Ammy AGAIN (Day 111)

I know, I'm posting a day late. Well, since it's after midnight, it's two days late. In any case, "today" I finished up Amaterasu's wing / fur tufts. They're don't look how I originally planned them, but I like them better the way they turned out than I did when I planned them. Funny how things turn out, isn't it? =D

Mom was none too happy about the mess I left on the kitchen table though. Fur EVERYWHERE! I only did it out there to spend time with her.. *sniffle*

I still have a few things to buy and make before I consider Amaterasu to be 100% done, but as of now, I consider her to be ready for competition at AOD.

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Ammy's Wings & Chi's Ears (Day Eighty-Six)

I always forget how time-consuming Ammy was. I like to think it's similar to the fact that women have hormones that make them forget how horrible their pregnancy was after they had the baby. After I stop working on Ammy and wear her to a convention, I completely forget exactly how much time, money, and effort she took.

I spent three or so hours on Amaterasu's shoulder wings today, and I only covered one wing with fur, plus a couple of minor things. Although I do want to say again how thankful I am for this blog, both to my starting it and to my readers. If it weren't for my strange yet extremely strong desire to post something, I probably wouldn't work on my costumes until a week or so before their debut. Then today's setback with Ammy's wings would've been a big deal. It turns out that the wings are too heavy and need more than just the one arm band I have to hold them up. So I figured out how to fashion new arm bands that will be attached to the wings in addition to the ones I already have. The new bands won't be as visible though, so the overall look will stay the same.


In addition to all of that, I finally got fed up with waiting to buy a headband to put Chi's ears on, so I improvised. I used elastic, the same kind I used on the back of my mask, and made essentially a headband. I'm not thrilled with it, but it works very well and actually gives the ears a better shape, I think. I may tweak them a bit more, but if for some reason I run out of time or something, they're definitely usable. I also attempted to give them a metallic shine by painting them with an opaque silver paint. However, that may have only made them look dirty. I'll see when they look like tomorrow and go from there. If all else fails, I'll just paint over them with white paint and seal them. The sealant should give enough of a shine.

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Back to Ammy (Day Eighty-Five)

So, believe it or not, keeping this blog and knowing that I have followers actually does motivate me to work on my cosplay more. I was sitting on my couch, contemplating what to do when I thought I should work on my cosplay things. The thought process went like this: "I should work on cosplay.. What do I have to do..? Oh, yes, Ammy. Ah, but I don't really want to work with fur... Oh, but I'm so tried of not having anything to post on my blog. I'll do it!" Then I laughed at myself for a good half hour while working because I'm more loyal to strangers on the internet than I am myself.

So, I worked a little while, half an hour, on making the arm "wings" for Amaterasu. I traced and cut out the right shape, but then I realized that I had cut it with the fur facing the wrong way. I fecepalmed myself for at least five minutes before I could even begin to accept the loss of all that fur. Sure, it wasn't a lot but it was enough to cover one entire side of the wing. I couldn't just flip it over either because it would be the wrong shape and I had cut details out of it.

So I went with my original plan of covering it with bits and pieces of left over fur, fitting them together like a puzzle. I still can't decide if I like the effect or not. The first time I tried this was on one of the toes way back in July of '09, when I just barely ran out of fur and didn't want to buy more. On the one hand, it looks like natural dog / wolf fur, especially if the animal were to live in the wild. On the other hand, it's not all smooth like everything else.

The good news is that the side that I did today is the side that will be facing my shoulder, so I didn't have to detail everything, and the flaws shouldn't be seen much. I'm going to consider it somewhat of a test run. I have enough fur to cover two sides with one solid piece each, so I'm going to use that on the parts of the wings that face away from my body, the sides that will be seen more.

I'm a little concerned about attaching the wings to the arm bands, mainly because the fur is going in two opposite directions. The fur on the bands goes down, toward my fingertips, while the fur on the wings goes up, toward, well, the sky, or ceiling, depending on your location. This is the way that it is in the game, as indicated by the move of the graphics in the game, but I don't see how. I may have to trim the bottom of the wings to round them out, the same way I did with the wrist cuffs. Or something. I'll figure it out eventually.

For anyone wondering, I'm feeling much better today =] I don't know what did it, but aside from being abnormally tired, I'm not too bad.

READ MORE - Back to Ammy (Day Eighty-Five)

Ammy's Mask & Arm Bands (Day Sixty-Six)

I finished Ammy's mask with surprising speed today, or at least it felt like surprising speed. It was really more like several hours. I covered the mask with the fake fur / felt, which is really more like fur than I thought it was, and should have been treated as such. I really, painfully regret how wide and long I made the muzzle. I may make another mask some time down the road, but I still have moldy paper mache in my room. I'll throw it out tomorrow when my mom's not home to yell at me about it. considering the entire mask cost me less that five dollars, it wouldn't be too much of a loss to make a second one. However, the three or so hours I spent making it... That's another story. Which is why I won't be re-doing it any time soon.

I crafted the actual nose out of Sculpt It Clay. I don't really recommend the stuff, but it's not as bad as it could be. I then sealed it with I forget what brand of sealer, painted it (because the clay I used was purple O_o), and sealed it again. I really like the effect of the clay's imperfections as well as the sealed paint. It makes it look like the nose it wet, like a dog's should be, haha.

I started on the arm bands for Ammy's tufts of fur, or "wings," but they're kind of a paint in the butt. The bands are fur with cotton lining and quarter-inch elastic inside. I wish I had maybe half-inch elastic, but whatever, I work with what I've got. They're held together with hot glue, which isn't the best either, but it gets the job done and I hate hand-sewing on fur, and I'm not sure how my machine would handle that. My guess is not well. The actual fur tufts are a foam base with fur over them, but I haven't gotten to the fur part, I actually haven't even gotten both bases carved out yet. And I'm not entirely sure how I'll be attaching the tufts to the bands, so that should be fun.

Also, from this point on, I may be posting more than once a day. I will still post at least once to report in on any cosplay details of the day, but I may make a other posts with random-ish topics, as I to when there is no, or very little, cosplay news.

READ MORE - Ammy's Mask & Arm Bands (Day Sixty-Six)