Selfie!Con

Hey everyone!
Just got back from an awesome weekend at Matsuricon! As usual I'm not great at remembering to have people get photos of me in cosplay, but I did happen to constantly get selfies with people so yay for that!
 

Friday

I went down in Sothe, since I haven't worn him in a long time, and a friend of mine who does every version of Sothe ever was coming! So we decided to do PoR & RD Sothes together and it was glorious!

We went to the FE photoshoot and the person running the shoot didn't know who we were so we almost didn't get a Tellius series shot. Oops. But we did have a third, and made a Green-Haired Trifecta with Stefan!

After the shoot it was time to put my dance shoes and my fancy pants on because the wonderful Trickssi was running the formal ball and doing lessons beforehand, and I was not about to miss out on any of that.

So my fellow Sothe and I stopped being the same person and transformed into these winners!

God bless her for taking selfies with me otherwise I'd have no photos of my own cosplays from this weekend XD

Despite the lack of useful equipment prvided by the con for the lessons, we still had a lot of fun and learned to waltz, rumba, tango, swing, and salsa! I got some practice as a follow, which is always nice, and got to dance with some awesome folks. There was even a guy who asked for extra swing lessons afterwards when he learned that I was semi-competent at that one, so when we were at the actual ball he would come over every time a swing number came up and learn some new moves! Sadly I am not nearly as good a teacher as Trickssi so it was an interesting challenge, but we had a lot of fun! Also, my feet wanted to die.

After the formal I managed to meet up with my Wolf Pack at last since everyone was finally there by that point. We hung out for a while but everyone was tired so we we're up as late as we could have been.

Saturday

My only actual plans on Saturday were to go to the Destiny shoot in the afternoon, but I knew I didn't want to be in the Speaker all day so I went over in the morning in Oliver.

He's simple and comfy so it was a nice choice for the morning. I'm pretty sure only one person recognized me outside of my group of friends, but I'm totally fine with that since I know it's not a super widely-known game.

Once it hit early afternoon it was time to change into the Speaker and head to the Destiny shoot. The shoot was awesome, and sadly I don't have any photos to share at the moment because I didn't take any.... and let's be honest they all would have been terrible because I can't see anything directly in front of me when I'm in the Speaker. I do, however have another selfie with Genki that is the only documentation I possess that I actually wore him at all.

The shoot was great though, even though there were only a few of us. I got to make friends with Foundry 13 and Otherworld Cosplay, who were there as a titan and off-duty warlock, respectively. All three of us are planning on doing more Destiny cosplay, particularly with D2 coming out in a little over a week, and I'm hoping I get a chance to play with them at some point because they were both super chill and fun to hang out with. I know I definitely want to make my own warlock at some point, and if I have as much fun playing D2 as I did the original, I know I'm going to maintain that interest. And besides, the designs are so awesome it definitely tickles my creative juices too.
Another bonus was that we had one of the staff photographers running the shoot, so we should have some really nice photos and they should be up on Matsuri's website! I'll be sure to clue you guys in when I see those.

I bummed around the convention for a while longer in the Speaker, hoping there would be a few other people who wanted photos, which there were... along with a lot of questions about what the heck I was doing when the Cabal took over XD

Finally I had enough of being blind and having to walk like a princess, and changed into Penny. Unfortunately the Destiny & RWBY shoots were back to back so I didn't make it, but I did run into an adorable Velvet on my way back over to the con floor.

I spent the rest of the night hanging out and laughing my ass off with my wolf pack, AROOOO!

Sunday

Sunday was my usual waking up way too early because my body doesn't understand what it means to sleep pat 6am, so I loaded up my car, ate some free breakfast, put on some yellow shorts, and wandered over to the con center as Banjo & Kazooie.

The con center was a ghost town at that point so I just chilled and played pokemon for a while, but I ran into a few folks I knew before long and everyone seemed to be back together a lot earlier than I was expecting. We wandered around for a while, I found an artist with a full set of Team CFVY buttons (ok, my friend found them first but whatever) and bought some gorgeous Persona 5 prints from an artist I already have some prints from. Then, it was time for Mikey to go home to his boys. After the not-too-long-but-plenty-long-enough drive, there was much rejoicing, and many snuggles.

And that was that! I didn't really take many photos, although there were plenty of great cosplayers about.

And as most of you know at this point, my next big event is my Harry Potter weekend at the beginning of October, so I'll be making a ton of stuff for that. I may or may not be posting super regularly here this month, but I will definitely be taking photos of all the stuff I'm creating and will be sure to share.
Until next time <3

A Roll in the Hayseed

Hey folks! Quick post today since I finished a commission I've been working on and I wanted to show it off!

First off, I was tasked with another Overwatch thing, and of course the other outstanding commission I have is more Overwatch. What is my life?

A longtime customer requested the Haysee Junkrat mask. Which at some point I may also be making his weapon for it, but we'll see about that.

The main ingredients for this project were:
-Dark brown faux leather vinyl
-Raffia ribbon in brown & tan
-Craft foam
-Some other random junk

I started by building the mask itself, unsing the vinyl. It velcros down the back for easy wearing and removal.

For the mouth, I cut another piece of vinyl in a smile-shape, then hot glued all of the raffia ribbon to it. Once the glue cooled I stitched it to the mask. For the ribbon above the eyes, I actually made two slits in the vinyl and threaded the ribbon through, hot gluing it into place on the back. I did that for all of the other ribbon that's attached as well, which you can see here (apologies for the blur).

For the goggle-eye parts, I started with a PVC piece for the smaller one, and a length of cardboard mailing tube for the larger one. For the orange lenses, I used tranparent colored plastic folders... specifically these ones. They didn't look very orange with just one layer, so I doubled it up for each lens. The rest of the shaping on the eye pieces are all done in craft foam.

I attached them after painting them to avoid getting paint on the vinyl. I used my trusty E-6000 to do the job. 

As you can kind of see in this photo, I added the scorched/still smoldering details to the top of the mask. I used a black sharpie for the black, and smudged it with my finger along the bottom edge to get a slight gradation to it, and blend the color into the brown of the vinyl. Then the smoldering tips I simply painted with orange acryllic.

The last step was to add the lights to the eyes, which I used a set of moon lights, coiled around the inside of the goggle lenses. the wire was then stitched to the inside of the vinyl in several places, and velcro was added to the battery pack so it could be attached and easily removed to change the batteries.

And that's that! Another finished product and another (hopefully) happy customer!

Last thing today is an exciting announcement! Apparently my blog is popular enough, perhaps due to its being featured on Feedspot.com's top 75 Cosplay Blog List, but I've started getting affiliate offers that might help me generate some extra money! And let's be honest, I could really use the additional income. So my first official affiliate is Sclera Lenses!

They're an online contact lens store with a huge selection of colored lenses, including special designs, UV-reactive lenses, and, obviously, sclera leanses. You should definitely check them out because they are already very reasonably priced and they have a summer sale going on right now and you can get 15% off using the code SUM15 (and please use the link provided to help support Mikey Does Cosplay!)

Any time you want to find them in the future (since you probably don't want to have to come back to this page), just scroll down to the bottom of my home page and look for my affiliate banners!

Care of Magical Creatures - Part 2

I couldn't come up with a clever name for the second installment of my magical creature lessons, but honestly, if you're here for my wit alone, I can't imagine this blog is very satisfying. Let's just get right down to those curious creatures you're all here to see!

Pixie

Pixies are incredibly mischievous creatures, delighting in all types of tricks and practical jokes. Their favorite is to seize unwary humans by the ears and hang them from the tops of tall trees and buildings. 
Harry Potter and his friends had to deal with a swarm of Cornish pixies in their second year when Professor Gilderoy Lockheart released a crate of them during a Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

My pixie is primarily made from Sculpey clay. The ears and arms, however, were made using a combination of liquid latex and blue acryllic paint, which was coated over layers of tissue and wire, and then cut into the desired shape. The antennae are small bits of wire, and the wings are loops of wire with translucent liquid sculpey baked into them.

---

Demiguise

The demiguise is a clever, gentle, graceful creature found in the Far East. These beasts can make themselves invisible when threatened, and have minor prophetic powers, allowing them to see breif glimpses of the most likely immediate future. As such, they are incredibly difficult to capture. They are, however, quite valuable as their silvery hair can be woven into invisibility cloaks. 

My demiguise is actually a large, fluffy teddy I found at the thrift store. I slit the back seam and unstuffed him a bit so he'd have a sleeker figure. This also allowed me to create a wire "skeleton" for him so I could pose him and he'd have the structure to sit upright without falling over. The bits I added were the tail, hands, feet, and face. The hands and feet are fabric, with chenille stems underneath so I could pose them. The tail was extra white furry fabric that I had leftover from my Ashnard cape. The face I made rimarily out of worbla, using large epoxy domes for the eyes, and painting the contours on the face. It's hot glued onto the head of the bear (whose nose I squished in when I was playing with the stuffing inside it), but in retrospect that wasn't the best idea as the hot glue made the edges wobbly as the worbla became soft.

---

Doxy

The doxy is another mischievous little humanoid creature, related to faeries and pixies. Known as the "biting fairy" for their sharp, venomous teeth and proclivity for sinking them into people's fingers, these creatures are best handled with care.
Harry Potter and much of the Weasley family dealt with a nasty infestation of doxies in the drawing room of 12 Grimmauld Place while they stayed there in summer weeks leading up to Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts.

My doxy is made primarily from black chenille stems, which works quite well as doxies are covered with thick black hairs all over their bodies. The wings are transparent plastic with fine point sharpie for the markings. The eyes, much like my bowtruckles, are small black spherical beads on wire.

---

Dragon

Dragons are some of the most well-known magical creatures, all scaled and reptilian in nature, and varying greatly in size and appearance depending on the particular breed. All of them are very aggressive and dangerous, and as such should only be approached by highly trained witches and wizards. Dragons have a wide variety of magical properties, also varying greatly depending on their breed, and many parts of them are used for a variety of wizarding goods, to include potion ingredients and wand cores.

My particular whelp is not based on any of the 10 existing breeds in the wizarding pantheon, but most closely resembles the Peruvian Vipertooth in shape and color. This is one of the few creatures I did not make myself, actually commissioning it from Claude Raymond Designs, who makes these little guys in a number of varieties, along with a myriad of other incredible creatures and magical artistry. You should definitely check out his wares because they're fantastic. This little one is even designed to sit on your shoulder hand has a base plate with a magnet so you can wear him around.

---

Horklump

The horklump is widely considered to be one of the least exciting magical creatures known to wizard-kind. They use their tentacles to burrow into the ground in search of earthworms to eat, but otherwise have no particularly interesting attributes nor uses.

My horklump is made from pink and off-white felt. I sewed the cap and body sections on my machine, and hand-stitched them together. There is a wire understructure in the bottom through the tentacels so that they;re posable, and the pink & off-white panels are hot-glued together, sandwiched around the wire. the little black hairs are thin black wire pieces, all connected underneath and simply stabbed through the top felt piece. The spots on the bottom of the tentacles are little dabs of black fabric puff paint.
I plan to make another one of these with a slightly more striking color of pink felt  & a somewhat more interesting shape for the cap. We'll see how the new pattern turns out.

---

Jobberknoll

The jobberknoll is a minuscule bird found in northern Europe and the Americas. These small creatures make no sounds at all during their life until the very end of it when, moments before their death, they regurgitate every sound they've ever heard backwards in rapid succession. The noise can be quite alarming for any who are unprepared to hear it.

MY jobberknoll is actually just a tiny blue bird I found in the floral section of Pat Catan's craft store. The only things I did to it were adding the brown mottling to the belly, and adding the yellow irises to the eyes.

---

Swooping Evil

The swooping evil is one of the most widely feared magical creatures known to wizard-kind, and consequently is one of the least understood as it has not bee studied at any length. Most witches and wizards are unnerved by its skeletal face and the knowledge that it will feed on people's brains, however these creatures are highly intelligent, and their venom is known to have the ability to erase bad memories when properly diluted.

This beast, which is my most recent, and arguably my most impressive to date, is primarily plush in nature, with a wire understructure such that it can keep its shape, and makes its wings fully posable. The head is a 3d printed wolf skull found on thingyverse here. I am fortunate enough to have a friend with a home 3d printer who made it for me. I used black acryllic paint to add some depth and texture to the face, and glued black marbles into the sockets for the exes. To hang, I sewed a small metal ring to a point on its back where it balanced so it can hang as though flying. While he can, essentially, curl into the cocoon-like ball we see in the movie, mine does not have the armor-looking plates, though I may try to find a way to produce something similar.

And that, my friends, is all! During the month of September I'll be taking a hiatus from cosplay commissions to continue preparing for my Harry Potter weekend and I will be creating even more magical creatures to share with you all. I hope to eventually make some sort of compendium with my creatures and get some nice shots of them with good lighting and backgrounds and all that, so I hope you'll enjoy seeing even more of my fantastic beasts!