Mod Podge holds my life together

I mean this in about as literal a sense as possible, Mod Podge is probably the most important component to a lot of my props because it holds everything together. And this WIP Wednesday you'll get to see how that all comes together.

So as you probably remember from last week, I've been working on a number of projects and guess what: not much has changed on that front. I've actually finished another of the props I've been working on and made some slow progress on others, just in time to pick up a few new orders, all while trying not to forget that I have a convention I'm attending myself in a little over 2 weeks that I have done tragically little to get my new Tsume cosplay ready besides making some simple little earrings and styling his wig. Though to be fair, the wig did turn out awesome, most of you have probably seen the wig test photo on facebook.

Ok, I guess I have his sunglasses ready too.

So yeah,  things are as crazy as ever, but that's just the way it goes. So while I will get to my new projects at some point in this post, I wanted to start with that pair of swords I've been working on, because I've finally finished one of them!

The second one is still in progress, but I've gotten to the point where I can start painting it. This one, however, was a bit simpler of a build because there's wasn't as much in the way of intricate designs and thick raised parts where I had to create a bunch of extra layers in foamcore to get it built.

Here's the beginnings of the sword, bevelled the same way I did with those kunai from about a month ago. To bring Mod-podge into it, as the title suggests, I usually use mod podge as the glue that holds the layers of foamcore together, cause I can take a thick paintbrush and paint a layer on before slapping the layers together. As you can see from the above picture, sometimes the edges don't fuse perfectly so you have to take another, smaller paintbrush and squish some more mod podge between the layers, then clamp them together like I have done in several places here.

 The guard, which you can't see in this photo, is also made from a couple of layers of foamcore with a rectangle cut out of the middle so it can slide down the blade to the base of the hilt. It should be noted that after filling in the raw foam edges with spackle and sanding them smooth, I always coat everything with a few coats of Mod Podge (to bring that back around), to essentially solidify everything into a single thing. It also helps smooth things out further, which a lot of people use gesso for, and I also use a few layers of gesso to that same end, but ultimately I kinda like mod podge better in general for smoothing things out cause I feel like it takes fewer coats but maybe that's just the delusion in my mind because I've been using it for longer.

Sorry for the shitty photo quality here, I thought it was clearer than that.

Here comes my exciting foray into new territory: Worbla! As most of you are aware, I've not used worbla for anything before but since it seemed a very versatile and common material to be used in cosplay, I decided to give it a try.

I was not disappointed. Now i admit, if I were using it to construct an entire suit of armor (as I'll be doing at some point in the not-too-distant future) for my first project, I likely would have had a much longer list of frustrations, but as I was just using it for some details on this sword, I'm pumped about continuing to incorporate this lovely thermoplastic into my projects. You can see all of the sandy brown parts in the photo above were done in worbla. It's super easy to work with, all you need is a heat gun, some scissors, and a pattern. I drafted up all of the pieces with cardstock so I could cut the cardstock out symmetrically to get my pattern even, then you just trace it onto the worbla and cut! The worbla even adheres itself to the other materials once you heat it up and bends pretty effortlessly around any type of curves you're doing. You can even heat up small scraps and squish them into the other pieces to make a pretty seamless transtion.

I even managed to add a line directly into the worbla on the pieces above the guard by just heating it up and pressing a sewing needle into it around the blade part.

You can see it in this picture a little better. I did use black to highlight the divot in the worbla, but it's actually in there too.

Despite the worbla adhering to itself, as well as the foamcore, I still coated everything with a couple more coats of mod podge before I painted the sword just to once again solidify everything. As my first attempt using worbla I didn't want to take any chances. The mod podge also helped smooth out the texture of the worbla a bit which was good.

Then it was off to painting land! I used a grey spray primer for the base coat, then sprayed the gold onto the hilt. Remember, spraying your metallics will say you hours worth of time! The rest was brushed on and I went back over things with a mostly dry brush and some black paint to highlight all of the contours in the designs.

Once the painting was all done, it's time for: you guessed it, more Mod Podge! I always put a top coat of Mod Podge on my props to help protect the paint. Flat paint can easily get scratched and wear quickly if you don't have some sort of protective layer over it. This also gives it a uniform finish so there's not that awkward point at which you shift the sword in the light and it goes from the super-shiny metallic gold straight to the entirely flat black areas. That would look really wierd.

And that's that! Now I get to play with this new guy for the next week or so while I finish its counterpart :-D

Now, a quick jaunt through my other projects...

The blunderbuss is finally moving forward again after a brief hiatus now that the darker iron metallic paint I ordered finally came in. Once this guy is dry I can start painting the rest!

The second sword I'm working on is in the painting stages too!

This looks like a bit of a hot mess right now, but it's the start to Morrigan's staff. I still need the majority of the staff body since the branch I initially intended to use was way too skinny and didn't look right, but I found a better one so I'll have more photos of the progress on this project up soon!

This is my newest commission, the silver disc that Static Shock rides around on. It should be a pretty simple one, but should be fun to continue working on nonetheless.

WIP Wednesday

Hello folks, it's hump day here and I've been knee deep in the projects I've already been hinting at/ shown you all a few photos of. Well, seeing as it's Wednesday and I have a ton of things currently in progress, I thought I'd share more of the actual work I've been doing on these lovely projects.

First up is the giant set of claws I'm making for my dear friend. They're actually nearly finished now, except for some hand stitching to get things a little tighter on the form. They're giant and oh-so-squishy minus the wire in them to help keep their shape. Let's take a look at how I put these puppies together.

It all started with a big block of that green foam you've likely seen at Joann's and other crafting stores or places where they might do upholstery stuff. Or if you've worked at one of these places, had to deal with trying to load them into their retail space and all of them sticking together and not standing straight and being an all-around pain in the ass.

Anyway, this foam seemed to be a good plan for the claw base because they're sturdy while remaining pliable, they can take up a large volume (which is important for these ginormous things). The other part that was great about using the foam for this was getting to use an electric knife to cut the foam and looking like a psychopath in the process.

Don't worry, no limbs, organs, or other body parts (of mine or anyone else's) were harmed in the making of these claws.

So, once we've cut out our lovely claws, it's time to make them posable. Some 16-gauge wire should do the trick for that, which was stitched around the edges of each finger.

The notches, btw, are to give the foam a defined place to bend like a knuckle. And with that, the base for all 6 claws is done! Now it's onto turning them blue. For something like this, the best & easiest way to do that is to make a fabric cover for each of them. Several hours of sewing we have some blue claws!

The interesting part is coming up next, and that's making a stand for all of the claws that my friend can actually hold. And it has to be really long because the distance between her fingers and the end of her giant sleeves is over 20" so the majority of space is taken up by these wood frames.

All that's left to do with these is add the handle part down on the end and to do some hand stitching so the fabric is a bit more taught on the form, then they're ready to go of to a new and beautiful home!

The second item I'd like to show you today is the blunderbuss I'm working on. The main construction is finally done and that means I get to start working on the smaller details now and that's definitely my favorite part. To speed through construction, pretty much everything (minus a few pieces that are obviously wooden) is made from foamcore board that I layered together. There are some details that are made from compressed paperboard that in some spots you can totally tell used to be from cereal boxes. And there are actually some metal detail on there in the form of finishing washers and little metal brads.

The best part is all of the little details that are going to be layered in where the paperboard is. There's a lot of contouring and little intricate shapes in there, as most of that area is metallic in the reference artwork. And what did I use to make those details with, you ask? Puffy paint. If you recall a pair of Mage Mashers I made for a friend of mine a while back, you may remember the raised design along the blades. I tried using puff paint for it and the results were great! I prefer it a great deal compared to hot glue, which you can use to a similar effect. The little Scribblers bottles have a much finer tip for smaller details, and it's easy to clean up if you make a mistake, all you have to do is wipe off that part and try again. Ok, you can do that with hot glue but I'm sure your fingers wouldn't appreciate that. You also have less residue that you would with hot glue. And to top it all off, those little bottles have quite a bit of paint in them and they're cheap! Which is of course my favorite thing ;-)

Here's some of the details I've started to put in. Once everything's done and the base coat is painted I'll post some more photos so you can see what the effect looks like when all is said and done.

And that's the little Scribbler's bottle to the right.

That's all the progress I've made so far, but I've been getting further and further on it every day. I'm super excited to see how it comes out!

And that's all I'll go into today, even though there are a few more projects in the works. As a last note, since today is all about works-in-progress, the site is also in progress! You might have noticed there are more pages linked in the top navigation bar and I'm working to expand on resources for you guys who are looking for tips on making your own costumes and props. So check out the tutorials section and stay tuned for more exciting updates and additions!

A day in the life of Mikey

So rather than my standard weekly post of Throwback Thursday (which I missed yesterday anyhow since I spent the whole day working on props for people), I thought I'd give you guys a glimpse into my real life... although that still involves a lot of cosplay and crafty things.

First things first, I am definitely more of an early bird than a night owl, so I tend to go to bed by 9:30 or 10 every night. I know it sounds crazy, but my fiance (and soon to be husband) gets up at 5 every morning, and I usually follow by 6 or so. That's one reason you'll see me posting on facebook & here & tumblr a lot more frequently in the morning, and often catch some of my friends who haven't yet gone to bed. Absurd.

 My mornings begin with a cup of coffee with cream at the cafe. My afternoon begins with hot tea with two lumps of sugar. And my evenings... In the evening I change into my pajamas.Yes, nothing beats a hot cup of tea in the morning.

FOOLS

My day begins, ends, and is occupied primarily by cosplay and crafts. Thankfully, I recently acquired a new space to do my crafting at our house. Thankfully we weren't really doing anything else with the space, and we really just stashed a bunch of stuff in there. Its much nicer than the space I used to use since it was the back end of our game room so any time we had company over to play games I'd have to clean everything up and find someplace to stash it. Also, it was carpeted so I had to be a lot more careful with paint and other stuff. All around, the new space is awesome!

That's it! It looks like a mess, I know, but it's my little crafty world! And usually those giant green pieces of foam aren't there so there's an actual place for me to sit on the floor. Yes, I do all of my crafting on the floor, like a toddler. But it's the best thing for me cause then I can move around as much as I need to, I don't need to worry about dropping stuff cause there's not that far for it to fall, and my butt slowly cleans up previous messes as it scoots around; it's perfect!

Let's take a look at that picture again cause you can see all of my current projects in it!

The claws and gun are projects I mentioned a few posts ago. The claws are for Hsien-Ko from Darkstalkers, and the gun is a blunderbuss from Bloodborne. The two swords are actually both a commission from the same person, but they are two different swords for two related characters. They belong to Yuu and Mika from Owari no Seraph. I'm pretty excited about them cause they're pretty awesome designs.

And that personal project to the left was kind of an experiment, but I will eventually finish it. It's for [SECRET COSPLAY] so you'll find out about it eventually but it won't be for a while cause my intention is not to have that done until Ohayocon.

You'll also notice the long coffee table which is set up for me to make my Magic: the Gathering life counters, which if you haven't seen them you should check them out cause they're pretty cool, even if you don't play Magic.

Another integral part of the Miked Does Cosplay / Kilted Katana Productions experience is music, because I can only sit on the floor painting tiny details on swords in silence for so long before I go crazy and start thinking I'm holding a real sword and try to stab someone with it. The musical selections differ a bit depending on my mood, but there are two genres I tend to listen to while I'm crafting. If I'm in a bit of a slump and need some motivation, I tend to listen to some upbeat dance music and that gets my fingers flying, and is of course interrupted periodically by personal dance parties when a song comes on that I really like. Which of course is good for you, you're not supposed to sit for long periods of time without getting up and moving around so we'll just call this preventative healthcare. The rest of the time I'm usually getting into super!nerd mode and listening to soundtracks because that's just how I roll. I've been using Pandora a lot and enjoy the Final Fantasy Live channel which is more fun than hearing the same collection of stuff that's on my computer and let's me play the fun game of "What movie / video game is this song from?" I'm getting pretty good at it too, even with some games I haven't played before!

That is pretty much my world at the moment, and I spend the vast majority of my time there. I've been using a lot of foamcore board for my projects lately as I'm getting a good feel for how to work with it, and it lends itself well to a lot of my current proects. You can see the the stack of full sheets to the left in that photo and all of the wierd little leftover pieces all the way across to the right. I always hoard all of my scrap materials to use for projects later, cause you never know when you're going to need a small piece of something for some detail. That is, of course most of the reason my craft room is constantly in such a state because I have scraps that just float around everywhere and just get moved when I need the space they're in for something. I am obviously not an organizational freak XD

You'll probably also notice that there's a vacuum cleaner just chilling over to the right too. I've found that it's best to just keep it right there, and plugged in, especially lately with having to spackle and then sand all of my raw foamcore edges because it kinda looks like a crack den in there after I sand a piece.

I promise, I don't have a drug problem. That would be really unsatisfying to snort, trust me. 
And that, in a nutshell is my craft business, pretty much proving that my life is about as spastic as my blog posts.

But there's only so much time I can spend cutting up Magic cards and foamcore board with an X-acto knife at a time before the threat of arthritis increases exponentially, so I often intermix a variety of other activities into my work day of crafting.

Hooping out in the back yard has been a good intermittent activity cause it actually gets me moving around more and I get to play with hoops and try tricks! I'm still not great at... lots of things, but I can go from my hand to my chest or waist and back. And that's about it.

And yes, I do make a point to dress as gay as possible when I go out to hoop.

And speaking of outside, our house has lots of garden space so on nice days like today I try to spend some time in the garden as well, so lets take a little tour of the yard!

Most of my time in the garden is spent battling the forces of evil.... well the weeds. Thanks to our lovely maple tree back here, we have a small army of little trees sprouting up everywhere. Not gonna lie, I love playing with helicopters but pulling all of these little guys out is kinda annoying.

There's also my constant struggle with the crazy weed that perpetually grow in the gravel area off of our driveway...

And let's just not talk about this area... I've already surrendered the battle to the forest of weeds.

Also, despite not working in the field any more, I'm still a biology nerd at heart so I love watching things grow and finding fun little living things out here.
Like this little American Toad that I found in the yard the other day; isn't he PRECIOUS?!?

I also found this lovely scat in my strawberry plants. Thankfully the strawberries are all done for the season so I don't need to worry about the fact that some animal pooped in there... but it is pretty fascinating.

I don't know what animal this came from, but whoever you are, thank you for eating a healthy diet of japanese beetles because they've been eating my roses and my blackberry plant and I don't appreciate that!

And now that I've digressed to showing you all a photo of all the shit in my life, I think we'll just leave it there. Love you guys!