Moved!

My apologies! I thought I made this post a long time ago! All costume posts (as well as the ones here – which will be copied over) can be found at http://www.zhobot.net now! Hope to see you there~!

COSTUME: Tenel Ka Djo / Legacy of the Force: Tempest

A couple weeks ago I finished up the things I wanted to redo on this costume (the waist capes and sleeves, mostly) and Nate/Draetheus snapped some pictures of it out at our favorite park (Green Spring Gardens Park <3!)~  I want to bring it to a convention in the near future since I fixed all the stuff, but I’m not sure when/what con yet.

Normally, it’s easy for me to hide the bottom of my left arm sort of behind my back, but because of the scaled sleeves (there’s an identical set on the left arm which you can’t see since I keep showing my right side, haha XD) I had to sort of just hide the whole thing here. I might figure something out later, but for now this is my good side, I guess – as the saying goes!

Besides the shots above, I put some more up on flickr here and hope to get some more when I finally bring this to a convention. I always loved the shots of Tenel Ka on the Tempest cover and in the Essential Atlas so I’m excited that I was able to get this put together (after all these years and versions of the costume I’ve been through, haha!)~

Next up on the costume front, I’ll be starting June from 9 Hours, 9 Persons,  9 Doors! And I should be getting an entry up here about the Santa costume from the same game very soon.

PROGRESS: Tenel Ka Djo costume (Tempest cover/Essential Atlas)

My current costume project at the moment is remaking/reworking some of the pieces of my Tempest cover Tenel Ka Djo costume. The scaled sleeves have always given me trouble and since I’ve started working with aluminum scales (I was so excited when I discovered them), I figured I could try something relating to Tenel Ka with them. First up, the sleeves that have always given me trouble! ;D

Here are a couple shots of what they were originally. On the left was when I pinned them to the bodysuit I was wearing under the costume – as you can see they didn’t stay where they were supposed to and it ended up looking completely doofy. After that I sewed them to a piece of base fabric to pin to my purple top and bodysuit. The looked better but now they weren’t long enough.

So I knew at some point I wanted to remake parts of this costume but I wasn’t sure how to at that point so I set it aside. A couple years later I decided to hit up those crazy sleeves with scales. There was talk of a small Star Wars gathering at Katsucon (February in National Harbor, MD) so I figured I could try to get it done for that. Nate said he could bring his Caedus costume (which he is only wearing part of in the picture below, haha) and another friend of mine (my dear Natalie) was going to put together a Jaina costume so it was all going to work out! The thing here is that I was so focused on trying to get the sleeves the right shape and size that I didn’t have too much time to think about how to actually keep the flipping things on. Natalie and Nate helped me basically tie them on with some black cord. It was last minute, but it worked!

Since Katsucon, I’ve decided to do a couple things to the costume. I’m fixing up the sleeves so they fit better and sit nicer on my shoulders, I’m remaking the purple top to accommodate for the scales on the shoulders and I’ve made a sort of two part belt to hold the front and back waist capes on (or asscapes, as I lovingly always call them). Normally I sort of just shoved the unfinished end in my belt and waistband so this is much nicer, haha~

I’ll be getting better pictures of the whole thing at the end of the month hopefully, so the scales and remade top and waist capes will be visible all together. I just hope it all turns out okay! *crosses fingers* The first time I saw that Tenel Ka suddenly had her own book cover I freaked out massively. So this costume has always had a special place in my fangirly little heart. Plus, now that I kind of know how to use these scales (lol kind of are the key words), I can try my hand at fixing up some of the stuff on other Tenel Ka costumes (I am brainstorming a scaley Queen Mother outfit)! XD

PROPS: Tenel Ka Djo’s Lightsaber

Tenel Ka Djo has been one of my favorite characters for well over a decade and I’ve always adored her lightsaber (the one after her accident!) – she made the hilt out of a rancor tooth because she is pretty badass. There’s also the fact that she’s half-Dathomiri and it’s part of her heritage and all that jazz, but it’s mostly because she’s a badass. XD

When I was first going to do a Tenel Ka costume at Celebration III (the NJO/Strike Team version and the first Queen Mother version I made), I knew I would need to figure out a way to make something that resembled a tooth. I had absolutely no idea how to do this though. There hadn’t been any pictures of her saber released and I wasn’t good with anything prop-related (not that I am now, lol). Enter my sister and a trip to Home Depot. We fiddled around in various sections and ended up getting some bits and pieces, a length of pipe and some spraypaint that made whatever you’re spraying look like stone. It was a tannish-beige color and I thought it could pass for a tooth well. My sister helped me throw it all together and I was pretty proud of what came of it. It didn’t have a point at the end (it had a decorative little swirly trinket that was actually a drawer handle XD) – but the texture and leather-wrapping and stuff gave it toothy/Dathormiri-ish sort of feel, which I was happy with.

Fast-forward to a couple years later, when I had the urge to make another version of this saber! I ended up with another thin piece of pipe and gray stone spraypaint this time, along with black leather wrappings. I had a plastic replica of a T-Rex tooth that was cut and whittled down to fit into the pipe and I loved this version as well. It was after I finished this version that Tenel Ka got her own book cover (Legacy of the Force: Tempest)! And look, her saber! Besides that image of it, another one popped up in The Essential Guide to the Force. I was so giddy that there was more art of her as well as her saber. That was when I stumbled across Nocturne Armory! They had made a version of her saber that looked exactly like the one in the The Essential Guide to the Force and I fell in love with it and emailed them about ordering one. This one actually had a blade and lit up too! They had toned down the blue and added a bit of yellow to give it a more turquoise shade and I was so nervous every time I was in costume with it cause I was afraid I would mess it up (I am so clumsy, it’s not even funny). It is definitely a prized possession of mine since I am a huge nerd. ;D

To the left are the three versions I have had in the past, two made (top – 2005, middle – 2006 and one ordered in 2008).

In the summer of 2010, the stupid bug bit me again about making another one (I don’t know what it is with me). And I was told about ultrasabers.com! Nate was looking for a saber he could use for his Jacen and/or Caedus costumes and my brain started working at a way to make a Tenel Ka lightsaber myself by modifying one of the ones from the site (even though the closest they had to her blade color was bright blue). The idea hadn’t really formed, it was just sort of hanging in the back of my mind – but when I saw a few weeks later that they had two new blade colors, one of which being Sunrider’s Destiny (which was a lighter, slightly more greenish shade), I knew I had to go for it. I had a vague idea of what I was going to try so I bought all the supplies I would need and then ordered the Rifter hilt from Ultra Sabers.

When it arrived, I played around with it like a dork (you know, the norm: making lightsaber noises, hitting furniture, the whole nine yards) and then detached the blade and started to attempt to figure out how to get the idea that was in my head out. I used paperclay to cover the hilt and start shaping a sort of tooth texture. I knew that I wanted to keep it as thin as possible – I knew it wouldn’t be as thick as the picture from the The Essential Guide to the Force – because I am short and have small hands, hehe. I wanted my hand to be able to fit around it comfortably, but besides comfort I didn’t want it to look SUPER GIANT when I was holding it. XD I knew it would be longer than the images as well, since I had to cover the whole hilt and then add on the tip of the tooth at the end. I was fine with that though, as long as it wasn’t awkward to hold.

The paperclay worked so much better than I had hoped. It was lightweight and dried on its own (I wouldn’t have been able to put it in the oven to dry since it was around the saber). After the initial part of the hilt was covered, I had a grand old time trying to figure out how to make the tip of the tooth and then be able to remove it to replace the batteries when they ran out of juice. I finally settled on making the tip out of paperclay and fashioning the other end to fit into the opening where the batteries were. I covered the end in felt so it had a snug fit and then made some touch-ups with leftover paperclay to the main part of the hilt. I also added some details here and there – scratches, marks, wearing, etc.

The three blue crystals I added above the switch are for decoration (and fall in with the whole half-Hapan thing as well, since there was talk of gems of Gallinore when she made her saber – even though those were the focusing crystals, lol ;D) and were chosen for their colors. I thought they matched the blade well and I sort of fell in love with them when I found them. In one of the images of her saber, there is a dark orange gem near the blade, but I ended up going with blue because none of the orange ones I looked at caught my eye. Plus, if I had an orange gem then I would have orange/blue (in the blade) and those were my high school colors. Somehow in projects I always subconsciously avoid putting those together because it just reminds me of high school, haha~ XD I just ended up going with all blue. I added the crystals while the paperclay was still moldable and then waited for the whole thing to dry.

After that came the part I was REALLY worried about. I’ve never been good at painting things!

I had three shades of acrylic paint I was planning on using to paint the hilt: Unbleached Titanium, Raw Umber & Raw Sienna. The one I ended up using the most was the Unbleached Titanium shade. I gessoed the whole thing first (main part of the hilt and the removable end) and I used a small brush to paint the whole thing with the titanium shade. Then with sponges and other brushes, started adding little details in the scratches and ridges and so on. I didn’t really have a plan on what parts to paint specifically, I just kept adding some here and there until I thought I needed to change colors and so on. When I had finished painting it late one night, I set it down and went to bed not really thinking about it. That seemed like the best thing to do though because the next day when I looked at it with a fresh eye, I really liked how it looked. For a project I had been so worried about (who am I kidding, I worry about every project), I was really proud of the way it turned out.

There are definitely a couple things I would like to fix – keeping the tooth tip more secure and snug in the main hilt would be at the top of the list! But I am very proud of it nonetheless.

SHOPS: New shirts and other items!

I am off on vacation for a week, starting tomorrow, but I told myself that when I return I’m going to go crazy working on costumes. I’m planning on making one (or two or a billion – seriously, I can’t get enough of this game) from Aksys Games’ newest Nintendo DS release 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. The characters and storyline are absolutely amazing and I’ve been hooked on the game since I picked it up last week. Right now I’m debating between June and Santa (it’ll probably be June since I adore her total obliviousness, hehe~)…

I’ll also be working on redoing the sleeves of my Tempest cover Tenel Ka Djo costume and possibly working on a new Star Wars idea or two. I’ll be at MAGfest in January and Katsucon in February (so will Nate).  I think I’ll be lugging Luke Triton to MAGfest (he is such a dork and is too much fun to run around as XD). We’ll be bringing Barbie & Ken to Katsucon and I’m hoping to have whatever 999 costume I end up doing finished for Katsucon as well!

On the shop front, I’ve added a slew of new shirts to the Cafepress shop, some of which can be seen below (and the image is a link that will take you to the shop)!

And as always, there’s more stuff over at The Karma Palace. Recently I’ve added Squall & Rinoa (FF8) pins, Gwen Stefani pins and a couple pieces of jewelry I made over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Hope everyone is having a good season!

COSTUME: Barbie & Ken / Toy Story 3

After Toy Story 3 came out (and we saw it a couple times in the theater ;D), Nate and I joked about the idea of doing Barbie and Ken costumes. We might’ve had them done in time for Dragon*Con 2010 if we had the time/money, but we already had too much planned for D*C and figured they would have to wait. Especially since they were slowly becoming more of a we-should-totally-do-this and not just a haha-that-would-be-silly kind of thing. We ended up making them for Halloween and plan on wearing them to (hopefully) both Katsucon and Dragon*Con next year. We’ll just have to see how they hold up!

The first thing we focused on were the main parts of the outfits – I ordered a turquoise bodysuit from River’s Edge Dancewear and found a pink belt on ebay. It’s a little thicker than the one she has in the movie, but all the thin, pink ones I kept finding online and in the thrift stores were either kid belts or way too blingy. XD

Nate’s outfit was proving to be a tiny bit more difficult. We found a pair of blue shorts at the thrift store and a very flashy gold belt on ebay, but we knew a blue leopard-print shirt wouldn’t be as simple to just stumble across. We already knew that we would have to make one. We had a pattern for the shirt but the only leopard-print fabric we could find (after scouring the internet and a couple stores) was either faux fur or a very floaty see-through silk. The fur just wouldn’t look right (and was way too thick) and the silk wouldn’t work right for the pattern we had for the shirt (and was also a little darker blue than what we needed). We bought the silk, thinking that it could possibly be fudged, then realized what we could do. We took a light blue, short-sleeved button-up shirt and basically attached pieces of the blue leopard-print fabric around/over the shirt. We had six pieces to attach – the collar, the two sleeves, the two pieces on the front and the piece on the back. The pieces on the front covered the buttons/button holes, but we figured it didn’t matter since Ken clothes never have real buttons anyways (it’s usually the plastic snaps or velcro – which is what we used to keep his shirt shut). XD

My shoes were simple – I ordered a cheap pair of hot pink heels (they are a bit painful to walk in! XD). Nate had to find blue slip-on shoes. That was easier said than done. He ended up getting a pair of slippers and painting them with blue fabric paint. The best part is that they have fake fur inside so they were very comfortable and warm, especially when it was a little chilly on Halloween.

I was aiming to make a pair of legwarmers that looked like hers with a pair of plain white ones and three colors of bias tape, and they looked good while they were in the process of being made but the white ones I had were weak and didn’t hold shape very well so they stretched and sort of stayed that way, so at the last minute I ended up using a regular pair of legwarmers with colors that matched well enough (there were a couple extra colors in the ones I used). The best part though is that they looked really good and instead of hunting for more later, I’ll probably just stick with the ones I used on Halloween. I love when stuff like that happens. ;D

As for hair, I looked through a bunch of wig sites and on ebay. I found a specific “Barbie” wig that was in a ponytail and sort of a dark blonde. But the ponytail was a little lopsided and it was super expensive. I ended up finding a lighter blonde wig on ebay with a detachable ponytail that was $30 cheaper! I ordered that one and cut the bangs past my eyes. I was going to cut off the little curls on the side too, but I ended up liking them too much and they helped cover up my own hair by my ears — my hair is really frizzy and BIG and always a pain to keep under wigs. ;D I sewed the pink sash that goes in her hair (and sewed Nate his ascot, haha!) and the makeup was simple eyeliner, pink eyeshadow and pink lipstick. Hot pink nails too, of course. >D

For his hair, we fiddled around with the idea of making a plastic headpiece, but figured if we just used a product that could make his hair rock hard then it would work just as well. Then he wouldn’t get “hat head”/sweat profusely in a plastic hair piece. We used lots o’ hairspray (still not enough!) and used a little bit of hairspray color to make his hair more of a reddish-blonde.

We’ll be fixing these up a little for next year, but we had so much fun in them on Halloween. The first trick-or-treater we got was an adorable little girl in a bee costume who was with her parents. La casa de my house always goes all out with the spooky decorations out front and she was really scared to come up. Nate and I came outside with the basket of candy though and she screamed “BARBIE AND KEN~!” and ran up the walk, completely forgetting about the scary stuff. Her parents told us they just saw us in Toy Story 3 on Ice and we played along and said we had to train hard to get our joints to move like that (I was so tempted to go to the TS3 ice show, I won’t even lie XD). We gave her extra candy cause she was such a doll. That was definitely the highlight of my night.

Overall, we had a lot of fun making these (and wearing them!) and we’re looking forward to bringing them out for a couple of cons in 2011!

Welcome!

Woo, a first post! This post probably won’t be much except a hi there!

I’ll be using this as a place to post my progress on stuff and also to share completed projects ranging from costumes to jewelry to weird plush things. Whatever stuff I end up fiddling around with and making will go on here. So I hope everyone finds something to enjoy here!