Lucy Cosplay

Since I said I would, and never did, here is the first post of two in which I will highlight my cosplays from Anime Central 2009. I will start with Lucy from Elfen Lied.

Here are a few images of the character taken from the anime:




And here is me:




I dyed the wig using sharpies. It was super easy. You just buy a couple sharpies in the color(s) you desire, pop them open, slit the plastic casing to expose the color, and drop them into a bottle 70% alcohol. I let my dye soak for a few days before using it. Then you put the wig (if it is small enough) into a heavy duty ziploc bag (gallon size) and pour the dye right in there with it. Shake, squish, soak, and rinse. You may have to repeat this to get the right color. So, a genius idea would be to empty the dye back into the bottle so you can use it again. To do this, just clip a small hole in one of the lower corners of the ziploc bag and you have a funnel! :) Yay.

The horn was made using Fimo clay. My husband did it. It looks like a cat ear, but it most certainly isn't. In the anime, Lucy has two horns but loses one in the final episode. So, I decided to only have one horn. I can't tell you how many times I heard this phrase while walking around ACEN, "One of your kitty ears is missing."

The socks were purchased from Sock Dreams. I cut out the heel and the toe to make them like they were in the anime. The shoes are just a pair of red kitten heel maryjanes that I already had. I just took the strap under the foot instead of over it to make it look like simple red kitten heels. Yay.

The dress is sewn from a nice heavy knit fabric in a dark gray. The neckline binding and straps are a heavy black jersey. The pink 3/4 sleeve shirt is American Apparel.

I painted my eyebrows to match the wig. I just coated my eyebrows with washable Elmer's and mixed acrylic paints to match the color as closely as possible. Once the glue dried, I put that paint CAREFULLY on my eyebrows. It washed off really easily at the end of the day and I didn't have to do anything crazy...or semi-permanent.

I call this one a success. :) It was a lot of fun to wear. My next post will be about the other costume I wore at Anime Central: Asuka Langley Soryu from everyone's favorite anime, EVANGELION!!!!

Cosplay woes

Some things look perfect, amazingly perfect...like I'm shocked I was able to make it so perfect.

Other things don't look so perfect, but they are acceptable.

Still other things look outright wrong...and there is very little that I am going to be able to do about it. These things are the wigs for my cosplays. I can hardly style my own, human hair. Styling synthetic wig hair is another story. I am most unhappy with my Asuka wig as it is orange (too orange) and the bangs are too short.

Which wouldn't be a problem if I knew what to do with my eyebrows. They are dark (my natural color) and my wigs are orange (too orange) and fuscia. Dark eyebrows certainly clash. The fuscia one sort of covers them, but the orange (too orange) one does not. I've considered bleaching them and using an eyebrow pencil or eyeliner in orange/fuscia to color them in...but then I reconsidered--because my hair is dark and I'd look like an idiot any time I didn't have the wig(s) on, which would be everyday minus 2 (the days I wear my cosplays). I've decided that I'm not crazy, nor that wonderful of a cosplayer to bleach and color my eyebrows. Sorry.

That's what we call "responsibility" and "better judgement." Grown ups are supposed to exercise these skills when presented with Utter Crazy.

Of course, I could just buy eyebrow powder to match my hair and continue to color in my eyebrows until the bleach grows out...only not in orange and fuscia...unless I wanted to...for kicks.

Kicks.

Lucy's Progress

She's coming along quite nicely:


Ok. For those of you readers who aren't familiar with anime...or the special brand of crazy that is cosplay...all shall be revealed in a later post. Basically, I am dressing up as characters that I like at a convention devoted to anime. Yes, sort of like those Star Wars geeks...Trekkies too. I will post photos of the characters I'm cosplaying as well as pictures of myself in the finished costumes as soon as the costumes are finished, which will be soon!

There you go, a very basic and undetailed explanation of "cosplay."

Tatting.

This is the result of my first tatting! I used a pattern in a book called "Tatted Snowflakes" by Vida Sunderman.

1 shuttle, red size 10 crochet thread


My second tatted piece: "Bejewelled Snowflake," also from the book, "Tatted Snowflakes" by Vida Sunderman. I made a silly mistake in the starting ring: I made seven picots instead of six. I didn't realize my mistake until the last stitch of the piece, so I just left it alone. Ooops! lol

I'm really loving tatting. It's super fast and easy (so far, anyway!)

I have been sewing. I have two dresses for cosplays which both need the hems finished (one of which is the yellow number from my last post) before I call them "finished!" I'm really excited about Anime Central! And I LOVE the characters I'm cosplaying! Nerd squees all over the place.

Nearly done with something

I'm very close to finishing this yellow dress. It's for my Asuka cosplay (from Evangelion). All I have to do is finish the hem and also the ends of the shoulder straps. I worked really hard on this, adding special touches that make it a more "professional" job (full lining, invisible zipper, hand sewing in places etc..). I wanted it to be cute in real life as I intend to actually wear this on a semi-regular basis, despite it being made as a costume.

ACEN is approaching very quickly!

Weeks

For a few weeks now, I have gotten up in the morning (if you can call it "morning") harboring the same feelings. I don't want to get up. I don't want to do anything. I don't like who I am or what I'm doing. I feel like I continue to make the wrong choices in my life, as though it were my hobby to always mess up, spazz out, or run out of steam and sanity. Most importantly, I feel stupid. Feeling stupid is the worst kind of feeling for me because I have wasted a lot of time trying not to be stupid.

And, honestly, I'm sick of trying. There are things I am good at, being a graduate student is obviously not one of them. And before anyone says that graduate school is a lot of stress on everyone and I shouldn't be so hard on myself, have it be known that I am not a full time student, I do not have even a part-time job, and I do basically FUCK-ALL all day long. I have two classes, one of which has only one assignment (no tests, quizzes, final, etc...), and I am overwhelmed. The funny thing is that I am overwhelmed not by the class with the constant stream of busy-work type assignments, but by the one in which I have only one due date for the entire term. The term is almost over. Have I made any progress on that one assignment? No, of course not.

Of course not.

When is it due? I, honestly, am not sure. I skipped class last week because we were supposed to "talk about" our papers. Since I would have nothing to say, I avoided putting myself in a situation in which I would look like the idiot I undoubtedly am. I thought I would take a week to actually make some progress and then go to class this week...prepared.

Let's just say that I'm thinking about skipping out again.

I am batting out of my league. I played T-ball in grade school and not very well. The puzzling thing here is that I don't really want to do well, but rather feel like I should be doing well--at least as well as my peers. I feel like I have no place from which to start, appearing out of nowhere with nowhere to go--no sense of direction. So, I stay where I am. I feel stupid. I cry.

I've always felt stupid and I've always been crying.

And I know that deep down it isn't about school. It isn't about school at all.

FO: Kutsushita

"Kutsushita" means "sock" in Japanese. These are just really simple toe up socks with short row heels. I added random purl rows to break up the stocking stitch and give the socks a bit of "interest." If you'd like to copy me, go get two balls of Noro Kureyon Sock, pull out your favorite basic toe-up sock pattern (of the knee high variety), size two needles, and go to town! For the cuff, I did a K1, P3 rib for about an inch or so, then did a K1, P1 rib until I decided to bind off!




They ended up a bit on the snug side, but after wearing them a few times they have stretched out. A note on the Kureyon sock yarn: It is weak. It breaks...even when you aren't pulling very hard. I have so many breaks and spit splices in these socks because the yarn just fell apart while I was knitting. Honestly, I cannot recommend this yarn for socks with a clear conscience. It's better suited to other knitted objects (scarves, hats) that don't get a lot of wear and tear. We'll have to wait and see how these socks hold up! Keep your fingers crossed!