I Have Officially Gone Round the Bend

I cannot believe that I am typing this. The entire purpose of creating a Daenerys cosplay (instead of Zelda) was to take away from my gigantic pile of cosplay work. I was persuaded over the course of the year however to do this new costume and I have finally given in. For better or for worse, I will now be creating a cosplay that is probably overdone (what even ever--personally I think people should be able to do whatever outfit we want whether it's "overdone" or not) from Disney's Frozen. I will be creating (if you haven't guessed it yet) a Queen Elsa costume.

What is wrong with me, you ask? I have no idea. The reason I was finally persuaded to make this outfit is however, is the fact that I will be making it in collaboration with my mother. This means that we plan everything out together (which eliminates the dumb mistakes I usually make), then she'll pattern while I work on schoolwork, and then we'll sit down and make it all happen. For example, yesterday we worked a lot on the train/cape. In the morning we planned it out before I went to marching band, in the afternoon I worked on homework while she taped hundreds of pieces of newspaper together until they were the size of the fabric that we had bought, then we laid out where all the snowflakes would go and made a lot of the train/cape. It was a lot easier than just me doing everything but after this project I will be going back to that method (as I do enjoy being able to say that I made the entire cosplay).

I am also helping Ana-tama through her Anna (as she was originally going to be the Arya to my Daenerys, her plans changed to Frozen as well) and Jade cosplays right now. She's made a lot more progress than I have (but of course she's had my help sooooooo....) and now has a Jade skirt, part of her Jade shirt, the fabric for her jade hood, and materials for an awesome prop. For Anna she has cut out all of the skirt fabric, has materials for the bodice, and has a wig (to be styled). I have started the train/cape, ordered fabric for my dress, bought (literally) thousands of sequins (from some place in Europe), and ordered a wig (which has unfortunately been backordered as apparently everyone wants an Elsa wig for Halloween--it should come in in time so hopefully it will). That's about all for now--wish me luck! MadDog out!

The End of the Summer

It's official everyone. Tomorrow I'm back in school therefor today is the last day of summer. I've done a lot and I hope you all have as well. Now let's see what I've actually accomplished. Master list time!

THE SUMMER OF COSPLAY!

• FINISHING MY FRACKING ALOIS TRANCY COSPLAY ONCE AND FOR ALL! This involves:

1. Finish the pain in the butt Jacket.
2. Complete the vest.
3. Make some booty shorts.
4. Acquire thigh-high socks.
5. Buy a wig.

• Completing either my C.C. or Homura Akemi (both of which I have already begun).

For Homura:

1. Finish skirt.
2. Make boots.
3. Make blouse (undershirt?).
4. Make "outershirt." (yeah, not sure what to call it)
5. Make headband.
6. Make gem hand piece.
7. Buy wig.

Or for C.C.:

1. Make boots.
2. Make shorts.
3. Make crop top.
4. Make arm things.
5. Make main uniform.
6. Make belt.

• Making my Senior Dress-Up Day costume (which I thought was going to be Zelda but now that I've taken on Hajime she may be off the table. I dunno--we'll see).

1. Figure out what my costume will be.
2. Skirt.
3. Undershirt.
4. Top.
5. Armor.
6. Wig.
7. Shoes.
8. Dragon.

• Starting both a 833 M17UN4 C4P70R (Bee Mituna Captor from Homestuck) and a Trickster Dirk Strider (also from Homestuck).

4 M17UN4 C4P70R:

1. Striped shirt.
2. Long-sleeved black t-shirt.
3. Black pants.
4. Yellow boots.
5. Antenna. (Note: Didn't want to wear two headbands.) Flower crown instead.
6. Wings.
7. Horns.
8. Black wig.

And for Dirk Strider:

1. Blue shirt.
2. Orange suspenders.
3. Yellow bow tie.
4. Anime shades.
5. Orange pants with pinstripes. 
6. Blue Chucks.
7. Striped arm warmers.
8. Heavily-styled red wig.
9. Orange soda head piece.

• Designing and making the shoes, legs, and bodice of my Hajime Ichinose. (Preferably the arms as well but saving the wig, head piece, and skirt for later.)

So what do I have to say about this ridiculous checklist I made at the beginning of the summer.
Well for one, it was a completely impractical list of goals money-wise. You're probably wondering how I managed to not do any work on Hajime the whole summer and that's because her complex outfit was too expensive. Not too far into the summer I realized that I could either use my money on Hajime and do nothing else all summer (just part of what I wanted to do for Hajime) or use my money on about half of the things I wanted to get done. I chose the latter because it gave me more of a variety of things to accomplish and helped me accomplish things that I needed sooner than Hajime. Hajime is a dream cosplay that is going to be made over the course of a long period of time.
Two, this list was completely impractical time-wise. I actually was able to acquire more materials than I had anticipated and most of things on this giant list (excluding Hajime) are sitting in my cellar waiting to be transformed into articles of clothing or otherwise specified. However, although it was THE SUMMER OF COSPLAY! I still had a ton of other things I needed to do before my hobby of making cosplay.
So taking these two things into consideration, I feel that I accomplished a great deal this summer and present to you now a revised list (which includes what materials I have for the items not completed):

THE SUMMER OF COSPLAY!

• FINISHING MY FRACKING ALOIS TRANCY COSPLAY ONCE AND FOR ALL! This involves:

1. Finish the pain in the butt Jacket.
2. Complete the vest.
3. Make some booty shorts. (Materials.)
4. Acquire thigh-high socks.
5. Buy a wig.

• Completing C.C.

1. Make boots. (Materials.)
2. Make shorts. (Materials.)
3. Make crop top. (Materials.)
4. Make arm things. (Materials.)
5. Make main uniform.
6. Make belts. (Materials.)

• Make my Senior Dress-Up Day costume:

1. Figure out what my costume will be.
2. Skirt. (Materials.)
3. Undershirt. (Materials.)
4. Top. (In progress.)
5. Armor. (In progress.)
6. Wig.
7. Shoes. (May paint them brown though.)
   
8. Dragon? (Materials.)

• Start my Mituna Captor bee outfit:

1. Striped shirt.
2. Long-sleeved black t-shirt.
3. Black pants.
4. Yellow boots.
5. Flower crown.
6. Wings.
7. Horns.
8. Black wig.

BONUS ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

• Finished my Homura Akemi skirt.
• Made my Trickster Dirk Strider t-shirt.
• Pulled costumes out of thin air for an entire cast. 
• Did nerdy things in Britain.
• Threw together a last minute Gamzee cosplay.
• Went to Boston Comic Con.
• Made some anime shades for Dirk.
• Started making automail for a way in the future cosplay as a fun activity with a friend.

So there you have it. If you, like me, made an entirely impractical list of cosplay tasks for the summer, I recommend for you to not beat yourself up over not accomplishing every little thing but celebrate what you were able to accomplish. You did a ton of work on top of all those other activities and you should be proud of what you achieved. Now it's time to say goodbye to THE SUMMER OF COSPLAY! so take a little break (this could be an hour, a day, a week, a month without cosplay--for me prolly an hour) and then get back into the swing of things doing what you love to do: cosplay.



And now a few last minute notes about upcoming progress and events. If you're wondering why I suddenly took an interest in my Mituna outfit, it's because hopefully I will be attending Sunday of Another Anime Con (AAC) and dressing up as Mituna then. The next closest event after AAC is Senior Dress-Up Day so along with Mituna, Dany will also be taking priority in the progress schedule. After that I'll probably go back to C.C. and other Homestuck cosplays while trying to find or make shorts for my Alois cosplay. This is obviously subject to change due to money issues. For example: I know my Dany wig is going to cost a small fortune so I may go back to working on C.C. while I save money for more Dany simply because I already have the materials. Yep. That's all for upcoming progress really. As for events other than AAC and Senior Dress-Up Day, unless I'm already busy (do to play rehearsals or something) you can count on me attending Anime Boston 2015. I'll let you know if other things pop up. You can always check the countdowns in the sidebar to see what's in my radar but none of those are for certain until I "formally" bring them up in a post. One other thing about conventions. I really love Homestuck and the Homestuck fandom itself is so much fun to just be with so for conventions in the future you can pretty much count on at least one Homestuck cosplay. (I'm sorry if you don't like Homestuck as much as I but this is the way it is.) I hope you enjoyed THE SUMMER OF COSPLAY! and are looking forward to upcoming progress and events but for now, MadDog out!