Matsuri 2018

Hello everyone, welcome back! Now that Matsuri's over I have a little breathing room again so I actually have time to put together a post-con post! Matsuri was a blast overall and I'm already pumped for my next convention in a couple of months!!

Friday

I went down early on Friday, hoping to avoid as much traffic as possible and snag a good parking spot. With the imminent republican dinner and he-who-shall-not-be-named coming that evening I wanted to avoid as much hassle as possible. It mostly worked out except that the parking garage I wanted to be in was flat out closed, much to my dismay. I still managed to get a decent enough sppot in the outdoor lot and resolved to move my car saturday morning since I knew I'd be awake early cause that's just what I do.

I all of friday in Mordred, mostly in the traditional casual outfit. Likely the coolest thing I did all weekend was meet Erica Lindbeck, Mordred's VA (and 12 other characters I also love). I went with my friend Genki and I had her sign my sword and bought a Mordred print she had at her table too. She was awesome and very sweet. She gave me lots of compliments on the sword, especially after I told her I'd made it myself. I got a couple photos with her and as I was leaving, I heard my name.
"Mike."
I turned back around not at all prepared for what was coming next.
"Are you the one... who is my master?"

I'm dead I'm dead I died I'm dead.

My wig is falling off and I'm not looking at the camera, but at Least Erica Lindbeck looks great and is weilding Clarent Blood Arthur so that's all that actually matters.

After meeting Erica, Genki and I met our other friends to do our usual Wolf Pack dinner at Max & Erma's. It was still pretty early so we immediately got a table.... and were just about the only people in the restaurant at the time. Not gonna complain.

After dinner I went back to the room and changed into Mordred's formal outfit for the formal ball, hosted by Trickssi! As always, the music selection was lovely and the dancing was fun. I met Nekoyasha09 dressed as Semiramis, who I found out was going to be in my big cosplay group the following day... small world.

After the dance was over I hooked back up with my wolf pack and hung out until people were ready to call it a night.

Saturday

Saturday morning, as promised, I woke up too early for my own good, and used the unfortunate consequence of my internal clock to nab a fantastic space in the garage right in between the con center and the hotel. Booyah.

Saturday was primarily reserved for Fire Emblem shenanigans so I put on my fake tits, did some contouring, and finally took my debuting steps in Vaida's stupidly tall stiletto boots.

I am super happy with how this cosplay turned out and even though no one recognized me who wasn't a member of our group, I still had a blast! Since I was up and out early, it was a bit before I found anyone else in my group but eventually we assembled the Fire Emblem: 420 Blaze It Sword crew.

I honestly don't know who our photog was because I'd not met him before, but you can be sure I'll have his info and will bombard you with photos as soon as I have them. The shoot was ridiculous and fun, just as I was hoping.

After walking around in stilletto boots for hours, my feet wanted to die, so I went back to the room to chill out for a while before transitioning into my last cosplay for the weekend.

And that last hurrah was in a cosplay I've not worn in quite some time. Daru Chai and I busted out our Soul Eater pair from... I honestly don't even remember how many years ago now, and we hit the con floor.

Photo courtesy of Daru Chai Cosplay

Magically we ran into some other Soul Eater cosplayers and joined them for a little photoshoot. We were one of 3 pairs of Steins/Medusas and had a Maka and a couple of Souls. We definitely hammed it up as much as possible before I had to take off.

I'll be getting some more of these back too since someone was taking photos for us.
After the shoot (or at least part of the shoot), I ran off and met my sister for dinner, and yes, I was still dressed as Stein.

Photo courtesy of vespamary

We went to this lovely little place called The Table and had some awesome meats, cheeses, fried green tomatoes, and cocktails. Our libations included an Old Fashioned we shared in memory of Grandma B.

As soon as I got back to the convention center I was immediately whisked away by Madster,  Heckin.Sleepy, and a small crew of others who were on a mission to find hot dogs. So we went questing together and I had a drink with everyone while people devouered some delicious-looking dogs. After we were sated, we headed back so I could send Heckin.Sleepy home with his new props (while we discussed some new possibilities for commissions).

He didn't end up wearing Nero at the con, so I don't have any photos of the lot together, but hopefully I'll have those to share some time soon as well. By the time we got back, I was just about dead, but I did manage to find some of my pack and hang out for a bit before trotting off to bed.

Sunday

Sunday was a lazier day than usual since I didn't bring any lounge-y cosplay to wear. I was initially thinking I could wear Mordred again on Sunday if I was motivated enough to do so but needless to say I was not. Thankfully I got to hang with my pack for a while and pick up a few things from the artist alley before I headed home. And we got a pack selfie since we totally forgot to do that on Friday when we were all together.

And that was that. I came home to my boys and got in lots of cuddle time and some Bob's Burgers before I passed out from the exhausting, but fun, weekend.

Now it's back to work, and I have plenty to do with a full armor commission and several other props that need to get done between now and Youmacon. You'll get to see my progress on those here soon, or you can keep up with it as it happens on my Instagram, which I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with.

More Commissions, More WIPs

Hey everyone! I've been in and out of town a lot with all of my summer trips happening within a couple weeks of each other so I've not been as productive as I would be otherwise. That and I've been playing Horizon Zero Dawn so that doesn't exactly help my productivity XD

Anyway, I wanted to show you all what I've been working on lately!

First up is the only project I've actually finished: Yang's Ember Celica from RWBY. I've made quite a few RWBY weapons at this point, both for myself and others, so I'm excited to get a shot to make yet another one!

These gauntlets are made almost entirely out of EVA & craft foam of a variety of thicknesses.

But of course it wouldn't be a Mikey prop if there weren't some weird pieces of trash incorporated somehow, right? So in this particular instance I used a small cardboard tube that I acquired god only knows where and sawed it in half to get the gun barrels, and I also used four plastic spools sliced down the middle to get the shells for Yang's ammo. Thankfully I've picked up a bunch of random spools of thread at thrift stores and garage sales over the years so I have them in abundance. However, a word of advice to anyone thinking of doing the same thing: remove all the thread first. I was lazy and tried to saw straight through the first one with the thread still on there and it made a tangled mess.

We've skipped a few steps here, but the pieces are all assembled and the plates on the back have a layer of worbla on them. Everything was coated with mod podge a few times and then I sprayed it all yellow! Yellow doesn't cover very well so I sprayed it to avoid having to paint 437 coats to get the color even.

Details are all painted by hand and I did a bit of subtle shading between the plates on the back and on the red shells.

And here's everything finished and assembled! The cuffs have velcro on the one end and are permanently adhered on the other so they're nice and stable, but are easier to put on & take off.

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Next up is Nero's sword from Devil May Cry: The Red Queen. I'm working on this for my friend Heckin Sleepy Cosplay. He's already put together a lot of the other pieces for the cosplay and has been posting photos on his instagram so you should definitely go check it out cause everything looks awesome so far!

I will be making the gun as well, but not until aster Matsuri.
The blade for the sword is MDF, and the handle actually came from an old rake that broke a while back. 

You can see the model in this photo too. It bleongs to Heckin Sleepy, but it's made of metal so it's super heavy and he wouldn't be able to carry it around at a con. I did some extra shaping with my dremel, as well as digging out the channel that run along the edge of the blade. The other details are all made out of a smattering of other things including craft foam, puff paint, masking tape, and worbla. The most interesting piece is the largest part at the start of the hilt. It's a weird plastic thing I found in my stash of stuff that I believe came from one of those giant rolls of paper. It ended up being a good size and the hole in the center fit snugly around the wooden handle so I went with it! Also, the goofy handbrake thing is a paper straw with worbla around it. 

Those three round, silver things on the blade are actually magnets (the super strong ones you can get at the hardware store) so that hopefully it'll just snap right onto his back to magnets incorporated into the coat. 

With everything assembled, it was time to start painting! I sealed the entire thing with a few coats of mod podge, then primed it with black paint. The next layer was the silver spray paint, and then I started adding the red details by hand.

And last up is all of the progress I've made so far! It looks done, doesn't it! But I haven't done any of the red details on the other side yet and the whole thing needs mod podge slathered over it so I have about another day or two before it's totally finished.

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Last up is a Skyrim shield I'm making for my cousin's kid. Apparently he loves play sword fighting with sticks so his dad decided he needed a legit shield to play with. I had to make the thing pretty heavy duty so it could take the beating without falling apart! As such it's all MDF & hardboard, with worbla for the emblem on the front.

I'm not following any particular design for this guy, my only request was to have the Skyrim symbol on it so there he is smack dab in the middle! I haven't started painting yet but I think I'm going to go with dark blue & silver for the front.

And that's all we have this week! I hope everyone's enjoying their summers and don't forget to put on sunscreen! this has been a friendly reminder from your neighborhood ghostly white ginger.