Disjointed Ramblings of a Hockey-Playing, Guinness-Drinking History Nerd

Ever have those wonderful periods when you're so overcome with inspiration that you could almost throw yourself on the ground and kick your feet in the air from the sheer joy of it? And sleep at night becomes kind of spotty?

Yup. In one of those RIGHT now.

Whoa.

K, quickly before bed here. Back in one piece from the Maximilian Tour 2010, which was completely, utterly, unbelievably awesome. More later but suffice it to say that I accomplished precisely everything I set out to.

Anyways, continuining on with Nuada because hooooly crap, he's got to be ready to go by Oct. 16. I did a quick glue test with the pipe-beads and it works! Which is brilliant because it means I don't have to sew all 1700 on by hand. Thank all the gods that be. So the next step is to get the base made up out of the leather, add the ridges for the beads (probably out of 2 mm craft-foam), cover it all (probably with tan pigskin), and start gluing.

And then finish the tunic.
And then the boots.
And then the belt.
And get something sorted out for the wig.
And get contacts.
And get the makeup figured out.

Agh.

A thoroughly productive day! It's been great hanging out with Jesse but having some time to myself is absolutely divine.

Anyways, I finished with the muslin mock-up for Nuada's tunic by early afternoon so I cut out and sewed together the outer body pieces. The skirting has been cut out as well but I'm thinking I'll let that hang for a few days (or even while I'm away) so the fabric can drop like it needs to. I've also cut the outer skirting on the bias so the square patterns are actually diamonds, as his are on the actual costume.

It all went together quite smoothly today though the collar did take a lot of fiddling around. It's still not quite right but I just wanted to get on with it so I figured I would finalize it on the actual tunic.

So first some pictures of the mock-up. I'm missing the second back panel in the second shot there since I only cut three for the mock-up. Strange how his overlap but this is good because I don't need to worry about them fitting perfectly around the body.



Then the actual product went together QUITE well though the (sort of) upholstery fabric I used for the body was hella tough to cut and sew through.



The skirting is just pinned on for now and probably will stay that way for a few days. And the diamonds don't line up yet. But they will! And here's the original again for comparison:



I didn't realize this at first (FAIL) but his tunic is made of the same fabric for the body and skirts. Ah well. I'm thinking the combination I've got should pass tolerably and I'm not too concerned about having this as spot-on as I have been in the past. It will be close, for sure, but I'm just not feeling particularly anal with this one.

Going to do the lining tomorrow (silk - how posh!!) and then either start the pants or start the armour pattern (which shouldn't be too hard).

Whoa.

Leaving for Europe in seven days.

I have half a tunic mock-up done for Nuada. Yayyy. But I'm going to kick its ass this weekend. The goal is to complete the tunic, cut out and sew together the body for his armour, burn the pipe-beads to make them seem appropriately weathered, and stamp the front guards of his boots.

All over the next seven days. I KIN DOO IT.

And what fun is costuming if it's not done in a sheer bloody panic? Seriously...

Wildly successful trip to Fabricland this afternoon. The fabric selection determined that I'm doing Nuada's ivory ensemble after all because the choices were too good to pass up. And thus I give you the following:



To be made into this:



Hells yeah. It actually looks more gold in the screenshots but this is due to the lighting. Right. The 'squared' fabric will be used for the tunic skirts and the crazy sequins for the skirt embellishments (at this point, it just looks like naughty underwear material). The pipe beading on his armour will be the most tedious part but I think creating a pattern for the tunic may be the hardest. It's interesting how his sleeves are made of two types of fabric - something more robust on the inside (the fabric on the left in my picture) and something silky and somewhat wrinkled on the outside (I'll be using the silk - bottom right - for that). And here he provides us with a convenient under-arm shot so you can see what I'm on about.



Anyways, I've got to come up with a working muslin pattern first. This costume is going to be nice because it only really has five components: 1) the tunic 2) the armour 3) the sash 4) the royal seal (disk thing on the sash) and 5) boots. No fiddly stupid crap like the hours and hours of foam-work I had to do for the Emperor of Mankind. Thank all the gods. The makeup will require 439283492 test runs and I'll have to see if I can get the wig looking as natural as possible. If my hair was longer, I would totally dye it that flaxen colour and then re-dye it back to normal.

As promised...

Nuada wears four different outfits in the film and I'm trying to decide if I want to do one of his black ones or the ivory one he wears during the final fight. (And the LJ Cut is STILL not working... WHY)








A LOT of me wants to do the black because it's wonderfully evil and doesn't involve sewing on 4398239482 tube beads but I'm also thinking about Con photos and the sheer contrast between the white of the face and the dark of the clothes, which is going to look crappy, especially with flash photography. I think I'll let the fabric decide - if I can scrounge some good stuff for the ivory outfit, then I'll do that and vice versa with the black. The black would be easier to photograph, I think, because it's easier to get good dark locations to mirror the scenes where he's wearing it. And I'm not a fan of the crown with his ivory outfit... at all. Nuuu.

Thoughts? The ivory is so much more regal and would look REALLY good if done and aged properly. But the black.... gah, the black...

Had to share this because it makes me so wickedly proud to be both Canadian and a hockey player: network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/02/26/canada-s-women-s-hockey-team-celebrate-with-beer-cigars-ioc-gets-huffy.aspx

What's there to investigate? We won and we celebrated appropriately. Oh wait, we smoked cigars, drank beer, and laid on the ice. Hockey isn't the most.... lady-like sport out there and the women who play it - and play it well - aren't necessarily conventional women. So here's to the Canadian girls who aren't afraid to flaunt this to the world!


N.B. I do realize the issue with this isn't necessarily one of proper 'gendered' behaviour. Yet I can't help but think it's still the root of the IOC's consternation....

DUDES. Go see Avatar. I'm never one for ranting about movies but, my goodness, that was THE. MOST. EPIC. THING. I'VE. EVER. SEEN. I have never watching anything so completely engaging. From the visuals, to the characters, to the amazing music... Wow. My standards of epicness have been blown sky-high.

Totally hit the wall with 40K tonight. Inspiration has totally dropped off and I'm incapable of producing anything that remotely resembles art. So let's take a week off and do something more with Copernicus.

Gah. By the time you get warmed up, it's time to quit. Fie...

Anyways, Saul.

Yeah. Sort of imagined him sitting for a portrait very reluctantly. Not sure if I'm diggin' the paper 'tooth' in the new sketchbook yet - it's a tad rough for my tastes but the back sides are pretty good. Love drawing hands in power armour gauntlets because the fingers are just giant rectangles.

Time for bed. Didn't do anything I should have tonight except for this. And it's storming like a mother here. Gross.