Acoustic Show Went Really Well!

With it being an acoustic show, we still rocked the stage and people really loved us! It was great! It was amazing. People loved the new songs. I'm so happy!!!

Here's a pic...

I did end up playing some clean electric stuff. Acoustic guitars just aren't my thing. Hee hee! Just adding some color and rhythm along with some lead stuff, too. And some BGVs! Playing in the pic is our bands good friend and #1 fan, Alen Seaborn. HE knows all our songs and sometimes we let him hope up on stage and play with us.

I'm outta here until next time! PEACE!!!

Out on the Town and a Cancelation...

Bad news first. We've had to cancel our headlining full band set tonight and are having to opt for a middle place spot doing an acoustic set. DAMMIT!!! I was ready to rock some faces off tonight. We've gotta find a drummer, and soon!

So... The costume is a huge, freaking success!!! I mean, people absolutely love it. I've had to take my pic with so many people this afternoon and tonight, it's just totally blown my mind! Here's a pic from earlier of just me, taken by Tonya.

I'm so freaking excited that it looks this good. Really hot, but looks amazing! We went out all afternoon and night and here's another pic with some fellow Star Wars coutumers. These guys are from the Florida Garrison of the 501st and loved my suit.

Here I am, fully covered in my suit, in like 75-78 degree temps and here's Tonya... lol. Showing some skin like she does, getting cat-calls all night!

She did look amazing though. She totally rocked the Ellen Scissor Hands costume. I helped her out some on it, between feverishly working on mine.

About to go change and get ready to play the acoustic set... Wish us luck.

Halloween!!! Got Lady Vader Finished!!!

I can't believe we got it all finished!!! Here's more of the build. Been 'working' from home, ha, so basically just been back and forth from mom and dad's and here working on this costume non-stop...

I knew the armor was going to be the most challenging part of the project and I was right. To make the armor, me and Luke decided to go with Worbla, which is a thermoplastic very similar to Wonderflex.  Neither one of us had never used Worbla before so it was definitely a learning experience. There are a few things I might have done differently if I did it over again, but overall, I was happy with the results. For most of the armor, we used two pieces of Worbla with a piece of craft foam in between. We found this template online, enlarged it on a copy machine and used it as a basis for the chest armor.

Once we had everything fitted to my body, we made the two shoulder pauldrons and cut the two “tear drop” shapes out of the front. To fill in these two tear drop shapes, you could either use putty or do what we did, which was use bondo (aka auto filler).

The decision to use bondo (aka body filler) on top of the Worbla was due to a couple of things – I wanted the armor to be really smooth to the point where it looked like plastic and I didn’t want any imperfections in the shape. Perhaps a ton of gesso primer could have done that, but I didn’t want to take the risk so we decided to do it the hard way and bondo’d everything! We used Evercoat Rage Premium auto filler, which I thought was fairly easy to use although this was our first time using bondo so I could be wrong. :P

The entire 1-2 day process of bondo, sanding, bondo, sanding during a heat wave was pretty tiring and it took a while to get used to the materials. We had to bondo each piece maybe 5-6 times to fill in all those nasty little air bubbles and getting those “tear drop” shapes on the front chest piece was challenging, but I was really happy with the results.

After a few layers of wood glue as primer, it was finally time to paint! Since I was already using car repair materials, I appropriately ended up using auto body paint for the armor. Considering the 1-2 days it took to bondo and prime everything, painting was the fun and “easy” part. I highly recommend using Frog Tape for any of your masking needs – it is way more reliable than the blue tape, especially if you are painting your house!

Masked, painted grey, masked again, painted black.

Trying on the armor!

Once all the armor was assembled using sticky back velcro, I just had to take care of a few smaller pieces like the belt. I knew hooking up LED lights for Vader’s belt boxes was a going to be interesting since conceptually I thought I could do it, but in reality I wasn’t sure. I had never soldered anything or made a real circuit, but my dad is kind of a physics nerd, so I got him in on the project I was pretty excited to see if he/we could do it. We did some some online research, and doing some pen/paper calculations, we were ready to build the first circuit. And... It worked! At that point, we soldered everything together in the two Worbla boxes and taped all the wires down with electrical tape. Since I was running out of time, I had to purchase an unfinished chest box from a 501st guy here in Miami so unfortunately that part didn't light up. :(

Finally it was time to actually start trying everything on… 

Well, that covers everything for the most part! Definitely let me know what you think of the materials or if you have recommendations. Would love to hear your thoughts!

I'll put up some pics tonight from the party/show. And I really hope the A/C is working there, this thing is damn hot!!! I'm gonna loose some weight tonight, fo shizzle.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Costume Actually Coming Along Nicely

I knew the minute I saw this anime Lady Vader art that I wanted to cosplay the costume. However, when I started to show some of my friends, I got a few concerned “Wow, that’s ambitious!” comments, especially from Tonya. I mean, could I actually pull it off? Would I look ridiculous in all that armor? My head was full of questions about how comfortable I would be, whether or not I could even make everything in time, and if I would even look right as this character. But in the end, so far, I've had so much fun and am really proud of myself and mom for helping me with this and we've both learned a few new things along the way. So with that, I wanted to share a brief tutorial and the progress pics I took along my journey of making Lady Vader!

The first thing me and mom made so far is the 2 piece suit, which was made entirely of a matte stretch PVC fabric. The stretch came in handy since the back of the top and back of the leggings were not quilted and the fabric was also just the right thickness that I could quilt it without being super bulky. To quilt all the front pieces (front of top, arms, and front of leggings), we drew chalk lines on the stretch PVC (about 3/4″ apart) and sewed the 3 layers together – the stretch PVC, batting, and a thin layer of stretch mesh spandex on the inside.

Once we made the basic front and back of the top, we added a mock neck and sleeves. As for the leggings, I only quilted these about halfway down since I knew I would be wearing tall boots or shin guards.

The leggings and the full suit!

I made the decision early on to eliminate Vader’s outer cape. I really liked the way the inner cape looked feminine and kind of like a dress so I was very specific in draping it a certain way. Mom, being the seamstress she is, already had this wonderful dress form just for this!

Before and after of the draped inner cape.

So, that's how far I'm along on it now. I plan on getting with Luke tonight to work on the armor and electronics and all the other stuff, like maybe modding up the helmet a bit, if I even wear one with this. So far, so good! Once again, THANKS MOM!!! Only thing is I'm worried about is that I'm kinda bloated, big-time this month. Might need to make it a little more snug than the tape around my waist is showing... Yep, you guessed it. Monthly visitor. Yea. :(

This Might be an Impossible Task

So, this is the inspiration for my costume...

Found it on the WWW. I have to have this ready in like less than a week... Might not happen. Gonna try though. Gonna have to work my mom and bro to death on it... I'll update later, if I have something to update.

About to head to the Old Folks Home now to work with mom... like all day!

Bye!

Busy, Busy, Busy

SO like mostly for my birthday, I got like gift cards and money. I got a few Star Wars things and a few cool Star Wars tees. I mean, I remember as Brendan, turning 25. It seemed like such a big deal. I was kinda bummed. I mean, I was a mid-twenty year old. Now though, the second time around, I guess I'm happy to be this young again, even though I'm a girl now, which I do love, but it's different, a little. Heather and Jess had bought me more stuff at Disney and kept it from me and then just gave it to me on my b-day. Really cool stuff.

Anyway, the other drummer on Saturday, yeah, he sucked big-time! Total waste of time. As soon as he started playing, we were all looking at each other and rolling our eyes. We've gotta find someone, and fast. I think we have a show in like a week and then they really start rolling in, like every 3 or 4 days right up until Christmas. I actually think that the show is on halloween.

Speaking of Halloween, I'm working on a super-sweet costume! I hope I can get it made. Actually, my mom and Luke are helping me make it. It's gonna rock! It's gonna be amazing! I so can't wait to get it finished and wear it out to the show. I might even play live in it, as long as it's not to restricting of my movements!

Anywhoo, about to head to the office and see what they have for me to make and design. Fun times, I'm sure.

Bye!

Just did the basics... Lipstick, mascara and air dried hair for work today!