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A Very Slow Move

It is unofficially official--I am moving to the city. I got a small temp job working at a "professional" theatre. This means I work on weekends. But because of that, I can't very well move all my stuff up to my new place because no one is there to move me out or in. Oh, and technically there's no place to put me.

It's a long story.

All in all, I'm slowly moving to the city, over the course of like, two months. It's a little bit agonizing.

This also ends my dream of seeing Nathan Fillion at the international film festival. Because I like to hold onto impossible dreams for as long as I can. Working evenings during the festival opening kind of makes it final.

I never realized how much of a country bumpkin I was until I lived in the city. I'm actually really mortified to find this out about myself. I tell this to people and their response is: "Well, yeah..." Gosh, you could have told me sooner....

Between work and, well, work, I haven't had much time to do anything else. But since things have slowed down, I've had some time to put into writing those trope stories I mentioned before. I got distracted and started writing a second one before finishing the first. I'm optimistic about actually getting one done. So look for that in the future.

That's all for me, for now. Until next time.

Nathan Fillion

Nathan Fillion is coming to the international film festival. Too bad I don't have $180 to blow....

Things I Learned from Commission Cosplay

So my commissioned cosplay is all done and finished. (If you are wondering, I haven't sorted out how I feel about the whole commissioning cosplay thing.) Honestly, I don't know how people make commissions for people who they never see. There were so many times I needed to remeasure something or make sure the placement was right on the person. I can see how it can go wrong a lot of the time. Anyway, I thought I'd write up a few things I learned on this experience, for posterity, or anyone who's interested.

1) Don't use a wax marking pencil. They suck. Chalk is much better.

2) When sewing stretchy fabric to stretchy fabric, you're probably okay with normal thread tension but half tension is still good.

3) Yes, a zigzag stitch works really well with stretchy fabric but it doesn't look as good (my opinion).

4) Don't worry about having your customer wear the base clothing when trying to place the overlaying stretchy fabric--just measure the distance. (To elaborate, the cosplay I was making was a stretchy based garment that I needed to add some different colored trimming to. Instead of trying to make markers on both pieces of fabric, I could have just cut the length I needed. Stretchy on stretchy, by the way is WAY easier than non-stretchy on stretchy. I wish I had thought of that a year ago....)

5) Cosplay is so expensive....

6) Armor takes a long time to make, especially when there are a lot of steps. I thought it'd only take me four hours. Nope, definitely thirteen hours.

7) Hot glue is your best friend and your worst enemy.

8) When attaching armor to wraps, it's best not to glue the wraps at the middle, but rather at the edges of the armor.

9) DO NOT use bias tape for small rounded edges. It looks terrible.

10) Free-handing fabric paint is going to turn out messy. If it's on a black fabric, outlining the paint in black sharpie works pretty well at cleaning up your lines.

So there you go, ten things I learned while working on a commission.

If I, Would You...?

A little while ago, I was watching a lot of AMVs. Sometimes I do that when I'm bored. Anyway, I noticed the sort of "free-falling" trope [I don't know if I'm using that word right but just bear with me for the time being] in anime (which happened to be in a lot of AMVs too). You know what I'm talking about? Where people are suddenly just falling out of the sky and it doesn't seem to be a problem; in fact, they're having a great time.

Being as I am, I start coming up with all these questions. Like, "How'd you get up there?" and "So what happens when you finally hit the ground, are you dead?" etc., etc.

Again, being as I am, I kind of want to twist the trope. So I'm thinking of writing a little short story about that particular "free-falling" trope. If I did, and posted it here, would you be interested in reading it? I'm not making any guarantees--I usually don't finish stories I start but I might be motivated to finish if I know you're waiting. :)

This idea has spurred the thought of other anime tropes I could twist...but we'll see how this first ones goes. Anyway, if you'd be interested, give me a shout out, so I know.

Ramble Ramble

So like three days after my last blog post, I got laid off from my job. I don't really want to talk about that...but I'm unemployed again. With the loss of job came the loss of an excuse to read a lot. Most of the free time has been diverted to three things:

1) Looking for jobs.

Self-explanatory.

2) Watching Inu-Yasha.

I was really into that show when I was younger. It was sort of the thing that launched me into otaku-dom. I never finished the story and, since I have nothing better to do with my life, I decided to re-watch it. All sorts of nostalgia. And a lot of "oh!" and rapturous staring because I've forgotten all the finer details so it's like watching the show for the first time. My brother caught me watching last night and said, "That show is so old," which I replied, "IT'S A CLASSIC!" But the fact that it was old didn't stop him from joining me for a few episodes. Have you revisited an old show recently?

3) Cosplay.

I am having way too much fun making armor out of paper mache (or however the heck you spell that...too lazy to check). Usually I make armor out of craft foam but these pieces were rounded so I tried a different technique and I've really enjoyed it. The whole costume itself is going a lot faster than I anticipated. Actually, it's taken me longer, in terms of hours, but it feels faster. For example, I thought the armor pieces would take me four hours to do. I'm at six hours now, and still not done. But whatever, it will happen.

That's it. I'm still plugging away at comic layout (do you remember this announcement?). It's about half way done. My editor has been a little slow at getting back to me. That will probably absorb my time after this cosplay commission thing is over.