The Final Touches and Saturday Sydney Supanova, 2011

Friday night was filled with finishing touches and trying things on and off and on again. I burned some of the skin off my fingers with hot glue, quite literally, and Jess finally got her wings done and dusted.

Jess attaches her feathers with hot glue.

Annie and Jess model the dresses.

Annie gives me a painful hour of her time to

allow me to attach the wings to the dress. I had

to paint a piece of material to match the dress,

which I glued over the top of the harness. Slits in the

back allow the straps to pass through, and they

each need to be done up from the inside. The final

effect was quite secure.

Finally, the day arrived, and it was SUPANOVA! A hectic morning in which we lost everything, didn't have enough of anything and had the wrong sort of everything else ensued, but we eventually got it together.

Shlooping on the masses of body paint that

we had to keep reapplying during the day.

Since our wings and dresses are combined,

we had to put on the actual costume in the

carpark at Supanova (whereupon we realised

I'd forgotten a piece and did some MacGyvering).

It was a fantastic day, but my greyness meant that I wasn't able to take many photos - though we certainly had hundreds taken of us. It was a bit overwhelming and the event was immensely crowded - it was certainly an achievement in itself to push through the masses of people without murdering our wings or whacking people in the face.

Here are some photos from Saturday:

A view from the top.

We ended up doing this a lot.

The angels have the phone box.

Om nom nom.

A dalek out the front of a Doctor Who display.

The most creative dalek we've ever seen.

Naww.

Road Tripping and Last-Minute Cosplay Crazies

Hola amigos,

Supanova is almost upon us here in Sydney, and as I type this from the warm comfort of Jeremy's Mum's lounge room, Jess has conned Annie into coming outside with her in the freezing dark and spray-painting her wings (which are yet to be mounted onto the harness). Having left the Kerrigan madness for a later convention, I was still determined to finish Klaymen until I realised I'd sowed my morphsuit in such a way that it was impossible to put it on - and realised it was time to give up and leave it for later.

But I am ahead of myself. Let's go back and have a look at how things have been progressing since last week's blog, and how I now happen to be broadcasting from the land of the New South Welshmen.

I had a few busy days of work and such between starting my costume and when I was able to work on it again, so time was beginning to get away from me. Jess also neglected to work on her costume during this time, so it was all hands on deck on the Wednesday before we were due to leave.

Jess decided to go with my wing design but

was able to use the leftover wire to create a more

even curve.

By this point, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and actually think about how I was going to harness the wings to my back (a seemingly impossible task). Having already purchased the materials for the costumes, it was now a matter of putting the harness together with whatever was lying around (otherwise known as MacGyvering). Fortunately, this is the most fun part.

I find the easiest way to design something is to just

start cutting things out. The foam backing is to prevent

the harness cutting into the back, and the cardboard will

be the side contacting the wings.

Jess was going through the steps I went through on the previous day, and was now gluing her wire to the wings with the hot glue gun. We were starting to work out the kinks of the formula, but she was soon to make a realisation that was going to cause more than a few fits of laughter and a slight delay.

The purchase of more hot glue made "tunnelling" in the

wire much easier, as opposed to having to glue it from the

bottom side.

Having realised I had no spare material with which to make the harness, I unfortunately had to send an old doona cover to the grave. I allocated four long strips for the harness - one to go over each shoulder and two to go around the abdomen (and I'm keenly aware this will probably get very heavy and very painful very quickly).

I glued the strips to the cardboard and glued the foam over

the top - hoping this will hold!!

At that moment, Jess realised that something had gone horribly wrong.

It was something akin to buying two left shoes at the shoe shop.

Realising her mistake (and after the hysterical laughter had subsided), she decided to keep the wire where it was and simply bend it in the opposite direction. It worked pretty well, so disaster averted!

It was getting quite late by this time, so I set up the shed with a heater and some lamps (because none of the lights work) and prepared for some serious slogging into the early hours of the morning. Jess had managed to complete papier-mache on one side of one wing before turning in, and I dried this by the heater for the morning.

My harness was nearing completion by this point, and although the mutilated travel-board-game lid I stuck onto the base didn't look like a supermodel, I thought I could get it to function.

A cardboard "butterfly" shape glued to the base plate

consisted of a cardboard backing and an aluminium

support. The wings are to be sandwiched between the

two, and the design means that the angle is adjustable

before I glue it into the final positioning.

It was then up to the ol' bucket-and-chair

buddy to hold the wing in place while I used

hot glue to squelch it into the cardboard and

metal sandwich.

Naturally, it wasn't enough to leave the wing as is, so I decided to use the foam from the abandoned Kerrigan costume to make the stone "feathers". The actual weeping angels don't have a lot of detail in this, so it was not a hard task to somewhat emulate the angels as they appear in the show.

Annie had arrived at George by this time and I roped her

into helping. Actually, that's not true - she felt compelled

to take over cutting out the feathers because mine apparently

looked like they had degenerative diseases.

We cut out four of each feather - originally for the front and back of my costume, but we soon realised we were fast running out of foam and the seconds were saved for Jess. It turned out that coating only the inside of the wings with feathers looked better, because the outside caused them to bend like wet bananas.

Some feathers in raw form.

Gluing them on was a painful process because

I only had PVA to work with (the hot glue was

on reserve for all the harness work Jess had yet

to start). This took several hours longer than it

should have.

I finished the night off by painting the whole thing in a layer of white primer in preparation for spray-painting the next day. You can't paint directly onto dark foam without priming it, and newspaper is a cow to cover with spray (we learned this doing our previous wings). By the morning, the layer was pretty much dry and I was able to try on the wings for the first time.

Yes, you heard me. For the first time. I

definitely checked everything was working

before I just stuck it all together and painted it.

Yes.

By this time it was Thursday morning, and we were due to leave for Sydney at about 1pm. Jess made some more progress on her papier-mache and primed her feathers but left them unattached - she would have to do it when we arrived.

My last task before we left was to spray-paint

the wings using layers of grey, silver and ivory

to give it the mottled look of worn stone.

Theoretically.

Then we packed the car and it was time for

the 10+ hour drive to Sydney.

We decked ourselves out with the finest in all gluttonous snackage and the first CD of the musical Rent, which we sang along to on repeat for at least the first 5 hours of the trip. (We're hoping to acquire the second CD for the trip back).

Cut to montage!

Annie's view in the car.

We were a bit squished.

The sun setting over the Hume Highway.

I resent the fact that your car has no heater, Jeremy.

Our "Famous Landmarks in the Dark" series - The Submarine

at Holbrook.

"A View of the Submarine sign in the Dark"

"Annie climbs the Submarine in the Dark"
I guess I had better own up to the fact that

we went walking on the deck, and, following Jess

pointing out the stern and wondering aloud if we

could get over to it, I promptly shouted "Let's go!",

tripped, and fell on my face. I spent the rest of the trip

in pain.

Jeremy!

"Fresh" air at the Truck Stop of Doom, where everything

is Steak.

Even the tables and chairs were made of steak.

Could use some warm right about now.

"The Dog on the Tuckerbox in the Dark and

Surrounded by Interpretive Dancers"

"The Dog on the Tuckerbox in the Dark woz 'ere"

The front seat in the dead of the night ... ne na ne na ...

Sydney!!

So, by the time I've managed to post this, I've already done a day of Supanova - so hold tight blaggers. Next episode ...

... DON'T BLINK!

Hot Glue and a Geek Out

We've turned the garage into a workshop in honour of the (speedily) upcoming Sydney Supanova. On Thursday, four Georges (Jess, Jeremy, Annie and myself) will be tripping up to Sydney, and today was occupied with the realisation that if we didn't start our costumes today, then we would be turning up to the convention in pyjamas. Or worse. Regular clothes.

With our butts thus in gear, production went into full swing and the various random objects we had collected over the past several weeks became useful. Our purchases and other randomly obtained items included:

- Coloured contact lenses

- Morph suits

- An enormous bag of foam off-cuts*

- A thick sheet of grey foam

- A thin sheet of grey foam

- A hot glue gun

- PVA

- A dreadlock wig and polystyrene head

- Two mannequin torsos

- Several cans of spray paint

- Liquid latex

* Giant bag of foam off-cuts still to prove useful

With these items, Jess and I began making our costumes. The perfectly timed and completely unexpected arrival of fellow cosplayer and veteran of many A Crazy Idea, Megan, proved rather helpful.

Jess (left) and Megan (right) as Kankurou and Temari

from Naruto. (Man, I hate anime ...)

We have designed two costumes each for the three-day convention. The first is a reprisal and a general epicment of our Weeping Angels costume from last year's Melbourne Supanova. Though we were proud of the dresses, our lack of experience with wings and a last minute realisation that my body paint was missing caused it to be a general mish-mash of good and bad. However, it was a big hit with the crowd, and as such, we find it worth improving and giving another go.

Jess hard at work in our 'workshop'. The

hanging dresses are part of the Weeping

Angels costume - monsters from the Doctor

Who episode "Blink", and last year, "Time of

the Angels" and "Flesh and Stone".

In our infinite confidence, we bought the foam sheeting for the new Angel wings from Clark Rubber before we had an idea of how to actually make them, and spent a good part of the morning arguing about how best to do them. Naturally, Jess erred on the side of caution (using minimal amounts of our limited sheeting to make smaller, sturdier wings) and I erred on the side of Caitlin (which here means "biting off more than you can chew"). My design for the wings was larger, less sturdy and infinitely more likely to fail.

Being me, I decided to do my way anyway and left Jess

her half of the foam and her smug smile. Megan and I

here cut my wing designs out of the foam sheet (a

completed one is to the left). My knowledge of looking

like a git if I failed only spurred me to ... er ... excel. Or

obstinately appear to.

Meanwhile, Jess took her exasperation elsewhere to work on the character of Sarah Kerrigan from the RTS game, Starcraft. Kerrigan's story is a bit like Harry Potter's*, and having been abandoned on a Zerg planet by Jim Raynor, was forced into Zergy servitude and by the release of the second game had been reborn as the slimy Zerg leader called the Queen of Blades. It is an ambitious costume with many layers and a set of giant, bone-like wings to boot, and it will no doubt show mine completely up when it's finished - though Jess is unsure as to whether she will be able to do the wings before the convention.

*In the sense that it's nothing like it.

Jess' morphsuit arrived a little pinker than

she had hoped. Here, she is testing the

positioning of foam pieces representing

armour. These replace the newspaper

stencils she originally applied (shown on

the chest).

Meanwhile, back at the weepy ranch, I decided that I wanted my wings to be much more curved and three-dimensional and needed wire. But we didn't have any wire. And I didn't want to buy wire. So I took apart last year's tiny stocking-and-coat-hanger wings and raided the wardrobe for wire coat-hangers. Megan and I then spent a considerable amount of time cutting them and straightening them out, cursing the name of the hanger of coats throughout. After this, I bent them into the correct curve and cut them some more, trying to ensure Jess had enough to use if she decided to get all jealous and copy my awesome design later.

Getting two wings on a matching curve using

rudimentary tools and wire for hanging clothes

is not advisable and hurts a lot. I then taped the

wire pieces to the wings (later adding a third,

smaller piece further down).

In the shed, Jess had progressed a little further in her foamy endeavours and was making creepy spider-finger-looking doo-hickeys (which are as best as I can describe them). She tested her bottle of liquid-latex on the costume fabric which immediately soaked in and was ineffective, which was a let down (but further trials should yield results).

Tell me my description wasn't apt.

For me, it was time for a taste of the hot glue gun as Megan and I attempted to juggle a giant wing masking-taped into submission whilst simultaneously ripping off the tape from one wire, gluing the indent where it used to be and slamming the wire back on before the glue dried. Hot glue is fast-drying, which is naturally the attraction, but it made our job exceedingly difficult and ended (again) in a lot of curses and us holding the wire on with our fingers while our skin slowly blistered and fell off due to the hot glue.

I promise that this was harder than it looks.

Before and after: The wing on the left has

been painstakingly glued and I think you

can still see some of my finger stuck on there.

3-Dness a go!

Jess was continuing to work on Kerrigan's armour, which proved more fiddly than gluing coat hanger guts to foam.

Jess and Megan refer to pictures of Kerrigan for ideas on

how to progress.

Jess will later have to paint the foam pieces

individually to match the bone-colouring

of the armour before attaching them. The

pieces will need to be able to bend and move

with Jess' body, since cosplayers need a full

range of movement to walk, sit, eat and drink

at the convention.

My Weeping Angel wings were approaching a shape that I was satisfied with (and were vastly better already than last year's), but they still needed work before I had a base I was happy to texture. Megan and I conferred and decided on papier-mache (a technique I had used for the previous wings). By using only a thin layer, I could make the foam lighter in colour to later texture and paint, and I could also achieve the 3-D shape I wanted without compromising the light weight of the foam.

The weight of the wings was something Jess and I discussed in depth before purchasing materials. A wire frame had been an option from the start but was going to increase the weight exponentially - and I don't need to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that weight is an issue worth great consideration when you know you'll be carrying these things on your back all day. The foam, then, was decided on, and has proved its merit at this stage of production.

Megan and I "borrowed" some newspaper

from the kindling box and soaked it in a

watered-down PVA solution before applying

a thin layer over the wing. Around the edge, we

glued a puffy section to mimic the design of

angel wings.

By this stage, the wind was picking up, the light was heading down and everyone was getting too cold to move. It was almost time to head in (though we're all keenly aware of our lack of time before Thursday). Jess had finished sticking the armour to her torso in a temporary fashion, and had moved onto the arms of the costume.

These pieces have been cut deliberately large

to allow for refining after all pieces have been

placed. The hands will also have claws.

Megan and I, both complaining loudly about the pain in our backs and realising how old we sounded, left the wings to dry with the inside of each covered in papier-mache. Once it has dried, I will be able to assess how to refine the shape of the curve around the edge and papier-mache the back with this in mind. I will also have to work in a system for harnessing the wings to my back at this crucial stage, as later may prove too late to attach anything substantial for harnessing.

Gooey goodness: One side of one wing done.

Megan pointed out that we would be doing

this another seven times to complete both

mine and Jess' if she chose to go with the

same design.

Well, that's pretty much all I have for today! For those looking closely, the tan morphsuit in the photo of the workshop is mine - I will be, if I manage it, taking on the persona of Klaymen from the obscure adventure game The Neverhood. It's a masterpiece well worth a look if you're at all into that most excellent puzzle-solving of genres - it's entirely claymation, though Jess has firmly warned me away from my original hopes of covering the costume in a layer of actual clay.

Rodwen, blagging out.