Cosplay Progress - Mask Construction and Gloves

Ahh progress, it is nice to finally post you again, hehe.  Since my last update, I've added plenty more craft foam and hot glue to continue the formation of Deus Ex Machina's mask.  At this point, the task is a little more strategic than just gluing foam everywhere I could.   I am still constantly looking back at the reference photos to make sure I am accurate with my shapes, but through this process I am getting a better sense of how to make the angles work for me.  Mimi has offered plenty of her help in creating this mask in the form of advice and some hot gluing (even acquiring some burns in the process Q_Q).  

Anyways, here's my updated progress gallery:

Created the upper eye framework.

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Built the cheek and chin frame work. Also replaced his "tooth" under the eye framework and bent the chin.

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Also in progress news, I received some hockey gloves that I will use as a base material for my MZMA gloves.  I got the idea for using hockey gloves from this Instructables tutorial on how to make Hell Boy's RHoD. These things are HUGE on my hands, so they will work perfectly for MZMA.  I plan to cover the tops in red fun foam and maybe spray paint an orange gradient on to it afterwards, but that's just me thinking.

We cut off the BAUER logo part to make room for the craft foam that  we will use.  

The most pressing issue for these used hockey gloves is to remove their intense smell of sweat.  If anyone has any good ideas on a deodorant for these, let me know (THEY REALLY STINK!!!! X___X)

Thanks, I will keep you guys updated! :D

-Stuart-

[[[For reference, here's a link to the last update]]]

Insane Black Rock Shooter: Progress 2

So here is a quick update on my costume~ :D
You will see that I'm super ADD when it comes to making costumes and I like to work on everything at once...without finishing anything >.>

Anyhow, first up are the shoes!  Shape-wise, I have pretty much finished the very bottom part of the boots, the wings need to be reinforced and the entire thing needs to be either painted or covered with vinyl (have to decide what to do...)

I have also made one piece of the knee part, it needs a lot of calculations that I have no patience for right now.

Second, the bodice of my armor~  Since Stuey made that body form for me, I really wanted to test it out.  I dug out some old patterns and made a preliminary shape for the bodice armor.  It will become thicker eventually.

Front view

Side View

Back View

The taped areas are places that I want to insert a buckle-type thing for so that I could  easily put on/remove the armor.  Now that the body form has been sitting for a while...it has gained a ton of fat rolls O.O;

Last but not least, the claws!  I have a pair of gloves that have a small hole on it.  My dad bought me some replacements for them, but I'm still rather attached.  It is made of really soft leather...anyways, the point is that I don't want to glue anything onto my gloves.  I made "knuckle rings" as claws to put on my fingers.  I haven't made the very bottom part of the gloves, which will cover up the flower motifs.

The big piece is velcroed at the palm area to hold it.  Anyways, I might glue the claw parts onto the gloves eventually...or not...we will see.

That's all!  Let me know if you have any questions!!
Mimi

Cosplay Progress - Masks and Half-People

Getting stuff done feels good, and blogging about it feels even better, lol.  Recently I have been working on my Deus Ex Machina mask/headpiece. I have begun to collect pictures of the mask in its formation from start to beginning.  Hopefully I will be able to write a tutorial once I am finished, but for now, I will describe the process as it has been occurring.

The first step was to create a basic mask framework.  Mimi helped me shape thin strips of cardboard to my face shape and size. 

After this, the nose and chin components were built as guiding points and anchors from which to build more facial components.  Fun foam is our material of choice.

The next part is a little hard to describe, because at this point we basically just took fun foam scraps and glued them to places to help the mask take a little more form, in no specific order.  The goal for this transition was to create a little bit of "sunken-cheek" look and to connect the nose to the bottom half of the face.  This was done wonderfully with lots of help from Mimi. :D

If there's anything I have learned from Mimi in the crafting world (other than glue gun burns can hurt a lot), it's that I should think of this project as sculpting with small pieces of fun foam,and  that fun foam can be used for anything and everything.   At this point it looks like the mask could either belong to Deus, or the King of All Cosmos haha.   

The other awesome thing we did recently is to create a body form for Mimi.  She was very patient as I duct taped around her for about an hour and a half.  We followed this tutorial from Threadbanger, but used regular duct tape instead of water-activated packing tape.  

Look, it's a ghetto Saber :P

After Mimi had a couple or so layers of tape on her, we cut through the shirt and tape body mold, re-taped it together, and stuffed it with some old shirts and pants of mine.  The final result? :

A wonderfully shaped figure that Mimi will be using for future sewing and armor-related endeavors.  I call it SeMimi, because it's more of a half  Mimi than a mini-Mimi.  Hehehe.

Well, that's all for now people.  We will be sure to keep you updated on anything cosplay related, or maybe just whatever tickles our fancy for the day.  Thanks!

-Stuart-

EDIT: [[[Here's a link to the most recent update]]]

Styling the Dr.Stein wig

Now that we have Katsucon behind us and ready to move on to the cosplay for AZ, I finally forced Stuart to send me the durpy pictures I took of him when I was styling his Dr.Stein wig. (Dr.Stein is a crazy teacher character from Soul Eater, in case you didn't know)  This is by no means a tutorial, for I have absolutely no experience in cutting hair.  However, this is a warning about wigs you get from ebay.

So we purchased a generic Dr.Stein wig from China on ebay.  The picture of the wig they provided looked like this:

It looks so nice in the picture: not very shiny, with nice feathered tips at the back.  The color is nice as well.  Wigs usually comes with long bangs so that the wearer can style it to his/her face.  Since the wig was only about $22, we jumped on the bandwagon of buying wigs from China.  Alas, that was perhaps not the best decision we have made in our life.  The wig that arrived looked rather shiny and thin...so thin that some layers of hair sewn on the wig already came off the moment Stuart tried it on.

And here comes in the Super Mimi that tries to save the day!  First of all, I had to make sure that all the threads on the wigs were intact and all the layers of hair were sewn on tightly.  I resew some of the layers that came undone.
This is what the wig looked like on Stuart before anything was done to it:

He looks like Kitaro from GeGeGe no Kitaro

Then I took out my mother's hair cutting scissors (what do you call those things?) and started to cut away all the unnecessary hair.

I obviously was very good at making this wig into an Ayanami Rei wig...This is what Stuart looked like after almost losing a piece of his ear.

Finally, I figured out that in order to cut layers into the wig, I had to brush vertically and cut vertically.  With the help of some hair gum, this is what the finally product looked like:

Not too bad right???? hahaha!!!

Until Next Time~
Mimi

Insane Black Rock Shooter cosplay progress part 1

(Second part of the progress is out!  Read it HERE)

So I have decided to do the IB★RS for AZ this year along with Murumuru from Mirai Nikki.  Below are the pictures of both characters.

IB★RS with her awesome weapon!

Murumuru without pants Q_Q

I am a little anxious about how much detail I could put into IB★RS since I have never made armors before.  As for Murumuru, she doesn't wear pants!!!!!!!  And...wtf are those leg thingies that float around her legs????  I have some idea for how to make this weird magical pants, but we will see.  Otherwise, her outfit is pretty simple.  I have one white plastic bangle already, woot!

So I have started to shop for IB★RS's costume.  First up are the boots that are going to be the support pieces for the leg armors.  (pls ignore my messy room)

I fount them at Kohl's for about $40, they have the small heels I want for the cosplay and the tightness.  Also, the boots have no buckles, so I don't have to take anything off~ 
I'm planning on making the armors for the boots with craft foam.  


I ordered a BRS wig from Cosplay Wig USA.  You can get the same wig HERE.  It is a pretty standard black wig that needs to be restyled so that one side of the pigtail is longer than the other.  (I have gotten several wigs from this website before, I think their wig quality is definitely higher than the ones on ebay)

picture taken from Cosplaywigusa.com

I ordered my contact lenses from Pinky paradise, I guess there will be a review for it once it gets here.


Other than that, I also purchased the leather pants I need from HERE.  

Since I weigh soooooooo much more than this model (obviously), I just hope the shorts would look half as good on me as they are on her. Q_Q


Humm, I also got some glue from Michaels, one of which is specifically for craft foam.  We will see how nice these will work in holding my armors together.  

Craft foam glue, Krazy glue for attaching things to less porous material, and glue sticks!!!! 

That is all for now, my actual making of the costume will start....tomorrow! XD


Mimi