9 posts tagged “the middle man”

Wendy Watson will be debuted at Comic Con TOMORROW!!! I'm very excited about this; it's going to be awesome town to be sure! Hopefully I will be seeing you guys at the Viper Comics booth. Drop by and say hello!

Well... the remaining tasks list is gone! There is still some that technically needs to be done to the belt, but omfg what a fiasco... Let me start off by saying that as excited as I am for this shoot tomorrow, I will be glad to be able to breathe on Sunday after the *unbelievable* occurrences of last night's fruitless endeavor. I am not discouraged, but rather more pointedly challenged. I think life has a way of forcing you to earn the rights of your success by testing you and waiting to see if you will roll over or rise to the challenge. I suppose life failed to get the memo that I am not accustomed to following the habit of giving up...

A smidgen of back story if you will allow it. One or two sentences really. ;) My motorcycle has been in a sad state of disrepair for a while because some one apparently needed my brakes more than I did...  So I am effectively without a vehicle as it has been my only mode of transportation for some four years now. As a result of this I made sure I had my room mate's car secured to borrow for the day as I had a few more imperative errands to run before tomorrow's shoot. He agrees and all is settled. Or is it?...

I get a call around 5pm. It's my room mate. He left his car keys in his friend's purse (for *whatever* reason they were there in the first place when he wasn't even driving his car) and she is at work for the day. Essentially I get the  "S.O.L. Speech". I immediately begin procuring another car for when I get of work at 6pm and with a bit of difficulty am able to find a friend to pick me up from work and rush me around town for a bit. Unfortunately, said friend drives to my *old* work location and we lose about an hour.

Wanting to prepare as much as possible I had printed out location directions on Google Maps (because MapQuest has this uncanny way of repeatedly failing me) and was ready to fare the course! We rush off to the first location, which was supposed to have been the Tandy Leather Factory. Needless to say I was a little more than shocked when I was lead to a Chiropractic Office... Not having time to stress and thinking at about a mile a minute I decide to abandon what should have been Tandy's in favor of the Army/Navy Surplus Store. I am a capable, creative, tenacious individual and figure I can find something to make due with there.

We follow the directions for the Surplus Store and find ourselves instead sitting in front of some residential house at the end of a private coule du sac no less... Obviously this will not do. Not even saying a word, I whip out my phone and dial 411 to be connected to the store so I can just *ask* for directions and the operator connects me. The line rings and rings and then puts me through... to some stranger's cell phone?.... Huh?.... Just to be sure I call 411 back and the same thing happens. Okay... Time to try for Tandy again. I make a third 411 call and the operator connects me. Again it goes through, but this time to an entirely *different* arbitrary cell phone.

What exactly is going on here?....

Realizing it is now approaching 7:30pm and both stores are likely closed and/or closing (not to mention I don't even know where this places are supposed to *exist* at this point) I make a judgment call to go to JoAnn's because I know for a fact where it is located and that it closes at 9pm. My logic tells me that stretching my creative design abilities and finding anything I can to work with is far better than giving up and going home with nothing to work on. 'Cause seriously... bollucks to *that*.

Well... the only thing even remotely close to suitable for making ammo belts that they have is elastic. And, of course, it's not even in the right color... I get more than enough and pick up two types of dye in case one fails me. I am taking *no* chances at this point. I grab my supplies and head home.  I used brown Rit Dye to dye the elastic, but it came out too light so I pulled out my backup method to use in conjunction with the dying. At least it served as a nice base color to improve upon. For the second round of dying I used a spray on fabric paint, which worked splendidly so I let it dry and moved on to locating anything at all in my room from my own personal collection that I would be able to use. At this point I am more than willing to modify my own collection to make this a success.

I find myself in the possession of the following items:

• a standard and too light brown belt
• my AK-47 Bullet Belt
• An ID Badge Holder from work
  
• A Black Gun Holster (From MGS3 EVA cosplay)

Not much to work from, but far better than absolutely nothing in my opinion. So without the ammo belt I figure attaching the AK-47 bullets would be the next best thing so I drilled three holes into the belt, found the correct placing and got those puppies on there. Next I decided to forfeit my MGS3 Holster in favor of Wendy Watson because it is a more pressing matter and I can always replace EVA's at a later date. No biggie. I take my fabric paint and holster out to the painting area I designated on my patio and quickly realized that it is water repellent and is in no way going to take to the dye. Curses. Here is what the belt looks like in it's current state.



Tonight I am *still* without a vehicle because even though roomie regained access to his car keys, he is using his car to go to work. I live in an area where I am within walking distance of a few small shopping centers so I am picking out the ones that I think I will have the most luck at and high-tailing it over there to be able to hit up as many resources as I can get to before places begin to close. Anyways, I have a few ideas and *always* have a few tricks up my sleeves so I am confident that despite the universe conspiring against me, I will be able to live true to my phoenix nature and rise up from the ashes. So sit back and watch me go, kids. I have this miraculous way of looking setbacks in the face and staring them down. I'm sure I'll have a bajillion things to write about later tonight and/or early tomorrow morning.

Remaining Tasks
 

• Belt Accessories
  
• Weapon (?)

Well would you look at that! Officially there is no more sewing to be done! It's time I trade in my sewing machine in favor of leather dying. I want the leathers to match flawlessly so I will be basing the color for all of the pieces off of my boots. Tonight I pick up the leather dye and get to work! I also need to paint the tips of the weapons so they're not endowed with ultra-cheesy neon tips.

The first thing I wanted to do was to restyle the wig because as I had mentioned in a previous post, after seeing it in pictures, I realized it was a bit messy looking and needed to be re-done. It took hardly any time at all. Most of the time spent on it was in separating the necessary chunks of hair. Wigs don't exactly function the same way that real hair does so when you try to put it in a ponytail the same way it tends to shows the netting underneath. Ewww. This is how I went about making my ponytail (and I must have done something right because my cousin thought it was my real hair. woo hoo!)

1. First I sectioned off the bangs so that they were out of the way. I knew that I wanted the ponytail to be about even with my eyes so I made my section split while keeping that in mind. If the hair was in two sections, it would be easier to conceal both the top and the bottom netting underneath.
   
2. After I had my sections all worked out I clipped the top half out of the way. I would suggest using the clips I have pictured (sorry, I don't know what they are called) instead of using rubber bands. Rubber banding your sections is a sure way to tangle you wig and get frustrated. To have the hair raised as high as I needed it to be without having my real hair poking out underneath, I gathered the hair and left a little excess to leave a natural looking drape without any strain on the netting.
3. Once you have your lower section gathered in place, add in the top section and *carefully* rubber band it. If you pull too tightly it will screw it all up and you will have to start all over again, but if you are too loose with it it will just tumble out so be careful. It make take you a time or two to get it right, but it's really not all that difficult at all. ;)

The only thing left to do at that point was to finish off my hemming and add buttons to both the shirt and the jacket. Both of which were successfully completed. I followed the same rolled hem method as before because I am without both my serger and a hem-rolling pressure foot. Ugh! Do I smell a trip to JoAnn's Fabrics? Why yes I do!

Tonight I am heading off to Tandy Leather Factory to grab some leather and dye, an army  surplus store to stock up of radical-bo-badical utility belt gear, and JoAnn's fabrics (told you so) for various accessories and general supplies that would, quite frankly, make my life just that much easier. Final progress post should be tomorrow!!!

1. Notice how the seam would have been left with raw edges. I strive to conceal *all* raw edges regardless of whether or not they are on the interior or exterior. Sadly this cannot always be the case, but it's still worth putting in an effort. Having come across my serger... broken... some months back made me not-so-happy (to say the least). Anyways, I opted to roll my hems to conceal the seams.
   
2. I folded the seam as close to the original stitching as I could and made sure it was straight all the way across. This was pinned in to place and *not*stitched*, but instead ironed flat.
   
3. I continued the roll until the raw edge was tucked in on itself. Removing the reference pins while folding so they would not be trapped under the rolled fabric. I made sure to re-pin the new roll as I went along.
   
4. After I had the first pin in I simply continued the process along the rest of the seam double checking it was even and would lay flat and having the pins placed in even intervals. And it was ironed once again.
   
5. Once the pins were in place and the ironing had been done to insure a flat, smooth finishing all that was left to do was stitch two even rows using the top stitch method (not pictured, but since completed).

After I was satisfied with the collar I moved on to hemming the bottom of the jacket, which had to be taken up just a little bit. Shortening an article of clothing is one of the easiest modification you can do so it was no trouble at all and I was quickly able to move onto the sleeves. After I had finished the sleeves I realized that Wendy Watson has 3/4 sleeves as opposed to the full length sleeves that I had made. This is one of the final alterations that will be finished (rather quickly) tonight. While pondering over possible button placement I noticed the fit wasn't entirely custom, but not exactly baggy. Just hovering somewhere in between. So I remedied this with more seam rolling. The end result came out great. The only reason it looks lumpy is because the pins are in place, but the finished stitching looks wonderful. :) One last thing I will need to do to complete this is re-dye it. When I initially dyed the fabric I did not wet the fabric in clear water first, so the dye collected in little pockets of dry fabric and left it slightly blotchy. Ugh! No worries though, a second application should set things right. I just need to do it by hand and make sure *all* of my seams are accounted for because I do not want to even think about how devastating it would be to have another dying mishap. >_<*

Hey all! I decided to do a test shot with the wig, contact lenses, glasses, and piercings. Seeing the pic makes me realize that I need to comb out the ponytail and I think I *may* have to lighten up my eyebrows, but not bad, eh? ;) Anyways, I'm getting more and more excited to have this completed! More to come on Monday!

Remaining Tasks
 

• Belt Accessories
  
• Shirt (90%)
  
• Jacket 90%)
  
• Contacts (may use blue)
  
• Weapon (?)
  

My check off list is rapidly dwindling and I couldn't be happier! I bought a digicam so my uploading woes will soon be at an end! The events experienced with trying to haul people to my apartment to get progress shots and then badgering them to send those shots to me has been trying (to say the least). Only reinforces my theory of: "if you want something done you have to do it yourself" and that whole thing about independent self-reliance. I will be throughly ecstatic when my digicam gets here in the expected 3 days. w00t! I mean, at this point, so much of what I will be posting about today is old news to me and I hesitate to even post it. BUT it's news to you. ;)

My attention has recently been focused on the jacket. Once the jacket is completed (which should be happening tonight) it officially marks the bulk of the costume being done leaving me to attend to the fine tuning of "detailing". :D  Alright so before I delve into the ins and outs of the jacket construction let me share with you my new piercings!

The positioning isn't *exactly* where I would have liked it to be, but the piercer insisted that my ear ridges were too small to be able to support the piercing and it would have most likely rejected had I gotten them a half inch or so higher (as I requested). Well bollucks to tiny ears then. He also thought the smaller diameter hoop (on top) would have been too small of a diameter for the lower one so I had to go a size up which was a tad disappointing as well. But as it is, there were a few complications threading the hoops through and he had to bend them in the end and once they were in place, re-bend them back into the correct shape while they were still in my ear. The top is a 12 gauge and the lower is a 14 gauge. I have a history of my body rejecting piercings (as I am allergic to metal) but keep on getting pierced so we'll see how this turns out for me. I highly suspect that my issues before were more caused by faulty in-mall piercers telling me wrong advise. Turns out rubbing alcohol and constantly rotating your piercings is a surefire way for them to FAIL. I hounded the piercer for all the correct advice this time and will be taking proper care of it so hopefully it'll all turn out okay. ;)

Moving right along to the jacket (complete with crappy cell phone pictures!). Although this has already been successfully dyed and I have begun assembly, let me pretend as though this were all current information. ;) Making the pattern for this went pretty smoothly and I only had to make a few minor alterations to the finished muslin draft. When stitching it together I was sure to finish up the top stitching so there would be no measuring surprises for the finished draft. I am very pleased to report that my efforts payed off splendidly and everything fit as it should first try. My only concern is that the sleeves (for whatever reason) twist in at the seams. But they do so symmetrically and it looks stylized so I may just keep it this way. Regardless, I will be looking into *why* exactly it did what it did so I can keep tabs on that as a possible future technique. :)

Since there were no complications what-so-ever and I really don't have anything new to report. Here is a sneak peek at how it is coming along. Enjoy!

Just made a little extra accessory for the costume. On her belt I saw what looks to me like an ID Card of some sort, so I made one for her. :D I need to get the exact age of Wendy from Javi as well as ask what date he wants put on there for the "date issued" part. Also, the picture of Wendy is going to be replaced as soon as the costume is entirely finished and adorned. :D What do you think?

Remaining Tasks
 

• Paint Telescope
• Paint Eye Patch
  
• Hat
• Gloves
• Leg Harness (10%)
  
• Dress (60%)
  
• Shoes (modify)

A few frustrating (but not impossibly so) setbacks with this one.... Let's address last night's dying process, shall we?....

I generally ALWAYS hand dye anything that needs to be dyed. I feel that I have more control over the saturation that way. This time, however, since I was dying the fabric for an entire garment as opposed to a single piece, I opted to "Machine Dye" the fabric to encourage a flawlessly even spread of dye. Sadly, I only had a 1/2 bottle of the purple that I had found so I anticipated having to re-dye it to darken the color. I, foolishly, did *not* consider the possibility of fraying fabric. >_<

Pre-treating your fabric is ALWAYS something that I *said* I should practice, but (for whatever reason) just never really did. I always ended up becoming overly impatient to work on the costume and have it completed to I said bollucks to the pre-treatment phase and on to the construction. SO far it has never been a problem. Although, in my own defense, I don't know to what extent the pre-treatment would have helped in this case seeing as they were cut pattern pieces with no selvage.

Anyways, the end result of last nights dying for Bonne Jenet was a heaping pile of frayed edges tangled together into one smirking failure. Tragic. BUT... I am not yet willing to start afresh and re-cut new fabric for her. I still believe it's workable! We'll see after this second dye job. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." -Benjamin Franklin

ps - This is the completed belt. I never got to post pics in my previous post because I was sans-camera at the time.

Remaining Tasks
 

• Belt Accessories
  
• Shirt (80%)
  
• Jacket
• Piercings
  
• Contacts
  
• Weapon

My poor fingers... :( I have been pinning *so*much* over the past few days that my finger tips are *actually* shiny smooth and extremely sore. I kinda feel like Happy Gilmore's grandma at Arts N Crafts time in the retirement home. "But.... My fingers hurt". Haha! While licking my wounds over B.Jenet's failed dye job I charged straight into making the final product of Wendy's shirt. I seriously under-estimated how long the shirt would take me to make, but no worries. I hope to finish it up tonight. :) On an aside, I think I will get her piercings this weekend. I have been meaning to punch some new holes in my body soon anyways. :) And they are cartilage piercings and small lobe gauges to boot!! Cool!

After a highly productive week of pressing ahead, I think I finally slammed into a recess in my energy. Either that or we are witnessing senility in action. /snicker. I think I must've sewed pieces backwards at least three times. >_< BUT! In the end they all fit how they were supposed to. Phew. I may have to go back and lengthen the darts, but that'll take only a second and will be the last thing that I do to it, so I'm not too concerned about it.

After the pieces were all correctly assembled, I went back and finished off the lower hem of the shirt for a clean finish along with the armholes, but there was a wrinkle in the fabric at one point so I took out the seam on the arm holes and am re-doing that tonight. The only thing left with the shirt after that is too mark the guidelines for the buttons and attach them among a few other minor adjustments. I think I'll be focusing on the jacket after that. :)

Remaining Tasks
 

• Belt Accessories
  
• Shirt (40%)
  
• Jacket
• Piercings
  
• Contacts
  
• Weapon

I was given the okay to blow the lid off of my next super-secret cosplay! I present to you Wendy Watson of The Middle Man; written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach (that's “Ha-vee-air Gree-joe Mark’s-watch” to *you*) and illustrated by Les McClaine. This comic is being recommend to you by me, a bona fide Comic Book She-Geek. And I am hoping that you'll stop by and say hi at the Viper Comics Booth at the San Diego Comic Con (2007)!


Phew! I've already been stealthily working my way through this costume! Okay, to catch you all up to date on my ninja-like progress, I have been working primarily on the accessories. The smaller the detail is the more imperative it is that you pay attention to it; it's that strong focus on accuracy that sets aside mediocre work from great work. Always a good thing to keep in the back of your mind. ;) At *any* rate, there have already been two trips to the fashion district specifically for Wendy Watson. Items that are 100% completed at this time are as follows in order from ponytail top to tippy toes:

1. Glasses
2. Tie
3. Gloves
   
4. Base for Belt
5. "Superhero" Pants (of the skintight nature. lolz)
6. Boots

I had purchased green contacts lenses, but sadly the overwhelming brown of my own peepers totally dominated the color out of the green and you couldn't even tell I had any contacts lenses in at all. Curses. -_- Needless to say, the hunt is still on. You think I'd be giving up that easy? Tsk.

Moving on to current progress, I have completed the mock-up for the shirt and am happy to report that no alterations were really needed aside from determining a final length of the shirt (of which I was intentionally saving until later). I had wanted to model the shirt's mock-up on my dress form before I made my final fabric cuts because shirt fronts can be tricky in the sense that you need to errrrr.... think "3-Dimensionally" and as a rule I generally always am forced to make some pattern alterations in this area. I wanted to be sure that the bust of the dress form didn't hike up the shirt front to the point where my arm mobility be virtually nil lest I risk giving the entirety of the dealer's hall a "free show". XD  The operation was a smash success and I am cutting out the final fabric tonight and hopefully assembling it completely (I even have the buttons already) in between the fabric dying of B.Jenet and dying a test swatch for Wendy's jacket.

Which brings me to my next point of discussion. :)

I bought an over abundance of Gabardine Twill because it is all around a good fabric to have on hand. It's a stiff cloth that is not too insulating, which should help me stave off the heat stroke that is sure to set in from wearing pants and a jacket (and a wig to boot!) in a stuffy convention center hall in Southern California in the dead of summer. If you read my previous post, you will recall that the fabric I bought is white. Thusly, it is easily dye-able and I am thrilled at the prospect of potentially being able to use it for BOTH costumes that I am actively working on.

This, of course, depends on either the success or failure of my swatch test tonight. I have a fairly large collection of dyes and happened to have had a Kelly Green that I had previously used to dye my Tanline Cammy costume, which I think would suit the needs for Wendy's jacket splendidly. Although Javi and I had talked about making the color have more of an earthy feel so if I can't tweak the green enough to be ideal for what he is looking for I'll be back on the trail for a more military looking green. But with any luck, the end result will be dead on so  do me a favor and keep your fingers crossed for me! :D

Before I close this out, I have to comment on how thrilled I am to be a part of this project. I think I'll have a lot of fun getting into character seeing as both Wendy and myself are both seriously sass-a-frassing, adventure-driven, obstinate, clumsy, spandex-dawning artists with a side of goober-ex and a pension for mischief. :D