Sugar Skull props

So the Hamilton Zombie Walk is rapidly approaching, and true to myself and my style, I've left everything until three days before it needs to be done :D HAHAHAHAAHA. haaaa.

Anyways, I've made these sugar skull props for my friend and I, as we will be dressing up as Dia de los Muertos style zombies this year.
It's gonna be great.

Here's some progress shots of hers first!

and then mine!

TADA.
I still need to make my veil. So...that'll be another post, haha.
Then after than, photos from the zombie walk!

thanks for checking my stuff out!
-JessB

DATT.Strip 3 -diablo 3 makes me mad.

Potion cooldown times?
No, sure. That's an awesome idea.
Not like I'll ever be in a situation where I'll need to drink a backup potion to preserve my own life or anything.

The best part is the character sound bytes, as they say stuff like: "I can't do that right now." or "Impossible".
Impossible to drink another health potion?
No, you shotgun that damn potion and get it in you!

-JessB

DATT.Strip 2 -Gay dinosaurs

A friend shared the image in the first pannel with me earlier today.
I felt compelled to create.

It was this or dinosaurs fuelled by Satanism.
You'd be surprised how difficult of a choice that was to make.

DATT.strip 1-Freedom!

Comic strip detailing my realistic and accurate response to being left alone in the house for a week?
Don't mind if I do.

Bitty monsters: puddle ecosystem

The best time to go for a walk is after it rains. Nothing feels better than pulling on a pair of rubber boots and going out to splash in the puddles.

Though I'd think twice, from now on, if I were you. You never know what sort of things hang around in seemingly innocent puddles.

It might be a little hard to see these ones, they were almost completely transparent and ducked back into the puddle pretty quickly once they noticed me.
Here's a bigger version.

Not only were they in the puddle, there was one hiding in the grass as well!

Sneaky little things.
Maybe I'll stay inside for a while. Who knows how many are out there.

-JessB

Find the fullsized image here!

Bitty monsters

So I was enjoying a delicious bowl of tomato soup today when I looked down and noticed something hanging to the edge of the bowl.

Needless to say I was put off of my appetite for a while.
It vanished under the surface just after this photo was taken, so I drained the bowl down the sink just to be safe.

-Jess B

this is the first official entry of a new series of illustrations I'm doing, entitled "Bitty monsters"!
Stay tuned for more to come! 


Find the full-sized image here 

Costume wrap-up

I just realized, after all the nattering on I'd been doing about my costume progress, I never actually posted the finished thing!

Mini top hat was awesome. I had it attached to a headband but needed to add an alligator clip in the back to keep it from dropping forwards, haha. It was a little front-heavy with that big jewel on it.

By the way, hats like this are now for sale at my craft blog here -->  Headstand crafts

Horns were fun too! hough bizarrely, one started collapsing in on itself halfway through the night like there was some sort of vacuume being created by my forehead. It wasn't too bad, though, as the dent didn't photograph if I held my head a certain way!
I did manage to get some liquid latex stuck in my hair though, and discovered the wonderful world of having to cut pieces of your hair out.
Next time I bring baby oil.

All in all, it was pretty much the best night ever. Megs and I had our picture taken with the amazing director, Darren Lynn Bousman (saw 2-4, Repo! The genetic Opera) as well as the writer/actor/Lucifer, Terrance Zdunich.

Of course this photo was AFTER they jumped out of their seats to take photos of us first. It was very shocking and I felt like a movie star :)

Thanks for reading!
-JessB

Tiny top hats 2: the hats strike back

As I promised, here's a more in-depth look at how I'm constructing my teacup tophats and the little things I'm learning on the way!

I'll preface this by saying that I'm basing these off the tutorial I found here, at offbeatbride.com . There was no template provided, and very few photographs of the intermediate steps, so I had to sort of blunder my way along, figuring it out visually as I went.

Let's begin!
I roughed out my own template (as you can see on my last post) for my prototype hat, but found that my ability to draw uniform circles was lacking, so I mapped out the template in Adobe Illustrator and had everything I needed!

Seen here chilling out max and relaxing all cool with my prototype hat.

Step one was to cut out all the shapes in cardboard, graciously provided by a macaroni box!

it was the perfect size and obviously chosen by fate.

Once I had the shapes cut out of cardboard, I realized two things.

1. the fabric I had chosen was just sheer enough to see through to the cardboard under the right light and
2. I probably didn't need to cut the centre of the brim out, seeing as I was just going to cover that with fabric later.

Lesson learned though, I added that to my 'remember' list for next time.

Step two, for this hat, was to cover the cardboard bits with some blue felt to serve two purposes. Firstly, to keep the cardboard from showing through, and it also gives it a more soft, plush feel, which was rather nice.

it's like clothes for the cardboard.

I cut the rough shape of the piece before gluing it to the cardboard, then trimmed around the edges of the felt after it was dry, to make sure it was the exact shape I wanted.

After that, I started attaching the fabric!

no one but you will know I'm wearing a macaroni box on my head. sssh. Secrets.

you stick it felt-side-down on the fabric you chose, and glue on the inside of the cardboard, and then pull the fabric in over the edges until it's even and stuck firmly.

The instructions on the website recommended using spray adhesive, but I don't have any on hand, so I ended up using hot glue for everything. And throwing down hot glue all over the front of the panel would have looked like a terrible insult to fashion.

All wrapped up.

As you're gluing the fabric down, make sure the edges are at least mostly uniform and there are no wrinkles in the fabric.

for the brim of the hat, I wanted it to have a slight curve to it, so I soaked the cardboard in water before attaching the felt and fabric to it, and tied it to this tube so it would dry and keep the shape. I forgot to take a photo of that, so here's another image of it already wrapped in fabric, in the same position!

you're not going anywhere...

After you've applied the fabric to all the pieces, comes the fun part.

And by fun I mean long, tedious and tricky part. I needed to attach the crown of the hat to the barrel, and having learned from my first experiment, I knew I had to attach the barrel to the crown BEFORE closing the barrel up.

This is exactly what it looks like. You apply some glue to the inside of the barrel and stick the crown to it and hold it.

And wait.

And wait some more until it dries.

And then you'll probably want to add some more glue to reinforce it and make sure it all stays stuck.

Prepare yourself for an ocean of glue.

Also, it's worth pointing out at this stage that it's important to remember where your hot glue gun is at all times.

You wouldn't want to, say, set your hand down haphazardly and stick your finger right into the searing-hot metal tip.

That would be silly.

First aid kits are important no matter what you're doing.

I'll take another moment here to lay down some more advice, so you can learn from my fail. 

Check and double check your templates and pieces o make sure they fit. Mine didn't close completely in the back, possibly because I fudged the shape of the barrel, an possibly because I added the extra girth of felt to the mix.

FFFFFUUUUUU--

Thankfully, with a bit of creative gluing and some adjustment of the barrel's shape, I managed to mostly close the gap, and went ahead and added the lace ribbon around the base of the hat.

After that, I cut a circle of fabric for the naked bottom of my brim.

Indecent nudity.

I took the website's advice and made the piece larger than the brim, and then I trimmed it back once the glue was dry. This makes it much more uniform afterwards, even though when you're wearing it, people probably won't be seeing the underside of this hat.

Adorable!

Unfortunately I'm not quite able to finish it, as I've forgotten some of my feathers and decorations at a friend's house, but this should give you an idea of the finished product.

The feathers and pendant will completely cover the gap in the back, and then become the front of the hat!

Giant hand not included in the final product.

So there you have it! Phase two of my hat making journey.

I still plan to make several more and investigate an etsy shop to facilitate sales.

As always, I appreciate any comments and feedback you might have!

Thanks for reading!

-JessB

tiny top hats! Oh god D:

So part of my costume is going to be a little teacup tophat! And I'm going to make it myself, like a boss.

So I spread my materials out on the table, prayed to the elder gods for wisdom, and dove into it headfirst.

After about three hours of madness, and more hot glue borns than I'll ever admit, and a lot of learning, my prototype is complete!

the face of a madman.

I've learned several important things in assembling these. The first of which being that I should have bought spray adhesive, lol. Also, i ned to glue the barrel of the hat to the top portion BEFORE I stick the ends of the barrel together, that was so weird and unwieldy, and you can see glue sticking out.

Though, I'm looking forward to perfecting this craft, and I plan on somehow selling the extras I make :) because a meter of fabric is more than I remember, haha.

Stay tuned in later for an actual progress update on the real version!
Thanks for reading!
-JessB

Latex horn!

My second attempt at latex prosthetics is going well, in my humble opinion. Let me walk you through my adventures!

I started by making a form out of super sculpey in the shape I wanted, making sure it fit on my head in the position I wanted.
Unfortunately I have no photos of this part, but it's not difficult to imagine.

Than I started laying on the liquid latex.

I bought that bottle at some seasonal halloween store a couple years ago for $20. It's the only kind I've used, so I really don't have anything to compare it against. It's a little bit runny, but it works pretty well.

It took about eight coats of the stuff to get the horn to the thickness I wanted, even then, after I peeled it off it looked like it could have used another few coats. But it's sturdy, and it looks pretty good!

Removing it from the base was kinda tricky, as you have to peel it very slowly and apply a powder base to keep the prosthetic from sticking to itself.
I used baby powder because I have it on hand, but you can use special craft powder or even a makeup powder.

here you can se the difference between powdered and unpowdered portions.

some before and after shots. here's also a big difference in the heft of the horn before the tissue and paint is added.

After it was all powdered and peeled, I started laying in some colour! I'm using acrylic paint, and it seems to be holding up pretty well! I also used a bit of torn tissue and liquid latex around the base of the horn to give the appearance if it breaking through the skin.
I then painted the raised 'skin' elements with varying shades of pink and red.

Unfortunately, due to wardrobe issues, I've had to change my colour scheme from black/neon green to black/electric blue.
I'm not too beat up though, blue looks just as amazing!

 After the blue dried, I painted the black on the top portions and blended it into the blue section with a feathered, spiky sort of look to it.
Then it was just a matter of adjusting the 'spikes' where the colours met, and adding a darker blue shadow underneath the 'skin' for depth!

Now all I have to to is make another one, and I'm set! I'm considering making the blue aspect a little less prominent though. Comment with your opinions!

thanks for reading!
-JessB