Conventions, Medication and Decompression

I live!

I feel like I fell off the face of the planet for a bit though that's not unusual for me while prepping for an anime convention. Yay Shuto Con! Yay Decompression post Shuto Con!

That's mostly what's been going on with me lately. I've been a sewing fiend and when I wasn't a sewing fiend, I was a wig styling fiend. I was a few other types of fiend as well but to a much lesser degree.

Shut Con was a blast. I made some new friends, learned a ton from Kristie in her lovely panels as well as hung out with her at Art Jam (greatest panel ever for drawing/hanging out with fellow artists!), and had a somewhat successful cosplay experience. And I finally got to see our friend's panel that we missed last year due to limited space/VIP pass issues, even if he did get technology-screwed and had to smash his whole presentation into about twenty minutes. Equestrian Embassy: Condensed was still just as good as it would have been normally and was probably funnier because of the time crunch.

Expounding upon the cosplay experience, the reason I call it somewhat successful is that I was still not as identifiable as my husband and friend and creating the costume just about gave me a aneurysm. Here is the break down:

Successes:
* I finished the outfit the week before Con week and the bags two day before rather than a race to finish line that my previous costumes have been.

* I was able to use a commercial pattern without killing my brain.

* It was comfortable to wear, aside from a wig cap issue. Apparently I have a large head.

* There was no catastrophic failure of any pieces. My shorts did pop a stitch or two, but I expected as much since I sewed them with the wrong tension but didn't figure that one out until it was too late.

* I was far more recognizable than in my first Fluttershy cosplay. I even received an attack hug from a Discord cosplayer which made my day.

Less than Successes:
* Sewing my dress and shorts was incredibly hard, mainly because I merrily jumped into the world of knit fabric. I mostly knew was I was getting into and the shorts weren't bad. The dress fabric was a very thin, fine jersey though, and I swear it was doing the hula while I tried to sew it. It still turned out well though.

* I trusted Burda too much with the gathers in the dress and not a fabulous sewing blogger (http://www.makeit-loveit.com/), who had already helped me with my shorts. Burda's instructions for the waist gathers were to zigzag over lengths of elastic thread, while the lovely lady at Make It and Love It manually winds the elastic thread into a bobbin.

 I did test the Burda method and it seems to work. OVER SHORT LENGTHS! I am no tiny person, so the width of the fabric was daunting. Sure you can still pull it to gather but your elastic thread will probably break and it will be nigh impossible to keep it at the right length you want. I ended up having the remove the back gathers because A) the front gathered too short so it wouldn't fit around me if the back was also gathered and B) it is very hard to sew over elastic thread on thin jersey fabric and maintain straight lines. Bad call Burda. Bad call Me.

* I placed my Cutie Mark on the right side of my dress, which was promptly covered by the front of my wig. I ended up playing with it constantly so that people had a chance to notice it.

* My bags were okay except that I had to carry more than a hip-slung bad on a thin belt could handle. I hadn't planned on carrying two small sketchbooks but my friend didn't have the space in her carrying device (she was Twilight Sparkle, so she carried a hollow fake book for a purse). The bags kept slipping down and they weren't even in weight so it was always off.

* Again, I was still not as recognizable as my friend or my husband. To be fair though, they are doing more closet cosplay than me. The only things handmade they have are their Cutie Marks and my husband's Smarty Pants doll (which I made...). Also, I take a different view of Fluttershy than a lot of other cosplayers do. I think Sweet Lolita Fluttershy is cute, but the pony works with animals. She has chickens and a host of other animals. Loli is impractical for taking care of animals, so I went with something cute and breezy but with a practical side, hence cute but sensible boots and "saddle" bags. Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but I don't want to feel I have to be LoliFluttershy to be recognized.

There is also another aspect to this. I do wonder if it's partially because I'm a large woman. I'm not trying to say that everyone who recognized my friend (who is a stick) didn't notice me because I'm fluffy and they all are jerks. I just wonder if I'm deemed "not cute enough for pictures" because of it. Aw heck it's probably not that. Some people did take pictures of me, though it was always with my friend a/o husband. Well, best not to over think this one!

This does made a good transition though. In regards to weight issues, I've finally kicked a factor out of my life for good. No more hormonal birth control for me! Maybe I won't have to think about that paragraph above this one ever again!

Bye for now!

More Pony Fun!

I couldn't just leave it at the Courtship series.

First up is the lovely Rarity, as portrayed by my friend Eilatan.

Rarity doing a Mary Poppins impression

Doesn't she look lovely, darling?

Stay away from Tom if you value your life

Next our fabulous DJ, Vinyl Scratch as portrayed by my friend Sehtah.

Working on the mix for our next adventure

You know she's is the awesome

Yay Dark Side of the Moon!

And more Big Mac, because he's portrayed by my husband and is adorable!

He kissed my forehead a lot. I liked it!

He couldn't be happier with Smarty Pants

Caught mid- Eeyup

And finally a funny group picture!

The best part of this picture is Big Mac's face

So as you can see, despite all my costume woes, we still had a lot of fun. My husband and my friends looked fabulous. I still wish I looked as fabulous but it was still great. Later I'll post the other picture series I call " On Stage".

Bye bye all!

The Courtship of Big Macintosh and Fluttershy

As promised, here is the picture series.

Cosplay: Things I've learned the Hard Way

We got back from a wonderful JAFAX weekend, exhausted and boiled like taters. As far as cosplay goes, it was the most successful one we've ever done...for everyone in my group but me. Well, it was a success in that I sewed my first costume in a week and am no longer scared nauseous by my sewing machine but otherwise, it was a trial-by-fire learning experience for me and I will be completely revamping my Fluttershy cosplay. Here's what I now know.

1) Don't wait until the last minute to buy materials. This only leads to poor choices. My poor choice was a seemingly perfect pair of quilting cottons. The yellow fabric was perfect in form, lousy in function, at least for a kimono. It was far too light to hold up my beast of an obi and the pink fabric I made that from was much heavier than it was. I spent the whole con readjusting myself because the obi would slide down, dragging the kimono backward. I would then pull up the front of the obi and it would plummet backward even more.

2) Don't buy too much wig the first time out. I had an Arda Le Tigre in Bubblegum pink and it was half my 5'6" in length. I also fought with this the whole time. Also, make sure that if someone is doing the bobby pinning for you, that they pin the wig, cap and your hair. The person pinning me in didn't get my hair. Wouldn't you know that it decided to epic fail while I was in the Crash Bang Laboratory's Cosplay Level Up panel, when they were talking about how to keep one's wig on. My wig cap slipped right out from under the wig and was sitting happily on the little pig tails I had that the base of my neck. Combine this with number 1 and I should have offered myself up as a "What no to do" for the panel.

3) If your fabric is a little on the thin side, for the love of Pete and his brother Joe, LINE IT! Don't do what I did and wear and extra layer of silky underthings to maintain your modesty, especially if it's a freakin' summer con. Plus, it was one more thing for my to yank at all day.

4) I failed at being recognized. I was walking around with my husband, who was the con's only Big Macintosh (with Smarty Pants) that we found and a dang good one to boot, the best Rarity of the con and the only Vinyl Scratch. As one of the many Fluttershys and the odd kimono-ed one, I was the weak link in our group. I don't feel I did Fluttershy justice. It seems such a crime considering I love her so much and can otherwise portray her effortlessly. I'm completely embarrassed about that. I can't say it was an epic fail, but it was bad. I put waaay too much me into my Fluttershy, and while we are very alike, that's not the point.

5) I learned to be proud of myself despite all this. I worked really hard on this and I was the only one in our group who made my costume nearly entirely as I cannot make wigs, tabi or flip flops. I put myself out there and even if it didn't turn out like I wanted, it wasn't a bad start. Next time, because I will be Fluttershy again, I will pay more attention to her, less myself and make it that much more awesome.

I'm definitely posting pictures later, including a cute series we call " The Courtship of Big Mac and Fluttershy". For now, I will leave you with this:

Whoever did this, please tell me. I love you!