I Will Ask You A Thing For WW. Where Do You Find Your Inspirations For All The Rad Awesome Outfitery

This hat!! and I have been in a battle of wills for 2 months!! I've made hats before but nothing as... ambitious. I knew it had to be purple ostrich leather because that's basically fantasy dinosaur skin, its synthetic, but even so a big splurge for me (50usd from aliexpress), its so cool. So that was problem one, never made a hat out of heavy pleather before, I tried heat shaping it, didnt work due to the suede-y backing material. Problem two was making the cone easy to separate from the brim for easier packing but honestly wasn't a problem at all because velcro is awesome. Problems three through infinity (ongoing xP) was my need to have a fancy musketeer-inspired brim shape that would also be stable enough to mount a huge feather from the edge, lol! I'm still stuck here. I made a framework from plastic canvas, music wire, floral wire and the last of my worbla, and a small socket from a piece of plastic tube (dogpoo bag roll core lol) and a tiny metal corner brace. All of this would have been absolutely overkill for a real feather but turned out to barely be enough for my handmade yarn feather. Thinking of making an organza feather but I really love the realistic texture of the brushed out yarn soooo. Further experiments needed. Wire core is too floppy and steel rod core is too heavy so carbon fiber rod is on eventual to-buy list. Right now the feather shaft is a combination of wire, vinyl tube, ribbon and two metal headbands that I flattened out which is actually really great wire on its own! Feather will get its own post, it ended up being kind of complicated too (...also unfinished) Part of my annoyance is thinking that just making the entire brim out of worbla and/or varaform would solve a lot of my structure issues AND help the hat weigh a bit less but waaay too spendy for me. I'm going to make do with my scraps, aida cloth, felt, wire and glue. ITCHING to rip off all the fabric and start tweaking nowwww Because hat brim will also be supporting the weight of leds and LOTS OF BLING Its so heavy already aaargh! Problem infinity plus one? Securing it to my gigantic wig??? I'm going to try using chopsticks as hatpins lol https://www.instagram.com/p/B2OshoojEDg/?igshid=1qwksvo6y2w98

pcb milling time! #othermill

When designing characters (especially costumes--I'm thinking specifically of the organic-nanotech Iron Man) do you find yourself doing a lot of research specifically for that project, or does it tend to grow more often out of subjects you've already taken an interest in/have knowledge of? Are there any particular resources you find yourself using frequently for that kind of research?

-tyuran

Gosh. WELL. I read. A lot. Like when I go on a research tear I read so much it freaks out people around me 8| Super easy to read lots because I own a kindle. I just get obsessed with things and I have to learn everything I can so I tend to start with wikipedia and then move on to books, and lurk on discussion forums about the topic. (example, I am obsessed with jeeps, I am a member of the cult of Wrangler we have a secret wave and everything and I want to turn mine into a zombie apocalypse response vehicle someday :p and now it is super easy for me to talk about cars with all the dudebros I work with ffff)

Specifically with biotech Ironman tho? I was majoring in biology before I had to quit school for the final time due to uh, poverty. I love SCIENCE so when I nerd out over sci/fi I get tons of ideas for story and character design. It makes me a huge snob tho, like seriously people need to stop giving JJ Abrams all these sci/fi franchises he can't science fiction at ALL. UGH. Like sci/fi is exciting cos science is exciting dammit, and looking toward what's really possible. I saw that the Daily Show has a new segment called Neil Degrasse Tyson: BUZZKILL OF SCIENCE lol that man is my hero.

SO YEAH. Character design I do lots of research on... everything. And if I have a new character who does something I don't know anything about (like, my character Shae is a pilot so I spent some time studying seaplanes and helicopters while I developed her), then it's pretty exciting to learn a new thing! I've actually redesigned my character Edie (she's a giant robot mechanic lol) a bit recently because I've been working with industrial mechanics at my dayjob and have learned a lot about work clothing/industrial safety gear that I didn't find out thru reading. It's like that writer's thing where you just call all your life experiences "research" lol so that's pretty cool.

learning how to make things pretty with laser engraving :D (pewpew)

I have been thinking about this SO MUCH wrt my own high sensitivity. This sort of three-factor approach to emotional personality stuff is really useful for sorting thru your own life and thoughts for personal growth and self awareness, etc. My personal low baseline, high sensitivity and slow recovery time are all "problems" that have to be addressed seperately. Once I acknowledged that my own baseline is pretty skewed toward the negative thru NO fault of my own it helped me resist attempts to shame me for not being a naturally "happy" person. Some people are rays of sunshine and some people are misty fogs and that is OK. Its been much harder for me to accept the sensitivity because I grew up under the delusion that this was something I could change about myself. I feel this is related to the attitude that sensitive people shouldn't be "coddled" and bullying/abuse can be justified if it toughens them up. So it really did take an entire lifetime of effort and FAILURE to realize that was patently untrue. No amount of willpower will make this skin thicker, and thats OK too. The time it takes to return to baseline/regain equilibrium/find balance is the most important thing to address in my experience. If you don't have a whole lot of control over your basic brain chemistry (medications can only do so much after all) or your sensitivity (degree of sensitivity to stimulus is *biological*), what CAN you control? Your thoughts, decisions, and your actions. These affect the intensity and duration of emotional reactions. This is what true cognitive behavioral therapy is all about. Acknowledge what makes you feel things and why. Understand WHAT you're feeling. KNOW that emotions serve a PURPOSE. I see lots of posts circulating with long lists of actions you can take to deal with negative feelings in a healthy way and that makes me happy that people are sharing this, because I had to learn most of those things on my own and the more time saved from having to figure out what to do is more time you can use to figure out what actually works for YOU. Coping skills, emotional management skills are all just that, skills you can learn. It boils down to the usual idea of change what you can control and accept what you can't change... the hard part is figuring out which is which. tl;dr, feelings.

Madranek looks like a pretty sweet guy. What's his story/what's he like/got anything interesting to tell us/etc? :) Spill! <3

Madranek is a minor councilman for a small wealthy province of Esterahad, he's psychic and is sort of a mentor figure to Lillia who is a very young powerful psychic. Because my story is mostly about politics a huge portion of my characters are politicians of some kind D: 

Couldn't resist, yo. Art by Tom Rhodes widgets made by me with Samurize.

Hooooly shit, okay, I love your art a LOT./creepin

Thanks! I don't mind the creepin, I thought that was what the internets were for? 8| Trust me, if I didn't want to share my art I'd be ALL the way under my rock instead of just partially!

tomorrowland was all of the things i love!!!!! retrofuturism! saving the world thru SCIENCE! athena's wendy dress (seriously LOOK AT THIS DRESS)! Antique interdimensional rocketships! Hugh Laurie dressed like a crotchety mayor of the emerald city of Oz! murderous yet quirky robot people! directed by brad bird!!! this review sums up how I feel pretty well. I really needed this movie xD

I knew I had to make Gerudo Chief Riju's hair the moment I saw it in #botw because Looooong. ;p Its an epic cosplay Athena (45") with an unbranded ebay lacefront spliced to it (I added a widows peak and sideburns again because Elf) some braiding hair (80" ebay kanekalon) and a pack of 35" wefts! There's a BUNCH of tubular crinoline (aliexpress) as filler so its really lightweight and I'm VERY PROUD! There's some progress pictures in highlights <3 The braid is a little sloppy BUT Im in a hurry :p (managing all the hair took soooo long and then styling took less than 2 days pffft) Later I will consider adding SOME more hair (its already too much guysssss this wig! is my height!) for smoother braid with more coverage cos there are a lot of gaps where I didnt stagger the wefts well and I crimped the hell out of it for volume of course. And I just want to make it more fancy in general. And THEN I want to make her headdress and probably a Thunderspear because its my favorite weapon in the game okurr This year is my first DragonCon I'm so excitedddd! Will I wear it EVERY DAY probably I worked very hard on it ok