Gaslight Gathering 3 : Traveling the Seven Seas.

Traveling the Seven Seas... the reason I actually dressed like a fish.

Photo by No Blondes! Photography.

 

Its starting to become a tradition that I perform in some way, shape, or form at Gaslight Gathering. The last two years my group of lovely ladies from the Calafian Middle Eastern Guild have belly danced. Though this year, since Traveling the Seven Seas was Gaslight's theme, they couldn't find a way to fit belly dancing into the mix. Instead they asked my friend Ace and I to dress up as "sea hags" and tell fortunes.  This was a very fun challenge! We kind of played around with the concept and came up with some fun characters.

Mama and her pet fish. We're still trying to think up proper names for these ladies.

Photo by Jerry Abuan.

As is my usual, cheapo way, I am a huge fan of recycling costume pieces. So fish lady is made up of older pieces I made/collected. The vest is my ghwazee I made for last years Gaslight, I simply pinned back the front skirts. The netting was given to me by a friend. Its actually just pinned and tucked around my waist, the shells and such glued onto the front. Yup, still getting mega mileage out of that coin bra I made.

  Most of my effort went into the headdress, which I really had fun making.

 

 

Close up in progress shot.

 

 

If you've been following my blog for a while now, you probably will recognize the base of this headdress... because I've used it many times before in my costumes. What can I say? I'm a one trick pony who loves using this base. Its very versatile.  I made the webbed ears and the large crystals are from the center pieces from my wedding.

 

I hid some of the wires holding it all together with some old earrings I no longer wear. I'm all about the up cycling.

 



Pearl halo is actually a candle holder/decor from Joann Fabrics. It was on sale. I clipped off the fabric leaves and fixed it to the bun in my hair. The pearls that served as the web spines on my "ears" are also from Joann's 50 cent bin. 



 

A shot of the pearl halo fixed to my head.

 

Sea Hags workin' hard for the money... actually scones. We worked for scones mostly.

 

 

Usually I tend to shy away from extensive make up. Body paint makes my face itch and I end up tracking it everywhere. But since I had be a fish this year, I figured it was a good idea to paint my face.  I used water soluble face paints and added the rhinestones to my forehead with spirit gum. It was a long process but it looked great when it was finished. I gave myself purple Cupid's bow lips, unfortunately they faded half way through the day. I'll work on a more permanent lip treatment next time.

 

Blue face of DOOOOOOM.

 

Overall, I'm very pleased with how this turned out. I was on a mega tight budget and I managed to put together something pretty fabulous on a dime or two. Ace and I plan on wearing these costumes again for Labyrinth Ball on Friday night.  I'll be doing some detailing on it all (distressing the netting and shirt, making a new skirt to read more like a fish tail and in brighter colors, etc. etc)  So stay tuned for fish lady 2.0 coming in July!

 





We tell your fortunes..may not be true but we tell them!

 

And of course, since it was a steampunk con, I had to wear my Annabelle Leigh Langy outfit. This lady has been getting lots of costume mileage and I'm happy to now be known as "the ferret lady" when I step out at various steampunk events. Jerry Abuaun  took a great photo of me and Senor Squeaky-Pants. Thank you, Jerry!

 

Everyone loves a steampunk ferret!

 

 

Now that summer is gearing up (No pun intended with this post) so is my costume/garb making. Be prepared for my LoJ siren costume, some middle eastern garb I've been working on, and progress on a Game of Thrones SCA themed project myself and other costumers in my kingdom are working on.

 

Cheers!

HRM Steampunk Symposium 2013

I have returned from another Steampunk outting! My friend Colleen and I vended at HRM Steampunk Symposium  about a week ago and had a excellent time!  This was our second year vending and this time around we came prepared with costumes, and time to attend a few of the events!

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, Annabell Leigh Langly made an appearance on the ship. I so love this costume! Okay, granted, I tend to look like a busty wench in it, but it still is one of my favorites. I even managed to make improvements by buying new leather pouches to replace my old flimsy canvas ones.

 

The main event for us though, was the masquerade ball. It was a great evening where Colleen and I managed to escape our booth of DOOOOM (tm), and attend this year.

 



Colleen looking ravishing in her amazing Mina Harker gown.

Annabelle and Mina pose for a quick photo.

 

At the end of the night, the two of us managed to slip away from the ball to snap some photos of us in the awesome scenery of the Queen Mary. We were about two shots of whiskey in and having a grand ol' time!

 

 

 

By one in the morning we were feeling like this...

We still managed to get up the next in once piece. One groggy piece. And we donned our final Airship captain and first mate costumes for the day to finish off vending.

 

 

I desided to wear my solid color chamise under my gwahzee this round. I really like how the orange and black go together.

 

As usual, we had a blast of a time! Our next stop is going to me Gaslight Gathering. 

 

More costume craziness ensues!

Mickey's Halloween Party!

Photo dump!

Max and I hit Mickey's Halloween Party a few weeks back. I have to admit, it was a great event! We didn't have time to put together amazing costumes so instead we opted for our Steampunk wear. (Though I did make Max a new Aba. He needed one.)

This was the first time I ever went to the park in full costume and it was a fantastic and almost magical experience! Here are a few pics of the two of us all decked out.

 

Morocco Mole and his lady hit the seas!

We mainly took photos in Adventure land because we matched the decor best there.

 

HAD to take a photo with The Genie while dressed like this.

 

 



Our friends Steve and Sammy wanted in on the photo fun too. Thank you Sammy for taking almost all these photos!

 



This one is my favorite. In front of Aladdin's Palace

 



With the flash on. THAT'S what we looked like.

 

We'll End this post with Morocco in his sweet ride.

 

Drive Morocco! Drive like the WIND!!

San Diego Comic Con! Annabelle and Archer!

I usually go to SDCC every year to help out with the SCA table. But this year I actually had time to cosplay!
Who KNEW?
It wasn't anything too special mind you. Since my summer schedule is usually pure insanity I didn't really put anything new and spectacular together. And the one thing I did put together was a total thrift store find.

The big one was being a part of an Archer Cosplay group. For those who don't know what Archer is, well, here's the website. In a nutshell its a hilarious and raunchy cartoon set in a 1960's-esque spy world. If you're into sharp dialog and some insane cartoon comedy, I highly recommend it.

My friend Sherief has been wanting to do an Archer cosplay group for a while now and asked if I could step in as Mallory Archer, the title character's heavy drinking overbearing mother.

Yup, That's Malory.

And yeah, I only had...let see... about 1.5 days to pull this together. Oh yeah, I learned about the group a while ago but with all the stuff I've been doing? Yeah. 1.5 days. So my cosplay isn't exactly accurate but dang it, I did my best in what time I had!

I am gonna be a sexy broad when I hit 70.

The whole outfit was found at Amvets literally ten minutes before they closed for the day. I took my husband with me who apparently is good luck on thrift runs. Usually, I'd be searching for hours.

 The whole outfit was a whopping $14. Go me! The jewelry is my mothers old jewelry from the late 80's. She gave me a bag of the stuff thinking I would use it eventually in my costuming adventures. She was right!

The flask was a last minute save by a friend. I wanted to bring a highball glass but completely forgot it. Luckily a friend of mine had a flask as part of his steampunk gear and was willing to let me borrow for a while.

Here's the entire group.





Left to Right Character wise: The Wee Baby Shamus, Pam, Cyril, Carol/Cheryl, Ray, Kimiko, Dr. Krieger, Mallory, Sterling, and Brett from I.S.I.S.

Pam, Carol/Cheryl, and Mallory.

We really had fun doing this. And the people who recognized us flipped out when they saw the group. We were even featured on Io9 in one of their cosplay galleries!  The group of us are hoping to do another cosplay next year. Lord only knows what it may be but I'm sure we will be amusing the heck out of ourselves.

On Saturday, there was a big steampunk gathering. I couldn't resist putting on my Annabelle Leigh Langly costume again. I worked my butt off on it so I am getting as much mileage out of it as I can, dang it!

My friend took these great pictures of me all Annabelled up. You can see the mismatched stockings and my work boots finally! YAAAY! And a great side shot of my bustle.

Yeah...I really love wearing my Annabelle costume!

And even though this one is from LoJ and not SDCC, I still wanted to post it because its a great photo. Finding a photo of me NOT looking like a complete doof is hard to find sometimes!

Photo by The Frame Guy.

And thus, my crazy costuming summer comes to a close. It was an adventure to say the least! Right now its all about studio clean up time and SCA garb planning.

 I'm hoping to delve more into the world of Italian Ren and Persian goodness. I also finally have all the pieces I need to work on my Victorian walking dress!  But for now, a good rest is what I'm looking forward to.

Cheers!





Labyrinth Of Jareth 2012: Annabelle Leigh Langly is Complete!

Left to Right: Ellyn, Me, Jen, and Ace

All done!
Here is my group heading out to LoJ on Friday night. I absolutely love this event. Of course the fact that it's a masqurade ball is the main reason but still! I really think I'll be doing both nights next year. One night is just not enough!

I have to say that this is my favorite costume I've made for LoJ to date. It turned out lovely, it fit perfectly, and it was extremely comfortable all night. I never wore a corset for long periods of time before so I was shocked how comfortable it felt and how great it was for my posture all night.

Here's the picture its based on again:

Pretty dan close, I'd say! I am very happy with the color changes I made. I only wish I had a better shot of the mismatched stockings. They were one of my favorite parts of the costume.

Yes, that is a ferret on my shoulder. The character owns a ferret named Senor Squeakypants. Yes, Squeaky is wearing tiny goggles.

...what do you want from me? I'm a gamer!

Senor Squeakypants was the most popular one in our group that night. I should haul him around everywhere.

My friend Jen went as her character and Annabelle's bestest buddy, Madam Jezebel Norton. We had lots of fun piecing her costume together. And our colors really complemented eachother.

Behold! Poofy Steampunk Butt!

The blouse exceeded my expectations. The fabric looked fantastic under the lights, breathed like a dream, and was very gentle against my skin. I loved how the sleeves looked especially. And yup, those are my Regina goggles. I'm getting as much milage out of them as possible.

I'm seriously considering hauling the Annabelle costume out to San Diego ComicCon for the steampunk meet up. I would like wear it again.

Even though Friday is the quiet night at LoJ I still saw some amazing costumes that evening. Here are some of my favorites!

Madam butterfly was my absolute favorite of the night.

Awesome bird people!

Lovely Steampunk ladies. The photo does not do their dresses justice.

Two more of my cohorts, Capt'n and Michelle looking rather spectacular.

SO much love for that hat!

A wonderful blue fairy.

I wish this picture turned out better because this Queen of Hearts was simply stunning!

A Junk Lady and a rather jolly Sultan. That hat! So much LOVE!

Even though I didn't make it to Saturday evening, my friend Ace took TONS of photos for me so I could see all the lovelies I missed. I'll be posting those photos very soon...as soon as I have a chance to look through all of them and drool.

I'm already excited to go back to LoJ next year! I'm thinking of putting together some form of Valkyrie costume perhaps for one of the nights. Though knowing me, I'll change my mind fourteen times before I get there.

Until then I really don't have any pressing projects... which feels odd after almost three months straight of working on things. I'll be probably puttering around with some SCA garb soon (I'm in need of another Viking) and as soon as I find the right green linen, I'll be putting together Merida's (from Pixar's Brave) gown for Halloween.

Until then... I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.