blizzcon

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Queen of Blades Update: October 11 (She is FINISHED!)

Well people, we can finally say that Blizzcon is next week, and finally, Kerrigan is (99.9%) finished! She is wearable in her current state, but we need to do some tweaking to make her more wearable and comfortable for myself so that I don’t die before the end of the day.

This past week, we:

Marked the cap under the cowl on where the dreads would go, and practice fit them.

Had a 12 hour day where we did nothing but cast, seam, and paint dreads all day.

Finally finished the dreads, and these aren’t even all that COULD fit into the cowl, just how many we thought we’d need to make it look nice.

Inserted the dreads into the cowl and cap, one at a time while holding them in, the gently turned them upside down to epoxy them in.

Here is a picture of the cowl with all the dreads inserted; one of the things I need to do to make it more comfortable (and accurate) is style the dreads to have that look that Kerrigan has:

 

Just wanted to point out that this is the statue from Blizzcon, NOT ME lol.

I’m likely doing a huge foam bumpit! We’ll see though.

I painted the wings, and Mario finished painting the body suit, gloves, and feet.

Can I just say, I could not have done this without Mario? He’s amazing, and this costume is not a one person costume. If I didn’t have him to keep me going and to make me feel better about my flaws, I could not have completed this thing. If you guys see him in his doomsayer costume (he’ll be near wherever I am), go up to him and tell him how awesome he is, because this would not have happened without him. I may be the one wearing the costume, but he helped create it. <3

Well people, that’s my last update for Kerrigan! Come back on October 21 for some pictures of the completed design, though I’ll warn you now, that the dreads/cowl won’t necessarily look the same as the one I will wear to Blizzcon, but at least you can see the costume as it was for our photoshoot, and we will try and post more photos that night :) Thanks for sticking with us through our progress posts!

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Queen of Blades update: October 3

Ugh, it’s October already. Blizzcon cannot possibly be this close! We really aren’t ready for it yet.

I like to get things done weeks ahead of time, and unfortunately that’s just not happening this year. Kerrigan will be done by the end of the week (we ran out of dread material, and also the wings are taking longer than anticipated to shape and cover), and we will be doing the photoshoot on Sunday.

This past week, we: painted a whole lot, cast a ton of dreads, and worked on the wings. That’s really all that’s left, but even with working 12+ hours on this thing on our off days, it’s taking a while. We also want to make sure that we’re doing her justice and not ruining details by rushing. I was going to start painting the dreads tonight, but we need to hang them up to dry them, and we didn’t have anything for that. I’ll be building something first thing tomorrow. Oh! We also got in the mail the wonderful plushie hydralisk that Fiendle made for us! He’s wrapped in some of the dreads we’ve made in the picture above.

Since we haven’t been sharing much picture wise with you guys lately, have some not anywhere near finished gloves. These are just the first base coats!

Another picture of the heels, Mario is painting those as I type!

And finally, the dreads. This is just the beginning of them; there will be probably close to 60 when we’re done, with 5 different size dreads.

Oh! I also went to the mall to my local MAC counter looking for help to make my lips look more like Kerrigan’s, and let me tell you, that was the most amazing part of my week so far! The girls there were so nice to me, and the girl who did my makeup was so helpful, explaining everything that she did and they even wanted me to come back with pictures! It makes me want to go there just to hang out and chat!

And! My contacts came in! How awesome looking are these!

Well… that’s it for my last progress post! I’ll maybe post next week to tell how the photo shoot went, but I’ll post a completed picture of the costume on the day of Blizzcon, so that everyone who isn’t able to make it can see it then!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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In case you were wondering… my (Alice’s) Blizzcon costume!

That’s right, people, I am going to be attending Blizzcon 2011 as Kerrigan, Queen of Blades! The costume is based on most of her more recent pictures; the wings will be similar in shape to the picture below, and thanks to Steve Wang uploading a ton of pictures of the making of the statue of her he did for Blizzard, I have an entire binder full of reference photos!

I’ll be putting up a guide on how we’re making this, for sure, but not until after the costume is completely finished- I want to make sure the whole thing is complete before I start writing up tutorials for it.

This is the current state of her! I was going to wait until both sides were fiberglassed and apart, but darn it, I’m too excited, and I wanted to announce it while everyone was still awake, since we’re not going to be done with glassing until late tonight!

Some sculpture pictures!

In case people are wondering, we’re planning on doing this as a full body suit, cast in foam latex. We’ve been planning this since January and working on it since February. At this time, we’ve put 180 hours into it, and plan on working on it a whole lot more.

I’m so excited for Blizzcon this year! I can’t wait to see everyone there!

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Blizzcon 2011 Ticket sales announced! (Also, the official unofficial Blizzcon podcast!)

That’s right, if you aren’t actively following Blizzard (or if any of your friends aren’t) to know when the tickets are going to go on sale, now you know!

From Blizzcon.com:

On-Sale Dates:

Saturday, May 21 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time
Wednesday, May 25 at 7 p.m. Pacific Time

Price: $175 USD each (limit 4 per household)

What’s Included:

  • One BlizzCon badge that grants access to the convention
  • BlizzCon goody bag containing exclusive swag (contents to be announced)
  • Opportunity to participate in a limited-time, online BlizzCon merchandise sale before the show (details to be announced)
They are also selling tickets to the Charity Dinner this year (which we would LOVE to be able to go to, but with the expenses of costumes this year, it isn’t possible!) for $500 a piece, which of course includes your ticket to Blizzcon. You can read more about that here. 
Pocket and I are also super excited for Blizzcon, and have started recording awesome podcasts full of us doing nothing but talking about Blizzcon! This isn’t going to be every episode, we’re going to keep them structured for the most part, but there will be some Blizzcon goodness in every episode until Blizzcon (and maybe even some episodes after!) From the Original Pocket Podcast blog: “We have declared ourselves the “Official Un-official Podcast for Blizzcon 2011.” What does this mean? Well basically for the next 6 months we will be your #1 podcast for Blizzcon 2011 fix. That means new segments including Blizzcon…  Discussion Forum updates, Cosplayer Roundups, Group gathering/meet-up announcements, Convention announcement and update news coverage, Blizzcon-related interviews with fans and cosplayers, AND SOOOO MUCH MORE Blizzcon!”
Are we excited about them announcing ticket sales? YES! But are we excited about the price increase that they seem to be throwing on us every year? No…. that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to pay it, though. They’ll probably keep raising the price until there’s a riot, and really, I love Blizzcon enough to pay for it. It just makes it harder for other people who have to also pay for expensive plane tickets, etc, to make it. Sad.
Of  course, that isn’t really the point of this post. Chances are, you already knew about the ticket prices. I just wanted to make this post to say that OF COURSE we’re going to be there! Whether we get tickets or not (though it’s very unlikely that we won’t, we have a pretty good system going on with friends), we will be there, in full costume as usual!

Well, what costumes? Mario will be going as a Deathwing Cultist (pictured above). He has chosen a simpler costume this year in order to be able to help me as my handler, since we absolutely have to have one this year! I will be going as… well, I can’t tell you yet, sadly. I have to make sure that I can pull it off (there are several factors that can get in the way of us finishing it!) but as soon as I can announce it, it will be announced here! 
Yay Blizzcon!
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Female Witch Doctor Clothing (or, the easiest thing I’ve ever sewn)

After squinting at and studying the female witchdoctor concept art for a few weeks, I finally felt sure of what kind of fabric it was I was looking for. Mario and I made a trip out to our local JoAnns, and proceeded to wander around with our cellphones out and the picture up, holding up the picture to every reddish fabric we could find. We decided that it needed to be a good stretchy fabric that would fray and rip nicely, and it didn’t take us long to find it. We only got two yards because really, the costume doesn’t call for a lot of fabric. We also got leather lacing in the same color (lucky for us that it matched so well!), some beads that looked like they were similar to the one in the picture, and a button/claw thing that looked like a tooth that isn’t in the picture, but would help secure the skirt onto me so that I wouldn’t have to worry about anything falling off, since the leather lacing is kind of hard to tie (and would be bulky under the skirt anyway, and I didn’t trust a simple clasp to hold this heavy skirt up. Continue reading →

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Blizzcon 2010 Impressions

So, yes, we are a bit late to get our Blizzcon review up, but come on- we didn’t have a computer for the entire week we were out there, haha. Slightly our problem, we got rid of the laptop we had before due to problems to build a desktop, and had plans on getting  at least a mini laptop before Blizzcon, but we got so busy we didn’t even think about it, and to be honest, we were too busy to blog anyway.

On October 22-23, Mario and I attended Blizzcon 2010 in Anaheim, California.

For the first day, we were both in full body paint, wearing huge masks and it was honestly hard to see much of the convention. We were up at four in the morning, painting each other, and had two other people helping us- my painting took the longest because I had white designs on my legs and stomach that needed to be painted in and then carefully painted around.

We got outside right around 9:30 and were bombarded with people taking our pictures. It was really hard to move much, and we need to walk around to find some friends, but it took a little bit of time, haha.

Really quickly we want to thank everybody who helped us throughout the weekend. Pocket was awesome with helping me with the designs on my legs, it would have been impossible to draw them myself, and the Deeters were amazing as well- they all helped us by carrying around tissues, getting us water, helping with costumes and costume fixes, making sure we ate, and helping me when I needed someone to hold my staff (it was really heavy, and hard to balance with my left arm). They also helped us immensely backstage, and helped to keep me calm when I was honestly about to just drop out of the contest due to nerves. Thank you all! It was also awesome meeting all of the other cosplayers there, Jenny, Leslie, Jen, Christina, and anybody else whose name I have forgotten (I’m really sorry, terrible at names!).

Right before the opening ceremonies, we were asked by a Blizzard employee to come upstairs for some photos and a photoshoot, which was pretty awesome. We haven’t seen the pictures from it yet, though, but neither have our friends who were interviewed as well.

For the opening ceremonies, we were actually backstage, watching the screen, because Mario needed to fix his wig really quickly, and then right when we walked back out we were asked by Direct TV to be interviewed about our views for the opening ceremony, which hadn’t even ended yet, haha.

We weren’t too impressed with it, to be honest. Last year, there seemed to be a ton more excitement, and a ton more announcements. There were all the excitement about Cataclysm, about being able to fly in old world, about all the new guild stuff that’s going on. This year, it seemed like it was just ‘Hey, happy to be here, we’re awesome’ and then the (awesome, yes) ‘Geek is’ presentation by Chris Metzen.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Z_uAbmka5Ko?fs=1&hl=en_US

The last Diablo 3 class was also announced, the Demon Hunter. It looks like a fun, ranged class to play (though I’ll be playing around with every class until I find the one I love) and the costume looks pretty fun too, though I doubt I’d be making it since they had a model walking around wearing it, and they’ll probably be walking around wearing it in upcoming Blizzcons as well.

The rest of the day was honestly a blur to me, we were running around a lot and went back to the hotel room several times to fix wigs/masks/eat something. Before we knew it, it was 4:00 and we needed to head to backstage for the costume contest.

I feel like it was more organized that I heard it was in past years, though it was my first year entering so I really don’t know. They did have seats for people to sit in, and bottles of water for everyone, which was nice.

I was so, so very nervous going into the contest. I was nauseous while standing in line, and it all felt very rushed to me. I did feel like they didn’t spend much time judging costumes, they walked around with a clipboard and asked us our number for the contest, and then silently looked at us and moved on. I think it would have been nice if they at least asked a few questions about the costumes first.

However, I did get to the top five! I’m pretty excited about that, and the girl who won first place (Christina) did an absolutely phenomenal job, she hand tooled all of her leather on her costume herself, and the details were amazing. For those of you who haven’t seen her:

Simply gorgeous.

It was pretty exciting, because apparently after I was pulled away to get in line to go on stage again for top five, Mario was approached by one of the guys who worked on the Diablo 3 concept art for the Witch Doctors, and he thanked us for doing such an awesome job on the costumes. Woot!

We didn’t attend any panels or go to any booths on the first day, and barely made it past the first 20 feet of the convention center.

On the second day, we dressed as Kalecgos and Tyrigosa:

I was pretty happy because I got to get a manicure in the hotel spa that morning! My nails were torn up from wearing the long fake nails the day before, and definitely needed it.

We actually didn’t do much second day, we wandered and checked out some booths, got some stuff from the Blizzard store, and got our picture taken on the Frozen Throne.

What could be more awesome than that, you ask? Well…

Mario proposed on the Frozen Throne! (of course I said yes!) Best. Geeky. Proposal. Ever. I mean, not just for the Frozen Throne, but add that in with it being AT Blizzcon (where we first met, by the way) and us being in costume as Kalecgos as Tyrigosa, who are betrothed in the lore.

Oh, and because I’m proud of my boots (even though I didn’t wear them for longer than a few hours, I forgot to wrap my feet) here’s a quick picture of those:

Woot. I ended up keeping on the leg pieces and putting on tennis shoes… Tyri’s going to the gym! Just remember, people, if your shoes or boots aren’t completely tight/rub when you walk on your feet, then wrap them/get something to cover the rub points. Because it hurts.

We found the photobooth, but we were pretty upset that we didn’t see it on the first day. Boo.

So then we all met up with our friends, and sat and waited for Tenacious D.

The first few songs were pretty awesome, but to be honest, we weren’t too impressed. It seemed more of a show than a concert, I guess, and though they were entertaining, they just didn’t seem to please the crowd quite as much as Ozzy did last year. Last year, every person was on their feet, cheering, singing along, and this year… it was only maybe 1/3 of the people who stood up, there wasn’t much cheering and screaming, or singing along. While it was amusing, it just doesn’t hold the same amount of interest for us as last year, and we ended up walking around and going to some booths we weren’t able to before because of the lines.

It was amusing that they had the Lich King fight the Metal, and then they became friends. That was pretty awesome.

So, I guess that’s it for our roundup about Blizzcon. This was pretty much from a cosplayer’s point of view, and so that’s why I didn’t cover the panels or many announcements. Next up, a review on the official, unofficial Blizzcon after party, and a quick review of the Hilton.