PSA: Clean yo stuff, kids

Having makeup trouble? 

Clean your brushes!

    Seriously, this is something that I never knew was a thing until I was way too deep into costume makeup to change my ways easily. Get in the habit of cleaning your brushes, sponges, staves of darkness or whatever you use, AT LEAST once a week. To do so, just take a non-aggressive shampoo (don't ask me what that means because I have little to no idea. To the best of my knowledge this means that it's not overly fragrant, and mostly organic-based. I use a repair shampoo on my regular hair, so that works pretty well for my brushes too) and gently massage it into the wet brush bristles. DO NOT pull on the bristles in any way: this is not regrowable hair, any pieces you lose from tugging are gone forever and ruin your brush. Gently wash the shampoo out of the brush, and set somewhere clean and dry to dry off. This will take about 24-26 hours depending on the brush, so maybe do this when you have a day or two to not wear makeup or else when you have a clean back-up brush.

   ALL OF YOUR BRUSHES NEED YOUR LOVE. Unless you have literally never even looked sideways at it, every one of your brushes needs to be cleaned at some point. How often you need to clean it depends on how often you use it, but do know that using things like costume makeup or paint-on lipstick/gloss and then not cleaning your brushes will stain the everloving cheese-its out of them. This may effect how your makeup looks later when you use them again.

Clean your workspace! 

   This may seem like it doesn't matter much, but it is way easier to be creative (at least for me anyway) when the chaos which perpetually surrounds me is at the very least organized chaos. Anyway, you're way less likely to attract dust mites, mice, and spiders with a clean work space. This includes cleaning out your water dishes, making sure that there's never any liquids left out uncapped or uncleaned overnight, and that any hair from plucking or whatever is swept up. 

Clean your makeup! 

What? Clean your makeup? What sorcery is this? Madness and riddles.

  It's true. In order to have untainted colors and foundations, it's vital to clean up your debris. This is especially the case with eyeshadows. Blow off your fallout powder, swipe out any contaminated spots, and use clean no-scent tissues to do so, because otherwise you're just rubbing the powder and the aloe gel they use in scented, soft tissues together.



Reminder: It is totally cool to have cheap materials! I buy most of my makeup online or at CVS, and it works just as well as most other makeup. My brushes probably cost me about ten bucks, and I bought them maybe two years ago. Good stuff does not necessarily mean expensive stuff. As long as it works for you and you take care of it, there is NO REASON that inexpensive materials should be a bad thing. (In fact, I use a lot of cheap hairsprays and powders in my cosplays and crafts because they hold like you wouldn't believe.)

Dorothy Gale Grayscale IN PROGRESS

Dorothy Gale Grayscale Part 1

This Halloween (2015), I've decided to shake it up a bit. I tend to go all out for costumes, but unfortunately this can make it a bit hard for people to identify what I am (see Empress Theodora of 2009). Last year, I tried a store-bought Elsa costume, which was a total hit but not to my own satisfaction. And so the moment Halloween 2014 was over, I sat down at my desk and started sketching out ideas for a more original costume. 

       The key to this costume is going to be your ability to do convincing Grayscale makeup. I will be putting up a whole ton of links which will teach you how and what to do/use this week, and a tutorial of my own in November after midterms. 

       NOTE: This tutorial is IN PROGRESS, and NOT a closet cosplay. This will require special purchases and serious commitment. 

What you'll need:

• A black and white gingham dress
• An undershirt or two that you are OKAY with cutting up or getting makeup on (see photo above for reference)
• Black and white checked ribbon/strips of fabric
• A slip with lace at the end
• Small bottle of Modge Podge glue/sponge brush/red glitter
• Plastic bag
• Old shoes with a LOW heel
• Thin socks 
• Long high quality black wig
• Grayscale makeup (explanation to come)
• Optional: basket

The dress

I purchased my own dress here: 

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Fashion-2015-Women-Elegant-Lace-Dresses-Plus-Size-Women-School-Black-White-Plaid-Dress-With/32359657185.html

    You'd be appalled to see what black and white gingham goes for. Most of them aren't attractive or workable at all, and yet still cost upwards of sixty to a thousand dollars. This dress is the cheapest and truest representation I could find after over seven months of searching, but it is much shorter than it should be, coming in above the knee. Pictures will be posted when it arrives. The added advantage of this dress is that it already comes with the cap sleeves, which means all you need is a dicky (tutorial on how to make one to come) with a high neckline to quicksew onto the dress. 

    Because I anticipate the dress being so short, I've purchased a little slip to go underneath. As the actual dress does have a peek of lace at the bottom in the movie, I am perfectly comfortable with this compromise on the side of personal comfort. Plus, the less amount of leg you show, the less makeup you have to put on said legs. 

Your makeup:
   So I used a body paint company called Snazaroo, in light grey. It's pretty cheap on Amazon, and ships like lightning which makes it an excellent choice for October costume makeup shopping. This is a water activated paint, and you'll need baby powder or translucent setting powder to set it, but it's super worth it. I would also suggest having a white eyeliner pencil and a grey eyeliner pencil as well, or at least a very smudge-able black. Any smoky-eye pallet in black and grey will work for the eye makeup and contouring, and the liner will be liquid, just to keep from disturbing the base paint.

   Do not worry if this paint looks slightly blue in certain lighting: this means that either your lighting is stupid, or your paint is still wet.

   DEFINITELY practice applying before your costume debut. When applying, how much water you have on your sponge (and you will want to use a sponge, trust me on this) will determine how opaque your makeup is. And to that effect, if you'd like to have clean bump-free makeup, make sure to do bold, straight lines. RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO DAB AND SKETCH THE PAINT ON. I know it can be hard, especially when the first layer looks thinner than you want. But it's really important to have an even coat. To get used to this no-sketch movement, practice on your arm or hand first. Since your arms and hands will need to be painted anyway, you can just leave that on once you're satisfied with your results.

   The extensive how-to will be a video to be uploaded in November.

REMINDER: There is no guarantee that you won't be allergic to this dye, so ALWAYS ALWAYS EVERY TIME test a new paint before you apply it over a wide area. The way to to test is to apply a small amount to the clean, dry bit of skin right at the inside crook of your elbow. Leave it on for twenty minutes or so, and if it begins to itch or burn even a little, wash that crap right off and clean the area thoroughly. And then, of course, never put it anywhere on your skin again and find a different paint. This goes for ANY new paint or makeup or oil-- really anything that goes directly onto your skin for any semblance of an extended period of time.

The shoes

   This tutorial section will be updated within the coming week, but for now: the base of the shoes should look like this. 

   They can be any colour of course-- they'll be covered in glue and red sparkles when you're done anyway. 

It is pretty important that your shoe have a LOW heel, especially if you plan on being on your feet for a large portion of the night.  

    These particular shoes were purchased at Goodwill for three dollars, and as you can see, have NO TEXTURE. I mean it, texture will really screw you over when you're putting glue onto the shoe's surface. Basically what you want to do is find the saddest looking neglected pair of outdated heels you can, and give them new life. The nice thing about this sort of shoe is that it has a lot of nice cushioning, and doesn't squeeze your arches when you stand for a long time. 

    This is the ONLY part of the costume which will be in colour, so it is pretty important that they look at least remotely close to the originals, since they are the focus of the costume. 

Originals: 















The Process: 

                                                                         These are your needed materials. You need a sheet to lay down on your workspace, and preferably a bag to work in. Take one of your sponge brushes, and your glue, and find a disposable surface to use as a glue pouring station. Pour said glue out in smallish dollops and apply liberally to the shoes using the sponge brush.
Remember to keep the shoe in the bag. If you have finer glitter, then just mix the Mod Podge with the glitter and apply directly to the shoe in even dabs. I could only find large grain glitter, so we're doing this the hard way.

  Assuming that you have large grain glitter, you'll apply the glue as shown to the right and then just dump the red glitter onto the glue (carefully, try to get minimal amounts on your sheet as you'll have to shake the glitter off later). You can knock off some of the excess glitter as you go if you like, but for the most part try not to touch the glue or the glitter. Also, try to get all the way down to the black area at the edge of the shoe.

Fem Thorin Cosplay Part 2

Part 2, I guess

This picture here was the inspiration for a lot of the hair/makeup in this cosplay (all credit to the artist, this was lifted from Pinterest). I do not, however, look good at all in facial hair to the best of my knowledge, so I went beardless for Con. I will be putting up a tutorial on how to do facial hair for you beardless ladies and germs out there later. 

   So far we've done the chainmail, dress, and wig. Now all that's really left to do is the coat. For this you'll need a dozen or so toilet paper rolls, standard size or larger depending on how thick you want the fur to be. I would recommend getting a coat that you can easily handsew, because this process is not going to be easy. For this the stitches don't need to be at all even: Padfoot sewed this for me with no sewing experience whatsoever at 4 in the morning, so if your stitches look like shite and still hold strong, don't worry.

First step is to cut your fur. Decide how thick you want yours to be- I went for two inches across- and then measure vertically at about 10x what you decided for thickness. Do NOT cut yet! Measure 30 times, cut once with this, trust me. However thick you want your fur to be, add about 1/2 inch on either side. This is for you to fold over and sew, but we'll get to that in a moment. Don't worry so much about doing that for the length, you won't be sewing that down. You're going to end up with 3 pieces: two panels on the side, and a large square piece (no hole cut out yet) for the top bit. The square piece should reach from the top of the panels to a few inches behind the collar of the coat. 

    Cutting the Fur: 

   Part your fur like a hairline, using a small comb for precision. The middle of the part is where you're going to cut, so try and make it as clean as possible. I would have a vacuum hose on hand for this, it gets hella messy very quickly. Once you've cut your pieces, use the vacuum hose to get any of the stray hairs off, or else just shake it out somewhere where you won't get slaughtered for getting weird synthetic fur everywhere. 

    Sewing the Fur: 

  This bit is where it gets a little annoying. What you'll do is take one of your panels and lay whichever side you're sewing first hair-down on whichever side you want it. I would recommend starting this on the inside edge, near the opening, just to keep mistakes from happening. You'll want to be sure that the edge you're sewing is the only one on the coat, and when sewing the inside edge, make sure your stitches are very close to the edge of the coat itself. Now here's where that ridiculous amount of toilet paper rolls comes in handy. Take the rolls and line them up next to the ridge you have sewed on, and then fold the fur over so that it covers the rolls hair-up. Tuck the unsewn edge fur-down against the rolls, creating a sort of super long pocket. Sew this edge down (it's going to be difficult, I promise, but stick it out) and then shake out the toilet paper rolls. Unless you want them slipping out over the course of the day, that it. This will create the illusion that you have a big long puff of fur on your coat, rather than just a flat plain of fuzz. 

             Take your top piece and line it up where you want it to be. Part it ON your jacket to ensure that you're getting as close as possible to where you need to be. Your hole will be the curve of the jacket opening at the top. Cut the curve of the jacket top in, and then sew the curved edge on. There will be a little gap between the top of your fur panels and your big bit on top: no worries! Cut two identical pieces out in the fur of any size you like and fill in that space. KEEP IN MIND: the two panels on either side should start at the bottom half of the split-lapel. When you cut these filler pieces, make sure there's enough to go inside the jacket a little-- just enough that if you leave the jacket open, there's the illusion of an inner fur lining.

ACCESSORIES: 

Not pictured: a freaking sword

        For my accessory, I forwent Throin's sword (purely for economical reasons; I will eventually put up a tutorial on making it and even better, making it look real) and instead went with a Hobbit. Hobbits are wonderful accessories, though through poor planning, my Hobbit and I ended up at about the same height. [Thanks to the beautiful and talented Padfoot for being my Hobbit.] 

     Do be careful when selecting your Hobbit, as some are quite a bit mouthier than others. 

    Also, as an added precaution, I brought an axe lent to me by Padfoot's little brother, the absurdly tall Witch King from the previous post. 

      Just a reminder, this cosplay is hot as hell, in a temperature sort of way. If you're doing makeup or facial hair (TBA on that tutorial), be sure to make it water/sweat/smudge proof. 

Thorin Fem Cosplay Part 1

Richmond WizardCon 2015

Before>
<After

This is the finished product, the result of about sixteen hours of sewing (in a row, because procrastination is a way of life). 

    This piece of kit is held together by unicorn tears and an unholy amount of hot glue, the use of which will be explained later. 

    What you'll need: 

                ~A knee-length blue dress/romper. Preferably with no patterns or else something very subtle. Get comfortable with cutting it the hell up. I got mine from Goodwill for about eight bucks. 

                 ~ A dark blue piece of fabric, long enough width-wise to wrap around your body comfortably, with a bit to spare. Mine was originally used to make a Tudor style Mole for a Chemistry Project (Anne Moleyn. Her head was detachable) and I happened to have leftover fabric. Make sure it's not too heavy, you'll want to be able to adhere it easily and not roast in your costume. 

                ~Your armor. I'll show you how to make chainmail in a minute. This will cost you about three dollars from both Dollar Tree and Michaels. 

               ~A black belt, preferably with some sort of square buckle. The buckle doesn't need to be silver, you can do that on your own with silver metallic paint. 

              ~ Gold thread. Get a lot of it, you'll need it for the wig as well as the dress. 

              ~ A black peacoat. If you can, get a lighter coat- I roasted all day, and the convention centre was about thirty degrees. 

            

  ~ Boots.  These particular beauties were obtained from Goodwill, and the fur was adhered with hot glue and leftover fur from the jacket. 

  ~Brown bear-like fur, from whatever fabric store is nearest you. I procured mine from Joann's, but they are hella expensive, so I would suggest either bulking up on coupons or else going somewhere else. 

  ~ A wig. I always buy mine from Yopo Wigs. Great quality hair, and fairly inexpensive. I think I paid about fourteen dollars for a mid-back length black wig, plus shipping. 

   ~ Grey tights. You're going to be wearing a lot of dark colours, so black tights are a little much. 

   ~ Thread and hot glue. Obviously. 

   ~Cheap hairspray for maximum hold, and, if you have light hair like me, some sort of temporary color spray. 

How to: 

•   Lets start with your dress thing. You're going to want to do this part quickly, with a sewing machine if you have one. Thorin has a V shaped neckline, but be careful how deep you cut yours. I cut mine a bit too deep for my taste, mostly because I didn't have a bust to measure on. Take the frayed, cut edges and fold them over so that you have a smooth line. Use your sewing machine (or, if you must, do this by hand) to bind the edges to the fabric, creating a hem. Do this about 1 inch deep into the neckline, enough that you have room to cut small holes about a half inch across to string some of the golden thread through. Once you've cut the holes, I would recommend installing some eyelets or sewing up the jagged edges of the hole through carding to prevent further fraying. Set this aside. 
• Next we'll do the chainmail. For this you'll want to be in an open area, with excellent ventilation. What you'll need for this is as follows     

          -A mesh laundry bag from the dollar store. 

          - "Hammered Finish" silver metallic spray from Michaels. 

    You'll want to cut your bag so that the seam is gone. Spray the paint onto the bag evenly. Don't worry about missing a few spots or having an uneven finish, as this will be under a huge ton of fabric. 

This is what it's going to look like after a fair bit. 

You're not going to need all of this, so don't worry if it's not perfect, especially at the edges. Also, it's going to stink for pretty much ever, and be a little stiff for a few days, so do this ahead of time. For real friends, this one you can't really leave off. 

• If you're super fed up with all this clothing crap by now, fret not! Let's deviate to the wig. Yopo usually ships in about two days, and depending on how ridiculously late you've waited to start this, you'll want to start the wig as soon as possible. The Yopo wigs ordinarily come straight, so for this you'll have to tease it up. Separate the hair into three portions: two front pieces, a top bit, and a large back portion. The top bit is going to be the small bump thing, so don't worry about that just yet. 

                 Braid the large section in the back loosely, making sure to keep the teased volume as much as possible. Spray with your crappy hairspray to keep its hold. Now take the golden thread and make small rings in the hair, as seen in the picture. Pin the thread in place, and spray the living hell out of it. When you're ready to wear it, separate your hairline from ear to ear and pin into place atop the bumpy bit. If your hair is dark, mazels, you don't have to do anything else. But I would suggest using the color spray anyways. It won't look as ridiculous as the one in the photo does. Party City was closed by the time we got there the night before (who the FRACK closes at 8 on a Saturday? I ask you.) so we bought a big pallet of black eyeshadow and rubbed it into my hair. Use baby powder- or else unscented talcum powder, non-medicated- to create the little grey streaks.