Although my childhood memories are primarily punctuated by cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series, DuckTales, and Disney’s Gargoyles, I was exposed to a handful of anime in my youth. One offering in particular – Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke – resonated with me for years to come. To some degree it retains a special place because it was one of my first forays into the world of Japanese animation, but it additionally warrants fond recollection for a powerful story and moving performances. When I was invited to Katsucon 2012 as a cosplay guest – a massive honor and an amazing experience – it only seemed natural to take on San’s deceptively simple garb from the Ghibli film.

Construction of the costume took about a month, working a few hours here and there after work. I started with San’s mask, as in my eyes it’s the most iconic part of her costume. The mask began as a bamboo bowl from Target, which I chose because of its light weight and durability. I shaved down the bowl with a razor, plotted out the eyes and mouth, burned the sockets in with a soldering iron, and began mold the clay accent pieces. When everything was shaped, I popped it in the oven to bake. After cooling, I filed off any paint that still adhered to the mask so the natural grain would show through.

My primary goal in the costume was to ensure everything looked hand made, and as such little sanding was needed. I actually carved lines into the dry clay to make it appear made of wood, too. When it came to painting I avoided oversaturation, so that the rings would show through the bright pigment. I hand painted the small details, again, not really worried about achieving perfection.

The ears were made similarly, entirely out of clay and carved to look like wood. I also made the teeth on San’s necklace out of clay – painted an off white and then slightly yellowed for a realistic look.

The crystal dagger was fairly easy. I ordered a glass napped point on Etsy, and painted the back with blue nail polish. It’s a simple trick that works very well and doesn’t compromise the transparency of the glass. I used a friendship bracelet and some leather cording to finish off the piece.

San’s actual dagger – her primary weapon – is made out of Wonderflex. I left the edges intentionally serrated so it would appear to be made out of bone. Again, I used a slight off-white color. A spare piece of curtain rod became the handle, completed by wrapping leather cording around the grip. I also made the earrings out of Wonderflex, painted a pearlescent shell color.

I completed the dress and vest in one night without the aid of a pattern. I chose a thick, rough looking linen for the fabric, knowing it would fray and look more authentic as I wore it. I used the same fabric for the head and arm bands, attaching beads accents I purchased to match the design.

The shoes used to be some ugly fashion boots, complete with fur and a massive zippers. I stripped them down to the bare bones, and hand-sewed on new soles so they wouldn’t look manufactured.

The fur cape was a last minute addition, and something I was very concerned about leading up to the show. When my order arrived, it was a very distinct silver color – not the pristine white I had ordered. I almost settled due to a lack of time, but my boyfriend surprised me with a new, accurate order that arrived the night prior to my departure. Cutting it up and securing it in place wasn’t difficult, but was very messy.

The day of the convention, fellow Katsucon guest Linda Le helped me paint my face, as I’m absolutely horrid at anything involving symmetry. She also cut and styled the wig for me, making it look as light and feathery as San’s own hair. I finished up the costume with a bit of “dirt,” which was in truth black and brown hairspray diluted with water and stippled on my arms, legs, and face.

I spent the first half of the day in my full Mononoke ensemble, which was very well received by other Ghibli followers. I then returned to my room, removed my mask, and bloodied up my mouth and hands. Fans of the film recognized the look as the first time they see San, attempting to aid her wounded wolf-kin.

I shot with both Anna Fischer and LJinto at the show, and am so, overwhelmingly happy with the photos. The Katsucon hotel was an ideal place for the shoot – the lighting and atmosphere was perfect, and there was even a little stream running through the courtyard.

I am by no means through with San – I intend to wear her again to several more conventions this year. All I need now is to find myself an Ashitaka!

Princess Mononoke WIP

Princess Mononoke Portfolio

Madame Mirage captivated me. One look at her classic beauty, dangerous curves, and ever-present air of mystery – illustrated to perfection by the talented Kenneth Rocafort – and the hook was set.

The intriguing tale woven by Batman: The Animated Series scribe Paul Dini ensured the story was as good as the scenery, and by the time I turned the last page I was consumed by thoughts of wanting more. Alas, an ongoing series wasn’t in the cards.

Naturally, I felt the best way to pay tribute to my brief tryst with the comic was through cosplay.

The costume itself was fairly simple to pull together. I purchased the dress on eBay after weeks and weeks of searching – eventually finding something suitable in an exotic dancer boutique. Go figure. To ensure modesty (and a seamless silhouette), I purchased a nude body stocking to wear underneath.

I commissioned the bolero, as I wasn’t sure enough in my sewing skills to work with such a heavy fabric in an equally difficult pattern.

I already owned the boots from my Zatanna costume, and picked up the hat from a thrift store. I attached a handful of black bows to dress up the hat and boots, and some netting to drape across my face. Lastly, I added a few metal accent pieces to a small plastic handgun I owned, before spray-painting it gold.

I finished the costume for SDCC back in 2009, but only just found time to shoot it with LJinto at NYCC 2011. We shot outside after the convention finished, finding some dark alleyways and other intriguing areas that played with shadow and light.

I’m actually very happy with how the photos turned out, but have officially categorized this costume as retired. Honestly? It’s nearly impossible to take a flattering image in. The skintight dress doesn’t allow me to properly breathe, which makes having a good time at a show difficult.

Still, I consider this costume a success! Hope you enjoy the photos!

Madame Mirage Portfolio

Hey all! I wanted to update with a quick blog to share my newest custom Munny project, Soulcalibur IV’s Ashlotte. I made it as a Christmas gift for my boyfriend, and it was quite a challenge. That being said, I learned a lot and piecing it together was a very rewarding experience!

Using my go-to material – Wonderflex – I started with Ashlotte’s hair. Cutting and shaping the hair was easy enough, and I molded the spiral curls around a pencil help maintain a nice form. I did the same with the chest piece and the layered skirt/armor, piecing it together out of tapered Wonderflex layers.

I used Super Sculpey to augment Ashlotte’s chest, not so much because hers is large (it’s quite small for a female SC character) but because her chest piece is formed nicely around it.

Little strips of Wonderflex were used for the claws and gauntlets, too. When finished with the Wonderflex bits the entire piece was primed with several layers of spray gesso to achieve a uniform texture. I sanded anything that needed touching up once done.

Once primed, I painted the pieces of armor a dark grey color, and lined the inside of the skirt with pink satin fabric. It’s hard to see, but a detail I wanted to include.

I picked up some black lace to use for Ashlotte’s leggings, and white lace for her skirt and headband.

Moving onto the final details, I painted Ashlotte’s hair purple and attached the custom headband and bows that I constructed. Final details on the headpiece included some wire accents and a custom barrette made out of beads that I painted black.

After attaching the skirt, armor, and accents, I polished off the outfit with a wire cage,  and attached it behind the hair to obscure the joints as best as possible. The gold heart in the middle of Ashlotte’s chest was the final accent, which is made out of small watch parts and other ornamentation.

Last was the lance, made out of Wonderflex and wooden dowel with some gems and beads and whatnot.

Hope you like the final piece!

I made this little guy months ago and am just now getting around to posting about him. Sometimes that happens.

There isn’t too much to detail about making Deadpool, as he is fairly straightforward from a construction standpoint. I sculpted his tool belt and mask from Sculpey, baking it in the oven and sanding it smooth when dry.

From there I primed the Munny and used spray paint to color the bulk of the figure, taping off sections to get clean lines. The eyes and other small details were done by hand.

The various weapons are ones that I’ve accrued from random action figures over the years, and fortuitously decided to keep around. The guns and grapple are unaltered, but the twin swords were modified from different designs to appear as a matching pair.

Simple enough, right? I’m really happy with how Deadpool turned out, and I think his new owner is as well!

Enjoy the photos!

You can check out some of my other custom work below!

I’ve been on a bit of a Silent Hill kick the past few weeks and these little guys are the reason why. After creating my first custom Munny figures a few weeks back, I began feverishly debating what I should take on next. I almost instantly had my mind made up to pay tribute to BioShock with a Big Daddy and Big Sister duo, but got sidetracked by the thought of bringing to life two of Silent Hill’s most iconic monstrosities – Pyramid Head and a Nurse. Trapping myself into finishing these guys this week, I preemptively tied my CosBlog entry on Wednesday to Silent Hill. If you haven’t checked it out yet, do so here!

On to the specifics! I spent quite a bit of time researching the various iterations of each character that I could draw from, and ultimately decided to reference the Silent Hill movie for several reasons. Not only do I find them the most interesting, but the source material coming from a movie allowed me to watch and rewatch clips in order to get a good grasp on the costumes. You can read my breakdown of creating these critters below. Or you can skip to the photos. Your choice!

Creating the nurse gave me an opportunity to bond clay to a Munny for the first time. After washing, sanding and priming, I covered her head with Super Sculpy and began working it into the final form with a dull butter knife. I decided to augment the Munny’s chest with clay as well. Let’s face it; the odd fascination most have with Silent Hill’s nurse population stems from the juxtaposition of sex and gore. So really, I couldn’t leave her cleavage out.

Working the clay took a few hours to finish, and when done I began the drying process. After reading the instructions online several times over, I baked the Munny head and body in the oven for fifteen minutes. The vinyl figure came out of the oven a bit soft, but didn’t lose any of its shape in the process. After a half hour everything cooled down and hardened as expected.

From there I primed the Munny again with a base coat of flesh-colored paint and began mixing various skin shades and yellow hues which I stippled all over her body. I intentionally layered colors to give her skin a mottled look, using toilet paper instead of a brush so that fibers would stick to the figure and make her skin look like it was peeling. The result is pretty cool. I used more yellow and green tones in the mask, with darker browns in the crevasses to play up the change in depth. To make her veins pop, I painted stark lines of purple and red on her chest, arms, and legs, then went over it again with the yellow color to slightly subdue the look.

Moving onto clothing, I stained a white nylon sock with coffee grounds in order to make it look grimy. Then I glued it to her body using liquid latex, making sure to accentuate her chest and legs. I added little pockets on the front of the dress for more detail, and continued to stain the outfit with, of all things, chicken and beef bouillon cubes. I was having trouble finding small enough circular objects to use for buttons, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and use nails. The nails secured the dress in place and once painted, the heads worked perfectly.

Almost finished at that point, I made the nurse hat out of Wonderflex, and then used some extra stained fabric to line it. Her switchblade razor is made from the same material. For the last step I added spots of blood to introduce a bit more color, coating her dress, hat and razor with various diluted and non-diluted mixtures of special FX blood. With that, she was done!

Obviously, Pyramid Head’s helmet was the biggest time vampire of the whole project. So let’s start with the easy stuff. I scavenged through the craft store to find fabric that could pass for human skin, sewing it together with leather cording for extra detail. Once finished, I rubbed leather stain and oil in a few places to make it more interesting. Easy enough. I painted the body with the same technique as the Nurse – layering shades of color dobbed on with toilet paper for extra texture.

On to the helmet. I drew heavily from the design in the movie, except for a few slight modifications so not to obscure the endearing Munny elements – namely the iconic ears. I didn’t want to cover the entire head with the helmet, so I lobbed off the top half, leaving just a bit of the lower half showing. I started creating the helmet with Wonderflex after working out a template in paper. From there I glued layers of thin foam to the base of the helmet, securing the seams with black electrical tape. Drywall tape was used to get the grid-like pattern, and a second layer of foam was added on top. The hardware came last. When finally finished layering things on, I coated the entire thing with several layers of plastic primer, allowing nearly a week to pass and insure it was fully dry before I started the detail work.

The painting process started with a coat of black paint, and then I stippled grey over the top to provide texture – again with toilet paper. From there I added various shades of burnt orange and red for rust around the hardware, and took a knife to the foam to scratch in silver in various locations. Last, I flicked the entire thing with some fake blood dobbed on a toothbrush, which has since been decommissioned from active duty.

I left a small vertical band of the Munny’s head attached, which I stuck inside the bottom of the helmet for support. From there I glued the piece on with hot glue, coated it with liquid latex, and layered purple and reds along the joint to make it look like his skull had fused with the metal. All done!

Last came the Great Knife. I used an actual steak knife for this thing, filing down the serrated edges by hand before wising up and using a massive grinder to do the rest of the work, including shaving down the handle to be a bit more proportional. I used the same painting technique for the knife as the helmet, and used silver to highlight the sharpened edge. For the final touch I added some brown leather cording to the hilt. Then came the blood. Blood on the fused section of the helmet, on his skirt, and his sword. I let it dry in coats to make it look crusty. You can check out the final product in the gallery below! Thanks to Nick for the photos!

Overall, I am really happy with how these guys turned out. They were a ton of fun to make and gave me a chance to test my skill in a few new mediums. I plan on entering them in a custom contest at a local collector’s shop that runs until the end of the month, but will sell them through Etsy or eBay afterwards. If anyone is interested in picking them up before I list them, let me know.

So what’s next? I don’t want to spoil it, but my next custom Munny will involve clay and carving vinyl once again. I’ll be sure to blog about it when it’s finished! Thanks for reading!

[Interested in making your own custom creations? Kidrobot.com has all the information you’ll need to get started.]

It’s no secret that I like stuff. Toys in particular. I’ve been collecting comic book and video game paraphernalia for years now. But the designer toy scene – in particular, vinyl figures – is new territory for me. I’ve been dabbling in Kid Robot offerings for a few years now and have developed some favorite artists, but never tried playing around with the DIY items till this weekend.  I figured I would show them off here! Let me know what you think!

Kratos/God of War
As far as beginner customs go, this one seemed obvious. With the large white dome standard to Munny figures, I deduced that resident video-game badass Kratos would be a good place to start. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, though. I went through two iterations of this guy after I initially screwed up his body paint, tried to wipe it off and ended up with a pink-headed Munny on accident. The second time around I worked smarter, using thick red marker and painter’s tape to create solid and smooth lines.

I used black, brown and gold felt with a leather pattern for the loincloth, and spray painted/modified charms for a necklace for his belt. The chains are from a necklace kit, which I also spray painted to match, and the goatee is some fur I picked up with the rest of the supplies. Funny enough, I was going to make the Chaos Blades from scratch, but found out that the blades from Kratos’ action figure fit perfectly into my Munny’s hands.

I intentionally left Kratos’ face blank because I like the abstractness of the piece.

The whole thing took 3-4 hours to complete, not including the time I wasted before scrapping the first attempt. The total cost was somewhere around $30.

Original/Egg-Head Munny
I also wanted to try my hand at a totally original custom creation, to see where my imagination took me when not limited by a character concept. I love when custom designers heavily modify Munny anatomy, so I decided to lop off the top of its head and create a bird nest/birdbath out of the two pieces.

I started by spraying the money with (ridiculously overpriced!) textured spray paint to make it look like stone. It took forever to dry, resulting the project lasting most of my weekend. From there, I glued a layer of fake moss to a base and the lip of each half of the head, and decorated the stand with flowers and twigs. I purchased the fake eggs and bird from JoAnn Fabrics, where I also found a gel substance that can be used to mimic water in silk floral arrangements. After heating the gel up it becomes liquid, which allowed me to pour the substance into the birdbath to finish off the figure.

This guy cost me around $40 to finish.

I am really happy with the results – Tomopop even showed me some love! I am currently working on a BioShock family – a Munny Big Daddy and Big Sister, and a Dunny Little Sister.

Commissions
I’ve gotten some pretty positive feedback about my first creations, and have decided to take commissions since I’ve gotten so many requests. If you are interested in a custom Munny, let me know. Simple pieces (Kratos) start at $60, and more complex designs (Egg-head) range from $75 – $100. If you agree to purchase a custom Munny, high-resolution photographs will be provided before the piece is sent, to insure it meets your standards and you are happy with the end results!

As some of you may know, the first two pieces in my sculpture class were video game related. My first was a ChocoMog and the second was an 8-bit tribute to Super Mario Bros. I knew going into this project that it was not going to be video game related, which was kind of a bummer, but at the same time it was a great gift for my parents. Every once in a while I need to remember that I do have a life outside videogames…

So I decided to kill two birds with one stone and knock out a school project and a Christmas gift. I decided to make a dragonfly related sculpture for my parents as a tribute to my little brother Justin, who passed away in late 2004.

Right after he passed away, someone sent us this poem in the mail. Ever since then, dragonflies have been really important to my whole family.

“In the bottom of an old pond lived some grubs who could not understand why none of their groups ever came back after crawling up the stems of the lilies to the top of the water. They promised each other that the next one who was called to make the upward climb would return and tell what happened to him.

Soon one of them felt the urgent impulse to seek the surface; …he rested himself on the top of a lily pad and went through a glorious transformation which made him a dragonfly with beautiful wings. In vain he tried to keep his promise. Flying back and forth over the pond, he peered down at his friends below.

Then he realized that even if they could see him they would not recognize such a radiant creature as one of their number. The fact that we cannot see our friends or communicate with them after the transformation, which we call death, is no proof that they cease to exist.”

Walter Dudley Cavert

I wanted the sculpture to allude to the poem, without limiting my options. I decided to do a birdbath type sculpture where the viewer could light a candle and sit and reflect. This sculpture was a little more complicated than the last two, because I used a bunch of found materials. I wanted it to be organic and incorporating all the different materials while making it unified was hard.

I started by buying a basin to hold the water. I originally tried to make the basin myself, by using a forging center (like blacksmith work, heating up a huge piece of sheet metal in a giant fireplace and pounding it with a hammer) but it did not turn out well enough for my tastes. I ended up using a plastic planter and constructing a metal frame around it.

The stand was simple enough. I bent a large rod to the size I needed to support the basin, and then used three legs to create a sort of tripod. The next step was to create the platform that would be the “pond surface.” For that, I used a cutting torch to cut through a large piece of sheet metal. The result was great because the cutting torch always leaves a ragged edge, which looks like ripples in a pond.

After I welded the platform to the base, I started cutting reeds to go along the backside of the sculpture. The reeds were also made out of sheet metal that I cut into strips, grinded curved tops, added creases, and then bent at organic angles after I welded them to the base. I also made a lily pad flower out of scrap sheet metal. That was the end of my metal work. I then began spray painting. Painting took forever as I ended up using 8-10 cans and twice as many coats.

After finishing all my spray painting, I started to add the other materials I had purchased, including two fake lily pads, some cattail plants, and some other reeds. I also spray painted and used metal dragonflies that used to be on a string of lights. I clipped them on to different parts of the sculpture, five in total. I then went on to hot glue gun little river stones over the entire back of the sculpture, a very long process. I also used the hot glue to make the lily pad flower look wet, which was a neat effect.

The finishing touches included spider-webbing yards upon yards of copper wire along the underside of the basin, to make it look more like roots or plant life. I also put little clear beads at the bottom of the basin to look like the grubs mentioned in the poem. Adding water and lighting candle where the last steps! I am extremely happy with how it turned out, and my parents were pretty blown away as well!

Overall, I am pretty happy with the projects I was able to create in my first sculpting class. They were a ton of work, but I have some awesome original art to keep around my house and my parents cabin. I hope you like it!

I love this project. Even though it in NO way filled the requirement given to me by my professor. This was a plaster unit…yeah, I know my sculpture is made out of metal…

My sculpture professor assigned us with the task of creating a visually interesting piece by utilizing repetition in forms created by plaster molds. I have never worked with plaster before, so it was a real learning experience! What did I learn? I HATE PLASTER! I am not going to lie, it was interesting to see how creating molds and casting from them worked, but ultimately, I picked a poor object to work with.

I pictured this project as is almost from the beginning. I knew I wanted to cast an original NES controller and use it to create a potted plant like sculpture using metal “warp tubes”. The NES controllers would be like flowers on the end of curvy cord stems. The idea seemed simple enough at first.

I began creating my molds at the beginning of the first four weeks of the unit. I thought my piece would be easy to mold at first because it would only require 2 parts, while others in my class needed 3 and 4 part molds for their objects. Immediately after my first cast in my mold I knew I had a problem. My item was so shallow I did not have enough room to grab it and pull it out of the plaster mold. This resulted in me having to break my mold in order to get one nicely cast NES controller out. This worked a second time, with an entirely new mold (which take 3 hours to make) but I knew if I needed to create a new mold each cast I would never finish. Eventually my casts stopped forming completely, and crumbling before I even opened the mold. I was pretty frustrated at this point!

After my 6th mold, I gave up. It seems that my item was to narrow and because air bubbles often got caught inside when I poured in the plaster. I decided to work the broken pieces of the plaster NES controllers into my sculpture somehow, but my new goal was simply to make something I loved.

I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed welding my last sculpture. My new “If I won the lottery” dream is to have a huge tool barn complete with a welding station where I can make stuff all day! I began my metal work by creating the warp tubes out of measured and cut metal sheets. After cutting them out, I used a machine to curve them equal amounts, and welded the top and bottom portions together.

The piranha plant took a bit more time. That involved lots of little pieces cut with a band saw and sanded until they were no longer sharp on the edges. Welding on the little parts such as the teeth took the most time out of all the metal work.

The “cords” are simply made out of metal rods that I bent into a spiral and then welded to the inside of the tubes. I sometimes struggle welding rods to sheet metal because they melt at different rates, so that left a few dents on the front of the tubes. However, my welding skills have much improved since last project. After sandblasting my project I was done with the work in the shop.

Next came an equally hard part of my project. It was both time consuming and emotionally difficult to find and dismantle 6 original NES controllers. First, since no stores carry them anymore, I was lucky if they had one in stock. None of the major chains had any, and I really did not want to resort to using my personal stash. Eventually I ( I = my husband) found 6 of them at a mom and pop collectable store where they charged me $50 for the lot.

I got them home and carefully took them apart – saving the insides and the cord in case of some freak controller shortage in the future – and started spray-painting my metal.

I put at least 15 coats of spray paint (another $30) on these bad boys. It took me all of one weekend counting dry time. For the most part it just involved tape and plastic wrap to section off each part while spraying different colors. The hardest bits were spray-painting the green lines on the tubes. It is more difficult than it looks to make a straight line on a curved surface. I knew that I was going to be putting rhinestones over the dark green lines, but I wanted a solid color so that the “pixel” quality would look different on the sides.

Once the paint was dry, I started gluing on the rhinestones. This was one of the most tedious things I have ever done. There are OVER 1000 freaking gems on that thing, which sucks because they cost $5 per 100. I used larger dark green stones on the tubes to elude to the 8-bit origins of the sculpture, and mini red rhinestones on the NES controller buttons and to blanket the red area on the piranha plant.

The worst part of that process was using the super glue. By the end of the weekend I could no longer feel the tips of my fingers…or my tongue. I licked the tip of my finger in order to pick up the mini gems, and sometimes I would not realize I had touched a bit of superglue before I attempted to get another stone. That was not fun.

Attaching the NES controllers was pretty easy. I used the original cord holes on three of them, and unfortunately had to drill holes in the three others to get them to mirror each other.

I bet you are wondering how the hell I included my plaster pieces…right? Well for my critique I spray painted the broken plaster pieces brown and put them in fake moss at the top of each tube (I took them out for the photos). My explanation involved something about the real NES controllers being “ripe fruit” and the broken plaster ones being the ones from the year before. Ultimately, I used repetition and plaster to create an interesting sculpture, but not how it was intended…

I hope you all enjoy this piece as much as I do!

I took on this project in sculpture class my final year of college in 2007. For our first project we were required craft a piece that combined two different types of animals, using only sheet metal and rods. Right away I tried to figure out how to make this project something I could put in my game room, and I thought it would be super cute to “breed” a Chocobo and a Moogle together.

After getting permission from my professor to use imaginary creatures instead of real ones, I started by creating the sculpture out of paper. When I had that all mapped out, I moved on to the real deal. At that point I had never welded before in my life, so getting started was a little difficult. After a few false starts, I got used to it and it went much smoother. I did burn my face with a braising rod once, but other than that, I avoided major injury.

The whole project took me 25+ hours, not including all the waiting time between the 10 coats of paint. I really wanted the whole thing to fit the “Kawaii” style of Japanese design that is so cute, so I made the Mog wings and ball glittery, and stuck to the bright yellow paint for the Chocobo body.

I also included a spiraled rod of metal around the body of the Chocobo, glittery like the wings, to help show movement in the sculpture. In reality, it is supposed to be a Chocobo attack, but I didn’t think anyone from my class would understand.

Overall I am really happy with how it turned out. When I first introduced the sculpture to the interwebs it was received pretty well. Kotaku even did a quick story on it. Enjoy the photos!