Holy Hell!

Has it really been almost a year since I last posted??? I have no idea how that happened, except may that time flies when you're really frickin' busy!

Okay, so, here's what I've done over the last year:
Choreographed and performed a damn fun dance set with my friends in our aptly named troupe Caprice

Built my own computer: The Neon Beast - not pictured (although I should snap a pic of it with all it's lights and fans going - it looks like the future!!!)

Set our Halloween yard display again

And some nighttime views

 Performed with one of my favorite teachers!

Made perhaps my favorite pair of Halloween costumes to date

I made both our costumes from commercial patterns, but my favorite part of my costume is this panel that I made sans-pattern:


















I also modified my mask
















 


 But Igor made his from scratch (I just did the initial plaster mold of his face and he took it from there!)

The first weekend of November I went to Orycon for the fist time since I was a kid and had a great time. There were so many good panels on costuming and so many awesome people! I think I'm going to have to go to more cons next year and make some good costumes to wear at them (already scheming about a rule 63 Scarecrow and maybe an Early Ottoman Little Red Riding Hood). 2012 has been an amazingly weird year. It seemed to a somewhat lost year for me - not in a bad way, I just had a sense of floating in a sea of undefinable awesomeness.

Now, with the Halloween season over, it's time to ramp up for the apocalypse. 'How?', you ask? By stockpiling food and weapons and solar batteries? No! By making more costumes!!! Caprice will be performing an apocalypse themed set on December 21st and of course we need the right costumes to go with it. I've started work on a bra and need to modify some dance pants. The troupe ordered three beautifully deconstructed (reconstructed?) military belts to use for the set and I need to finish embellishing mine.

So much to do - and so little time until the END OF THE WORLD!

Been Busy

Unfortunately not with things to show here, but with this:


Yay! Two friends talked me into it and I'm so glad they did. I got going on the last of the Melancholia stories again. Even though I realized there's more to be told I pushed myself past a very difficult point in the story and now feel like I'm free to move forward and really finish the sisters' stories (which can be read hereMelancholia & Her Sisters).

Now, into winter with thoughts of editing, new dances and new costumes.

Costume Test Run

The mask is almost done!!!

A little touch up on the paint and then putting in the one eye and that's it!

And we did a test run of Igor's evil gnome.

All he needs is a few adjustments and he'll be perfect!

The Zombie Gnome Plague is Upon Us!

Okay, been so busy it's been hard to write a post so this will be photo heavy and word light!

First some daytime shots







The mailbox gnome is one of my favorites


The porch lit up at night (very hard to see stuff in these nighttime photos, but you get the idea)


Some of our little creatures at night




Here's my little guy again


There was only one minor mishap during setup when Igor put a staple in his finger


Mmmm, tasty.

And finally, the pumpkins we carved


Happy almost Halloween!!!

Halloween is in the Air

And another fine, productive weekend! This time with pictures.

The biggest accomplishment of the weekend was getting the two largest pieces of our Halloween yard display up: the tree and the boarded-up window. While the tree isn't completely done, the hardest parts are up and the rest will be to easy finish.

Igor pretty much made the entire window dressing himself. He's definitely the top of my list for people I want on my team come the apocalypse. As you can see he's very handy with a drill.

I think it took less than an hour for him to get it all together and for us to put it up.

While he was doing that I took the drapes I'd cut up the night before

(so therapeutic) and tea stained them. I used earl grey and it made the house smell amazing.



Then we put up the boards and (after staining the drapes again with old coffee grounds, since the earl grey didn't make them quite dark enough) I hung the drapes up to dry.


The tree turned out amazing. We used chicken wire as the frame and then just stretched a curtain over that. I actually sewed the curtain onto the wire and then Igor painted the face. All I had to say to Igor was, 'Do you think you can paint it with an evil tree face?' and he knew exactly what I meant. Seriously, top of the list.

All boarded up and ready for the zombie gnome plague.



The tree still needs some branches and leaves added, but we got about 80% of the work done.

Sunday I worked more on the gnomes and various forest creatures.

My mini zombie factory.

I arranged some brambles to make a secure little gnome patch and placed the first two zombie gnomes.


The idea is that the dolls will be kinda hidden until nighttime when we turn on led lights that will show them off in an appropriately creepy way.

These two are my favorite

The white, bleeding eyes were Igor's idea.

And that's it for now! Time to sit back, relax, and enjoy this week's seasonal movie: The Monster Squad.


After that I think I'll move onto something a little more sophisticated

A Glorious First Fall Weekend!

And productive!

So it was sunny and hot on Saturday, so what? Igor and I went shopping for the last bits we needed for dressing up the house on the 1st. I measured the porch to see how everything is going to fit and then we figured out just how we're going to do the tree trunk which will be one of the main features of the Disenchanted Forest. Yes, that's what I've started calling it. It's less cumbersome than saying 'the once enchanted now zombified forest'. Maybe Zombie Woods might be better (and, no, we're not calling it just Zombie Wood for the obvious reasons) - I don't know, we're still working on it. We've also been doing some late night pillaging of wooden planks and yard debris bins from around the neighborhood as well as gathering other supplies. Igor's porch looks like a scrap yard, but it'll all come together next weekend! I also promise there will be pictures in the next post.

We also went to an insanely overpriced Halloween store. We wandered around and got some ideas, but the only thing we bought was a rabbit nose for Isabella's costume (yup, she's going to a be a zombie rabbit).

Then came Sunday. A wonderfully blustery, cloudy and then sunny and then pouring down rain day. In the morning I cleared out some of the blackberry brambles next to the porch (we want to scare trick-or-treaters, not scar them when they become entangled in the underbrush), but didn't throw out the tendrils because I have plans to use them as part of the yard dressing. I finished making gnome hats for our zombified gnomes, covered paper mache skulls in gesso and got another layer done on the zombie squirrel mask.

Oh, and Friday! How could I forget Friday! A couple friends came over and we watched Dead Snow. Why do Nazi zombies make me laugh so much?

First Day of Fall Tomorrow!!!

Well, it should be, but it hasn't felt like fall yet this week. This week the temperature's been in the 80s with nothing but sun sun sun. Ah, but last week, last week was gorgeous with rain and clouds and a little nip in the air. Sigh, and yet *this* week Summer is trying to rear it's ugly, sweaty head again. Give up Summer, tomorrow it's the 23rd and officially Fall! Laugh your last, hot fetid breath if you can - soon all will be as Autumn wills it!!!

Yeah, I'm done with summer.

As I wait for my favorite season to truly begin I've been working on Halloween plans. Not only getting costumes together, but working on pieces for the house. Igor and I have decided to go all out on the house this year and keep our costumes simple (i.e. no face makeup).

Way back on the 3rd I had a Birthday Zombie Making BBQ. Friends and family came over to eat grilled things and make zombies out of discarded children's toys.



Some were gorier than others

(that's a twig though the squirrel's nose)

Some were more disturbing


But all the zombies were kid tested and mother approved.


There was also a good deal of eating and drinking and sitting around

(And Igor wore my favorite t-shirt of his, the red Christopher Walken 'I got a fever' shirt. More Cowbell!)

Speaking of Igor, last week he finished the clay sculpting for my squirrel mask and I molded the mouth.



Then I put on the first layer of newspaper, covering it with a shiny layer of Elmer's glue to keep it all together.



Here are what my fingers looked like when I was done

I was very proud of them.

I'm following this guy's methods since he's not only a talented mask maker, but specifically a talented squirrel mask maker: Branden Byers.

Holy moly, I'm downright giddy it's so close to October!!! I'm already watching old horror movies and listening to my favorite seasonal music - well, I do those things year round, but it just feels more special this time of year.

This week's featured movie: Curse of The Crimson Altar (or The Crimson Cult according to Netflix). Staring Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, and Boris Karloff it's a cheezy little romp though the pastoral, witch filled, English countryside.

And it has some awesome costumes in just the first few moments of the film.