February 4, 2005

My fingerless gloves arrived the other day. They are, to put it politely, cheap communist made crap. But that's what you get for $3 plus shipping. And where else am I going to find red vinyl gloves?

Kim won the auction for her orange boots. Yay! Those will be very cool with her costume. I won an auction for a long red silk scarf which I plan to use in my hair. Speaking of hair, I had it cut. It was about a foot too long. There's still plenty left for a nice ponytail (and it will keep growing until August) but now I can comb it without breaking off big handfuls of hair.

I got a plastic shoebox to start collecting things into. I'm still a good six months out from GenCon, and I want to make sure that come August I can still find everything I've bought. This way it should end up all in one place, or at least the small items.

If you were going to drive a car in the world of Cyberpunk, it might look like this, depending on which neighborhood you lived in.

Speaking of vehicles, Paul is thinking of going with the "nomad" look for his costume. Like gypsies, they live in their vehicles, form family groups or tribes, and travel from town to town trying to make a living in the 21st century. He describes the look as "well armed biker".

Cyberware

One of the key elements in Cyberpunk is the melding of man and machine, better-than-original body part replacements. Yes, we have the technology, we can rebuild you, stronger, faster, better.

I'll insert some images of cyberarms from the game books when I get around to scanning them. Oh, and after we get another hard drive for the webserver. I've currently got a pitiful 4 GB, which is so full that my email backs up on a regular basis. So, no pictures for now.

As I've said before, the internet is a great source of ideas and inspiration. My husband found an interesting site that models an 'organic' exoskeleton glove. It's very cool looking, and makes me think we could model something like that using texture paint or caulk -- something from a tube that holds its shape. Meanwhile, Paul found some art photos online, which gave him some ideas on fashioning a cyberarm.

While he was out shopping the other day Jay brought home a length of photoluminescent wire he found on clearance. Neat stuff, it glows electric blue when hooked up to a source of power. Somehow we'll make this work on his cyberarm.

Feb. 13

Was playing with my new camera the other day and I figured out how to use the timer feature, so I took a couple of self-portraits so you can see how the costume is coming together. It'll be the last picture for a while. The light's not good, my jeans look like crap, but that vest ROCKS with the gloves!

Went out the other night and bought my belts. Real leather, one with grommets the whole length and one with square studs. Quite a deal at $4 and $5 each. Then, just to prove you can find anything anywhere, I saw 'barcode' temporary tattoos in the toy aisle at the grocery store this morning! I haven't decided if I will go back and buy them. They were pretty inexpensive.

Kim got her orange boots this weekend, too. Unfortunately, she doesn't have two right feet. She's trying to contact the seller to see if the situation can be rectified. I hate to bash on Ebay, but we're not having really great luck there with this costume project. Normally it's a great source of secondhand items and neat stuff, and I *have* found several things for my costume this year, but the boots are a big disappointment.

Feb 19

I went back and got the barcode tattoos. There was only one pack left. I shouldn't have waited a week to make up my mind. Still enough to go around, though.

March 21

There's been a whole lot of nothing happening this month. Not that I haven't tried. I found a military surplus dealer with the Swiss camo pants we wanted, who takes Paypal, and claims 'no order is too small'. Well I guess one pair of pants and a pair of boot laces was too small because they blew me off. Anyone who says this costume was easy because all I had to do was go buy stuff can bite me.

I did some more searching last night through Froogle and found another vendor with a supply of Swiss surplus. I didn't see this guy last month, so it must be a new shipment. Looks like he is on Ebay and has a website of sorts. I'm feeling burned by Ebay these days. Long story and not related to this costume project, though. So I whipped out the credit card and just placed the damn order. Popped over the Sportsman's Guide to order the boots I've had my eye on. I bought camping equipment from them back in the days of catalog mail order, so I know they will come through.

The surplus place phoned this evening to confirm my order on the camo pants. Nice to know some people still consider customer service part of the business. Says they will ship tomorrow. I'm happy.

Got another goodie in the mail today, something for myself. Now I have someplace to carry my wallet while we're cruising the vendor hall in costume. I might even be able to fit a few miniatures purchases in it. Need to shorten the shoulder strap on it, I think, which ought to be easy enough. This purchase and the boots put me quite a bit over my budgeted $100.

So this is where we are:

Item	Cost
sunglasses	$6
vest & tank top	$6.49
pants	$1.98
hair accessories	$2.99
gloves	$6.85
belts	$10
LED necklace (parts)	$52.00
purse	$17.50
boots	$29
total	$132.81

The boots cost twice what I expected, as I was unable to locate a cheap used pair in the area. The purse, as I said, was a splurge, but a girl's got to look good. The good news is that all I have left to buy is the makeup, and whatever supplies we need for refinishing the squirt guns.

March 23

My boots arrived. Whee! They might be a tad large, but I think they are supposed to be so that my feet can swell from all the walking I'll be doing. The tag says they are made in communist China, of real leather, it's probably from something endangered. I'll be breaking them in this spring while I work in the garden.

March 26

Jay's pants are here. It's good to have pants.