I’ve seen a lot of people making comic book heels lately, and I really wanted to try and make a Sailor Moon pair.  These shoes were originally a terrifying grey snakeskin-y print… I like to think this is an improvement.

What you need:

– Shoes
This pair was only $10 in some clearance section, they don’t have to look good- in fact, the uglier the better.  Then you don’t have to feel guilty about destroying them.  Just make sure they don’t have too much of a raised texture.

 - Paintbrush

 - Bowl of water

 - Modge Podge
I like Modge Podge- partly because I have a few big bottles of it lying around the workroom- I have a feeling you could use white Elmer’s Glue as a substitute though, they seem to be basically the same thing.

- Whatever you want to design your shoes with. 
If you’re doing comics, most stores have quarter bins where you can get some pretty cool stuff for only $.25/book.  Or you can just print stuff out.  Just make sure that whatever you print out isn’t going to bleed if it gets wet.  I printed my stuff out onto completely average printer paper.  Maybe something a little less sturdy would’ve worked better, but it seemed to turn out fine as it was.

-Scissors

-Exacto/Knife

-Ribbon (to finish the inside of the shoe)

First you should probably make sure that your shoes are clean.  That may be stating the obvious, but then again maybe not.
Cut out your source material- smaller shapes will work better over big curves (like the toe area).  Try to decide where you want the different pictures to go (I started at the heel and worked my way forward).  When you’re ready to start gluing, put your first cutout piece into the bowl of water for a few seconds to soften it up and then stick it on to the shoe.  The water alone should hold it there pretty well if you want to mess around with different pictures and see how they fit together- once it looks alright, paint over it with a layer of modge podge.  You’ll probably want to make sure you have some overhang on the pieces so that you can tuck them into the top of the shoe afterwards.  Sometimes cutting or scoring the pieces with the knife will help them fit around the curves of the shoe.  Do this to the whole shoe.  And the other- because you probably have two feet.  DOES IT LOOK AWESOME NOW?

Maybe not.  Mine looked pretty ridiculous at this point- but they were at least looking less snakeskin-y.  To finish off the shoes I scored and folded the flange/overhang bit into the top/opening of the shoe and glued a bit of ribbon over it (on the inside of the shoe) so you didn’t see the strange paper edges.  I cut along the sole of the shoe with my knife to remove the excess paper/decoupage bits and to give it more of a finished edge.  It might’ve looked better if I’d done this as I went and sort of pressed the finished edge into the gap between sole and shoe- ah well, hindsight.

After all of this I went over the whole thing with another layer (or five…) of modge podge in the hopes that it would stand up to a bit of wear and tear.

I hope this was sort of kind of helpful in some way and that it leads to there being more swanky well-loved shoes in the world.  <3

The best word to describe New York Comic Con is crowded.  If there had been a fire we’d all have been trampled to death by the wave of humans.  Serious kudos to anyone who cosplayed at the con- moving around in normal clothes was a nightmare, I’m sure it was only more difficult in costume.  I only dressed up on Saturday (and almost didn’t even bother with that because of what a pain it was to move around the con) as Leia- which is pretty much just a frumpy frock.  I can’t imagine how exhausted the people in full body paint or armor must’ve felt by the end of the day.  Really, you had to plan your bathroom breaks to take into account that you’d be waiting in line for about half an hour before actually making it into the restroom.  On the show floor you’d have to be holding on to the people you were with or someone would get swept away by the crowd- and cell service was non-existent once the convention was underway.

Man, I am just full of whining about this convention and I really don’t mean for it to come off as ‘Horrible Experience 2012′ because that’s not what it was at all.  Sure, it was crowded- but there were some amazing guests.  I think this may be the first time I’ve ever gone to a convention and actually wanted to see guests.  I turned into a useless fangirly puddle over Fiona Staples and got my copy of Saga signed by her and Brian K. Vaughan which pretty much made all of my aggravation at the crowds worthwhile.

Finally, (and I feel kind of after school special for saying this, however true it may be) what really made the con was being able to hang out with people I don’t usually get to see and making new friends.  ♥

While everyone and their mother is off having fantastic adventures at San Diego Comic Con, I am … not.  So, to distance myself (and my inner jealousy monster) from the stories of magical fairyland (SDCC) that are currently flooding my Twitter feed – I ran out to take some photos of this Catwoman costume from January.

I don’t like the fabric used for this- it was a sort of metallic black spandex (it was supposed to be a shiny stretch pvc/vinyl but… wasn’t).  I had brief delusions of making it out of latex (Guillem March’s and Adam Hughes’s Catwoman both seem to be fond of latex… )  I love the look of latex, but who in their right mind would fight/climb in it?  I wasn’t willing to tackle the task that would’ve been learning to work in latex at the time that I made this, so settled for this (much cheaper) alternative.  Aside from the fabric choice, the design is based on the new 52 (March’s) Catwoman.

]]> http://poro-poro.com/journal/?feed=rss2&p=155 0 http://poro-poro.com/journal/?p=145 http://poro-poro.com/journal/?p=145#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:39:27 +0000 Zan http://poro-poro.com/journal/?p=145

Leia costume from back in November (I think?) and Pixie from February-!  Still trying to catch up on photo stuff and work on projects for Dragon*Con.  I haven’t been back there since 2000 and am extremely excited for it!

Meanwhile, I had a fabulous time at a shoot with lots of friends down in New York City over the weekend and returned home to find a DD over on DeviantArt – thank you so much!  :O

I had a fantastic time at Free Comic Book Day a few weeks ago with Kelly (Dr. Natu) and Larissa (Enchantress)!

Seriously, it’s cool stuff. 

I exist!  I got engaged last month to that saucy Kelly girl (I like her a lot.  :B  ) – and we’ve both actually been working on costumes.  Unfortunately, a lot of costumes.  I’m making an effort not to post any progress pictures until I finish something in the hopes that it will keep me motivated and I won’t just end up with a bajillion more half-made costumes.  I don’t know, costume motivation seems hard to come by these days.  Sad.

Plans for Anime Boston are kind of meh.  Might stop by for a day, but not the whole weekend.

Let’s finish something this week.  Seriously.  SOMETHING.  Boxes of half completed costumes is not sane, I’ve got to cut out these shenanigans.

This is just a sort of simple tutorial for how I make my moony tiaras (and any other shiny things on costumes when I am feeling lazy).

Also, since this is a lot of text here is the short version:

Cut out craft foam and stick metallic spandex to it with spray adhesive or rubber cement.  Then attach other do-dads and stick the whole mess to your face.  Ta-da!

If that’s not what you wanted, here’s the long winded version:

Materials:

• Craft Foam (1 sheet of the thin (3mm) stuff)
• Card stock or light plastic
• Scissors
• Rubber Cement/Contact Cement or Spray Adhesive
• Gold Metallic Spandex (about 1 sq ft)
• Glue (E-6000!)
• Gem Thingy (Star or Oval Cabochon depending on what version you’re doing)
• Bobby pins to attach this thing to your face (optional)

Instructions:

1.  Draft up a pattern of the shape you’re making… There’s one for an eternal tiara here (meant to be printed out on a sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ paper – the both pieces together one is just for reference to see how it looks held up against your noggin.)

2.  Cut out the top and bottom pieces (just going to be assuming you’re using that tiara pattern, if not- I’m sure you’re bright enough to get the gist of how this could be applied to other shapes.

3.  Lay the bottom pattern piece that you’ve cut out on top of some craft foam (color doesn’t matter, it’s going to get covered up) and carefully trace it.  I’m a fan of using a ballpoint pen for this, but maybe that’s just me.  Also, make sure that the pattern doesn’t slide around when you’re doing this, it has to be pretty exact.

4.  Cut the traced piece of craft foam out.  I like to use big scissors so that I can cut the pieces out in as few cuts as possible.  It’s more likely that you’ll get little nicks/bumps in your otherwise straight line if you use little scissors.  Try to cut inside the line you made with the pen so that the craft foam piece ends up being exactly the same size as the pattern piece.  If you cut outside the line, your fraft foam piece will turn out slightly larger and throw things off.  I’m sorry if that seems horribly obvious, I figure I may as well say it since it could help someone.

5.  Trace your ‘top’ pattern piece onto a piece of cardstock.  Nothing too heavy!  It should be just heavier than regular printer paper (Er, I’m not using cardstock in this demo, but rather a really lightweight plastic since that’s what I had lying around.  It doesn’t really make a difference).

6.  Woo, now cut that top piece out.

7.  Make sure to hold your craft foam piece and cardstock piece up against each other and make sure they line up.  That’s… pretty important.  It’s going to look screwy if they don’t line up.  If using spray adhesive:  Spray the sides you want to stick together and… well… stick them together.  If using rubber cement/contact cement: Brush on a thin layer of the cement to both the cardstock and craft foam pieces.  Let them dry, then line them up and press them together.  Goopy rubber cement doesn’t hold as well as dry cement!

8.  AWESOME.  Now you have a goofy looking v shape.  Aren’t you so pleased with yourself?  No?  Fine.  Let’s make this thing shiny.  Lay your goofy v piece of stuck together cardstock and craft foam against a bit of gold metallic spandex and (just sorta eyeball it) cut out a rough piece of the spandex with about 1cm of extra space on all sides (yes, I’m using metric and English measurements.  I am all over the place… sorry).

9.  Iron that piece of metallic spandex.  Please.  Look at how wrinkled that piece I was using is- ick, no- bad.  (Remember to iron on the non metallic side)

10.  Spray adhesive or rubber cement the top of your v piece (the side with the cardstock showing) and the wrong side (not the shiny side) of your metallic spandex.  If using rubber cement, make sure you don’t get any little balls of cement.  It’s really important that the rubber cement is completely smooth- any little bumps are going to be pretty noticable.

11.  Lay the v shape face down on the metallic spandex so that the sticky sides are now together.  Carefully smooth that front surface down/apply some pressure to make sure that the entire front of the v is stuck to the metallic spandex (these descriptions are AWFUL, I’m sorry).

12.  Spray adhesive/cement the back of the v AND the sides of the craft foam (yes, even though it’s only 3mm wide).

13.  Stick that all together (wow, descriptive) but don’t pull the spandex too much if you can help it.  Trim the excess fabric as needed so that it doesn’t all pile up on the back of the tiara.  At the base of the v you may need to make a cut and do some clever folding.  Hopefully the pictures help because I’m really sort of giving up on adjectives.

14.  SUPER COOL.  Now you have the base of the tiara.  It doesn’t matter too much what the ends of it look like since they’ll  be tucked up under your wig/wig cap, but I like to trim them so they’re even and there aren’t little bits of things hanging all over the place.  Now, using your fingernail or the eye of a needle… or… whatever… pinch in a line down the tiara to define that tiny ridge between the craft foam and card stock.
Since I am not so great with these descriptions, hopefully the pictures will let you know what ‘pinching in a line’ means because seriously, I just am not sure how else to explain it.

15.  You’re (mostly) done!  Now you can just glue on the shiny star/oval/thing of your choice to the middle of the tiara and stick the whole shebang on your forehead.  I sometimes use bobby pins to attach the tiara to my head under the wig cap- or sometimes I just don’t pin it at all and simply slide the ends of the tiara up under my wig after I’ve put the wig on.

One last note… this isn’t how I made the Myu tiaras.  Only the anime/manga ones.

Happy Holidays!  As with all of my updates lately – I haven’t really done much cosplay-wise.  Though Kelly made a outfit based on the Tonner Dolls (Ghost of Christmas Future) and let me do her makeup and take some pictures which was extremely fun.  I still have an unhealthy number of unfinished costumes which continue to stare mournfully at me every time I enter the workroom.  I feel like I’ve learned a lot more about photo stuff in the past year that I haven’t really had a chance to incorporate in my own cosplay photos which… is a bit annoying.  That, combined with my newly cleaned work area and swanky new toys (camera accessories) may finally drive me to finish some of this crap and get some new photos.  …or maybe I’ll just have more tea and watch movies with Kelly.  We’ll see.

While I don’t usually post about bits in zines, etc. I’m making an exception here.  Mechademia is a very cool publication put out by the University of Minnesota Press, and they did a piece about cosplay photography which they were kind enough to include me in!  Thank you so much Eron, Christopher, and Jenny (though none of you are likely to ever see this post!).  I’m really honored to have my work included and reviewed so highly!  @_@  Mechademia 5: Fanthropologies is available here.