General updates on-- well everything

I may have already used this picture as a cover, but i'm showing you again for the fact of showing you that butt! I haven't touched the guns, however a lot of progress has been made with other pieces of the costume.

I found pants! They're from JC Penny. :} They're the City streets ones, so in other words... the super tiny ass cheek ones. They were $13 and just a little stretchy, which will make them easy to move in.

I also received a couple of things by mail :D Like the Yuna X Jewelry specifically. The wig(s) should be coming within the next two weeks along with NIKI!!!! (aka Paine-- Sorry-- i'm slightly excited)

Here's the costume thus far. Redoing the obi and the skirt. I'm going to TRY to actually embroider the details onto them. My mom just got a new embroidery machine for her birthday, so i'm going to try to on new fabric (and re sew these parts, obv.). If for some reason, we can't make it come out correctly, i still have this painted on version which wonderful Paine (aka Niki) agreed to put some details on, if it comes to that.

This is a piece of her art. Now do you know why she's doing Paine? o-0 That's all for the night, and Happy Cosplay :D!

Much adieu about guns...

There are 110 days till otakon and my guns are still not done!

So, every weekend for a couple of weekends, I've spent slaving over theses guns. The main problem is, i keep making corrections <<;

So as I said previously, I didn't like the color gold on the forks. So I sanded all of them down, and got most of the polish off. I then, took a wet rag to remove any of the sawdust so that they would indeed be ready for a good painting.

I used this kind of spray paint, the rust-oleum metallic in gold. I was hoping to get a more metal looking sheen on them, and less of the christmasy, glittery, yucky color that they were previously

Spray painted them as they were done before...and i haven't taken a picture of them dry. Sorry. I also made the little encasing on the top of the gun, cut it with a scroll saw, and it's in the filing stage.

Re-sanded these to fit along the barrel of the gun. It was a pain in the ass and took some of yuri's patience, but as you can see, we got through it.

Then I repainted them as well. I also bought some screws to put into both these and the gold parts, when i finally get the whole picture going. Eheh. One question that I have is do you think that the guns, forks, grips, and any other pieces should be sprayed with a resin gloss? 

Thanks for your input and feel free to subscribe! Happy Cosplay :D.

Lady Subaru fini

Lady Subaru debuted at Otakon 2007

Princess Kakyuu fini

Princess Kakyuu debuted at Otakon 2010
See Information about the Making of this costume here!

Sailor Kakyuu Fini

Sailor Kakyuu debuted at Otakon 2011

Weapons-- What take is this?

First post since the new update and all i'm full up with are questions! I'll try to make them in italics in case you're just skimming by, but i praise any and all feedback right now. Of course the guns aren't done, and I've hardly looked at the staff head, but we're getting there!

Where were we at? Oh yeah... sanding and cutting. Well, mom cut out the triggers and the "wheels" with her handy dandy saw thing. Unfortunately, our saw is not specialized enough to do these kind of cuts, because well-- it split the wood.

Wonderful boyfriend and mom found a way to make it work though. They cut off a new hunk of wood from a scrap somewhere, made it into a bunch of spokes, and then added in the middle pieces and sanded them to fit.

The rough idea is here. They were of course, gorilla glued in and then continually sanded to perfection. Sanding is somehow becoming my middle name. After plenty of sanding, it was time for paint!

In the tutorial (that i was kind of following), she pained them pure black, but if you look at gamer pictures or the controllers modeled after them, the guns are in fact Grey. They got painted a gun metal grey.

Of course some of the details aren't on mine yet, but save this reference picture for later because you will return for it whilst judging other pieces of the guns.

I coerced my friends into helping me paint too. Sam is painting the "forks" a shiny gold color, and that's where the first question arises.

The color that I picked for the gold was a metallic gold, the same brand i got for the color of the guns. However, I think it turned out slightly sparkly. Is the gold color picked out too sparkly? I could possibly just be making it up.

This is after three coats on the base of the gun. There are still a couple more spots that need to be touched up, but overall, i think the gun portion turned out well.

We painted the grips black, and after a lot of drying, i put them on my table to take a picture for you all. Generously, my cat Eddy agreed to help by laying on all the pieces. This was after i convinced him that the forks were not for eating.

This is all the pieces sitting on top of each other. My last question is, in the picture that i told you to reference above, the gold part goes over the gun almost like a slip. There's a part on the top of the gun that is also painted gold. Should I make that part?

I guess that's it for now. I still have to glue them all together, figure out about the possible changes (which will all be helped with YOUR feedback), put in the decorative screws, and then do something about the details on the forks. I'll figure it out, as you can see, I have the best helpers in the world <3. Special thanks go out to Yuri, Mom, Dad, Sam, Matt, Niki, and Diana.

Happy Cosplay :D! and the layout isn't quite finished yet so give it a little while.

Costume Ideas

These are some costumes that I'm thinking about doing.

Ashe from Final Fantasy 12 [Not Started]

Mistral from .hack [Not Started]

Sailor Moon [Not Started]




To be Updated :D

ToNs Of UpDaTeS!

There is so much to talk about guys! Cosplay wise we have added a Rikku, and an Elma (They came as a pair and I couldn't separate them ;] That was a joke, I promise). I have done tons of sanding as well as filling in with the guns. The head of my staff was cut out-- UGH! So much. I'll just walk you through it.

Rikku as Gabby H.

and

Elma as Niki's little sister, Anna I.

They're both awesome people. We're trying to figure out how to make both of their costumes the most cost efficient, because they're both-- well you know-- high schoolers-- and they're both sweet as georgia peaches. Now back to Yuna!

Me, acting all suave, blowing the dust off my guns and picking them up to begin working again. I totally want to take a pic like this when they're all done. :}

These are them, with a drawn on trigger, taped together with some great painters tape. As you can tell, they needed to be sanded, badly, and there are a few gabs between some of the different pieces that shouldn't be there. They should fit SNUGLY.

So, i bought some of this from the store, to repair some of the human error. It's stainable and paintable, and i figured it would have a more woody texture as opposed to something like clay. I wanted it to look like a solid piece after painting, and this helped to put together the cracks.

Me and Yuri (who was my helper throughout this whole thing-- and I THANK him for it profusely), used this dremel to help with the sanding part of the repair work. We took turns, diligently sanding. I tried to make the edges beveled so that the gun would have a more three dimensional shape, and look less like a bunch of wood pieces glued together.

Put the wood filler on, in great excess. And left both guns to dry propped up on the paint bottle which will soon be giving it it's life <3 They dried overnight,

And then we went back to sanding. Now the guns are on standby, as my mom attempts to figure out a method to cut out the trigger hole, as well as the "wheel" (as i call it), on the back. After that, they will be going back to being sanded-- which I am TOTALLY starting to resent.

With the guns on standby, we went to something else. This is actually a small version of the cut out. We went to kinkos in the middle of the night to get it blown up and re-sized, but they were going to charge us 15 dollars just for a blow up, which seemed ridiculous! Thankfully, with a little bit of Yuri's help, and some computer software, we ultimately got it blown up and printed on our own.

This is a picture of the two side by side. The stencil was cut out as well. The blue part, I was going to do by using probably some 8mm wood(?). I think that the wood for the staff head was about 16mm? Maybe just a little bit bigger. I was just going to paint it blue and then glue it on, we will see how things go.

My mom surprised me by cutting out my staff head while I was at work :}. It still needs more-- Sanding-- shivers-- but it's an overall awesome look, and it will be getting spray painted with multiple shades of gold, as well as some more surprises you followers are just going to have to wait and see!

As always, I will keep ya'll posted as more progressions are made on my costumes, as well as making some sort of, these are the things i still need lists (which is mostly small things, so i'm not too worried about it.)

Happy Cosplay! :D