Back to Knitting (I Hope!)

So my house flooded.

That was cool.

It wasn't cool, but we're fine and my house will be okay after we rebuild.

I lost all my yarn.

My sister is a gem.

Enough with the fragments! My sister recently passed through Nacogdoches, TX, with my brother-in-law on a business trip, and found the lovely store, Yarnia. Y'all, when she called me and said she found a store named Yarnia, I about died. I am a huge nerd (as you may have gathered from the title of my blog and the cosplay posts), and when you make PUNS off of one of my favourite book series with YARN, I can't even. I think I fangirl squealed in the middle of the restaurant. I had just lost some beautiful purple sock yarn from The Quarter Stitch in New Orleans in the flood, and I was mourning my never-made socks. She got me a beautiful skein of Manos del Uruguay Alegria in a variegated purple. She also got me 2 skeins of Crystal Palace's Mini Mochi in 331 Yosemite, which is a beautiful mix of tans, browns, oranges, and greens.

Alegria - 8717 Bataclana. Actual color is more blue than this - phone photo in indoor lighting.

Mini Mochi in 331 Yosemite

For my sock yarn, I'm debating between knitting Business Casual socks or Nutkin socks. I'm leaning more towards the business casual for 2 reasons: The Nutkin pattern has a smooth cuff using a purl row to fold the cuff under for a beautiful finish. However, I have the weirdest stinking calves and everything I knit for my legs just steadily travels down to my ankles. This kind of cuff would likely just exacerbate the issue. The Alegria yarn also varies from almost black to almost white, and I think the Business Casual socks will do a better job of showing off the yarn.

For the Mini Mochi, I'm looking at knitting a slouchy hat for my amazing sister. The last slouchy beanie I knit for her has definitely worn down to a point that it doesn't really stay on any more. It's been years! So it's totally her color, she has dark red hair and would look like a freaking autumn fairy with all those browns and greens on her head. I want to find a leafy, autumnal pattern for that hat.

Hi, hello, I love you, see you later.

Injustice: Wonder Woman

I needed to actually make a costume on a deadline, which I've never done before, so I picked up the Wonder Woman costume from Injustice!

The pattern:

I used instructions from Tayla Barter's "Craft Foam Breastplate Tutorial" on YouTube ( http://youtu.be/hj-WC35cxgs ) to make my template. This has been the best template I've made and used so far. It's also the first one I've actually followed all the directions correctly, so correlation...causation...you know.

When I cut the pieces apart, it was really a guessing game as to what should and should not be separated...I don't know if I made the right choice, but it's what I did.

The Foam

I laid the three flat pieces and cut them from my foam: 5/16" EVA foam mat from Harbor Freight (sorry, no photo). Friendly reminder: keep a sharp blade on your knife! A dull blade will start giving you ragged edges. The minute it starts getting ragged, change your blade.

The Cups

I bought styrofoam balls from Hobby Lobby to use as forms for the cups of the armor. I used the same process from the aforementioned video to shape them. The only issue I had is that I didn't shape the top inner corners enough, so I have to go back and reshape that section on my completed piece (not ideal).

Construction

Of course, I used hot glue to put it all together. I then took Foamies craft foam (also from Hobby Lobby) and cut the details. If I were making this for competition use, I would have sculpted the details on top to keep the rounded look of the details. For this, it will have to be flat.

The Star

...was awful. After MANY attempts to draw or cut a decent star, my friend thought of using a cookie cutter as a stencil. Best idea ever.

So I traced a cookie cutter, cut out my star, and started finishing it off with a Dremel tool. It was a hot mess.

After 2 weird starfish stars, I cut another star out of the Foamies craft foam, cut the pieces of it apart, then glued them on top to make a smoother, embossed-looking idea. Again, I would sculpt this piece if I were putting in a competition. For now, quicker is better.

The Finished Build:

I'll do corset lacing up the back even though her actual costume has belts (again, time constraints...). I need to heat and shape the top on either side of the eagle head to curve back in towards me a little more.

What's Next:

I'll prime/seal the piece with PVA glue and then paint it with metallic acrylic paint. I haven't decided yet if I will use my Dremel tool to put textures onto it or if I will paint the textures on. Time is a big deal here, but I don't like cutting corners, and I've already cut a few.

TTFN!

Visible progress for once

Huzzah, I have paint on it!

The silver is Dupli-Color Perfect Match in some silver that I can't remember the name of. I'll tell you later (I hope).

The red is a Rustoleum acrylic enamel and it is not as pink as these pictures make it look.

That's a little closer...

I don't like how cartoony the red is, so I'll have to see what I think after I weather it and add battle damage. I know for sure that I will be using a deeper red with a shimmer to it on the final project. I'll likely use a Dupli-Color for consistency.

"Fast dry" my foot; that junk took 3 hours to set. It was also about to rain, so humidity was a factor.

Next step: acrylic paint to weather it and a clear top coat for protection.

TTFN!

Breathing Again: Learning from my mistakes

HOWDY, CAMPERS.

I would like to reinforce how pleased I am that I found locally supplied EVA foam (harbor freight foam mats). It's holding its shape very well. In fact, I'm thinking I may need to get some forms to shape my pieces on top of. The big curves are hard to shape by hand. BUT I am really pleased with this material.

So after Tuesday's brief update about never putting primer on Plasti Dip, I have re-done the plastic coating and begun painting.

You may notice that the spray can featured in this photo is not, in fact, Plasti Dip. This is Rustoleum Peel Coat (which is the Rustoleum version of Plasti Dip). I prefer Plasti Dip for the following reasons: Plasti Dip gives a thicker coat when you spray it. It also has a more directionally focused spray that I feel is easier to control. The Rustoleum spray is more fine, less directionally focused, and gives a more watery coat that does not cover as completely as Plasti Dip.

Another thing to note is that all of the mistakes and damage I've done have made this helmet look a little...worn out to say the least. Peeling the Plasti Dip took off some of the PVA coating. I didn't replace it because I'm curious to see how the end product looks with and without the PVA coat. I'm also looking forward to weathering this helmet like crazy. I will add some battle damage and practice different weathering ideas just to see what looks good.

And then there was PAINT!

I chose a shimmery finish for my silver paint, and I'm still not sure if it was the right choice. We will see once I get the red paint on how it looks.

I'm looking forward to another update.

DO NOT USE PLASTIC PRIMER ON PLASTI DIP

That is not what it is for and it will ruin everything EVERYTHING.

Lesson learned. Starting over.

Rescue Update - The Practice Helmet

I finally found some time! I put a fresh coat of Plasti-Dip on the helmet - 3 coats total. Unfortunately...I did this at 7:00 last night. Gnats apparently love Plasti-Dip and get stuck in it for kicks and make it gross and ugly when I have to pick them out!

Freshly covered in Plasti-Dip, it looks pretty slick. Get it? Slick?? Ha, I'm hilarious.

I still need to put plastic primer on it and then I can add the paint (finally!).

My next post will be the primer and paint update, so for now, have some more angle shots of the helmet.

Another way to not make a helmet.

What is this, I don't even.

Okay, so I'm working through my "practice" helmet, which is pretty good but not nearly the quality I want. I picked my paints, and I'm ready to prime it.

The current helmet...well, there's a lot of problems.

Everyone get ready to laugh at my massively idiotic, biggest mistake.

THIS IS OPEN CELL FOAM. I AM SO DUMB. Don't stop reading just because I made the most basic mistake ever, though...There's more to come!

Here are the rest of the problems (none so bad as using open cell foam):

1) I used 1 cm thick foam. Just bad from the start... The first time I couldn't get a curve to hold should have been a red flag that sent me running. It was hard to cut as it dulled the heck out of my blades and was nigh impossible to shave down even with brand new blades.

2) I opened the paper helmet and just traced it out on the foam then cut it. It was lazy, and it didn't give me a reliable piece.

3) ANGLES. When you work with paper or thin craft foam, cutting it is crazy easy. When you work with thicker foam, the angle of the cut is suddenly VERY important. Assembly was difficult on many of the seams.

4) I'm a spaz. I burned myself about 35 times every time I sat down to work, and if a seam didn't quite match up, I just sort of filled it with hot glue.

Oh well. Here's some more pictures of the fail.

The weird alien shape of the helmet makes the cheeks extra pinchable.

TTFN.