bottom sides of jeans
• Black boots (prob. my Ahsoka boots)

• Cosplaysky has good references
• Zippers for vest and jeans

Last night we bought the wig (I can't wait for it to arrive!)
Mom had recently bought a yellow shirt that she doesn't like, so she might let me use it instead of a vest. Seriously, trying to find a yellow vest is almost impossible! Nobody sells them! I found a great one on Amazon, but it was $20-$40. Crazy, right? I can't spend that money on something I'm just going to cut up!

We also might have some ski pants that I can use for the costume, but I have a feeling that Jeans will work better. The uniform looks to me to be dark blue, not black. Hopefully I'll be able to get the leather at Beverly's.
Alright, I guess that's all I've got for now!

My camera died, and I have no idea where my charger is, so my art will either be up waaay late or just combined with Octobers.

Have a great weekend everyone!