Hark the Herald Phoenixes Sing

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I enlisted the help of my magical critters to help decorate this year. Some were more helpful than others...

My occamy was quite adept at hanging ornaments on the tree, but the niffler kept getting distracted by shiny things. I'm pretty sure a few of my ornaments have disappeared into his pouch.

And my puffskein seems to have been mesmerized by the lights, I have no idea why he feels compelled to lick all of them but he is a bit of an oddball.

From my magical family to yours, I hope the season bring much light, peace, comfort, and joy!

Blade of Kutolah

Welcome to another Throwback Thursday! This time we're taking a look back at our favorite Sacaean swordsman, Guy!

Guy was one of my earlier cosplays, and as it turns out, the first time I tried to wear him, it didn't work out. It was Colossalcon several years ago and my friend and I were going to do a little photoshoot together as Guy & Matthew. Well, I finished Guy, but my friend never made Matthew. To add to the confusion, I left my wig at home, so I was a weird short-haired ginger Sacaean instead of actually being Guy. The only good thing to come out of it was our mutual friend, who came dressed as Leanne. We got a picture of her stabbing me with my own sword. Don't ask why, because I don't know. 

Photo courtesy of ShinyArticun0

So yeah, fortunately when I brought him to Colossalcon a few years later, I actually remembered the wig.

This costume turned out surprisingly well for as early in my cosplay career as i made it. the details along the side are all done in satin ribbon, and it fits me well. The sleeves are even attached correctly! The only thing that's a bit wonky is the collar. The hole for my head is a bit bigger than it's supposed to be so I end up showing a decent amount of collarbone area, but that's the only real issue.

The four of us represent all of the non-Awakening characters present. But we have 3 (technically 4 with PoR/RD) represented here.

It was at that Colossal that I actually got some decent photos of him.

I still have yet to get together with a Matthew, but hopefully I can make that happen relatively soon, because I have a friend who cosplays Matthew (the same friend who does every version of Sothe). Now that we got big!Sothe and little!Sothe together, Guy and Matthew are next on the list. On the bright side, I did manage to find a Rebecca cosplayer at last year's Colossalcon (apparently that's the only convention I'm allowed to wear this to).

We were supposed to have a Nino as well, to make a Blazing Sword grin-haired trio, but sadly she couldn't make it.

That's about all there is to say about this guy... haha, Guy... get it?
Ok, I'm done.

WIP Wednesday: Frelian Finery

Hey folks, welcome to another WIP Wednesday edition of MDC. This week, we're taking a look at my current personal project (since I don't have a ton of commissions in process at the moment) for some time next year: Prince Innes from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.

If you can't tell just by his art, he fits into the "Asshole Archer" archetype that we see a lot in FE games.

Innes has been a favorite character of mine for a while, despite being kind of a jerk, so I decided it was time to make it happen! I got started immediately after Youmacon, riding my post-con high which tends to lend itself well to getting a head start on projects. I honestly still have no clue when I'll be debuting him, but it seemed a shame to waste my motivation so I got right to work.

He is so fancy it's absurd.

Since Innes was somewhat recently released in FE Heroes, I had to make a tough decision: which design was I going to go with? I really like the fancy designs on his Heroes coat, and the artwork is a lot clearer/you can see the details a lot better, so I decided to base my design primarily on that version.  I am planning on using his original bow, however, because I don't like the look of the one they gave him in Heroes. The designs (particularly the white scrawling pattern) was a little too intricate for me to easily be able to do, so I simplified it a bit.

To get all of the intricate designs onto my lovely light blue fabric, I made a pattern on some cardstock, ironed on some stabilizer to the back of my pieces, and traced the design onto the stabilizer. Then came the arduous task of satin stitching all of those pieces on.

To do that, I pinned a sheet of the light satin to the front, satin-stitched around the design, and then clipped out the excess fabric from the front.

You can see the white designs here, both before and after the excess fabric was cut away. After the designs were set, I got to do it again with the gold.

At this point, the satin stitching is finished for everything except the sleeves (since I don't have enough of the gold to do both, and I want to make sure they at least match each other if I have to use a different satin). But with the designs done, that means I could start sewing the actual garments together!

Since the capelet is smaller, I got that finished first, and added the gold trim, which is all satin ribbon that's been folded over the edges and hand-stitched on.

The buckle-thingies were both done with layers of cereal box, and the actual belt buckle has a clip in the back so I can actually put it on when the belt part is attached. Obviously, they look a little fancier all painted.

With those done, I finally made it to the store to get more gold satin for the sleeves... except that whatever I have doesn't seem to exist any more. Frustrated, I did find some lining fabric that was really close in color (as close as anything I could find anyway). but it doesn't have the same luster as the satin. I got it anyway, along with an entire bolt (almost 10 yards) of one of the casa color clearouts because I cosplay FE so I'm definitely going to use it. And I don't want to run into this problem again, ever.

I REGRET NOTHING

So after agonizing over it for a couple of hours, I finally had moment of clarity that manifested itself on Twitter...

I had sleeves, the details matched, and there was much rejoicing. That meant I could progress a little (or maybe a lot) further on the project and actually wear the thing without looking like a goon.

Some more trim and a zipper later, I have something wearable.
But that's not all, since the weather has been super warm [because our climate is fucked] I could actually work in my garage and I decided to start working on his bow.

Now originally I was planning to make the bow in his original artwork, because I thought the one in his heroes design looked stupid. 

Look at this, it just looks like it has knobby ends that he's going to NEVER MIND

But then I found artwork of it that's not at a dumb andgle and it's SUPER COOL. Those are snake heads on the end, that's why they're wider like that!

So obviously I had to make it because SNAKES and it is a legendary weapon, after all. I wasted no time in getting to work!

The base is wood and the details are worbla scraps I mushed together and molded. They even have fangs *KA KAH*

So with things being wearable and half a bow finished, it was finally time to try everything on!

There's obviously a bunch of work left to do on both the bow and the costume, but I'm incredibly happy with how this is turning out. I just wish I had a con to wear it to, but I don't have any more conventions until Ohayo at the end of January. Alas, my pompous prince will just have to wait.