Friday, November 23, 2012

Adventures in Fur - Paws (or Gloves)

Quite a while ago, after a bit of beer, the topic of fursuits came up. For those uninitated, this is what Furries wear... also Furries seem to pay quite a lot of money for these things. So a while back, a friend was threatening to buy some furfeet for 150euros (!) ... I drunkenly texted back NO! I WILL MAKE SOME FOR WAY CHEAPER FOR YOU!

Okay I've still not made the furfeet. I do, however, now have the materials! Then I got sidetracked by the fact that I have quite a lot of fur fabric... hey I could make furry gloves. Hmmm...

This website is the most amazing resource out there http://www.matrices.net/fursuiting.asp Seriously, if you ever needed to know how to put together a whole fursuit or just parts of one, you should look at that website. There is so much useful hints and tips. Stuff like using hair clippers to shave the fur to get more shape and detail seems like common sense to me now but I wouldn't have thought to try it (or thought it was so easy) if it were not for the videos on that website.

Gushing out of the way, I used the tutorial for the fur hands on the Matrices Fursuiting website. I was having one of those days where I really wanted to work on something but felt I couldn't due to lack of some sort of materials... My remit from my friend was black faux leather pads on the paws. I ordered some but was sitting and waiting for it. I looked around the flat and found some very thin, dark dusty blue suede leather. This might do... These may not be paws for my friend but if I made a pair of my own, I can make all the mistakes on these and then do better for friend who bought the fur fabric for me in the first place.

So the furglove making continued. I drew out a rough palm-sized pad and cut it out of leather.
Paw
I was surprised my sewing machine could handle the fur fabric and the leather but it seemed fine. I didn't follow through on the tutorial exactly - I went for more of a loose zigzag stitch rather than a satin-style stitching. It still seemed to work out pretty good
Paw pad
I learned that it's a lot easier to tack down the pads before hitting the sewing machine. Also it leads to slightly less huge bunches of fabric, as the leather sneaks around against the fur which moves around quite a bit.

Furry Palm :P
All sewn up and ready for some shaving. I am so thankful I've trained myself to be ambidextrous. I had no problem shaving either glove using either hand. Wearing the glove while shaving with the other hand allowed me to move my fingers around and get more shaping in between the fingers.

Trimmed a bit...

And here's both paws
PAWS!

Hopefully I'll be moving onto the furfeet sometime soon... I've basically got the materials together, it's just finding the time to collaborate with friend to make sure shoes fit and final design/shaping.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Crayons On Canvas

Drippy crayons
Paintypaint...
PAINTING!

Cheap crayons, cheap canvas, glue gun, blow dryer on high plus some black acrylic paint for detailing. I wanted to keep the canvas white underneath in case the cheap crayons were lacking in pigment and turned translucent when melted.

There does seem to be enough pigment in the cheap crayons to show up on a black surface but it's not nearly the same effect as using a white background and then painting around the dripped wax
More melty

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Fire breathing

Warning: Post contains fire. Fire is dangerous. Apparently inhaling cornflour can cause lung infections too. Blow, don't suck :P

So... Instructables is a very bad influence. It's probably been my biggest influence this week. Into my inbox came a newsletter with a section called Projects for Pyros...

I had heard of using cornstarch (known as cornflour in the UK) for firebreathing before; I even had it in my project notebook from several months ago. Using Bonfire weekend as an excuse seemed as good as any to try this out with minimum attention.

Fire breathing

It's surprisingly easy to do, although it's a bit gross tasting and gunks up in your mouth but eventually dissolves. You stick a big spoonful of cornflour into your mouth and just blow out .... up and out, not down! Flames go up! - towards a lit blow torch. This would be the other fun use of a small blow torch, besides firing PMC (precious metal clay).

For some reason, this picture of my husband fire breathing is more popular than the pictures of me.
Sully fire breathing

And here's a short video so you get the full noise effect.

Monday, November 12, 2012

"Amish" food - Hamburger Barbecue & Corn Fritters

Corn fritters and Hamburger Barbecue
Dinner from last week...
The food I grew up on, basically.
Had serious issues with controlling the heat on a small frying pan for the corn fritters :(

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Ideas because I'm waiting waiting waiting

So... I have at least two projects that I've bought materials for. What's worse is I have half the materials for one project and it's just sitting there taunting me (ARUGH). Also for some insane reason my internet isn't allowing me on ebay *twitch* so I will just write about some upcoming ideas...

I'm kind of getting into costuming, like fursuits and cosplay. There's an upcoming japanese/cosplay event in London that I've just suddenly decided I'd quite like to go as a very cute anthro-cosplay Pinkie Pie (yup. ponies again. Ponies all the way.)
So I was going to check ebay for a cheaper hot pink petticoat as my usual source seems to have gone up in price significantly and I still can't be arsed to make another one after one horrible attempt many many many many years ago.

So... I need a pink wig... Not quite sure what I'm going to do for ears but they'll be hair barrette type attachment like my kitty ears I bought a few years ago.
I may go for a pink t-shirt and painted-on cutie marks, while trying super-hard to make the balloons looking like balloons and not something ... ruder...

Somehow I got distracted and thought of FUNFETTI CAKE. Not sure why I'm so obsessed with this cake these days but I did think it'd be the perfect cake for Pinkie Pie.
Googled, found how to make your own:
http://www.thekitchn.com/cake-recipe-funfetti-cake-from-147011
which then led to, make your own sprinkles:
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-sprinkles-for-cupc-138957
which mentions... BACON SPRINKLES! Everything comes back to bacon.

I think I want a funfetti cake for my birthday :P

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Tool Roll

Sully's Lockpick Roll
All the Lockpicks Inside

The husband has recently gotten into sport lockpicking and purchased his own set of picks. Unfortunately it came with a really small case and it was very difficult to get any of the tools out so I modelled this on a crochet hook case I got from ebay years ago. Just made of more sturdy fabric (denim, an offcut from my Tudor Rose purse I made years and years ago) and some random velvet ribbon from the velvet choker I made recently.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Beautiful Naked Electronics

mintyboost + 808 cam + microSD to SD converter...

This may look complex until you realise it's just a Minty Boost charging an 808 camera which has an SD to microSD card converter stuffed in it.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Oven Mitt and Machine Quilting

Hackspace Oven Mitt
This was my first time machine quilting anything. It came out pretty well. It's for London Hackspace's kitchen since I managed to burn my finger trying to use a folded over teatowel as an oven mitt the last time I did any baking there.
backColouring in progress