May 12

The quest for makeup continues. I'm still looking for red eyeshadow and gold lipstick. It's looking like I will have to go the Halloween Clown Makeup route, because the colors I want just aren't made by mainstream cosmetics companies. I did pick up a red eyeliner, though, which by itself makes me look pretty freaky. I'll have to check the party supply and costume shops this week if I can. The big one in town has miserable hours. Have I ranted on how much I hate businesses that aren't open when the rest of us aren't working?

I bought a tube of liquid gold lip color, too, only it's sheer. Bah! Still, it would make a nice lipgloss if I can get a good undercolor.

May 19

Whoo! I finally got around to cutting the thrift store leggings the way I wanted, with slashes across the top of the thigh, and damn they look hot! I should score EPs just for style. I hand-hemmed the slashes to give them a nice neat edge and a slightly oval shape. I still need to bring the waistband down about an inch, so it sits more on my hips than at my waist.

I may give up on the gold lipstick idea. It's too hard to find and I am already over budget on this costume. It was suggested to me that I use gold mica powder over foundation, or a gold leaf. Possibilities depending on what I can find and how much it costs. I know I can get fire engine red lipstick at the corner drug store if I have to.

We need to get moving on the cyberware and the toy guns. I'm not even sure where the guns *are* at this point.

May 21

Looks like this project is picking up steam again. We're just short of 3 months away from GenCon, and starting to run out of time. Yes, really. We have a local convention here next weekend, Memorial Day Weekend, and we'll be in Philadelphia for WizardWorld the weekend after that. Then Origins is the last weekend in June, and I'm aiming to have everything in place by the end of July.

Yesterday I tore through the house looking for the popguns. Finally found mine safely tucked behind the door in my sewing room. Considered taking it apart in order to preserve the clear red plastic panels where it makes sparks if you pull the trigger fast. Noticed that the safety cap on the end of the barrel is firmly glued on, though, and taking it apart would become a pain in the butt. The rifle has some nice silver and chrome detail that I'd like to preserve, so I tried applying some liquid rubber masking fluid my husband has. Yick, what a disaster. The brush ended up as a ball of goo ( yes, it said to use a brush) and the stuff didn't adhere very well. Anyplace it was slightly dry where I would brush over it trying to get good coverage would just peel up from the contact. It was worse than working with rubber cement. I'm thinking now it might be easier to just spray the whole thing black and touch up the silver bits with metallic paints by hand afterward.

Played with my hair some yesterday, too, trying out alternate hairstyles that would still let me get enough hair up into a topknot. Tried it with a long wisp of hair, which I would curl, hanging over each eye. Looked good, but there's still too much hair to put into one of the clips I bought. I tried it just pulled up on the front and sides, letting a good deal of it hang down the back, but I was still having trouble getting it into the clip. My husband came in to help and suggested I use a strip of Velcro.

*Ping* What a brilliant idea. So today I went and got single sided velcro and experimented with that. I can actually get a good tight, high topknot with it, but I'm going to have to play with it more to perfect the technique. The main problem right now is that it still slides out of my hair making me look like a frumpy victorian housewife instead of a cyberpunker.

In another experiment I went and bought some Mehron yellow greasepaint from the costume and magic shop in town. A little pot of it was only a couple of dollars and it's not as nasty as I was expecting. A lot like lipcolor from a compact, actually, only I bought a nice brush at the craft store. I get a real nice yellow color from it, and with the metallic gold lipgloss over that, it's exactly the look I wanted, matching my mirrored gold shades. Wicked!

I've decided against the red eyeshadow. First, it's damn near impossible to get. Second, the multiple FDA health warnings against using red colored stuff around the eyes. I'm even wondering about the eyeliner. Third, with the mirrorshades on you can't even see my eyes.

Jay's started working on his cyberarm. We used an old long sleeved shirt and I duct taped around his arm to make a cast that was the right size and shape. Then we cut that off and he's now covering it with epoxy clay that will harden like hard plastic.

I had an idea for making his Militech t-shirt inexpensively. I could make a stencil of the design and use a red acrylic spray paint to transfer the lettering. I know the paint doesn't come off my jeans, so it shouldn't come off a shirt.

And, finally, I was able to find a pair of boot laces. I hope 72" is long enough.

May 22

Getting Fitted for the Future

My friend Ray tells me it's illegal in Canada to paint a toy gun to look more realistic. He says the packaging there is covered in warnings to that effect. While it would be stupid to pass a popgun off as the real thing, I don't think repainting it's illegal in itself here, or at least the packaging here in the US doesn't say anything about it. Toy packaging from Communist China isn't a good place to check on US law, I know, but then I'm not really trying to make a Real Gun out of this, either. I'm trying to make it more Cyberpunk, and that means, for starters, it's not going to be light blue. Second, the bright red safety cap isn't going to come off. I know, I've tried and that sucker is firmly glued on.

Took the plastic rifle apart this morning, that thing has enough screws to start a hardware store. Even though the safety cap DOES NOT come off I was able to separate the two halves enough to remove the red plastic thing in the middle and the sparking mechanism, and the blue-grey riflestock and handgrips. The body of the gun I hit with a light coat of primer, and a coat of black acrylic. Fortunately I have primer and spraypaint on hand, so it's not an additional expense for this project. Oh yeah, I taped over the safety cap in order to preserve the delicate shade of cherry-pepper orange.

I had been looking at battery operated strobe flashers a while back, wanting a use for them. I found one. We're going to attempt to insert one into my rifle behind the clear red plastic bits. I've just bought a package of twelve multicolor lights with extra batteries. Add $11.94 to the running total of expenses. We'll try and make some work for Jay's costume, and I'll give a couple to Paul and Kim to use, too.

Speaking of expenses, here's where we are. Way, way over that $100 budget I set:

Balance Forward	$132.81
scarf	$5.25
tassels	$4.27
velcro	$4.28
tattoos	$2.14
makeup	$8.02
battery LEDs	$11.94
Current Balance	$168.91

May 30

Paul and Kim came down for the weekend, and we spent a lot of time talking about our costumes and trading ideas. Kim brought the pieces she's collected so far. She has a black bodystocking, some black and blue striped leggings, and a black garter belt to hold those up. The bodystocking is almost sheer, so she's planning to wear a miniskirt and some kind of top over it. I suggested a couple layers of cut-up t-shirts, worn long with a belt. She's going to dye or streak her hair blue, and wear appropriate amounts of makeup.

I dug out my box of stuff and did a quick dress rehearsal so everyone could see what my outfit looks like so far. I think I am just about done with it. There are a couple of small touches I want to add, I think another $10 ought to be the end of it.

One of the things I am going to do is add some tassels to the sides of my pants, right there where the side seam holds everything together. That will add some color and interest to the lower half of my costume. I've also got a bandanna I bought a while ago from the beauty supply, that I will wrap around one ankle, again for color. I wasn't sure if I should wear the pants in or out of my boots, but the vote today was for in. To make that easier and neater looking I am going to sew some elastic on the bottoms of the pant legs, making stirrups.

June 17

The best things in life are free

One of the promo items in the registration pack at Wizard World was a metal dogtag for the upcoming War of the Worlds movie. I thought it was just cool enough that I made sure we tracked down two of them for our costumes. Probably I will let Jay wear them, since I think it will add the most to his outfit, and you wouldn't see them down the front of my shirt anyway.

I also got a neat idea from someone else there, who was having trouble finding the perfect boots to go with her costume. She spray painted them. I love spray paint, it's so darn useful. I wonder if I could spray paint red flames on the sides of my army boots. I suggested to Kim that she should get a pair of thrift store boots and spray paint them for her costume, but I think she has a pair of black ankle boots she is going to wear.

Jay's still working on his cyber arm and/or hand. He thought at first an arm would be easier than the hand, but has since decided that an arm without a hand would look funny, so he's going to do a cyber hand, and we'll see if there is time to finish the arm he's been molding.

With the release of Revenge of the Sith you won't be able to go anywhere this summer without seeing Star Wars costumes. Likewise the web is covered with do-it-yourself costume guides. The TK-409 site had an interesting snippet on how to alter a toy robot hand into a replica of the mechanical hand fitted to Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones.

As you can see in his picture the robot hand has a grip that you can use to manipulate the fingers. This would work great under a Jedi robe. Unfortunately, it's not going to work too well with a t-shirt. I do like the idea of adding all the colored wire to the 'robot' fingers, though, it makes it look very appealing.

June 19

Spent several hours yesterday hunting local junk shops looking for "stuff" for the cyberhand. Our thought now is to use a slim fitting glove, like a formal glove, with some kind of plastic or metal plates attached to it like armor, with colored wires run along it. The hunt was unsucessful, nothing popped out at us and looked cool.

We did find one thing we thought might have a use. There were these plastic roses with a microphone and recordable chip built into the stem, so that you could record a message for your sweetheart. They play it back and there is a tiny speaker built into the rosebud, and a plastic heart which glows when the sound plays. We bought two, (they were 99 cents each) thinking they might be used somewhere on the costume for sound effects. So far though Jay can only get it to play back prerecorded music. Needs more tinkering.

Experimented with old data CDs, you know, the kind you get free with somebody's internet service software on it. I wanted to see if they could be used as "armor plates" on the glove. I found that very hot tap water doesn't soften them, but that a few minutes in a 400F oven will. The plastic softens and bubbles a little bit, and slags nicely, so I'm thinking we could melt shapes into half circles to fit over the top of the hand and the fingers. After a little bit more playing around we discovered that you can cut CDs with a good pair of scissors, though they crack a little bit sometimes. Oh well, the CDs are free, and I can always go find another handful of them at the Post Office or something.

June 27

Went to Home Depot and went shopping. Settled on a black work glove with silver trim that Jay thinks he can make into a 'shock glove'. Bought some silver metallic Contact Paper that I thought would stick real well. You ever try to lay Contact Paper in a kitchen cabinet? Well, I was disappointed in the stickiness of the chrome stuff. Not at all like what I worked with in the past.

Jay has finished wiring my digital necklace. The original plan was to have it counting down a 6 digit number. Unfortunately that turned out to require much more wiring than would fit on such a small board. So we changed it to a static display, and all I had to do was come up with a cool 6 letter word that could be spelled with the displays we had.