Pre-Youma Crunch Time

Hey folks, welcome back! As usual, my hiatus has been related to having a crapton of projects and minimal time to make blog posts. So, rather than sit here and listen to me moan about all the work I still have left to do, let's just look at the stuff I've been making.

First up, we have a gun & case from one of the Purge movie... I'm not sure which one cause I haven't seen any of them.

hat is an actual working airsoft gun, with a legit case. I didn't really build anything for this, it was initially pitched as a simple "paint a few parts of this gun" request, and then spiraled into the much more elaborate commission that you see before you. Thankfully it's done and I don't have to worry about it any more.

Next up we have this giant nail bat/club thing from one of the Yokai Watch characters. It's all a paper/cardboard base with a worbla shell covering it. The nails are also worbla scraps mushed together and formed into nail heads!

Most of the painting still needs done, but thankfully my client no longer needs it by Halloween, so I have some time to work on that without rushing it. I'm hoping to have it done in the next few days though.

Last, and most importantly, we have my new cosplay for Youmacon! I'm doing Yatsuhashi from RWBY!

I've been wanting to do a RWBY cosplay for a while, and I have a long list of characters I want to make, as well as several people I want to cosplay with, all as different characters. So it came down to which one would make the most sense to have for Youma. Well, thankfully my friends made the decision pretty easy for me, since only one of the three of them was even going to be there, and was planning on cosplaying Coco again, so it was a perfect fit. Eventually I'll also be doing Torchwich to pair up with my friend's lovely Cinder, and either Qrow or Taiyang, to pair up with my other friend's kickass Raven (the one I made the mask for, if you guys remember that).

Anyway! Down to business. Thankfully his outfit is fairly straightforward. I bought a black tshirt and cut the arms off to do his undershirt, and I found a pair of brown pants to use. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a pair of boots to use for him, so I had to make spats. Thankfully those are pretty simple so it was no big deal. The first parts I actually made were the top & the thick leather belt/cincher piece he wears around his waist.

Next up is his shoulder pauldron. Pretty straightforward, worbla over craft foam, as per usual. Don't ask why I did all of the plates with full details when you don't see 60% of any but the top one.

The pauldron attaches to the harness... strappy... thing with some giant snaps. I don't have photos of them, but I made his boot armor plates thee same way.

Next up are the gauntlets. They're layers of foamcore with craft foam details, and some worbla pieces. The rings split in the middle and are held together by velcro.

Last up is the sword. Since it's ginormous I decided to use a wood base (wide craft boards) and then shape the bevel with a layer of foamcore on either side. Same method as usual: remove the paper, sand the bevel into the exposed foam, coat with spackling paste, sand again.
The handle is a piece of PVC with a strip of worbla wrapped around it.

And the only bit left is the wig! I used an old black wig I stole... I mean "inherited" from our family's costume closet. It was already kinda short and I cut it eve shorter. For as much as I hate cutting and styling wigs, I feel like this one turned out alright. It's obviously not as short as Yatsu's actual hair, but I couldn't cut it much shorter than this or it would've looked super spotty. So I suppose this'll just have to do.

Well, that's all folks! If you want to see what the whole costume looks like, you'll have to wait another week until I wear it at Youma. I should have some awesome photos with my Coco and we're going to a RWBY photoshoot so hopefully I'll have some photos of a bunch of other awesome cosplayers. Until next time, ciao!

Mikey is Still Doing Commissions...

So while my last series is done with, I am still working on one last commission for Youmacon, for a friend of mine. She's going to be doing Sailor Pluto, and asked me to make her staff!

It all starts with a flagpole. Seriously, flagpoles are the greatest things ever when it comes to making staffs because they're generally an appropriate length & thickness, and you can get ones that separate in the middle for easier storage & transportation. Unfortunately, the flagpoles I used to get at Joann Fabrics, I can't find any more. They were much higher quality and I could get them cheap because coupons; but alas, now I am forced to use this one, that I found on Amazon. 

I used a carving bit in my Dremel to make all of the indentations around where the round parts went, then used some craft foam covered in worbla to get the fluted part on the end where the topper would fit into.

The round bits all along the staff were then made by using a bunch pf leftover bits of worbla which I heated, rolled together, and then mushed around until I got it as round as I could make it. Caution: it's really easy to burn yourself while doing this so be careful!

The key parts you see in the photo are just two layers of foamcore with a layer of cereal box on either side, for extra support. I did my usual spackling/sanding routine on all of the edges.

Now just add a couple of layers of mod podge, spray paint it silver, and the staff part is done!

Ste staff head, however, is a bit more involved. I started with an acrylic ornament that separates in half, so I sanded the inside with a very fine sandpaper to make it translucent. Once it was all sanded, I spent a couple of hours taking a red sharpie to it until is was this lovely color.

The lighting was simple, I use a string of mini LEDs with a tiny battery pack, because I knew I'd need to hide it in the staff and there's not much room. These are the same type of lights I used for the Crystal Maiden staff, if you remember that. Also, to keep the little lights stable & spread out appropriately through the little globe, I wrapped the string around a styrofoam ball I happen to have lying around, and used packing tape to secure them in place. Lastly, to diffuse the light a little further, I wrapped the whole inside with two layers of kleenex (remember folks, improvisation is everything)!

Now that we had the light ready, I had to figure out how to mount it on the top of the staff while being able to hide the battery pack somewhere. And my godsend appeared in the form of a plastic spool that I got some heavy gauge wire on. The battery pack actually fit in the central tube, and it was the right height to fit in the fluted part on top of the staff. To top it all off, the wider bits of the spool fit perfectly into the fluting such that it holds it there without me having to install velcro or anything like that to keep the topper from falling out. YAY SERENDERPITY!

You can see here I also started with the core of the heart shape part of the topper. It's just a couple layers of corrugated cardboard. There were a couple of marbles I hot glued in for the round bits, then I took a bunch of worbla scraps and heated them around the shape. Slowly I heated areas and mushed them together to get it smoothed out. You can see the process here:

Here's the topper, all mushed smooth and attached to the red orb!

Now all that was left to do was paint the topper! I used the same silver spray as I did with the rest of the staff, and used cling wrap & masking tape to protect the red orb. The little spheres in the staff design are all gold, so I did my brown undercoat and brushed them with the acrylic gold paint!

And that's all there is! The staff is all finished and I'm happy about that because it's another thing to check off of my list, since I still have 2 commissions to finish before the end of October, my own new cosplay I'm working on for Youmacon (which is the first weekend of November), and 2 events coming up at which I'll be vending: Con on the Cob, which is the weekend following Youma, and the Yule Ball, which is December 10th. So needless to say, I'm going to continue being busy for a while yet.

As a fun little end note, I was also commissioned to make a Sailor Moon outfit for a friend's daughter. It doesn't warrant a full post because I only have photos of the finished costume, as modeled by my teddy bear, Murray. Enjoy!

National Coming Out Day

Hi everyone,
I wanted to take a break from my usual today and just have a little chat as today is a pretty significant day. It's National Coming Out Day.
I'm gay. Most of you reading this already knew that, whether you know me personally or not, considering I've had posts about my wedding and a few paired cosplays with my wonderful husband. But even though you know, the act of coming out is still an important thing. Coming out is a lot of different things all wrapped up into one,. It's an outward manifestation of self-acceptance, it's a way to share a piece of yourself with other people, it's a way to help make the world a better and safer place for LGBTQ+ people by expanding our exposure.

I was fortunate enough to have had a lot of support and acceptance when I came out in high school. I never felt unsafe or unloved, and for that I feel truly blessed, because I know there are so many others out there who have to deal with such pain and heartache when they come out to friends. I am also fortunate to know so many people who fall on so many different points on the spectrum.

So what I want to impart with anyone reading this, is that you have a supporter in me, no matter who you are. I don't care where you are on the spectrum of humanity, I want you to experience happiness, safety, support, and love. So if any of you out there ever need someone to talk about anything or everything, consider my door, and my heart,  always open and ready to welcome you in.

I hope you all have a lovely Coming Out Day, whether you have any coming out of your own to do, or not.