September 27, 2011 by RampagingCoconut

Queen of Blades update: September 27

Well… I really hope that this is my last update, and that next week I can happily report that this costume is finished. We’re pushing to get it done by Sunday, but I guess we’ll see.

This week, we have to: finish painting the body suit, paint the gloves, shoes, cast the dreads, cast another cowl (we had issues), paint the cowl, make the spikes for the cowl, make the dread holder for the cowl, paint the dreads, attach the dreads, finish putting modelling paste on the wings, sand the wings, paint the wings, and done.

This last week, we painted a lot of the body suit, finished the basic wing structure, covered it, carved the wings, and halfway covered it in modelling paste. We also sculpted the heels, practiced gluing the cowl on, and tried to mold some dreads- but it was too cold outside, and they didn’t want to rise properly. We also practiced painting the feet, with a spare foot cast we had.

That’s it for this week! We’ll see if next week I announce that it’s finished!

September 20, 2011 by RampagingCoconut

Queen of Blades update: September 20

So, yes. We were out of town this weekend so not as much got done as we were hoping, and a lot of what got done was the wings, so.. not a lot of pictures, sorry. I’d say we’re around 95% done just because of the amount of stuff we’ve had to do to finally get to this point, today we start mixing paint and painting the pieces of the costume.

Two of the dreads are now molded, the largest and smallest. I think we were planning on molding the medium one yesterday but I had work and I think Mario forgot, or he needed the board, or something. We have only one board we’re using for molding the dreads, so we can only do it one at a time.

The wing structure is almost finished being built. It was really awkward for a while because I had to wear the corset in order for the wings to be worked on, so they weren’t completely still (those things just kind of do their own thing if I even breathe) (which isn’t a bad thing to be honest, it’s like they’re alive and moving) so finally Mario built a stand for the corset to be attached to and finally I can see what the wings actually look like without having to look at a mirror.

So apparently this is the only picture I have to share this week, really sorry about that. Started on sculpting the heels on the shoes, I think they’re coming along really well. I’m using Magic Sculpt on the heels, easy to sculpt with and easy to sand and smooth.

We also cast another cowl, and this one came out a lot better than the other one (the other one just didn’t have thin enough edges, we didn’t close it tight enough, so we put extra mold straps on this one). I’m excited to practice glueing the thing to my face!

Well, that’s it for this week. Sorry that there aren’t more pictures to share. I’ve already said that once we start painting things, you’ll stop seeing pictures, but I might show the base coats. We are hoping to have all of this done in two weeks, so we’ll see!

I hope everyone’s costumes are coming along well! We’re at a month to go til Blizzcon, people!

September 13, 2011 by RampagingCoconut

Queen of Blades update: September 13

Well.. we’re like three weeks away from wanting to be finished, and I guess we’ll see if we make my deadline!

This week:

I modified the body suit slightly, raising the armpits and sewing the arms to make them tighter.

We also worked more on the wings, which upon sending to two close friends, both replied with “aren’t they a bit large?”.

We molded and cast the largest dread, to understand how much material we’ll need.

We molded the cowl, which unfortunately I didn’t get a finished picture of, but you can kind of see it in a later picture.

It turned out well but we still need to cast at least one more.

Lastly, I glued the foot covers to the shoes. The above picture does not show the finished glued shoe; I obviously cut off all excess foam latex when I glued it on. I need to sculpt the heel soon.

These posts never feel like they’ve got a lot of progress, but we’re working on this costume every day that we’re off of work, and every hour of every day that we can. I am taking a mandatory break this coming up weekend (family in town, pretty much being made to be out of the house for two days) so we’re working hard during the week to be ahead of schedule, and next week we’ll start painting.

Thanks for following our progress, I hope everyone else’s costumes are coming along great!

September 6, 2011 by RampagingCoconut

Queen of Blades update: September 7

Wow, we have gotten a lot done in the past week. Never as much as I want to get done, but it’s a lot nonetheless.

We cast the gloves, but need to recast one of them again, due to it ripping when we took it off the hand form- my fault, I needed to go slower, but we can easily recast.

We’ve also made a ton of progress on the wings, of which I’m not going to show pictures of yet, sorry. You’ll get to see those closer to the convention, when we get them more refined.

Mario’s been working on his seaming so we can get all the pieces seamed and painted, and I put on the full suit today! I’m not happy with the arms and armpits, so I’m going to alter them, but overall, it looks pretty awesome. Here are some pictures with it with the gloves (one of the gloves is the ruined one) and the feet (not glued on to the shoe yet!).