Wherever you are, whatever you do

My immediate plans for day to day life in general appear to be categorised under "before Ayacon" and "after Ayacon", which is terribly strange considering I'm only an attendee and occasional helper.

Before Ayacon:

• Finish extra costume for Pete


• Finish Yurick's bum bag, which I would've done already if I hadn't damaged both my hands cutting worbla and punching holes in leather (I've managed to hurt my hands, yes. Specifically, I haven't been able to grip things properly without pain because of the base of my thumbs and the muscles that go up the arm from there are refusing to cooperate. It's been in this semi-RSI state for nearly a week now and after much resting they seem to be returning to normal. Still, punching holes in fabric, using pliers or lifting our big bench sellotape holder by grabbing it from the top? No.)


• Do some cleaning before we leave because oh my god the state of this place

After Ayacon:

• EAT ALL THE THINGS


• Finish cleaning the flat


• Hermitise and play all the games that have piled up (a quick look at the pile reveals Assassin's Creed series, Mass Effect series, Nier, The Last Story, Alan Wake, Tales of Vesperia, amongst others)


• Retake a lot of wig photos for Coscraft, since the old ones really aren't up to scratch. Order more stock.


• Do VAT return, and maybe even gather up all the accounts information so that the accountant can get things done for us

Lately I feel as though I'm all socialised-out. The need to hermitise is strong. I think for at least 3 weeks, preferably longer, I'd like to just be at home or go out and do things without friends. The sort of meetups where everyone sits around watching TV is fine, but there's been quite a lot of... intensive friendship days and it's time for me to recharge.

At the shop we ran a week of sales, which ended on Saturday. Monday are usually our busiest day in terms of processing the orders and getting them sent, because it includes Friday afternoon and all of Saturday and Sunday's orders. Today, because of the sales, we must have taken our biggest load ever to the post office. I still don't know how we managed it.

Randomly, a wig shipment from Shanghai, China seemed to have travelled to Memphis, Tennessee before arriving at Stansted, Essex, if the tracking information is to be believed.

We went to HK in May! Had a great time, ate and bought too much. The most important thing was that Storme enjoyed herself, so future (and hopefully more frequent) visits are on the cards.

I'm making several cosplays at the moment. I think there are six ongoing?! It's fun and all but I'm probably going slightly mad. At least the ones I'm working on right this moment - Legend of Galatic Heroes stage play - are all sewing-only, which means they can be finished pretty quickly. After these I need to go back and finish Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Luckily there are only the shoes left which should take just a day or two given I have all the right materials. And then after that, moving back to Shingeki no Kyojin. Lots to do, including the harness system and the 3D maneuvre gear.

Speaking of SnK, I'm still totally obsessed with it at the moment, and I think I will be for a long time. I seriously encourage everyone to go read the manga, so that I can fangirl it with you. It's a great story with sensible characters, ie they don't do the shounen cliche of "I know nothing but I'll rush into everything and not consider other people's feelings". Where can you go to find a series like that these days?

The best part though, I think, is THE FANDOM. It feels like the very best of the PoT fandom has moved onto SnK, by that I mean it's got the best, best crack ever. This sort of thing is just the tip of the iceberg. It's a very serious series that makes people really, really want to make fun of the characters (plus you can never go wrong with alpacas). And it's got some gorgeous, gorgeous fanart.

The anime's ongoing and there are 11 episodes so far. It's really well done. People die in practically every episode. "So that's why you like this show," I hear you say...

Should go make myself some icons...

Back to the real world, we've switched our rooms around, so now the larger room is Coscraft's work area, and we sleep in the smaller one. It works quite well and I don't feel like we've sacrificed too much sleep space... perhaps because I don't spend much time in the bedroom apart from sleeping anyway. The aftermath of the move is still everywhere though, because once that was done I resumed the cosplay making and haven't finished tidying up yet. We've also picked out a huge bag of things to give away/sell, but god knows when we'll get around to doing it. Other grown-up things we did includes buying a new mattress, which should get delivered early next month.

Oh yeah, that fic I've been writing since last August? 54 chapters and counting. orz

Friend of mine (and my wedding photographer!) Rob has made another cosplay lib-dub music video. :)



I know at least half of the people in the video and am really good friends with a few, seeing them on YouTube is really weird...

His other videos are here: https://www.youtube.com/user/CosplayFeverBook/videos - the Raise Your Glass vid won best fan video at DragonCon 2011. That's actually my favourite video of his as well. Those with sharp eyes might spot me and Storme in the "Let Me Entertain You" outtakes. XD

(I'm still sad that the zombie video got stolen. We spent an entire day in London filming that, and then Rob's whole kit got pinched, cameras and lenses and memory cards and all. Insurance compensated the hardware, but he was heartbroken.)

..........!!! I haven't pimped Nert's video yet! Maybe tomorrow, don't want to clump these posts together.

April Fools Day came and gone without incidents. /o/ Rejoice!

Been doing a big costume for a commission. It's this guy. Some photos in this album here. (The wig is my Back to the Future wig, it's not what the customer will be wearing. XD) It's not completely done yet but it's almost there. Can't wait to see the end of this. >_> So many different components! And sewing chains onto trousers is probably the most annoying and tedious thing I have ever done for a costume.

Sales at the shop has picked up quite significantly over the last two months! If this continues then I won't have to take commissions anymore, my time will be worth more money working harder on the shop. Commission payments had been useful during this time though since I spent a lot of money getting new stock.

A couple of weeks ago Storme and I went to a con and pranced around in Princess Tutu costumes. I still haven't had time to download the pics from my own camera yet, but there is a photo of us in redkun_arc's album here. And yes, that Doc and Marty were also us.

I have been poking at a fic on and off for the past year or two but it hasn't really gone anywhere. Lately I got some good ideas for it, but this writing thing? It's really hard.

Last but not least, Renji is zen. :D

I've been reading 1Q84 - bought the two books in Chinese a long long time ago but never got around to reading them. Almost at the end of book 1 now, and I don't know how I feel about it yet. It felt pretty unusual for Murakami, but it does have the really familiar references to day-to-day life alongside very, very odd similies that are typical of Murakami.

So I've been thinking about writing again, which means I should've picked up 1Q84 sooner because I'd forgotten how reading Murakami (especially in Chinese) helps me write. Last time it was Yanagi. This time maybe I'll do PoT again too. *gasp*

Having said that, I'd really love to read a Princess Tutu/The Last Remnant crossover. It'd work, very easily too.

Just read a (well, two) PoT Inception AU. Someone who can write prose in PoT fandom! Need to keep my eye on this author.

Lastly, I have a Mytho cosplay planned. This one:



This will either be fabulous or disastrous or a bit of both. Time will tell.

I've started selling Coscraft things on eBay. The liquid latex is the best seller, and so far I've been sending it to places like Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Azerbaijan. Is it hard to get liquid latex rubber in those countries? O.o

Currently trying to decide on what thicknesses/hardness of EVA foam to stock.

So! Shanoa's armour. Now looking at it in detail:



The design's inconsistent but that's nothing new. XD; I'm more concerned about making it shiny. It'd be great if I could make it look like it's lacquered or shiny like... a car, for example, but things like enamel paints would just crack as soon as the foam bends, right? So I'm thinking... wax? Car wax maybe? Floor wax? Not sure if those are actually waxes or if they're just called waxes though, need to investigate. There is something called acrylic wax as well but that seems to be US-only. It doesn't seem to give a high-gloss result anyway.

So I'm looking at things along the lines of:
- sealant sprays
- wet mirror finish gloss
- car wax
- acrylic spray
- acrylic nail polish type stuff but in large quantities
- acrylic floor wax

Going to need to visit Poundland and Wilkos to buy some cheap versions of these things to test. Not going to bother asking on CI, people usually just come back with "maybe try... (things I've already thought of and more)" anyway.

Went to a Sci fi costume parade on Sunday. My photos are here if anybody's interested. Though you can find better photos and videos taken by more competent people here.

I've had 4 hours' worth of driving lessons now. I think I'm progressing quite slowly but the instructor seems to (genuinely) think that I'm doing pretty well. Must learn to be patient. I think I understand the clutch now, but when approaching junctions, the whole "check mirrors, indicate, go down to 1st gear and position the car ready for the turn before stopping" fkjalhfkdfhsal WHY SO MANY THINGS AT THE SAME TIME HELPPPPPP.

I think I had something intelligent to say but I forgot.

Looking for a costume to make. Something with no/minimal armour (prefer more sewing, less gluing) and which would be suitable to wear in the summer. But something that's got a bit of work to it (ie Yoko, Revy etc = no). I don't mind lots of sewing! I love pretty sewing!

Having said "lots of sewing" and "minimal armour", I still keep wanting to be Vaan from FF12, but that little jacket of his isn't going to be enough to cover open chest binding. =/

Still thinking about Utena as well. Just not convinced at the moment... I've seen lots of Utena cosplays and even the ones that are well-made just don't look good. Maybe her outfit is just good on the screen.

Amongst all the boobielicious suggestions I kept getting on FB (WTF, guys. Just because I wore a stay last Sunday!), someone suggested Luke from Tales of the Abyss. Hmmmmm abs. I should work out more. Having a strong mid-section will really help my back, actually. I don't think I'll ever be able to get actual abs, of course. XD

[edit] Just in case anyone is wondering, I've got the following planned...

Emperor's New Groove: Yzma (May Expo. Got a friend who's really good at makeup and prosthetics to help)
Professor Layton: Anton (whenever I feel like)
FF Crystal Chronicles: King Leo (this winter maybe)
The Muppets: Beaker (one day...)
FF: generic treasure chest (November)