Cosplay In 20 Days Or Less: Day 10

            Cosplay in 20 Days Or Less: Day 10

Recap: I am getting roughly 3 hours of sleep each night. Someone please help! (I put that because no one reads this.)


The sword is cut, the tail is shaped, the blazer is washed and the paint has dried.... You know what I remembered though?
The school ties. One of the signature pieces of the cosplays and I forgot about them xd....
I will figure it out.... Onto the pictures!

 This is the (first coat) painted tail flames. All and all that is hot glue melted to look like little sprouts of hellfire... literally...
It is melted onto a Christmas ornament Hehehehe....
(This pic is with flash)

 This one is without flash. I will still do a few more coats of paint but after that I plan on gluing fur around the base of the ornament and letting it fluff up around the flames. I will most likely screw that up :)

 Now hot gluing Ornaments and painting them is something that I have been doing for a while. This is Calcifer the fire demon from Howls Moving Castle, I made him using the same method. He also lights up and will eventually say "May all your bacon burn!"

 
 






 
This is a Chidori (Jutsu from Naruto) that I made.
Same method. It also lights up.
Please excuse the background mess. My room got cleaned...
I am possibly moving sometime in the next semester
so I don't see the point in unpacking everything -_-

I don't have a Sasuke or Kakashi cosplay yet so I have never actually used this prop...
I just made it on a whim.

 Cutting out the sword pieces...
I had to be reminded to breath.
This was so stressful. I didn't do much prop wise today but my heart cant stand anymore stress so I just decided to take it easy.

  Karera came and rescued me just in time. I was fumbling with the Contact Cement when he got home from work and he came over and totally saved the project. I am going to have to find something to use to brace the tsuba because atm it is weak. I ended up having to make

 the sword in 2 parts because my poster board wasn't long enough.

<----This is the tail after I wrapped it in electrical wire. That was tedious but I will do it another 1000 times compared to the sword. After that I taped the flame end onto it and called it quits.

So that's all I have for today :/ Oh, I did finally put the chain on the jeans that I will be wearing. So that's nice!
Heh... I'm screwed aren't I?
Well I am feeling a little discouraged at the moment so I am going to go die inside just a little bit.
Hope you come back to read tomorrow, I promise to try and be in a better mood! :) I leave you with this GIF of Calcifer.

~Aki Ame Okami

 

 

 

Cosplay In 20 Days Or Less: Day 9

           Cosplay In 20 Days Or Less: Day 9

Recap: Injury count 1 (officially) Things made: 6 out of 8. Days until the con 10.

***This post is for the April the 20th I was just late posting it. Got caught up in all my work :P

I am going to start this post with some good news.
I will be doing the stage make-up at The COMMA for this weekends play! That's super awesome!
Also, my dearest Heiwa and I are organizing a Butler Café for sometime in July! If any readers are in the area and want to come just comment and we can talk about it further :)
Alright, onto to Tomfoolery! I mean Tomproppery?

 Starting the day with a healthy breakfast of Coffee, a Yoohoo and some cold/allergy medicine XD
I actually have a really sensitive stomach so this is a typical meal for me.

This happened by chance. We were on our way to Walmart and JoAnne's and I just so happened to notice that the milk truck in front of us had a license plate that said "Yaoi".
I was ecstatic! 

 I found this gem in Walmart of all places.
They have Strawberry and Chocolate!!!!
I had never tried the chocolate so I got some.
They are super yummy and don't hurt my stomach!

 Bought the white bias tape I am going to use to trim out the blazer.
I should have bought some white thread while I was there. I have some in stock but I am not sure of its quality....
#SewingJamsSuck

I went back to one of the thrift shops and bought a fantastic base for the signature Yukio Okumura trench coat :P  It was too long for me to fit in one picture so I threw it over Mikata's bag and seat while she was out of the car XD

 This is the base parts of the tail.
I took a metal clothes hanger and straightened it out and then I have black fur in the bag.
I has plans for it....
MUAHAHAHA!!!

 One of the most terrifying parts of my day. Drafting the sword xd
I am not that confident in my ability to draw a straight line let alone a curved one.

 I added the "Gems".
What that really means is, I got frustrated and filled the holes with more hot glue and then covered them in puffy paint. I will seal it tomorrow.
Yes, it looks that bad IRL too. :'(

 This is the base for the tail. The top of the ornament is flames (Will paint blue and stuff LED lights in it later) and then I will cover the rest of it in fur. The wire portion of the tail will be wrapped in layers of electrical

 tape and then spray with plasti-dip.

I did it! I actually drafted the sword!
I rocked out to K-pop while I did it. I am going to have to share my K-pop play list with you guys soon....
 

Spray painted the last pendant! We now have the most metal yard in the neighbor hood!
(Metal, get it?)






I also cleaned my room (it was a mess... I haven't been using it for like a week except to go in and change my clothes.) but I didn't take any pictures cause you guys probably don't care about my mortal realm. I mean room. O.o
Tomorrow I hope to sew the trim on the jacket and do a test run of the cosplay. I still have to finish the tail, second pendant, sword and sword bag. Other than that I am done!
The sword concerns me a lot. I still haven't found paper clay in store anywhere and I haven't stopped to check for Sugru. So basically, I have no idea what the sword details will be made out of.
I will be winging it from here on out!
Thanks for the read, hope you come back to help me finish the project!

~Aki Ame Okami

Cosplay In 20 Days Or Less: Day 8

          Cosplay In 20 Days Or Less: Day 8

It is finally occurring to me that I will be using every bit of these 20 days. 
Today Mikata and I hit the thrift stores (Tuesday is bag day/ $1 day) and I found some awesome things! I didn't buy everything I found that I could use because it became glaringly obvious that I would have to buy a white button up short sleeve shirt and 2 black ties + paint for them. Can you believe that I couldn't find a single black tie?!

 At a cool store called "New 2 You" I found a black blazer (name brand, $150 new) for $5! Mikata swore up and down that it looked fantastic on me so we kept our eyes open for another one. I would hate to add white trim to

 a coat that, frankly, I would wear all the flipping time.

I have two staple styles. Professional and Comfortable.




  This is the "goody" bag that I filled at one of the stores. I got the required white belts. I was going to get a ton of brown ones for a possible SNK/AOT cosplay (Captain Levi maybe?)
but I passed. I will go back later to get them.

After 3 hours of shopping over a span of 2 (almost 3 towns) we stopped for lunch.
Can anyone guess where we ate?

 A cosplayers work is never done so once I returned home I resumed work on the pendants. I covered the second one in Gesso and let the first one continue to dry.

 Obviously I have more rough edges on the second pendant than on the first. Hopefully I get this figured out.
I am going to start the sword after I get home from class tonight so it will probably be a part of tomorrows daily post.

**I also played with how to get the right shape to make the colored gems and made a tool to make them with.... xd
Thanks for following this crazy experiment! Hopefully this works out for all of us!
See you tomorrow! (or later :P )

~Aki Ame Okami

Cosplay in 20 Days Or Less: Day 7

           Cosplay In 20 Days Or Less: Day 7


We have just hit the one week mark. I was supposed to start the sword today but last night and part of today I spent helping one of my model friends with props ect for her photo shoot.
I only managed to spray paint the first pendant and set the spear on the second pendant.

 Sorry about the weird handcuff outlines....
I have other props that I don't tell you guys about ;)
Anyways, this was spray painted at night under an outdoor light.
It was breezy but not bad so I went for it.

  

 Just a different angle...

 After I painted it.
It took a few coats to get the right angle for all of the inner edges and stuff. The weird shiny part is just because of the lighting. The pendant actually looks like a flat gray with some glitter in it

 so that really upset me.
I am going to see how it looks after it dries and if giving it a clear coat of something shiny will help me any.
Please Cosplay spirits that watch over me, Don't let this look bad!

 More angles!!!!!!!

Fun Fact: When playing online games most people don't know the different between Angle and Angel. It really freaks me out....

I took this picture inside and it looks a little lighter here. I really hope it dries light but it usually dries darker. This was the same paint and method that I was going to use for the sword so it was good to get some practice in.

Just another progress picture of my burn. It is all white and creepy looking...
I am a hypochondriac so I really over think these things.

 I am trying a few different methods on how to get the gem parts in the middle. I am going to see how the nail polish gems thing works... if I don't like it then I will just figure something else out but I really don't want to xd 

                                                                                                  

 

That's all for today's update. I know it isn't much but its all I got. I will work harder tomorrow :)

~Aki Ame Okami

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cosplay in 20 Days Or Less: Day 6

           Cosplay in 20 Days Or Less: Day 6


Today we had the first injury of this project. I burned myself pretty good with the hot glue gun and it required treatment. I tried to get ahead of schedule by hurrying up with the second pendant but I got a cruel reminder that time is a privilege not a right xd

 First, I cleaned all of the trash out of my work zone. No that is not it off to the side. I actually threw away as much as possible.

 Any gaming Otaku out there?
I didn't realize how literal this sign was going to be....
The tally for props vs Aki is 5/2 in favor of props -_-

 My hot glue gun can do some really pretty things when it isn't trying to burn me alive. I thought this was cool looking so I stopped to take the picture.... I should have whacked the gun off the table and sarcastically said "oops."

Now, if you want to try this yourself (be smarter than me) I want you to know that it might not be perfect the first, second or eighth time. Practice as much as you need. Worst case scenario you go with the best looking one.

After you butcher your nails by prying your shape off of the metal tool you take a tooth pick or something similar and clean off every tiny bit of playdoh. Every last speck.... Cosplayers are patient people.

And we are crazy, but mostly patient.
Now here is a picture of the burn. What happened was one of my roomies distracted me so the gun dripped onto my finger and I had a choice. I could either let the drip harder and blister right away and burn like Hell (literally) for a few days OR I could drop the hot glue gun onto my bare leg and see where that goes.
Obviously I went with the firey, finger tips of Hell. As I am sitting here typing this with 9 fingers occasionally I slip and use that finger. Then I bite my lip and mutter a few Japanese or German words that sound like cuss words but aren't XD
Please forgive any typo's. I will fix them after I fix myself :P  See you tomorrow where hopefully we will cover painting the pendants! Provided I don't do any critical damage between now and then...

~Aki Ame Okami

Cosplay in 20 Days Or Less: Day 5

            Cosplay in 20 Days Or Less: Day 5

 

 

Recap: We are doing the Gesso+sanding+repeat=AHHHHHH

 

 

Hello and welcome back to Ani-Maze-Me: Aki's Insanity!!!!
That's not actually anywhere on the blog, I just like the way it sounds.
Okay, What I accomplished today? Almost nothing!!!! I have the 2nd coat of Gesso on the first pendant. However, it is the 16th so I only have 14 days left so I am thinking I will start the second pendant tomorrow and hope that this process works out...

Once I am done with the first pendant I will move on to the sword. Now if you are reading this and ever think things like "Wow, they are fearless!" or, "They can make anything!" I assure that is not the case here. I am putting off the sword because I am terrified of screwing it up and running out of time. I already know that I am going to have to make a few alterations to the tutorial I am using so there are a lot of unanswered questions.

For starts, my foam board is a little short so I am going to end up making the blade and the handle 2 separate parts that connect at the tsuba (the round-ish part where it clicks into the sheath- I think). I know that sounds like it is going to fall apart but I plan on making it work haha... I am also going to run a dowel rod down the middle of my sword just to give it the extra stability and proper weight. I understand most people prefer light weight props but I am used to wielding the ones that are real. Swords, guns, axes, hammers, staffs and bows are right up my alley. I need some heft or I will forget it exists :P

 

Thank you bing for always providing crap that I need. :)

Here is a reference image for you guys.

I plan to run the dowel along the Ha and also bevel so that the ridge will be very prominent.
So far I don't have a Saya... Woops. I will make the sword bag....
THE SWORD BAG!
I had totally forgotten about that until just now when I was rambling on with this post. Haha, add the sword bag to the list.

1. Pendants(2)
2. Sword(1)
3. Sword bag (1)
4. Black blazer w/ white trim (1)
5. Gun props (2)
6. Gun holsters (2)
7. Fitted white button up shirt (2)
8. A tail.

In short, I am screwed.

Wish me luck! I am off to see if the second coat dried so that I can get sanding again :P

~Aki Ame Okami  

 

 

Cosplay in 20 Days Or Less: Day 4

            Cosplay in 20 Days Or Less: Day 4

Recap: We are making true cross academy pendants for Rin and Yukio Okumura from Blue Exorcist

Well, I covered the pendant in Gesso and all that happy crap.
To be honest I just got home from prom and... I just kinda want to go to bed. I promised that I would write up my recaps for you though so here I am!
I am letting the gesso dry completely and then I am going to sand it down tomorrow and add another coat. I really need to stop being such a procrastinator because I still have another pendant to make and the sword... Oh the sword... I am going to start that Monday.
Tomorrow I have an authors showcase to attend and my local JoAnnes FINALLY is doing classes in store!! Their open house is tomorrow and I am estatic (Even though I cant make it). I am going to push for a Cosplay Social because I would love to find a mentor.
Anyways, here is the photo proof.

      Now in case you are wondering where one might find Gesso, It can be bought at Walmart for $9.98 (give or take) in the crafts department by the canvas's. Shocking right? I sat in the floor and stared at the shelf 

for almost an hour because I just couldn't find it. In the end I asked for help from other cosplayers on FB.
Alrighty, well I am off to bed. I might cry a little before I go to sleep... Havent decided yet.
That is sarcasm of course. Doesn't matter how I feel, I don't cry.

Sorry for the depressing undertone, I just don't have it in me today.

 

 

 

Alright, I hope you come back to read how this crazy experiment ends! I hope I don't screw it up :)

See ya later and thanks for the read!
~Aki Ame Okami