All in all, I did more cosplays than I expected this year. I thought I was nearly done with cosplaying… Due to getting older, and running out of things I really wanted to cosplay. But my flame was reignited and I hope to continue my cosplay plans well into 2013.

Thanks to all the new followers I’ve gotten here! Thank you for supporting my work and being interested my blog. I hope to keep it worthy of your attention!

View full 2012 summary here.

I’ve been sewing for 14 or 15 hours, so I don’t know how coherent I can be right now, but here’s some of the progress of made today. I made the shin guards (x4), the thigh pads (x4), and the elbow pads (x4). Though I still have to hidden stitch the backs of the tight and elbow pads, womp. Shin guards are kinda dumb because the design it kinda dumb (as far as, where the straps are, logically not the best place for them), and I have to make the attaching knee pads.

First pic is a test from last night, before I added the collars to the shirts.

I’m too tired to writing anything else ;—-;

NYCC, why are you next weekend?

Sooooo, been making the Fire Ferret arm guards, and they were surprising hard to pattern out to lay not entirely stupidly. I’m still not totally satisfied with how they lay on the arm when bending around (hahah, bending, get it) and stuff. But  I think that’s just the nature of it ;—;

You can see in the background the other ones I started making. I still have to add the little part that cover the hand, as well. But with these and the shoulder pads that are 100% done, I’m well on my way, wheeee!

Side note: Everything in the photo has been custom dyed. The vinyl discordantkettle and I tinted using leather dye, and she also worked magic on the elastic (which was a very purpley color to start with). And with her guidance, I dyed the piping and bias tape.

blanko:

i rabu my friends

<333 Thank you James 

OMG GIANNA. I’m so happy to finally see this shot. It’s hilarious and wonderful. So glad we got to break the rules and get a photo together on the pole, lmao. I loooove it, thanks again James!

The show is being renamed “Panty and Mako”, didn’t you know? Because Mako get all the ladies.

Also, Gianna, you’re adorable.

discordantkettle:

Long story short, Erin and I found ourselves with a cheaply-acquired* pleather that was just a little too cherry for our picky cosplay senses… bless her for being as anal as I am

Reds are REALLY funny. (Really, matching reds, or blues, or whatever-color to variations of itself is a bitch and a half!) We needed something that had more of an orangey red base as opposed to the original color, which was leaning more towards pink/purple.

Anyway, I thought, “Hey. I’m sure we can tint that. We can make this happen.”

Thankfully I wasn’t just blowing steam out my foodhole. x) Originally I had been considering Angelus Leather paints, but found my hand hovering over the dye…after all, we just needed to tint, so in theory a wash or two of a dye would do the trick! I tested it out on the swatch seen here, leading to our desired results. 

I’d thought that using Orange would cancel out/tone down the pink-ness, and…well, so it did. The swatch may be a little darker due to the fact that I used the pictured swab (for the whole length of pleather, we used smooth sponges - using that tiny swab would’ve been more trouble than it was worth), so it was easier to get it more concentrated. 

Also, sorry for the crappy flash photo! I was having trouble properly photographing the pleather…oops!

TLDR; Nice trick for when you have pleather that is not *quite* the right hue. ;)

You can get Angelus Leather paints and dyes online (they make a product for suedes, too!), or sometimes you can find it in wardrobe supply stores. Check out Manhattan Wardrobe Supply for a huge stock in NYC (thanks to Jenni and Cassi for this tip!).

Because my Bo is awesome, we successfully dyed our pleather/vinyl that we’re using to make the Fire Ferret Bros. It worked amazing well to tint our red pleather a more orange hue of red. (Reds are such a b*tch.)

We, like, have to dye half of our fabric/materials because we are anal and couldn’t find the perfect reds.