AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I was going to title this blog post something intelligent, like 'progress for the Beta Experiement' or whatever, and then realised that there was a much more succinct way of expressing what was going on at the current time.

See, I'm still constructing the patterns for Tex, and Ironfest is not this weekend, but next.

I'm still to cut up the patterns, transfer them to foam, cut and shape the foam, construct the armour, paint the armour and modify the wetsuit I bought to wear under the armour.

I mean, last week it was all fine. I was on break, fighting the printer. Suddenly, I'm not sleeping properly and working entire days sticking paper together and hoping it will come together in time.

And my weekend's pretty much booked out.

Not sure what I'm doing at this stage. I think it's mostly just putting my head down and trying not to think about the deadline too much. Everything else is kind of on hold, and I really just want some sleep.

Now that I've whinged to the internet about current standings, let me give you a diagnostic on how things are at the moment:

I've completed the patterns for the forearm, shoulder, thigh, shin and head. I'm halfway through the boot, and have been saving the hand for later, since it's the smallest piece. I haven't started the belt or the breastplate. Started that yesterday.

"Oh. Hey, Lopez. How'd you get there?"

Dunno man, the chest piece just freaks me out. I know that there's like six pages of struts in there, but it was still a thirty-one page document. I'm going to die.

Let me walk you through how I make the paper armour, before I lose all sense and reason and find a corner of the library to curl up and cry/sleep in.

Uh, yeah. I'm writing from the uni library at the moment. So this post is being constructed and designed for photos, but all of those are at home. I'll have them up shortly. (Better now).

The process actually starts with a software program called Pepakura. It's a Japanese-designed program and can be downloaded for free. It's for papercraft - folding paper into 3D forms. Well, Pepakura and the files for the armour.

http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/
If you want to get it.

Pepakura has a freeware version, and then just has the ability to save/export files disabled. So, I load the files into Pepakura, rescale them and rearrange them for printing.

It's important to address how I scale things at this stage.

...

See, your standard Spartan from the game Halo is something like seven foot tall. I am not seven foot tall, and had to scale the patterns so they'd fit. To accomplish this, I started with a turnaround.

A turnaround is an image of a character in a neutral pose, viewed from the front, back and side. One of these is generally used when showing the basics of a character or their outfit. They're used in gaming and a bunch of other things. I make them occasionally to make sure that I know what I'm doing with a costume. In the fashion industry, they're comparable to technical flats, which are the final drawings given to a pattern maker before they get to designing the thing.

I measured (In cm) how tall the turnaround was when printed out onto an A4 page, and then worked out the scale needed to match it up to my height. Then I applied that scale to the armour pictured in the turnaround. This meant that I could figure out a rough estimate on the maximum length (y-axis) of the armour pieces. I checked this by grabbing a ruler occasionally and making sure that yes, having a forearm piece that was 26cm long was going to work for me, and then rescaled the pattern pieces with this in mind.

It's a technique that is difficult for me to explain, but is really simple in application and use. I figured it out back in year 8 so I could make tiny medieval weapons to scale for a school assignment.

Anyway.

So, the patterns were rescaled, and then reshuffled to allow for printing, and then I proceeded to have a fight with every printer I could come into contact with. I solved this problem when I went home for the Easter break, and printed out the whole lot.

Then I got to work on the 3D bit.

I kept the individual documents separate, to avoid mixing up pages from different patterns, and things kind of went like this:

1. Cut piece from pattern sheet

2. Fold all lines on piece

3. Glue down any tabs that stick to the single piece

4. Pick a couple numbers (usually ones next to each other) on the piece and go look through the document for ones that correspond. Or stick the piece to the main body, if it wasn't the first piece to be cut out.

5. Consult your sulking fish.

I learned a couple of things along the way that actually made things a lot more livable.

1. Only cut out a many pieces as you can manage at one time (One most of the time. Two if the second piece was also visible and immediately stuck to the first piece)

2. Try and just build the individual pieces onto one form. If you can help it, you want to avoid multiple pieces floating around that you have to work on.

3. Scan for a couple of numbers as opposed to just one. Don't focus too heavily on the individual numbers; speed read the pages. Two-digit numbers are actually the easiest as most of the patterns have at least a few hundred glue tabs (The breastplate, for the record, has over 1400. TT.TT )

So, I start sticking things together, and usually have headphones in. In spite of the tediousness of the folding, and the enormity of the project, it's actually kind of meditative to do it. Cut, fold, stick, press. Snicker at whatever is going on with the podcast I'm listening to and keep going.

Probably the most rewarding part of the process, aside from actually having a finished item in your hand, is the point where you suddenly recognise what part of the armour you're working on. So, you might have a vague idea of where you're starting from, but there comes a point further down the track where the spatial reasoning part of your brain remembers what it is you are constructing and you get to see it. And that is actually my favourite part of any costume-making process. Getting to see what the final thing will actually end up looking like while it's still in the process of being made. Progress and stuff.

Ugh. What was it? I had something in mind that was also about the process, and now I can't remember what it was. This is going to drive me nuts.

Well, at least for the next little bit. It's 1:22 AM because I got back from a bible study thing at 10:30 and had drive, so kept working on things.

GAH. COME ON, Brain. Get it together.

Oh. Do you know how satisfying it is to finish punching all the pieces of a pattern out of one sheet of the document? Because, like I mentioned earlier, the breastplate is 31 pages of document, and when I finish chopping out all the pieces in one page, it's an amazing feeling. That's one less page I do not have to scan when I'm looking for the next piece.

BOO YEAH!

THAT WAS WHAT I'D FORGOTTEN!

As you progress through a piece, eventually you get to be able to see what chunk you need next. The search field is able to be narrowed as you scan for something that's vaguely triangle-shaped and things become a lot easier to find.

...

I'm realising, as this is being written over three separate sessions, that there's a lot of things I type in that are often made redundant. I leave these in because it makes things more entertaining. I think? If it doesn't, you need to let me know.

This segue is kind of important, because I realised something important and a little sad over the last three days.

We had a crew of four coming to Ironfest. And then two of them had to drop out, because being a uni student with a job often means you have to work weekends. One of those folks is the spearhead of this trepidation. So, that's kind of put a lid on whether we can or can't go to Ironfest.

I'm a bit sad about this, since the costumes we took last year were popular enough to warrant bringing back this year, and fit the title perfectly. Plus, you know, I spent weeks at the beginning of the year telling everyone how I was going to make Halo armour to take to Ironfest (so I couldn't chicken out), and now I can't go.

But in all honesty, it's probably a little bit helpful. The pace I'd have to get this sucker done at is faster than I can manage (and I usually make stuff at a pretty fast pace anyway), and I can't afford to go. Probably better to save time and money and sanity and take this to Supanova or something.

I dunno. Is it cold at Supanova? I'm going to be wearing a modified wetsuit under the armour and I don't want to get heat exhaustion.

And somehow, I know that this is all justification. Trying to make feel better about backing out of something I said I'd do, and I hate having to do that.

That said, I'm not going to be slowing down on the costume a whole lot. I still have one more for Directed Studies to make, and it's going to be a big procrastination tool otherwise. Generally, if I have a thing to do that will cause procrastination, the best outcome is to bury myself in it and get it over and done with.

It usually results in withdrawals, but hey. I need to get this project finished.

Group photo progress shot.

I guess one of the other, on-the-side advantages to giving myself a little more time to finish the Beta Experiment is that I won't be worn out when it's finished and at the convention. Being worn out can be a problem. The upside is that I might even have enough time to train a little, so I can at least partially sell the movements of the character.

Anyone feel like teaching me a bit of MMA before Supanova?

That'd be a laugh.

How Brooke feels about the modern use of the #hashtag

So last night I was keyboard punching away at the blog, and explaining to Mum about how I'd pretty much hijacked it for the purposes of Directed Studies, and then she advised that I 'make sure you're not alienating your original audience'.

I'm not too sure of the demographics of my original audience, but I do know that the last two months, the posts have pretty much been Costumes. This one is a little different, because I was then like 'what do I actually post about? Like, just adventures and stuff. Thoughts about things.

For reasons I can't fathom, the post with the most hits is the one I wrote at the start of 2011 about binary dates.

And then I thought of something else that an opinion can be given on, that can be presented in blog format.
No, it's not my argument about a second season of Firefly. It's the rise of the Hashtag.

I believe it started with Twitter. And then Tumblr, and then Instagram. So, a bunch of social-media websites where the amount of space for a post was limited somewhat.

And it does have a purpose with this I guess. They're useful to the rest of us in classifying the nature of the post.

So, I go looking for a gif of, say, Gavin Free's (from Rooster Teeth) reaction to having soggy bread slapped on his desk (running outside and falling over like a ragdoll). (It was part of an RTLife video they uploaded to youtube last week or something.) I search the tags for 'Gavin Free'.

Boom. Gif file found.

So, when used as a method of searching, tags are pretty useful. Provided your social media platform allows for that kind of filing.

And then Twitter and Instagram.

I mean, tags are useful for filing with these platforms as well, but they're also used to express emotion or thoughts. And this is kind of useful too. It can give context to something that otherwise would make no sense.

I mean, I could tweet something like

"Pleats, you are my joy and my pain."

And that, with no context, makes no sense. But you only get a limited amount of space for explaining what you're doing with your day.

So I add hashtags for relevance.

"Pleats, you are my joy and my pain. #cosplayerproblems #hakama"

Now you know that the box pleats have something to do with whatever kind of cosplay I'm making. because I've added the hashtag for hakama, you can probably guess that it has something to do with the giant pleated pants that are dated to Edo-period Japan and used for Kendo, Akido and various cosplays.

But seriously. I tend to make these things out of cotton drill, which is a medium-heavy weight fabric but creases like you wouldn't believe. And there's a lot of fabric in those pants. They totally are joy and pain.

So.

Hashtags when used for filing and searching are useful.
Hashtags for providing snippets of context are useful.

Why to a lot of people hate them then?

I have a couple of guesses.

For starters, they don't use the typical grammar conventions that we would otherwise use in everyday life. We don't use hashtags in speech (often. You can hear them sometimes when people sum things up really quickly). We don't use hashtags in prose.

It's something that has a time and a place to be, and that time and place is not always 'here' and 'now'.

Back in the days when phones had a keypad and could be kicked over buildings, reassembled, and suffer no harm, text message speech was a lot more common.

U instead of 'You'
R instead of 'Are'

And so on. Some made sense when read out loud. Some just made you sound silly. I will never, ever write 'sorry' as 'soz' ever again, for example.

Why is that?

Well, if I'm apologising for something, I need to mean it. Writing 'soz' isn't the best way to meaningfully apologise to anyone. 'Soz' says 'I need to say 'sorry' but it's too much time and effort to actually put in the two extra characters, so I'll leave it at that.'

Fair go, text message space was limited. But we don't use the language conventions as much now because we have access to fancy things like qwerty keyboards and autocorrect. I remember a time in school when we were lectured on needing to use proper English conventions in exams and essays and that's because there is a time and a place for text message speech.

And it is not on a place like the internet. Not any more. Comments box; facebook status; blog post. We're a culture and society that directly associates proper grammar conventions and spelling with the intelligence of a person.

This is a little unfair at times. But it's how things are.

So where does the hashtag belong then?

It's a useful device for short summations, context and filing.

It's less helpful when you have someone post a hashtag on a place that has no use for it.

e.g. Facebook.

I mean, we can still use it for conveying emotions or giving context. But the posting space isn't as limited. It's a little like using text message language in the world of qwerty keyboards, autocorrect and larger message sizes.

I can see the point of them, but I also have mixed feelings about them. About using them profusely on platforms that have little-to-no use for them, where they don't fit with the grammar conventions.

I mean, "#timeforabreak #timeforanintervention #justwaituntiltheyactuallyaddhashtagingtofacebooktheniwillbeunstoppable"?

No man.

Trying to catch up/Introducing the Beta Experiment

Today is Easter Saturday.

I went to bed at about 2am, and woke up late. Played computer for a few hours after I got up and then went into town, hopes held high that I could find all the bits I needed for the redux on the Weeping Angels that I'm doing with my mates.

Hopes fell. It was not my best day, and mostly consisted of driving around and not finding the plaster bandage that we need to redo the masks. There's like, one shop I know of in Newcastle that stocks the stuff - a two-dollar type thing that's down the road from my house. They didn't have any in stock. I tried spotlight, and failed, and tried Eckersley's, and couldn't even find the shop.

Filled with sads, I gave up on the bandage and went to bunnings, determined to be able to tick off at least one thing on the list. Finding mop heads, bondcrete and gap filler made things a little better. And then I remembered that there was ice cream at home, and maybe splurged a little.

It's now 7pm, and I'm sitting in the loungeroom, in winter flanno pjs, sucking down water because ice cream headaches are your own fault. The lights are off, and I'm staring into the soft white glow of my laptop screen, relying on the light spilling onto my keyboard and the touch-typing skills that I picked up in NaNo to write.

The house is very quiet - housemate is at a music festival. Just my music and the tattoo of the keyboard.

Anyway. Consider that the ice-breaking story for the day. I'm being a little quiet, and a little by myself, and I've not done the blog post for this week for Directed Studies. (Yes, I posted yesterday, but that wasn't in my plans for Directed Studies; it was more like something that happened along the way.)

So, this video tab has been sitting open on my browser for ages. Thought now would be a good time to talk about my next project.

N

You forgot the 'n', Gerard Butler.

Historical inaccuracies and the hilarity of having a man with a Scottish accent play a Spartan aside, my project has nothing to do with 300, or Sparta.

Spartan, though...

Last year, I made the foolish decision to start watching Red vs Blue. I mean, it's entertaining, and clever, but I got hooked and spent far too much time watching it when I could have been working.

Requirements:
Lots of Internet
Lots of Time
Understanding for internet humour
High tolerance for foul language

Win some, lose some.

The character Tex was appealing. The Halo Spartan armour was appealing. The job was something ridiculously impossible looking.

It was really only a matter of time before I took the project.

Why was it that Tex was appealing? How she fit in with the story, I guess. She starts off as a mercenary, and then you find out all sorts of interesting backstory that is...yeah. Interesting, and cool, and a little bit sad. She's a formidable fighter as well. (I'll probably end up putting her backstory into the documentation for Directed Studies rather than here. Spoilers. Blah blah blah.)

The thing that was kind of stopping me from taking on the project was uni. Mostly because it would be a big one, so I'd either need a lot of time or some way to actually incorporate it into my course. And then Directed Studies came along.

And I began the Beta Experiment.

Um.

Etymology.

At least according to Wikipedia. "In computing the term "beta" is used as (usually) the last pre-release in the software release life cycle. It is sometimes referred to as 0.x in version numbers or x.x bx where x represents a number."

So, the draft for your assignment or project that is titled "final_last_absolute_last_2.0_FINAL" before you go and rename the thing to send to your assessor? That's the Beta. The last version before the production model.

Beta is relevant because of the nature of the project, and Beta is relevant because of the nature of the character. I can only address one of these without referring to things that are a bit spoiler-ish in nature, so if, for whatever reason, you choose to familiarise yourself with the RvB universe, Beta becomes clear enough eventually.

Beta is an exploration into how I do things. I mean, I'm pretty good with figuring things out. But I always come out at the end of a project and go, 'this would have been easier if I'd done this and this and this...' And because all of my costumes are one-offs, they're never slated or made in a way that's suitable for production. My costumes are fun, and I love making them, but they're never cost-effective. I have friends ask if I could make this or that, and I usually end up directing people to a source that's better than mine. I mean, I could make costumes for other people. But I take too long doing them by themselves, and would end up feeling really bad about charging a price that would accurately reflect the amount of time put in.

So generally, my costumes are all left at the beta stage. There are some that I get to revisit (See 'The Sequel Machine' and also the post about the Weeping Angels. Ironfest is coming and we're getting the band back together.) but for the most part, once I make a costume, that's it.

This project kind of deals with that. Not as a problem. Not as something that glorifies that in-between state of imperfection (because that is something I find simultaneously fascinating and infuriating. Like having a picture hung just a couple degrees shy of straight). Just the ness of the state, if that makes sense.

I don't know if it's making sense. I started writing this post on Saturday night and it's now Tuesday. I've gone home, and my sisters are alternating between beatboxing and trying to get me to look at different things on the interwebs.

At the moment Prue's talking about the activity on her Tumblr. Something about Daryl Dixon and a dramatic zombie.

ANYWAY. BETA.

BETA PROJECT IS ABOUT HOW I'M NOT ABLE TO PRODUCE COSTUMES THAT CAN BE SOLD AT THE KIND OF PRICE A PLEB WOULD PAY FOR SOMETHING. THAT'S WHY THEY BUY STUFF MADE OUT OF POLYESTER FROM ASIA.

Thinking is at the moment, something I have to do by yelling in my head.

I guess Beta also kind of works with the armour because Boyfriend is making Halo armour too. And while I'm adamant at least in my head that I can't make his as well, I know mine will be the experiment. The one that has most of the mistakes happen because I'll figure something out, and then his will benefit from it. But I guess that's fine. Tex's armour can be the beta.

#firstbornproblems, or something.
ugh, hashtags.

Anyway. If it makes the entry any more amusing, I'd let you know that I put a box on my head this afternoon and actually felt really good about it. It was like some kind of security-helmet-thing. If this project doesn't turn me barmy, then I think it may end up propelling me through the other side of crazy. Ironfest is in three weeks and I haven't made anything.

I'm going to DIE.

How to design a costume (Brooke's rough guide)

So I was talking with a friend I met at the Anime Convention I went to last week. The conversation moved to plans for the next costume they were making and they mentioned about how they weren't really great with sewing, and the challenges of knowing where to start with their project.

I started explaining what I did, and then realised that it would be good blog material. My thanks to you, Michael, for inspiring me to get off my butt and explain something I always think is a given when talking to other people about designing costumes.

So let's begin.

The Idea.

So picture this: you're sitting down one afternoon, and like a bolt from the blue, you're like, I should make this my next costume.
Okay, probably not. But hey. Most of the time when I've decided to make a costume, I've been on a bender of some series, cottoned on to one character, and then gone, 'Hey, I know what would be a brilliant idea right about now...'

Sometimes it's because I like how the character looks, or what kind of a person the character is. I might be drawn to how epic their outfit looks or enjoy how they move. It's usually a visual thing, really. Other times I'm drawn to it because I really like the type of character the person is and therefore would like to try emulating it a little. Other times its because I want to do another cosplay and I need to find someone else I like with really long strawberry-blonde hair, since mine doesn't really fit under a wig anymore.

That's mostly been the story the last couple things. But hey, you work around what you have.

Speaking of which...

Setting the handicap level.

So you have your character? Or an idea of your character? This is the bit where you decide whether to actually keep it or scrap it. Look at the base stats of your character, and your own base stats, and figure out whether its physically possible to actually do.

Start with the basics. Height, weight, physiology. If you're planning to add some major changes to the character, this is when you'd do it or deal with it.

So, for example:

This lad. This was my last cosplay, for those not following the blog. I picked this because A) I like Bleach B) I prefer warlike berserkers to Orihime C) Hair.

The latest rendition turned out like this:

(I'm waiting on clearance for a different photo.)

Now, I am not male, not ripped, and not seven foot tall. But you work with what you've got.

Consider the things that will dictate everything else about the costume that are to do with yourself. Your own physical attributes; what you'll have to change and what you can't. Sometimes, if the difference is too great, it's just something you have to forget about doing. Which sucks sometimes, and sometimes turns out to be something of better judgement.

Okay! Other things you need to consider.

Address minor details as well - hair colour and style and what colour wig you might need if that's the case (if it's an anime character, it often is). Eye colour if you feel like a stickler, which can be rectified with colour contact lenses if you can wear them.

Okay. Next step.

Identifying the 'feel'

So you've looked at the basics of the character. Next is beginning to work on the cosplay itself. I go about this in two ways.

The first way is to go back to the original source and check the character again. If you have a video of the character in motion, it's better. What you want to identify here are the items of clothing you need and how they should behave on a character.

This is the trailer for my second-favourite movie, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete. I'm not sure if you can turn on captioning for it, so the dialogue might be hard to understand. Dialogue isn't really what you're after at this stage though; you want the look and feel of the costume. Mostly to figure out what the articles of clothing should be made out of.

Advent Children is a pretty good example of looking at the source to gauge what you should make the costume articles from - you can practically see the thread count on some of the articles in the film. Other projects might require a little more imagination.

So, by this stage you go 'oh, the pants are hard-wearing and the cloak is too. But the cloak is always flapping about. Does that mean I should make it out of something lighter?'

Or something like that. Have a think also about the type of fabric suited to the character - when my sister and I made Tetra's outfit from The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker, we made the pants from linen, the top, belt and scarf from jersey knit and the jacket from rubber-backed curtain fabric.

So. Stock image from series.

Real life. And EZLO HAT.

The linen is an obvious choice - Tetra is a seafaring pirate. It wouldn't make sense for her to be wearing satin pants. Jersey knit is basically what most t-shirts are constructed out of, and has the double-whammy of draping nicely and feeling good. The curtain fabric had the right texture and colour, for the most part, and would probably be the only thing out of place if Tetra had been running around in real life. (Well, jersey knit is probably a bit anochronistic for the time, but hey.)

So if the character is wearing something that looks hardwearing, find a fabric that looks tough. If you're more after something that's floaty, pick a fabric that's light. If you're after drape or form-fitting-ness; go for a knit fabric.

I apologise if it sounds like I'm telling the reader how to suck eggs. I'm just going through the thought process for these things.

And yeah, choose materials that suit the look first and then the function.
Unless it looks like you're choosing between fabric composition over type.
Um,

Fabric type: a tangent

Yeah. Natural fabrics essentially feel better on your skin and give better airflow. Cotton breathes, as does linen, acetate and rayon, to a degree. Cellulose fibres (plant-based ones) feel best but crease like the little ratbags they are, so keep that in mind. Protein-based fibres like wool, alpaca and silk are often relatively expensive and will warm you up fairly well. It might help at this stage to distinguish what I mean by 'silk'.

Silk is made from silkworms. Protein fibre. It's used to make fabric. For some reason I am not entirely sure of though, when I say 'silk' or when a lot of other people say 'silk', it inspires thoughts of this fabric:

which is a satin-weave fabric, and is usually found in polyester and nylon varieties. So silk is used (sometimes) to make satin. Satin refers to how the fabric is constructed, rather than its composition.

Textiles lesson aside. The third type of fabrics you can get are synthetics. Nylon, polyester, and a variety of other things. They don't soak up liquids and are as effective at keeping your body warm as if you wrapped it in a plastic bag. However, they're usually pretty cheap, and they don't crease as easily as natural fibres.

Something to consider.

So. We've identified the character. We've figured out which of our attributes match to the character, and which ones we'll have to change. Maybe we've even worked out how to change these. We've figured out what articles of clothing the character wears and have had a guess as to what we could make them out of.
The next bit is where we actually start doing stuff.

Where do I start?

I begin by checking out other cosplays of the character that have been done in the past. See how people have done them; the little things that they found along the way that can make or break a cosplay, and the tips, tricks and hints on where to start and how to do things.

If you're adamant about doing things by yourself, you can skip this one. I prefer to see how I want these things to turn out though. DeviantART is a good starting point for research, although keep in mind that there's some terrifying stuff in there. Be specific with your search criteria and keep reciting Sturgeon's Law.

But hey. Research like this is how you can find out what to do, and what not to do with your costume. Consider it all advice, which you can take or leave.

Also, for those of you who possess little time or sewing skills. (I do this too - I can't sew jeans to save my life). Hit up a couple op shops. See if they have anything that looks vaguely similar to any of the clothing articles you're after. Sometimes you might need to do a little modification to get what you want, but it's also a good way to get the 'worn-in' look. If you're a stickler for a certain pattern or colour, you may end up building from scratch, but hey. Don't make your life harder than it is.

If you're the type who can't sew, I'd recommend finding a friend who does and talking with them at length before you go near a sewing machine about what you're planning on doing. Make sure you've got the correct gear and you're going about it the right way. If you can, get them to teach you the bare minimum to succeed. If you're the type of person who likes to figure things out along the way, that's fine. Just make sure you buy plenty of extra fabric. TT.TT

Patterns!

I'm a sewer, and I make my own patterns. It's just what I do. *shrugs*
However, a commercial pattern can usually do the job if you're now at the stage of 'I'm making something from scratch and I need to know how to make it'. Just keep in mind the type of clothing you're making while you're staring at the pattern selection book in the store, wondering where your mind is.

Commercial patterns have their ups and downs. They come in sizes, and have instructions, and can give you an immediate estimate of the type and amount of fabric that you'll need for a given project. However, they're usually printed on the thinnest paper known to man (so they're not very sturdy), have the same properties as sleeping bags and tents (in that they never quite go back in the bag the same way) and the instructions describe the hardest way to do something. In English and French.
c'est la vie.
If you have to pick between pattern companies, keep in mind that they have their own difficulty level. Simplicity patterns are usually the easiest. Burda are moderate. Vogue are for the fearless.

Or insane.

Keep in mind that you can also modify these patterns if they don't quite meet your needs. It's pretty easy to make something more fitted or flowing before the fabric gets chopped up.

Sewing! Crafting!

Keep calm and follow the instructions. Keep your reference pictures handy. When I'm sewing at home, I usually end up shutting myself in a room and wearing something like a tank top and shorts - something I can usually try the item on over the top of. It's a good idea to check how the sewing together is going as it is going. This has two advantages: it's encouraging to see the thing you're making start to take shape, and you can identify problems fairly quickly. A dummy handy helps you keep an eye on things from a third-person perspective, although if you don't have one of those (they're not absolutely necessary for life) then a mirror can be just as handy.

Don't panic. It's almost a given that you'll stuff something up, so just make sure you know what you're chopping up before going at it with the scissors. Those mistakes are the hardest to fix. Let's never speak of how long it took me to finish my Espada coat because of cutting things out wrong-side-up and sewing the wrong bits together and interfacing the wrong side of bits. That thing was the bane of my TAFE course.

It was also supposed to have pants. Anyway.

Inevitably, at this stage, you'll realise that you're so short on time that it was a foolish thing to even begin. Don't listen to that voice. Keep going. You'll pull through.

Details!

Here, you're about 95% done. The things that distinguish a great cosplay from a good one are ultimately the fiddly, time-consuming details. Stuff like nails and earrings, yes, but more than that.
I'm guessing I probably don't need to say this, because if you're into cosplay at least, you probably know this one.

Get in character.

Wait, what are you doing here?

Or give off some semblance of trying to be in character.

You don't have to be all the time. Heck - one of the funniest photos I popped up in from Animania recently was my full hollow makeup with the cheesiest thumbs-up I could deal out at the time.

Cheesy.

Out of character.

But that's kind of what made it hilarious. And it achieved its purpose.

But. Acting in character, at least for photos and when people give their initial reaction to you really adds to the experience.

(See: That time I went to a con as Kairi and had someone scream my name and hold our their arms for a hug.)

Epilogue

Take photos. Sleep. Leave the thing for a few days and then come back to it. And be proud of it.

The Sequel Machine (Part A)

So, I was all set to blog earlier this week, and then I ran out of time before the convention, and then was all set to blog right now, and remembered that I need a chip adapter to upload the progress photos from my phone, and I don't have that right now.

Basically, on Friday, the DNS server on the network timed out, so I went to fix it and somehow managed to hard reset the whole modem. So now the network needs setting up again and the owner of the modem is out for the weekend. I'm using the wireless that belongs to my church to write. And the whole time, I was like 'Huh. That's never happened before.'

My tech mishaps aside, and whatever repercussions remain, this weekend was a little hectic. The above information is only relevant because I am not at home, where the adapter-chip is, and therefore I cannot upload progress photos of the costume, and it's only the day after Animania, so I can't upload a whole lot of photos from the convention day either. But SOON. *appropriate delay* NOW.

And, I am coming to realise, I have a habit of starting a blog post with a completely unrelated story. I think it serves to break the ice or something. ANYWAY.

What am I giving again? Oh. A diagnostic on how the cosplay-making progress went, along with a review for Animania. With no real available photos. Hmm.

Oh. There's a video.

To my shame, I participated in a Harlem Shake video. Two actually. There was this one, and there was one in the auditorium near the end of the day. By then, I was hanging out with a group from Gurren Lagann, and all of us were a little too exhausted to be shaking anything vaguely Harlem-shaped. If that one arrives on youtube in the next couple of days though, I'll put it up anyway.

I'm on the far right for the initial bit, and then just right of centre after the break. And then behind the Skull Kid in the third cut, moving awkwardly to give the impression of dancing while trying to avoid poking other people in the head with my helmet.

Personally, I think the Harlem Shake is a little silly, but nevertheless, for reasons unfathomable, I participated in not one, but two. Maybe it was a 'hey, I don't have a face' moment.

Where to begin with everything else?

At the start of last week, I had a white lycra skivvy sewn up, and was prepared to use that in place of the black top I had for the character. And then I was like 'aw man, can't decide' and then was like 'hey, I'll make the white top anyway and see what it looks like'

Nek Minnut:

By Wednesday, I had the white top with black tattered sleeve sitting on a mannequin next to the already-existing black one, and realised that it would be the way to go. I didn't really want to admit it at that time, but that's kind of what happened. There was also just this sense of trying to fool myself out of it, because I knew how much work would be needed to get it done. I've never been one for holding to that kind of common sense, so I started on things anyway.

It began with detatching the bra from inside the black top and sewing a white cover onto it. The stitching was put in last time because I wanted a form-fitting top that wasn't going to migrate when I moved. Then stitched the white top on over that. Then, realising that the top still needed painting, I cracked open the dressmaker's mannequin that my parents gave me for Christmas. (It had stayed unopened for the time being, as I don't have enough space at home to justify having it out all the time.) Oh. By 'cracked open' I mean that the box was still taped up. I hadn't opened it yet.

So we opened it up and set the top on it. When it came to painting at 9pm on Friday night, it was wrapped with clingwrap so the paint couldn't leak through. Bec ended up painting the black on the front; I was preoccupied with attaching my toes. Then she crashed and I finished off the back. The next morning, I tried setting the mirror frames into it and away we went.

...

It's occurring to me now that I'm following narrative on the basis of separate articles in the costume. Would we rather follow by article or day on which these details were accomplished?

Really?

TOO BAD.

ahahahahahahahaaaaaaa *cackles*

I'll keep this way. Maybe rearrange it into something linear later.

So what else was accomplished this week?

Oh. The prosthetics!
These were started on last Saturday. I'd bought some liquid latex that was apparently okay for skin (Latex in its liquid form contains ammonia and there's types that will burn your skin in liquid state) about six months prior and began with that, some pantyhose and 3mm foam. The prosthetics for my hands were made by spreading a little latex over my finger, sticking a strip of pantyhose to it, and then waiting a little. Then I'd spread a little latex over the back of the foam piece that I'd cut, wait for it to get sticky, and then press it on. Really, the prosthetic business was a lot of waiting. Stick, wait, stick, press, hold, wait.

The shapes for the fingers started out as...what? Like a stretched pentagon. Like if you took the roof overhang away from a child's drawing of a house. Then I realised that this didn't actually gel very well with the shape of my hand or getting it to blend, so the I reshaped the foam pieces to look more like droplet shapes, and bevelled the edges. This is fiddly work, but it looked good. After that, it was a matter of waiting until the latex had dried, and then gritting teeth against the pain when trying to take the things off. Latex + hair on my fingers = worse than a bandaid. Because I'd done it to myself, and the stuff had bonded very well, and I couldn't just rip the suckers off, or the foam would come too.

The toes then were much easier. I was after a different kind of shaping, so a slight pitch was introduced into the shapes by scoring one side and hot-gluing the other, preferably without burning of fingers on the glue.
Then they were painted with acrylic, which, much to my sadness, did not mask the ballpoint pen I'd marked the individual pieces with.

Toes plus fingers plus nails.

So I had numbered toes. Brilliant. To credit though, I actually applied enough petroleum jelly to my toes to avoid all the skin being pulled off when the prosthetics came off.

Um, um, what else?

The mirrors!

I had these mirrors from last time; they're round shaving mirrors. They have a slight amount of magnification, and yeah. I just velcro-ed one onto my front last time, but wanted to step the game up a little this round. I built a 1-1.5cm rim around the edges with plaster bandage and then painted it black. Sticky back plastic (The stuff you use to cover books with that inevitably ripples or bubbles) stopped funk from getting on the mirrors during the process. And then I pierced a stack of holes around the back rim edge. Aside from bruising my fingers, this meant that I could sew the mirrors onto a webbing that went inside the top and supported the things.

Now, this webbing frame had a couple of problems. Most of them were listed under 'I can't get the edge of the top to meet up with the webbing'. I guess that's just something to fix later. Or much later down the track, when I inevitably give up on body paint forever and buy a morph suit for the flipping thing.

But that aside, it looked rather cool.

Now, morph suit. That I didn't have.

My problem with this costume last time was that I remembered to buy body paint for it, and then left that paint in Newcastle for reasons unfathomed (I forgot). That Saturday morning was thus spent combing the centre of Sydney for a costume supplies shop, where I paid $25 for five tiny tubes of paint.

This time, I remembered the paint. And ran into something else interesting.

See, water based paint lifts when you sweat. Or when it dries. Or when it comes into contact with anything, whichever comes first. So what happened was my back was painted up at 5:30am by Bec the Champion Housemate, and then I went on the train, and tried to attach the mirrors, and wore a jacket for a short period of time. By the time I got to the event, a lot of it had flaked off.

I mean, it was still cool looking. But there was definitely something within me that was sad. It should have been better! *Shakes fists in air*

Now. Next thing.

The helmet and the jaw.

These were still mostly intact from the last outing. The jaw, sadly, was slightly squashed on the way home last year though, so I had to try gluing it back into place. This was met with mild success.

The other thing that was discovered during this time though, was a texture paste in the Fibres room at uni. Magical stuff. I managed to smooth out some of the pitting and pockets on the mask that had happened as part of the creating process - removing traces of the plaster bandaging and paper mache. Then it was sanded, and repainted with a brand of spray enamel I will never buy again.

You buy $2.60 worth of spray paint, you get $2.60 worth of spray paint.

The black details on the mask were made with permanent marker and black acrylic. I actually liked the low sheen on the acrylic, in the end. I mean, I had a high-gloss finish on the mask last time, but I'd done the black entirely with permanent marker. Cheap permanent marker. It crackled and really just looked weird.
The current rendition is much better.

It was at this stage I found that there are actual differences between the character's appearance in the manga and the anime - I'd taken all my reference images from the manga initially, and then was watching the fight scene with this guy in it again.

And there it was. The back of the head was different.

This had zero effect on what I was doing, as I stuck with the manga adaption. But hey, fun fact.

Also, this round, I made a plague-mask-shaped-thing out of swimsuit lining, and glued it to the inside of the jaw. When the Hollow roars, you can't see anything beyond the white jaws. Just a black abyss.
Mine ended up being not-quite-black, due to buying white fabric and dyeing it.
But for a simple trick, it worked quite well.

Before dye

After dye. Boogying away to Basement Jaxx is the best way to pass the time with this method.

I ended up dyeing the thing twice; it came out blue the first time.

Concept.

Plague mask pattern

Brilliant Selfie material.

...

So, where to go from there?

I didn't get to fix up Zangetsu (the sword). There just wasn't time. TT.TT
So, all of this, and then getting up at 3:50am, missing the time for the first train and catching the second. Noticing double-takes even before the full regalia.
People asking for photos at Central Station.

This only comes into play when you realise that at this stage, I was not in full gear. I was, however, still partially dressed up. And the audience here were people going about everyday business. I had some fourteen-year-old-looking-kid come up and start asking what the helm was made from, and how long I'd worked on it.

"At least 60 hours,"

I think he responded with an expletive.

Anyway.

The thing was that I was not fully dressed by the time I arrived at the event. I spent an hour, cursing my non-prep, in the bathrooms, painting up and getting everything else where it needed to be. I'd not brushed my hair in two days and had to de-snarl it, and hadn't really worn in my lenses either.

That aside, they went remarkably well. I mean, my eyes are fine; I don't need any kind of eye correctives. So putting lenses in is a little weird. It's not hard to put them in - I've been watching Dad do it for as long as I can remember. But you can feel when they're in. And coloured lenses are more fun - in addition to the slight haze that I was now seeing through, there was this odd yellow ring around my vision when I was standing in low light. Of course, this is because the coloured iris that makes up a contact lens cannot dilate or constrict according to the light source. So in low light, I was able to see the lenses on my flipping eyes.

I know it should really just be treated as normal, but it still kind of weirds me out a little. But hey.

It was stressful getting everything together, but I did. Kind of. My spirit gum gave up on the 'hey, lets stick prosthetics on' and I used the latex instead. Which will stick to your skin so long as you are not sweating. hahaha. I gave up on the fake nails, as I couldn't get them to stick either. And kind of knew that if I put them on, I'd never be able to do anything else.

You know, as far as a diagnostic evaluation of this is going, it sounds like a lot of tears and stress and not much reward. But that's because I don't remember to blog about the feeling of epic when I turn around the mannequin and see the work Bec did on the black stripes on the front of the top, or see what it looks like to combine yellow contact lenses with black paint around my eyes.

It's usually easier for me to quantitatively measure negatives and qualitatively measure positives. That's why things like this are weird.

Oh. Fun fact about Brooke for the day? I found out that I actually do stress-eat. I bought two litres of custard on Friday and drank a bit over half of it in the space of an afternoon. That evening featured custard-flavoured feelings of regret.

So. Stress and the prejudging, and as soon as I stepped in the judging room I knew that I was incredibly outgunned. The people clearly part of the contest were so well dressed, added to the intimidation that usually occurs when you notice that two of them were part of Team Australia last year, and represented Australia at World freaking Cosplay Summit.

Somehow, I did not completely lose it then and there. The judges liked the helmet.

And then it was done and I exited the room, wandering off to find someone else to bug.

Ran into a couple of people I see at cons, and had conversations with others as well.

That's kind of one of the odd things about going to a con and con people. You'll have a lighthearted conversation, wander off, and then realise that you never actually swapped names. I guess that as cosplayers, you kind of already have something in common, and especially if you're cosplaying, you already have a name. And that's how you have a conversation with a complete stranger without being awkward. By dressing in the most ridiculous fashion possible and acting like it's normal.

Oh life, you so grand.

Things were bought, photos were taken. In fact, I didn't end up taking any photos. I'm kind of just hoping that the photos everyone else took will be enough, at least for that convention. Facebook has its uses, I'll concede. Admittedly, photos with anything that was larger than a phone would have been difficult for me, and my phone doesn't take high-quality photos. Ah well. There were a lot of people asking for photos, and I'll just trawl the interwebs until more of them pop up.

The train ride home was uneventful, but for catching it with another cosplayer. We yabbered over stuff and lamented glitter and the heat. Her costume required glitter and a jumper. And it was incredibly hot that day.

I also got to meet a crew from Gurren Lagann (as mentioned earlier), and swapped stories with them.

These kind of connections are good. They're weird, but they're good. We run into people at these kind of things, and share the latest projects and by turns get excited and think that the idea suggested is madness, but the right kind of madness.

I mean, I didn't get to see everyone I'm in contact with at Mini, but I'm planning on visiting Supanova, so maybe then. Not sure which costume is going to that one yet either.

And that's almost it.

So, how did the competition go? The one you poured blood and sweat and tears into?

I was entered in the 'Master Cosplayer' division, actually because 'Novice Cosplayer' is for people who haven't cosplayed before, and I had. Then there was a bunch of smaller awards in that section, which are only awarded if something is impressive enough.

I didn't win anything, but I only missed out on 'Master Crafter' by a couple of points. This meant that I went home without any awards, but that's okay. I was being measured against a bunch of people who were a league above me, and I only lost by a couple of points?

Most enthusiastic silver medalist ever. 

Drive and Burnout

For reasons unbeknownst, this post actually has nothing to do with cars. I mean, it could. I could begin to talk about how Sutto reckons I don't have 'GTi love' (He's one of the other Suzuki Swift drivers at church) and how I argue back that I do and it's different to his appreciation of the machines (it is). Or we could talk about how this really just proves that I am way too willing to rise to a goading.

"Sutto, You merely adopted the GTi love. I was born in it."

But this post isn't about cars.

This post is about Animania, an anime convention held in Sydney in March and September. It kind of relates to a couple of other blog posts that I've made before, so if you want to do some extra reading you can check out my post on Animania here, or the other themes of this post here, or the rest of my university work that's related to Bleach and the concept of the Hollow here. (And there. And everywhere.)

Now that I've just done a considerable amount of plugging for the blog, and you can see how much I've written about Bleach, I can assume that you'll be up to speed when I start talking.

Also, uni.

Directed Studies is taking up a lot of my mental space. I end up doing the headless chicken thing over it. The headless chicken thing is basically "oh man I have this much stuff to do in this amount of time and theresnotenoughtimetodoanythingwhattheheckamIsupposedtodoohcrapohcrapohcrap"
Part of that is my newest and biggest thing, which will be the topic of the next blog post, and part of this is trying to get Animania's costume done in time.

I mean, the one I'm taking down is Ichigo again. September's effort. But it was so well received  I kind of decided to see if I could enter it in the cosplay competition Animania runs, and March Animania is a bit smaller (and therefore the cosplay competition pool is smaller, right? *laughs nervously*). So, I have a costume to take. I'm just trying to tweak it; make it better and more streamlined. More scary?

I dunno. But I bought yellow contact lenses for it, and I'm wearing them now, and the whole world is a little hazy for it because my eyes are going what is this thing sitting on my eyeballs and every time I walk past a reflective surface my mind is going what in the blue hell is wrong with my eyes?

Friiiiick. I've lost the adapter for my phone memory card again. That thing is going to take ages to find again.

Wait. Here it is.

So I guess it's kind of working. How it will turn out when I add it to the face paint and mask/helmet I can't tell.

But at the moment, this is kind of taking up all of my mental space. And at the same time I'm remembering that hey, you have admin stuff to do for that, huh? And it's not fun.

But.

Animania is next Saturday. I'm putting in the entry form tonight, so I don't forget and miss out like I did last year. And hopefully everything will be together and I'll have one less thing to worry about.

So, my current dilemma is mostly this:

*Also, spoilers and stuff for the storyline of Bleach. Just a heads up.*

Ichigo, for those who don't follow Bleach, is a bloke.

The state in which I am cosplaying him has him in a berserker state. He's battle-damaged, and busy being not human. Busy being hollow and kerb-stomping the fourth Espada. By battle-damaged, I mean this:

Now, the casually observant person might note that giant pointy mask and hole-in-the-chest aside, he's not wearing anything on his chest. Generally, this is not a problem for guys.

I approached the problem and solved it thus:

And torn sleeve was extended to torn-bit-of-fabric-top-for-practicality-and-common-decency.

Now. This challenge that I'm rolling with at the moment stems from a couple things.

1. I want to cosplay it better/closer to accurate.
2. I'm going down by myself and not having to cover my own back in body paint would be handy.

This week I sat down and sewed a form-fitting, long sleeve top, with the hopes of getting that to stand in and do the white-skin and bare-chest business. I was just planning to kind of strap myself into it and away we'd go. But the top didn't quite work out as well as planned.

So now, I either have to do some extra tailoring to it, or do some more thinking.

I could do the same as before, with the top in white and some black stripes across it.
Or I could keep trying with the white all-in top.

But I don't have enough fabric to do both, or do one and then change if it doesn't work halfway.

Of course, I could go 'stuff all of this' and take the pre-existing top anyway.
But probably not.

I dunno. I really want to keep it looking accurate, but at the same time don't want to sacrifice how I look for that more than I have to. I mean, I'm not seven foot tall and built like a tank anyway. Even if I manage to get the top sorted, I'm still 163cm tall, with a slightly pudgy stomach and hips and waist that could never pass for male. So should I bother?

The other challenge I have to consider is making the hollow hole look more like a hole. I'm working on something with mirrors, and am pretty sure I can get that to work at least. It really just needs something rigid I can fix it to, and then I'll pop a short tube/lip thing over it and extend the amount of black space and hey presto! Hole!

I realise that this doesn't make a whole lot of sense reading like this, but my head is making a card house out of tesseracts at the moment and isn't fussed with trying to explain.

Oh yeah. You should totally check out what a tesseract is. Best wikipedia sidetrack I've had in a long time.

But I digress.

The top is my current situation. I've also got to repair the jaw (it got squashed a little on the way home in Spetember), make some alterations to the mouth, and try and get some spiny-knuckle-prosthetics. I have foam and latex, and I'm not afraid to use it.

And this time. THIS time, I will remember to bring the body paint I bought and not get twenty minutes on the train and remember I left it at home.

In conclusion?

I'm going to a convention next week. It's going to relate to Directed Studies, because culture and costumes and documentation and stuff. I've still got a lot of things to do. My brain has been operating at 150% and has started making the kind of warning sounds that say 'you should probably pull over and change the oil now.'
But hey. Sleep when you're dead, right?

If anyone wants to give me their opinion on how to finish the top on this costume, please do so. The blogs are set up to allow non-bloggers to comment. And even if you want to log in, you can do it with a google account, I believe.

Okay. One blog post down. Let's jump onto the next thing.

Breaking Down the Fourth Wall - Introduction

Rough introduction:

This is my last year of uni. At the end of last year, I found that enrolling for this year had to happen  waaaaay earlier than usual, and that there was a course I could do called 'Directed Studies'. To sum the course up briefly, Directed Studies is the course where you decide the content. You determine the content and then fulfill it.

Now, for those new to the blog, I'm an aspiring costume designer, and a cosplayer on the side. I studied Fine Arts because I thought it would help with the learning-to-design-costumes-bit, but in actual fact it has been more about producing art. Funnily enough.

Sometimes this has worked in my favour, but for the most part, if I wanted to design costumes for uni, I had to think of a way to justify them to fit the design brief we were given. This was fun at times, but also a little tedious. I was, for the most part, basically doing the costumes in my own time and on the side, and they've been getting better, but I haven't been able to properly claim it as my own field of expertise when comparing to other classmates, who actually get paid for their artworks.

And then Directed Studies came along. An opportunity to do something that maybe the university doesn't have as a proper elective. The rest is not quite yet old enough to be called history.

What does that have to do with the price of fish and the title of this blog post?

Tuesday was my first lecture for the class, where we sat, huddled in the AT lecture theatre, also known as the coldest lecture theatre on campus.

Make sure you bring Blue Fire.

Seriously. I'm going to show up there in snow gear one day. Maybe that will get the message across.
Yes, I know that it's nearly impossible to fall asleep in a cold room, but do you think you could ease up a little? I am not friends with cold.

Anyway. Lecture. And have explained to us the nature and documenting business that we'll need to invest in for the subject, so that our lecturers have something to mark at the end of semester. One of the suggestions for marking the research and progress was a blog.

You don't say?

This afternoon, I thought for a bit about whether I wanted to set up a blog that was completely new, annexed onto my main blog (this one) or go and use my DeviantART for the project. I decided on this one, because URL battles are a challenge, and I really, really don't need another website at this present time (next to two blogs, a deviantART and a youtube channel. And a Facebook page.). Plus, all the current readers can be kept up to date with my latest piece of madness!

Success!

Anyway. That brings me to the name.
Anyone out there who is aware of stage/dance works and fiddling would recognise the term 'fourth wall'. It's the wall that the audience looks through into the realm of fiction, where the other three walls make up the containing environment for the characters to interact with. But with certain bits of fiction, and at certain times during the fiction, you have a character become aware of the fourth wall.

Wait, let me see if I can find an example.

Words can not express how much I love this movie. Anyway. Skip to 1:05 if you don't feel like sitting through a bunch of snippits from The Emperor's New Groove and having something to giggle at. Although really, I think that those bits are all punchlines. You need to whole joke to have a proper laugh.

1:05-1:22, cool?

Kuzco, at this point, isn't engaging with the narrative. He's directly addressing the fourth wall, and subsequently the audience.

My project, which is about costume-making, kind of works with that. I'm taking established characters from fiction and pulling them through the fourth wall into reality.

Wow. I have been in art school way too long.

That's the theory of it anyway. The practical will look like costumes. And madness too, I suppose.

More info on costumes, ideas and progress later. I've just realised that it's Friday arvo and remembered that I actually wanted to watch the rest of The Emperor's New Groove. Talking llamas, here we come.