prime time

More priming. I applied layer 4 to the thigh pieces. Texture is getting there. And look at how shiny they are!

Layers to go: 2

priming

I used my time Monday evening to paint two layers of primer on the thigh pieces. The first layer tonight (second overall) was the same thin consistency of the first layer from last week. The second layer tonight was a little thicker. You can see from the photos below that the primed pieces are starting to get a glossy shine. The uneven texture of the worbla is still apparent, however. I would guess each piece still needs an additional 2-3 coats of primer before painting is an option. I am optimistically hopeful that I can get these pieces ready to prime by the long weekend so I can use the time to learn how to use my air brush machine.

First layer tonight was painted while watching Deathsie.

Second layer tonight was painting while watching Mostly Walking.

You can really see the glossy finish in the last picture above.

MORNING UPDATE: I had a look at the primed pieces on may way out the door to work this morning, and the texture of the worbla really is smoothing out as a result of the priming layers. I’ll take another hard look after the next layer (which would be 4), but likely will go to at least 5. I want it as smooth as possible before I apply any paint.

Little rock marathon results

My final marathon of the season, Little Rock Marathon, was yesterday, and I finished THIRD PLACE FEMALE OVERALL! I was in 4th until mile 25 when I passed the girl in front of me going up a pretty steep hill. I still can’t believe I caught her (she had been visible but well ahead of me for a while), and am so happy I feel like I won. My finish time was 3 hours 15 minutes.

Now that this race is out of the way, I’ll have more downtime to spend working on my armor build again. I will continue to post updates here until the next DK30 when I will start a new project.

Pics from yesterday:

Project review and reflection

Whelp, I think I was a little ambitious about what all I would get done during marathon week. Maybe focusing on a time-intensive side project during peak marathon training AND my busy time of year was not the best of ideas. All that being said, in this post I have some (1) reflections on next project/moving forward based on this project, and (2) a list of positive things I accomplished. I am my own worst critic and am always hard on myself, so I want to “end” this project listing what I’m proud of.

And I say “end” because I’m going to continue to post updates in this project until the next DK30 rolls around, which will likely revisit this all over again. I’m like that contestant on The Voice who keeps coming back year after year until she’s chosen.

Reflections/observations in no particular order:

• I am bad at overhauling and making a schedule if I don’t track what I’m doing first. The main/sneaky goal of this was to get myself on a regular schedule, but I probably should have just tracked each of my days first, reviewed my current living pattern, and then looked for room for adjustment.
• It’s hard to take a whole lot of things and make improvements to all of them. Rather than focusing on my build as a whole and telling myself I would make progress on THE WHOLE, I should next time focus on certain pieces. For instance, my thigh pieces have all the details done. This project could have been, finish thigh pieces with priming, painting, and detail work. Or, finish details on boots. Something smaller.
• Sometimes it’s the little pieces of progress that are actually big. I think I get caught up in the mindset of, well if I can’t do X, Y, and Z, then it’s not worth starting. When really, just doing a little bit each day adds up. 5 minutes one day for multiple days at a time is better than no minutes because you feel like you must spend 20 minutes at a time, for example.
• Working on my armor build brings me a lot of joy. Learning new things brings me a lot of joy. Sharing my progress brings me joy. Having something OTHER THAN running and work, which are my identity at this point (also note the order I wrote those, they just came out that way), brings me a whole lot of joy. I love running, and I love my job, but I need a hobby also. (MTG brings me joy, but I suck at it, and it’s hard to turn the competitiveness off.)
• I need to be nicer to myself and give myself a break at times. Maybe the way I do things is fine, and I don’t need a whole routine change because the way I get things done works for me. Maybe it’s ok to feel like you’re just running around crazy all the time if you’re actually getting things done. Maybe there’s no right way to live, it’s what makes you happy. Maybe this is what adulting is all about. Maybe this is what it’s like to be content with yourself. Maybe life doesn’t have to be made any harder, and that part of living is learning how you fit within the flow.

And now, a list of accomplishments that I am proud of:

• I’ve learned how to do a WHOLE LOT of things all by myself. Things like working with worbla, working with foam clay, priming things I create, painting things I prime. I mean, I made TEETH for christ’s sake, teeth that I sculpted and primed and painted and then glued to my face. I had never done that before. I will never forget the feeling of realizing it was working.
• I was able to gather all my pieces together and make a catalog of what I have done and what needs to be done.
• I improved some of my earlier pieces and made them fit better.
• I won a zombie costume contest with a costume I made myself.
• I dressed up as a vampire for a pre-release that had like 10 people at it, and I felt like a dang fool, but it made me happy to dress up and that’s what matters.
• I actually put all of this out there into the world, for gasp OTHER people to READ! I’m not sure if anyone actually did look this over, but it was out there to be read and looked at.
• I think my confidence is actually going up, and that feels good.
• I made ideas of what to do in the future.
• I did something that made me happy.
• This last week before the marathon, I have actually gotten on a decent schedule. I have also managed to get a good amount (7 hours min.) sleep every night and have not had a drop of alcohol since Sunday.

Priming

Started priming the thigh pieces last night. I am using Flexbond as the primer and hand painting it on. I wanted to water it down to get into all the cracks and crannies due to the detail work, but it may have been a little TOO thin. I was able to get it in between the fine detailed layering, so I may keep the consistency and do more layers than originally planned. I’ve completed one layer on the top and will do at least 4 total. I also need to remember to prime the edges and corners.

Pre priming, with a good stout to get me through it:

Post priming (you can see the primer is still a little wet on the left piece):

Up close view of right piece after priming with 1 layer:

costume break

We interrupt your programming for a small costume break. I attended my LGS MTG pre-release for Midnight Vow on Saturday night and put together a quick costume for a Vampire. Had lots of fun! Went 2-2 with a decent but somewhat slow Dimir deck. My two match losses were to fast aggro decks (GR and WR). Went to a third game with the WR deck, was close to winning but got screwed on mana. I think I played better and made fewer mistakes than my last pre-release. Also, Toxrill is SICK.

Snaps:

small progress - fitting corset

Today I finally had a bit of time - and was not too tired - to work on my armor build. I decided to work on the fit of my corset and get the two pieces aligned better.

There are two parts to the corset, a front piece and a back piece. The pattern comes from a Kamui Cosplay pattern where the pieces are supposed to be flush and part of one continuous item, but I had to add a little to the pattern to fit my body, and because I didn’t really know what I was doing, I wound up with two overlapping pieces.

I had been thinking about this for a couple of days, and had decided to cut down one piece to make both of them flush, but after working with both the front and back pieces today, I decided to adjust the fit of both so that they overlap a little smoother.

Let’s go back to the inventory pic: You can’t tell here, but the front and back pieces are not aligned. The top of the front piece lines up below the top of the back piece. In addition, the front piece was not really contoured against my stomach, at least not the sides. The sides stuck out a bit. I could push them down, but I wanted the fit itself to be there without having to use attachments to get the fit to look right.

In order to fit the alignment, I heated up both the front and back pieces (one at a time) to achieve the following:

• Raise the fit of the front piece up while also curving the sides in more, and
• Raise the fit of the back piece down.

The front piece has the edging that I added, which adds another layer of worbla and makes it a little harder to adjust the fit. That being said, I eventually got the piece hot enough and fit it against me. For this purpose, I wore a tight fitting shirt to mimic whatever tight fitting body suit I end up wearing (rather than fitting against bare skin). Once I had the front and sides adjusted how I wanted, I moved on to the back piece.

Unlike the front piece, the back piece was pretty contoured to my back, so I couldn’t just slide it down, I had to remake the fit. Also unlike the front piece, the back did not have any edging, which made it easier to re-shape. I heated it up to the point of being almost flat, then re-molded it to my back. It was hot enough that it stuck to my shirt, which freed up my hands and let me hold the front piece to compare the fit. The adjustments I had made to both the front and back pieces were enough that I could get both pieces to line up.

When I was happy with the alignment, I affixed some temporary D rings with worbla to the back piece so I could tie it to my body and really look at the fit with the front piece. I liked the fit of the back piece enough that I was using it as my base to compare the fit for the front and make any additional adjustments. I fiddled with the front enough and looked at both pieces from a few different angles, and with different pressure, to see how the front piece really fit with the back. A few pictures are below: After moving around and testing the fit for a bit, I determined that (1) the right side fit fine (last pic above), but (2) the left side needed a few adjustments, as indicated below: First, the top corner of the front piece was sticking out a little too far from the back piece. I heated this corner up with my heat gun and adjusted it so that it is more flush with the back piece.

Second, there is a slight gap on the bottom between the two pieces. If I stand a certain way, the gap is not there (see pics above), but when the front piece is comfortably in position, the gap shows. This is an easy fix, all it will take is creating a double layer of worbla, then affixing it and trimming it to the back piece. Rather than only filling the visible gap, I think I am going to add extra worbla on the entire left side so that there is room to attach some velcro for affixing the two pieces.

I’m saving this additional work for tomorrow. Although I could have knocked it out this evening, by saving something for the next day, I know I will work on it because I have an action plan. It’s like I’ve heard with writers, stop writing for the day while you still know what you want to write the next day. It’s not much progress, but it is progress, and I am happy about that.

adulting timeout

Not much of an update. For as much as I wanted to focus my time on my armor build, life has gotten in the way a bit. Work keeps exponentially ramping up with end of year work, and most of my weekends and spare time are devoted to closing deals. It’s exhausting, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

I have, however, spent some time focusing on adulting activities around my apartment. Things like organizing MTG cards, rearranging some of the bedrooms upstairs (including creating more space and getting better organized), and swapping out spring/summer clothes for fall/winter. There’s still much else that needs to be done, but it’s a good start. And it makes me feel better, win!

Lost 40 also released a few photos from the zombie costume event, and my goodness, am I fan of mine: I am going to try to work on my armor build this week. As I sit and type this, I’m looking right at the corset armor pieces, and I’m going to start with them first. I’ve also been chewing over the idea of priming my thigh pieces so that I can paint them the first layer of black with my air brush machine. Gotta learn at some point!

eradicator valkyrie - inventory

And now for the main event, making substantial progress on my Eradicator Valkyrie build.

As a reminder, this is the MTG card serving as my inspiration:

Going from the top to the bottom (or rather, head to feet), the full build will include the following pieces:

• Crown
• Shoulders
• Wings
• Chest Armor
• Corset Armor
• Upper Arms
• Lower Arms
• Thighs
• Knees
• Shins/Calves
• Shoes

It will also entail making a few props (scythe, horn) and a skirt.

Now for the inventory of the items I have made so far, their status, and my current thoughts on revising/completing. Again, this is roughly from head to feet. Also, all of my patterns are based off of those by Kamui Cosplay, which I purchased from her website.

Shoulders. These were the very first pieces I crafted. They were also the first pieces I added detail to. The plan is to add fur under each of the three pieces, rather than on top like in the card. This gives me more options for adding details. Each of the three pieces (per side) will be arranged approximately as follows (I have yet to figure out exactly how I’ll go about doing this, right now I plan on painting everything, then affixing as needed with worbla that will be hidden from view): Status: I added the details to the bottom two layers first. I will probably add thin intertwining/woven portions to these. The top piece, on the other hand, is based upon the following norse work. Detail as currently stands on one top piece: I am … less than pleased with how this is going, it feels like too great a departure from the lower pieces. But I haven’t finished the complete details on this yet, so I’m reserving judgment for now.

Other than adding some more details to each piece, I need to smooth out the edges by adding another layer of worbla and doing some additional dremel/sanding work.

Corset Armor.

These are the second pieces I made. The template I used has both front and back (below) being flush with each other, but I had to add a little bit to fit my waist. That being said, I did not intend for them to layer, but as I have them build now, the front will layer over the back. Status. These need to be refitted before any detail is added. I’ve increased my running training A LOT since making these pieces, and they don’t fit quite how I would like. I think I made these prior to getting really comfortable with my heat gun, so I was probably a little timid about working them too much. I may try to make the pieces flush rather than layered, we will see. The front piece has some detailing around the edges, which will make it a little harder to bend, but I should be able to work with it. Once I have the fit fixed, I will add detail. I’m not sure what pattern to use, the draft pattern on the front is from another MTG Kaldheim card, but I didn’t like the way it was turning out. I’ll likely use the reference from my thighs/shins (see below).

In addition to adjusting fit and adding detail, I will also smooth out edges with additional worbla/dremel/sanding.

Upper Arms.

These are the last pieces I have made, and they were by far the easiest. Status: I started adding the edges detail, but got lazy and stopped midway. This needs to be completed. I drew a loose template based on the card art for additional edging. This needs to be completed and then additional details added to the main portion. I will probably model these after the pattern on the thighs. These fit my arm but are a little snug. I think this is ok, though. What may need adjusting is the lip edging on the bottom, if I move my arm the right way, it brushes against the lower arm portion.

Lower Arm. I’ve honestly forgotten which of these pieces goes on which arm. That’s what I get for not writing it on the inside of each piece. I need to find my original pattern booklet, I will be able to tell from that. The “body” portion of these were fairly easy to make, but it was pretty difficult to figure out how to make the pattern for the elbow portion. I eventually used an elbow armor pattern, traced it and cut it on foam, then held the foam up to the completed worbla portion for the arm. From there, I did a rough guestimate of what sort of pattern I needed to make for the elbow. After a little (ok, a lot) of trial and error, I finally found something I was happy with.

Status: Need to fill in/smooth down seams, then do detail work. Before that, however, I need to decide whether I need to adjust for the fit of the upper arm pieces. Thighs. I am most pleased with these so far. This was my first heavy detail work, and each piece took me lots of hours (/days).

Status: DONE, at least with detail work. The fit is great. If anything, I may need to smooth out some edges, but that is minor.

Knees.

Another easy pattern. I added the “horns” based on a loose pattern I drew myself.

Status: The picture shows the horns/pointy parts, but I’m not a huge fan of them now that they are added. I’m going to keep them. I need to figure out what I am going to add as the detail. I have a vision of a stylized valkyrie face, with sort of closed/slanted eyes, and the horns are like the wings of a helmet. We will see. So first I need to figure out what detail to add, then add it.

Shins/Calves - Boots. This was another pattern where the front and back halves were supposed to be flush. Thanks to my runner’s calves, however, I had to add a lot of room. Again, this resulted in two pieces that are layered rather than being flush. I’m ok with this, however. I think the jagged edges of the layers go with the sort of sharp aesthetic of the creature’s armor. Status: Both pieces (front and back) have been made, edges smoothed, and altered to fit. Bad picture of me trying to show the fit is below. I envision putting the back part on first with straps, then affixing the front piece on top. WIll figure out details later. I have started added detail work to the front, see below for my reference material (which is the same norse church that I used for my thigh detail reference material). This is just going to take a lot of time to complete. I have to figure out what to do for the back piece. Probably not the same level of detail as the front.

Pictures of all leg pieces together:

Shoes. Last but not least, the shoes. Again, because of my LARGE foot, the pattern fits my shoe a little differently than as modeled. Status: These fit fine and have been adjusted to fit under the front piece of the boots/shin portion. I need to fill in the seams and add details. I am also thinking about adding a piece that will cover the heel of my shoes, and potentially a part that wraps around the back, although I may use fake leather for this back portion. Not sure on the detailing yet, it will not be as complex as the thigh/shin portion. I may be able to make a rough sketch based on the card alone.

Pieces yet to be made:

• Crown: Before I can make this, I need to buy a long black wig. This should be fairly easy to make once I have the wig itself.
• Wings: I’ve watched a ton of videos of people making cosplay wings and think I have a good starting point, but I am fairly confident that I will be able to make this work. I’ll need to find a bigger work space, and enlist some help (thanks mom!), but it will be a fun challenge to conquer.
• Chest plate/neck piece: I’m not worried about the neck piece, I will make it last from my own pattern. The chest plate, however, will need to be fitted over the corset and around the wings. I’m saving this one for last.
• Scythe/horn: Well, I’m saving these for the last last. Both of these will involve long pieces of piping that I will wrap in foam.

zombie queen - final details and results

Saturday was finally THE DAY for the Zombie Queen and the Lost 40 Festival of Darkness costume competition. I woke up early to get a long tempo run out of the way, took a little nap, then started on makeup application a little before noon. All total, it took about 3-4 hours of application to finish everything.

Below I’ll give details on how I did my makeup and how I affixed the teeth, neck bones, guts, and eye patch.

Makeup. The primary parts of my makeup included (1) liquid latex, (2) cotton balls, (3) body paint, and (4) Mehron wax.

I started on my stomach, neck, shoulders, and lower part of my face by applying a thin layer of liquid latex directly to my skin, then applying a shredded cotton ball on the wet liquid latex so it would stick. I sort of spread the cotton ball around. Then I take a makeup sponge and dab liquid latex on top of the cotton ball. This flattens down the cotton a bit. Once dry, I first applied black paint to the recesses between the cotton pieces, then brown around the outside edges of the cotton, and finally red on top of the cotton. The result is similar to a burn victim look. After finishing with the paint, I would gently dab coagulated blood on the cotton parts. I say gently because if you drag sticky blood along the cotton, there’s a good chance you will make it pull up from your skin.

I did this on the lower part of my face to a letter extent. I wanted to leave room for the teeth, so I did not apply a lot of cotton balls at first, but I did start with some around my jaw line and on my nose. This was after applying a layer of liquid latex to my skin.

Also on my face, I used Mehron wax to give the appearance of a suture or that the skin on the botton part of my face had been missing. I had never used this material before, and it took a little bit of learning, but once I figured it out it was fantastic stuff. I did not have the proper setting adhesive, so by the end of the night part of it began to droop, but overall it really held well. I applied the wax directly to my face, used a setting agent, then topped with liquid latex. After the liquid latex was dried, I applied zombie green pain to my face and the wax itself. I also applied coagulated blood under the “hanging” part of the wax.

For my arms, I mixed oatmeal in liquid latex and then applied the mixture to my arms. I don’t remember where I read to do this, somewhere on teh webs, but next time I would use ground up oatmeal rather than whole oats. When this was dry, I covered my arms in zombie green paint.

Guts. When I was ready to attach the guts, I put them in a big bowl and then poured fake blood over them. I swished them around in the bowl to get them completely covered, then I coiled a portion of the guts in a spiral (kind of like a hose) and wrapped a bandage around them to secure them. For the remainder, I sort of looped them through the bandage and allowed them to hang outside. I thought the bandaged parts would be completely covered up and that less of the guts would actually show, but the bandage was so thin that it was basically transparent. It ended up looking like my guts were just hanging there, which was better than I imagined it would look. This was the part of my costume that most people told me they had a hard time looking at, which means it was a success! Neck bones and teeth. Attaching these items and wondering whether they would actually stick was the part I was most worried about. Post run and pre nap, I painted the backs of the bones and teeth with liquid latex. This had dried by the time I started to apply them. Before applying, I covered the initial layer of liquid latex on my face with black paint, then dabbed a little more liquid latex over the paint. I wanted to have a large, solid layer of latex for the bones to stick to, rather than a single point of connection. To apply the teeth, I dabbed yet more liquid latex on the back and then a small bit on the part of my face where I wanted the teeth or bone to stick. And did they ever stick. I kept saying, “Oh my God, it’s working” during this entire process, because it really was working! The stick was secure. Throughout the night it felt like my neck bones were going to come off, and the base layer of the liquid latex started to pull away from my lips, but overall the adhesion remained very firm throughout the evening. It ended up taking quite a bit of effort to get everything off. Eye Patch. I ended up using a piece of EVA foam rather than the eye mask layer. The main reason was that the eye mask layer was a bit too thin and wouldn’t stick. I was also concerned that maybe my eye would come all the way open and somehow get damaged. The foam was thick enough that I could put coagulated blood over the patch, making it look like blood was oozing from my eye socket.

My huge concern here was using an adhesive that would NOT cause me to lose an eyebrow once I removed the patch. I started out with eyelash adhesive around the outer layer of the patch, but this wasn’t enough to make it stick. So I used the edge of a makeup sponge to add some liquid latex everywhere EXCEPT my eyebrow area. I then used the Mehron wax to add a layer on top of/along the outer edge of the patch. This covered up the patch’s edges and again gave the appearance of sutured skin. I covered the wax in adhesive, liquid latex, and then paint, then added coagulated blood to the patch. Other details. For the rib cage, I used string to secure it to my body. This went under a white tank top. I then wore a cut up red plaid sweater on top of all of this to cover up the upper portion of my arms (which had no paint). This also covered up my shoulders, to which I had applied the liquid latex/cotton and paint combo.

The wig went on last, then the crowns. I wrapped the top part of my things in bandages, then used the green zombie paint to cover up the portion of my legs not covered by bandages or socks. Finally, I added a black veil behind the crowns. END RESULT. Overall I was SO PLEASED at how this turned out! It is so nice when weeks/months of work end up resulting in something that you like. I was asked to get in a lot of pictures and was stopped multiple times for people asking to just look at my makeup. And the results of the costume contest? I WON! First place! May the queen long reign. This year may have been my swan song, as I’m not really sure what I would do to top this year. I’ve been talking with a few folks about collaborating next year, potentially with a vendor. It would be fun to work on something without the pressure of competition (which pressure I admittedly put on myself). Things I Would Have Done Differently. Despite loving my costume, there are a few things I would do differently if I made the same thing again:

• Additional detail to arms and legs. I sorta phoned it in on my arms and legs. Going back, I would have added some darker paint around the oatmeal parts on my arm, similar to how I added the darker details around the cotton. I thought about adding lesions on my legs, but I just didn’t have the effort left in me once I got to that part.
• Additional color. I like the zombie green color, but it’s flat when that’s all that you use. Like my arms and legs, I would have added other layers of color along with the zombie green.
• Clothing: shorter white shirt. I would have either cut the white shirt a little shorter, cut out part of the top, or cut out part of the sides (or maybe all three) to show the rib cage. After agonizing over this piece, it was barely visible. Part of this had to do with the clothing I used. It was SO HOT, I could have stood to have more revealing clothing, but then I wasn’t trying to be super revealing. I don’t know, it’s a hard line. I probably could have cut holes in the white shirt so that part of the ribs showed.
• Less blood on neck with a white wig. I had to trash my wig after the event because it kept getting caught in the coagulated blood on my face and neck. Although I said I would have used less blood, I’m not sure what I could have done differently to get the same effect.

zombie queen - twas the night before

It’s really happening! Things are coming together!

Guts. Painted with liquid latex this morning not long after my last update. These are ALMOST dry. I like the texture. Blood to be added tomorrow. Rib cage. I am SO GLAD I decided to go with this. The foam clay was dry (?) and I have sprayed it with a number of layers of white Plasti Dip. I’m pretty sure I killed the entire can, or came close to it. This will go under my white shirt to make my bones look exposed. I will cover my skin in a combo of liquid latex, cotton balls, paint, and fake blood to make the skin looked flayed. In the morning I will cover this with a layer of matte sealant. Pre makeup preview. I wanted to see what the crowns would look like with the wig. HOLY SHIT! It’s amazing! Cannot WAIIIIIIIT to put everything together. Finger’s crossed the teeth and neck bones stick.

zombie queen - final push

Festival of Darkness is TOMORROW. Like any good project, there’s a number of things I’m wrapping up at the last minuted.

Bouquet. Arranged with additional fake flowers added. I envisioned this as a bigger, fuller bouquet before I started putting it together. It’s still quite darling. Rib Cage. Last night I added all of the ribs, then shaped one side of it to my body. This took a while. This morning I shaped the other half by eyeballing the already shaped half, then adjusting the other half to match. I tried it on a number of times to make sure it was right. I also added eyes for thread so I can tie the piece on behind my back. After all of that was done, I added a layer of foam clay around the worbla. I did this in a hurry this morning because I want it to dry to the point where I can (hopefully) spray it with primer this evening. Given more time, I would have made sure that the bones were smooth and uniform, but for now this will work. Most of these bones will be under my shirt, so perfection is not a priority. I have white Plasti Dip for primer, I will just use that as the color as well (no painting).

zombie queen - guts and roses

Guts. Added some blue vein details. My blue paint pen had a different tip that prevented me from drawing lines (it would get hung on the fabric), so I had to add color in a dotting motion. I think this turned out ok, it’s not uniform with the red and gives the appearance of a different texture. I then went back and added red to the bunched up parts. Now I just need to paint with liquid latex. Plan on doing that tonight.

Rose Bouquet. I cut lengths of wire for each rose and started out with the intent of marking the connection places for both the roses and each wire with sharpie, but then I decided to see how it would work if I just used my hot glue gun rather than connection cement. Turns out, it worked just fine, which was a big relief. So I attached all of the stems to the roses. Now I just need to make an arrangement and add a few extras. I also want to add green leaves (using green cans) on some of the stems.

In the middle of all of this, I also put together a little cart to hold my art supplies. So handy! Also some random shots of my recent pieces around my apartment, just for fun.

zombie queen - guts!!!

Didn’t have a ton of time last night, but I was able to make some headway on the guts for my Zombie Queen costume during the Sox game (sigh).

I finished sewing the bunched up parts: then I used a red, oil-based paint pen to add details like veins. The red details looked a little weird at first, but now that it’s done I am very pleased. I’m going to go back today and add some blue veins as well.

TO BE DONE:

• Finish guts. Paint with liquid latex after adding blue vein details. Will cover in fake blood right before the event.
• Make ribcage. I decided I’m going for this. Most of the ribcage will be covered with clothes, so it doesn’t need to be perfect. Just need to knock it out.
• Bouquet. This is the item I’m most stressed over. I REALLY wanted to take care of this over the weekend. Need to try and find time to start on this TODAY.
• Rip clothes, etc. for costume. This is the fun part and won’t take long.
• Make eye patch. All I need to do is cut it out from a layer of an old sleep mask.
• Paint teeth and neck bones with liquid latex. I’m going to paint the back side that will attach to my skin with liquid latex prior to application. I will do this when I paint the guts.

zombie queen weekend update - it’s coming together

A lot of the pieces of my zombie queen costume are finally coming together. Here’s the status of everything after the weekend.

Eyeball Ring. DONE. Painted on veins, then finished the eye itself with some glossy sealant. I painted some thick thread red, then glued it to the bottom of the eye. I followed that up by gluing the eye itself to the ring base. It’s a liiiiiiitle tight and I accidentally glued the adjustable part shut (oops), but I may cut into the base and add an extender.

Bone Crown. DONE. I added a final layer of off-white, then attached the bones to the headband with wire. I followed up the initial attachment with some hot glue for good measure. Then I sprayed the bones down with matte sealant. The sealant really makes the textures pop. I decided not to add details to the recesses, and any dark paint I had added to them ended up being covered up. Even still, it looks pretty awesome with the bone crown.

Teeth and Neck Bones. DONE. Sprayed with matte primer. The issue here is going to be removing the wires from the teeth, some of them got painted over and leave a little hole. Luckily it’s easy to get rid of the extra paint, and the hole should not be visible.

Guts. These are coming along. Started off by cutting off the legs from two neutral/skin colored panty hose, then filled the legs with shredded cotton balls. I sewed up the open ends of each, then sewed each leg (total of 4) to the end of another. The result is 8-10 feet of intestines. I’m going back with red thread (also what I used to sew it together) and adding some bunched up parts. After I’m done with that, I’ll draw on red and blue veins, paint in a layer of liquid latex, then add fake blood.

Rig Cage. I haven’t been working on this, but I think I want to still try and make it. I can put one together fast enough, I think, so long as I don’t focus on it being perfect. I picked up some white plasti dip to use as primer/probably just the paint itself.

THINGS LEFT TO DO:

• Affix roses to stems. I really wanted to do this over the weekend, but I never got to it. I’m a little nervous about this part working, but it’s only because I’ve never used contact glue before.
• Make eye patch. This should be simple enough. I picked up some eyelash glue over the weekend to use rather than liquid latex (I’d like to keep my eyebrow).

The event is THIS weekend so I’ll need to finish everything before Saturday.

Belated/Consolidated Update

Got back yesterday from Boston and running the marathon. It was tough! But I finished! Just look at that smile. Pre-trip was like any other trip in that I had a lot less time to do things that I wanted to do. I got a little crafting in before I left and just made a few updates. I’m posting everything here together, both pre and post trip work.

Teeth/neckbones. I added a layer of off white/dirty white, and I think these are done. The teeth look like teeth. The neck bones don’t much look like neck bones, but they are fine for what I need. Eyeball. Painted the retina pre trip. Tonight I added some finer details in the iris. I’m calling this portion done. Next step will be to add veins in the white part, then this will be finished. Bones for crown. I started adding dirty white layers. I also painted dark details into the recesses I made with my soldering iron, but I should have made them darker as the lighter layers are covering them up. Oh well. Not sure how to handle these, may just leave them as is. Going to continue to add dirty white layers. Still have a ways to go before these are finished.

Tomorrow I will continue to add layers to the crown bones and paint the veins on the eyeball. I only have one full weekend to finish everything. This weekend I will focus on finishing the bone crown and affixing stems to the roses for the bouquet.

cringe moment

Just watched a couple of videos on model painting, and wow, am I doing all of this wrong. Ugh. I am mildly embarrassed that I have been posting all of my errors for the world to see. Nothing to do except just keep going.

Monday 10/4 Update

Crown Bones. Painted first layer of base color. Tried to do more of a wash technique so as not to have such aggressive paint strokes. Again, should have used white foam clay/white primer. Still learning. Teeth/Neck Bones. Painted the third layer on each of these. I started to have an issue with small air bubbles while painting on the layer. Will do at least one more layer, hopefully that will be sufficient for the base color. Eyeball. Painted final light iris layer. Will need to figure out details next. I took a closeup of my own eye, and there are also dark lines within the light. May try doing a dry brush technique? Or a very watered down dark thin line? Not sure.

Weekend Update

This weekend was a busy one, and I managed to get some decent work in on the zombie queen costume. I hit a wall on Sunday so didn’t get quite as far as I wanted, but here is the progress on everything:

Zombie crown bones. I used my soldering iron to add some details to the foam pieces, then primed with three coats of Flexbond. I prefer the texture of Flexbond-primed pieces better than PlastiDip, it is smoother and easier to control, particularly when I thinned it out a little. These are ready to be painted. Teeth/Neck Bones. Added a few more layers of primer and started painting. These have two (or is it three? maybe three?) coats of paint now, and need at least one more. Having an issue with brush lines showing up on the neck bones. Eyeball. Painted a second layer of light iris color. Will add a third and this part should be done. I’m going to add very thin layers of white, and may add a little dark blue in the details. Final part will be adding the pupil. Stuff from Storage. Went by my storage unit to get my Halloween/costume box, there’s a lot more stuff in there than I realized, like fake blood and face paint, so that is awesome.

Rib cage. I’m on the fence about completing this item. I get caught between wanting it to be anatomically correct and then not really caring about correctness. I think it would look really cool, but it’s hard to figure out how to align the bones. It’s one of those projects that really needs a second person. I’m de-prioritizing this for now.

Goals for the coming week:

• Finish teeth and neck bones
• Complete first base color on crown bones
• Finish eye
• Test run liquid latex with foam piece
• Figure out contact cement and how to attach roses to stems for bouquet

This Friday I head out for the Boston Marathon and will not be back until next Tuesday, so I’ll be losing a weekend of work.

Baby [teeth] steps

Baby steps, small update, but progress is progress and I’ll take it.

Progress tonight:

• Teeth. Made little wire stands for each tooth, painted primer on the parts I didn’t paint last night, then painted a second layer of primer on each tooth. Going to do a third before painting.
• Neck bones. Made wire stands for these guys as well. Painted a second layer of primer on all, then a third layer on two (until I had used up all the primer I had poured for the evening).
• Eyeball. Third layer of iris base paint. Calling it done on the base, will start adding lighter details next.

Painting, Priming

Need to try and go to sleep early tonight, but managed to get in the following after a full day of work and a track workout (also, bless that dinner I made on Sunday, pre-cooking meals is the BOMB):

Eyeball iris layers.

Painted a second layer of the dark blue for the eyeball iris base. I’m thinking one more dark blue layer and then I can start adding lighter color details. Went a little outside the circle border, but ::shrug::

Priming.

Primed the neck bones and about half of each tooth. I decided to use Flexbond rather than trying to spray with PlastiDip because these pieces are so small and I didn’t want them flying all over the place. Hand painting the primer with a brush did not make this a lot easier, however. The primer is very sticky, and just holding the pieces with my fingers was not a good option. I should have probably inserted some thin wire in each piece and then held the wire (rather than the piece itself) while I painted on the primer. Still learning as I go here. In any case, I got one full layer on the neck bones and got another layer on about half of each tooth, with the other half being the side I held. The teeth are starting to look even more like teeth with just the primer being added. I primed the bottom row of teeth first, followed by the top row. I kept them in order to keep track of their positioning. I got a little tired by the end of the top row, and things started sticking together, hence the more jumbled arrangement.

When I prime the bones for the bone crown, I will use a thin wire as a holder.

Things I want to do tomorrow:

Tomorrow may have to be an off day, I have a hair appointment that will take up much of the evening. If I have time for any work, I’ll paint the final layer of the iris, prime another layer on the neck bones, and prime the remaining portion of each tooth.

Small Steps, and What is Sleep?

Only a few small updates today. I had another rough night trying to sleep, didn’t fall asleep until after 3am. Ugh, y’all. I managed to function and had a decent day at the office, but I am TIRED and shutting it down earlier.

Eyeball.

Added a fifth layer of white paint before heading out for a run. It’s a little lumpy, but I think it’s as good as it’s going to get on the texture. Base paint, done! Once I was back from my run had showered/eaten dinner, I used a circle template to paint the iris. Only one coat of paint today. I will add more layers tomorrow. When the iris base is dark enough, I’ll add the lighter details.

Flower Headband.

I decided to add two more flowers to the headband. I also covered the wire wrappings in hot glue to keep the flowers stable. It is now finished!

What I didn’t get to:

• Priming bones and teeth.

What I want to do tomorrow: I don’t want to be too optimistic here, Thursday will be an early run day and I need to go to bed early-ish:

• Eyeball iris layer(s)
• Prime teeth and neck bones

Eyeball Painting, Flower Headband, and Learning from Mistakes

Worked from home today, which gave me a little time during the day to paint the eyeball for the eyeball ring during breaks. I’ve only used acrylics once in recent memory during a learn to paint night at my LGS, so I’m learning as I go with my own projects.

Mistakes I made and learned from today:

• If you are going to paint something a light color, for the love of god, don’t use a black primer. I get that this is probably self-evident, but until you realize how many coats of white you need to use to cover up a black primer, it doesn’t really hit home.
• Thin your paint to avoid visible brush strokes. This is something I learned (or thought I learned) at paint and take, but it wasn’t as clear to me until I painted my first coat of white over black primer. All I could think was, wow, those are some big time brush strokes. Multiple coats later, I can still see the brush strokes from my first layer (I switched brushes as well, I think the first one I used was also just a bad brush). As my mom says, it’s not like I’m being graded on this project, it’s just for fun, and who will really notice (other than myself), so mistakes are “ok.” I keep telling myself it’s better to make them now than on my armor build.

Coat 1 (oy, look at those brush lines):

Coat 4 (not happy with texture, pretty lumpy, but at least less lines - now I see why people use air brushes):

Other progress:

Wig. Busted out the wig, and it is molto bene. It’s a lot longer in the back than I realized, which is good to know when thinking about the back of shirt(s).

Flower Headband. My headbands came in! And wow, am I glad my order came with multiples. They are nice and thin, but I’m going to need at least two, one for flowers and one for bones.

Rather than using contact cement for the flower headband, I used a knife to cut small holes at the base of the flowers, ran a thin wire through the hole, and then wrapped the wire multiple times around the headband. This was all A LOT easier than I thought it would be. Nothing is glued in place at the moment, and I may smother the wire wrappings in hot glue for a little stability. All in all, I am VERY pleased! (Pardon the VERY messy workspace in this one)

Bone Crown. I also arranged some of the bones in various patterns around a second headband. The picture below is the one I will probably go with. I will also probably run a thin wire through the center of each bone (vertically so you can’t see it) and then have the wire extending from the bone wrap around the headband, much like the roses. The bones themselves should be sturdy enough when dry and primed to stand alone, but a wire will give some added stability.

Teeth. I realized I was missing about three teeth, so I made a few more from foam clay. Luckily these guys dry pretty fast.

What I would like to accomplish tomorrow:

• Prime neck bones. I think I am only going to prime and paint the sides that are visible and leave the side that will be against my skin unfinished. I’m hoping it will stick better that way. Still need to run a test run with liquid latex.
• Prime teeth.
• Paint another (and hopefully final) layer of white on the eyeball, then paint the first layer of the iris.

In other adulting news:

• Sleep is hard. Last night was one of the worst nights I’ve had in a long time. Another lesson: don’t listen to music late at night when putting clothes away. Next thing I knew, it was 1:30am and I was wired and still listening to music. Didn’t fall asleep until after 2, slept late, felt like a POS all day, etc.
• Left hamstring where it connects at my butt is not happy. Need to watch it, Boston is two weeks from today.
• Despite no sleep, billed a decent amount at work.
• Sunday morning I meal prepped for the first time ever and premade a few dinners. Only having to pop one in the microwave for dinner tonight really felt like winning.

Prelude - Zombie Queen

Before I focus on my Eradicator Valkyrie build, first I have to finish my zombie costume for the Lost 40 Festival of Darkness.

My workstation this morning:

Did I mention I have won this the past two years?

2019:

2020:

My costume from last year is also on this year’s flier:

This year, I am making the following:

• Crown/veil out of bones/flowers made from beer cans
• Eye patch for missing eye
• “Engagement” ring with my missing eye as the stone/gem
• Fake teeth to glue on face (and blacking out my real teeth)
• Fake bones - neck, rib cage - to be attached to body
• Bouquet of flowers made out of beer cans

Plus whatever else I think of.

So far, I have made progress on:

Flowers.

I think I have enough of these. I have used up all of the empty beer cans L40 gave to me. Although I can get more, they are a bit time consuming to make.

Although the flowers themselves are made, I need to figure out how to attach them to wire stems. My hope is that contact cement will be sufficient for this purpose. I also need to make some leaves out of some green-printed beer cans to wrap around the stems. This should be fairly straightforward.

I hit up Michael’s today for various supplies and bought some fake flowers to add to my bouquet. I’ll cut these down a little bit into separate pieces to distribute throughout the bouquet.

Bones There are two sets of bones, those going on my headband crown, and those to be glued to my face with liquid latex (/hoping to be glued - need to test this with a fully primed and painted piece).

Crown. I do not yet have a headband for attaching these, so I’m not sure how many I need. I think I am close to having enough. The goal is to have some sort of radiating crown where the bones go from short to long and back again, along with 4-5 beer can flowers glued to the front headband. Once all the bones are dry, I will need to add some details with my Dremel/soldering iron, prime them, then paint them.

Face/neck. I am REALLY hoping liquid latex works to attach my fake teeth to my face, this will need to be tested.

I made a full set of teeth out of foam clay. They need to dry fully, then I will prime and paint them. I’ve decided I’m going to paint them by hand using acrylics rather than trying to mess with the air brush, the pieces are small enough where hand painting will be fine.

Eyeball ring

The eyeball itself is made, and I made a ring out of part of a beer can (could not find a base at the hobby store) that works just fine. Score! The eye has also been primed with Plasti Dip. This is the first time I’ve primed something made out of foam clay, and I’m not super happy with the result, but it doesn’t need to be perfect. I think I will use Flexibond for the teeth/bones. Rib Cage

I decided I would make a rib cage out of leftover worbla laying around from my cosplay build. Today I made the sternum and the right clavicle, although the clavicle is a little rough. I plan on wearing the rib cage under a tight tank top to make it look like my ribs are sticking out, so again, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Once it is made, it will need to be primed and painted. I plan on only making the front part, with maybe straps in the back to keep it close to my body. Although my shirt in the front will be fairly open, my back will be mostly covered.

Other Items

I wanted to make some fake guts out of panty hose and cotton balls, and then try to rig some sort of thing around my stomach area so it looks like the guts are falling out, but I’m not sure how that would actually work. I may go ahead and make the fake guts and wear them like a boa or shawl, I’m not sure, or have them hanging out of the top of my shorts. If I don’t get around to them, it’s not the end of the world.

The gore looking parts on me from last year are made out of cotton balls, liquid latex, paint and fake blood, I should have enough of this lying around in my storage unit, I just need to get myself over there to get everything out. I’ve also purchased new coagulated blood, face paint/makeup, and this stuff that makes it look like you have scars/lacerated flesh.

For clothing/other accessories I have a white wig, plaid shirt I will rip up, black shorts, plaid knee-high socks, and black boots. Need to purchase white-out contacts and a white tank top.

HELLO BEAUTIFUL BEANS! And welcome to my project. Although this is a craft and cosplay project, it is also sneakily a “get myself together and try to get on a regular schedule” project. Adulting is hard and I am bad at it.

I am beginning this project early because I want to organize my thoughts and get things together before trying to push forward with substantial progress. Plus, I’m working on another costume for an event on Oct. 23, and I’d also like to post updates on that as well. Plus plus I have yet ANOTHER costume I want to build, although not using worbla, but I won’t let myself start it until I make progress on this project first.

But I digress …

Background: In May, I decided I wanted to learn how to make cosplay armor. I love dressing up in costume, but I have never made anything for myself. I looked at a lot of videos on the internet and discovered Kamui Cosplay, who is my major inspiration and source for things like patterns, how to build armor, etc. I am a huge MTG fan (and I’d love to play you on Arena, although you would kick my butt) and wanted to base my costume off an MTG character. Originally I thought of Avacyn because I love the Innistrad plane, but that’s maybe been done a lot already? So instead I settled on Eradicator Valyrie from Kaldheim, whose art was created by Tyler Jacobsen.

I have crafted a number of pieces of the armor, and have added some detail as well. There’s not a lot of reference detail on Tyler’s piece, so I sorta had to figure out my own patterns. I started simple with some of the pauldron pieces because they wouldn’t show that much, but then added on more detail on other parts that will be more visible. For reference on the details, I am using existing, historical viking/Norse artwork (I am trying not to use contemporary art or patterns that are based on Norse artwork). So I’m sort of winging it when it comes to details.

I originally wanted to finish this project by Arkansas Comic Con, which was the second week in September, but it became apparent pretty quickly that this was going to take A LOT of time. Which I do not mind! I love immersing myself in a project that sucks up a lot of time. I find the process itself very rewarding. All that being said, I am starting to get bogged down in some of the details, so I want to try and see if I can get on a schedule of regularly working on my project.

There are also parts to this project that will require me to use things I’ve never used before (other than EVA foam and worbla), such as (1) a sewing machine and (2) an air brush machine. I have purchased both, and they have both been sitting in my closet unused. Part of me may be subconsciously delaying the armor build part because I don’t want to take the time to learn how to use these things.

And as much as I would love to spend all my waking hours on this costume build, I unfortunately have a day job and other things going on that take up a lot of time. Other things that take up my time include the following:

• Full time job as a tax/corporate law attorney
• Training for the Boston Marathon (10/11) and the Little Rock Marathon (11/21)
• Sleep

Part of getting on a schedule of working on my armor build includes getting on a regular schedule for everything else. I have a very hard time sleeping sometimes, which leads me to sleep later than I should, which means I run in the afternoon rather than in the morning, which means I go to bed later than I should and have a hard time sleeping, etc. etc. and into eternity and beyond. SO, part of this is trying to make myself get on a schedule that promotes better sleep and allows me to focus on the things I want while also taking care of a stressful job and an ever-increasing training schedule.

My initial plan is to start with an inventory of everything I have made thus far and to see what else needs to be made. I will make a spreadsheet that tracks all of this, as well as the items that I still need to make. The early pieces I made likely need improving/polishing/details added. I also want to collect my references all in one place. Then, I will make a plan of what else needs to be done with each piece, and what pieces still need to be made. Biggest items will be trying to make some wings.

I’m also going to be chronicling my work on a costume for the Lost 40 Brewing Company Festival of Darkness zombie costume competition. I have won this for the past 2 years, and each year my costume gets more involved than the year before. Now that I have discovered how to use foam clay, I’m gong to be making fake bones to include in my costume. So part 1 of this project will be completing this costume, which will necessarily include learning how to use my air brush machine, and will be the prelude to the bigger project of making more progress on Eradicator Valkyrie.

AND FINALLY … I am a big fan of the Castlevania show on Netflix, and the second I saw Striga in her day armor, I knew I had to make it. (Does this make me a true cosplayer in that I already have my next project in mind before I finish my first?) Although I have been using the thermoplastic worbla on my current build, for Striga I plan to use only EVA Foam (which will be A LOT less expensive, oy). I would like to try and work on Striga while I work on Eradicator Valkyrie, just so that I don’t get too bored and bogged down with the details on EV, but I also want to FINISH EV.

So that is some rambling, which is what happens when I have a lot of things going on in my head. Thank you for reading and/or following and for any suggestions or encouragement! More pictures to come.