#posts by moi

[xobean]

i made a thing. i made it wallpaper size so feel free to use it i don’t care.

[head-and-heart]

I didn’t know it would be like this that night when you sat next to me just a little too close. Most days I feel like pulling my hair out at the roots as though the pain might distract me from the ache of not having you. They say that caring for someone else makes you more whole. But I didn’t know how empty I was until you touched my cheek and said ‘I love you’ to someone else. No, I didn’t know it would be like this, half torture and half delight, because every second of longing for you helps me understand Icarus just a little better as he flew toward the glittering arms of the sun right before they killed him. They didn’t tell me I would fall for you just as you were falling somewhere else and that it wouldn’t matter. They didn’t tell me that I would love you anyway and everyday I would claw at my eyes and gnaw at my own heart in the hopes that it would make me love you less. No one had to tell me that it wouldn’t work. For the suffering is nothing, my love. I would endure the cuts and bruises even after death. I would let the crows tear at my heart for eternity, because every scar you leave behind is an angel’s kiss next to the void in my chest from before I found you.

lost and found found and lost // @head-and-heart

[pearlybae]

I was told by several friends and tumblr users that my Fisher the Voidfish cosplay from The Adventure Zone was being shared uncredited via pintrest and tumblr, so I hurried to put out my big compilation post faster than I usually do. I would very much appreciate it if everyone could reblog this version of the post, instead of any other post floating around that doesn’t correctly credit the costume back to me!! As an artist and a fan, it was incredibly hurtful that this happened. Although the original reposter has apologized profusely for this and properly credited me afterwards, it’s incredibly difficult to undo the damage that results from the reposting of any uncredited image in a large fandom. 

All photos in this post are taken by either myself, scribblesafterdark, or by cowbuttcrunchies!! My darling Magnus is the other half of cowbuttcrunchies. I would also like to take this time to shoutout to my friend automb, who provided endless support with this costume and helped me with cutting and trimming all the tentacles on Fisher’s dress. They also made Junior for me under my guidance, while I was going nutso over the rest of the costume. 

Thank you again to everyone who commented and tagged me on the other post, and I hope that everyone reblogs this version instead!!! As usual, more information about my work process will be under the cut, so if you’re interested in that kind of thing, read on! 💙 

Now, I was one of the last people in my friend group to get into and catch up to TAZ, and they had all been planning to cosplay TAZ to an upcoming convention as a large group. By the time I caught up, (right before the finale!!!!!) most of the characters were snatched up and we had three weeks left before the con. I was indifferent to any particular character (I loved them all equally, not that I didn’t like any) up until I heard the Voidfish’s song to Magnus about her baby. I fell in love right there and made the incredibly rash and stupid decision to make a Voidfish costume of my own design in the three weeks before Dragon*Con. 

With the design process I basically knew exactly what I wanted to do from the beginning. I didn’t want to create a jellyfish inspired dress, I wanted to BE a magical space jellyfish. I avoided any decisions to make my skirt into a jellycap because it would detract from being a creature’s silhouette into being a very human one. The decision to make a headpiece instead of using an umbrella was also intentional; I wanted my hands free for posing and to hold Junior, and any wooden ducks that came my way!! 

The dress base I used is made from cotton sateen and is my own pattern I drafted to fit my curves. I have a difficult body type to shop for and most commercial patterns don’t fit me without heavy alterations, so it’s much easier for me to create my own from scratch. It’s scoop necked dress with princess seams and a skirt that is hemmed slightly higher in the front than in the back. This was an intentional choice to reflect the decisions I made with the jellycap, in that I knew I wanted the cap to be balanced off center and at an angle instead of being parallel to the floor. 

Once I had the dress made and added boning to the bodice, I used my airbrush and went over the whole dress to give it a galaxy aurora borealis effect. While the dress was wet in between layers, I sprinkled some coarse salt on the dress to get that sort of organic mottled look on my fabric. It was a risk that worked incredibly well in my favor after the dyes dried!! 

The tentacles were all organza cut in spirals and serged on all sides. The fabric I used the most of was this glimmery, purple holographic organza from the little girls Halloween costume aisle in JoAnn’s, and supplemented with anything I found stored in my basement leftover from previous costumes! 

My pride and joy and possibly the coolest item I have ever made is my jellycap!! 💙  The whole structure is a kind of cage formed from wire and Terraflex (if you follow any of my previous posts you all know that I use Terraflex over Worbla for its versatility and its availability; I can pick it up in a store near me rather than wait for it to get shipped to me), and shaped in ovals and loopies fused with itself with more Terraflex. The headpiece is very carefully balanced and the center of my head is actually towards the front of the cap, so the back is sloped longer at an angle, and is not a perfectly shaped circular dome. I think it looks much more visually interesting this way, and has the added bonus of looking like a real jellyfish from the back!! 

The frame was gessoed and painted in glow in the dark paint which doesn’t glow as much as I wish it did, but the concept was cool anyways? It was then fully covered with the holographic organza and then stuffed with LEDs and strips of leftover organza. The whole cap is carefully weighted so it stays on my head without any clips!! The only way it falls off my head is if someone bumps into it while I’m walking. Automb made Junior for me the same way I made Fisher’s cap! While I worked on the bigger project, they used leftover scraps of wire and plastic to scrumble my baby together, and any leftover tentacles I had from the dress went straight to Junior. 

The wig I used is an Arda wig!! It’s one of their Candy Stripers in the Nocturne color. I think that covers basically everything? As always, if you have any further questions on my work or want me to clear up any confusions in my wording, please send me an ask and I’ll do my best to reply!!!

[saurianseraph-blog]

Choice meat 👌

[pearlgirl710]

I’ve been into Yona of the Dawn for the past three years, but its only this year that I’ve decided to cosplay from one of my most favorite series!! I started out with Lili and Yona’s fancy cover art illustrations, and then I decided to crunch three more Yona costumes in a week for an upcoming con. I swear I’m usually better about pacing myself but I got pretty swamped with my friend’s wedding earlier in the month and I was left with a week to finish three Yona cosplays for Colossalcon this year.

Literally the only reason these got finished was thanks to the endless support of @automb @nana-cai and @tomyo!! They helped with ironing and pinning and the simple sewing so I could focus on draping my patterns, crafting, and keeping my wits together.

I know my cosplay compilation posts tend to get really chatty and long so I’ll put the rest under a read more!!

Originally I was only supposed to be Lili for Cait’s big Yona group, but I had a friend who, in the past, I had talked about doing Yona and King Il with. @toyaniisama was also going to Colossalcon and so I dragged him into the group for fun, and he commissioned me to make his robes and accessories. However!!!! I ended up finding the PERFECT fabric to make Yona’s birthday kimono and basically bit off almost more than I could chew. I bought the fabric and made plans with our Hak and Soowon cosplayers ( @thecaitsmeowww and himinty on instagram) to do a little photoshoot together before the large group shoot.

Now, when I had made the underdresses for fancy Lili and Yona, I had made them to fit both me and Nana so we could switch characters when we wanted to. They required a little bit of extra rigging in order to make them work for two different outfits, but in the end I saved a lot of time and money just reusing the underdresses from the cover art designs! Lili’s new top is made from white peachskin and is sewn to the waist of the underdress, leaving the original top hanging on the inside, but still attached. Yona’s dress just needed sleeves, and those were done easily enough.

Lili’s overskirt is a circle skirt that is finished off with a “waistband” and a snap placket for stability, and then fastened just over the bust. The lavender bias tape hides the seam and the hook and bar closures, to make it look like its only being held in place by a flimsy little ribbon.

King Il’s robes and hat were simple to sew since I had done all the time consuming parts a month prior, aka all the cutting and fitting and patterning. I knew exactly how to craft the hat and therefore was able to guide @automb to do the actual handsewing while I focused on the more complicated parts of the cosplays.

The hat base is formed from a spiral braided cloche I bought for cheap. After ripping the brim off, I was left with a simple dome. The bottom was lengthened with some buckram and a back piece, also made of buckram, was attached to create the nested dome look that King Il’s hat had. The whole thing was covered in several layers of black and red mesh, and then bound off in bias tape. The tassels were then strung on chain and attached to two wooden chopsticks, slipped into the hat, and then cemented into place with a piece of thermoplastic.

King Il’s necklace was made with a gold hoop that had tassels already attached, which I covered with more thermoplastic (the kind I use is called Terraflex, which I like since I can pick it up instore at the Tandy’s Leather near where I live) and then primed, painted and sealed, then hooking the beads and chains on.

The robes are made up of an inner kimono held in place with a obi sash, and an outer robe made of this really nice, matte suiting. I was told later by Stephen that the robes were really comfortable to wear and fit perfectly, so I’m really happy with how they came out!!!

Birthday Yona was its own special nightmare in comparison to Lili and King Il. I used up most of the week I had to finish up Lili and King Il, plus a couple of other cosplays I had planned to wear at the con, and ended up with one day to sew the whole damn thing, underdress excluded.

Luckily by the time I had started sewing Yona’s outer robe and her inner kimono, I had already finished making her birthday tiara and the hairpin Soowon had gifted her in episode 1. I used Terraflex for everything except the beads, and cursed Soowon from the day he was born for having such garbage taste in jewelry.

You can see in my WIP photos that I made the flower from individually cut and placed flower petals (37 petals to be exact) on another chopstick base. The leaves  and butterfly I formed and attached once the main flower was done, and the entire hairpin measures to just under 7 inches in length. I think the trickiest part of making this stupid hairpin was that each petal was so small (about 1cm wide per petal) and the flower itself was about 2 inches wide when completed, so trying to control the heat from the heatgun and keep the flower from melting into mush while making sure the plastics had bonded was just. It was like the opposite of fun. It made me wonder why I was putting so much effort into a dinky little prop but my need for hairpin pictures overcame my hatred for evil little petaled flowers.

The tiara had a similar problem as the hairpin did with the melting and the flower shape when I added in new petals and leaves, but it went a lot easier than the hairpin did. The hairpin took like 15 something hours to complete, but the tiara only took like 5 or 6. Both pieces were primed with spray gesso and then painted in acrylics, gilded with gold paint, and then sealed. My hatred for Soowon was once again reignited when I realized I had to gild a tiny line on the edge of every leaf, petal, and butterfly wing on the evil hairpin. I was so happy with how it turned out in the end though, that all the sweat and blood that went into Yona’s accessories was totally worth it!

Now, for Yona’s inner kimono!! The tricky bit for her inner kimono was in the way it had been structured. The top half is your classic left over right look on a kimono, but below the obi sash the robe splits into two solid panels at the front and back, with a break in the seams at the side. I dealt with this by having the top half essentially act as a wrap top, and having one side “lengthened” with the front panel and when it was all attached and covered with the obi, I had the illusion of what looked to be Yona’s magic anime inner kimono.

The worst part of Yona’s outer robe was of how little I had of the fabric to work with. I had four yards with a beautiful, complicated design that was similar to a border print, except it wasn’t weighted to the edge, it was weighted to the center of the yardage. Figuring out how to lay my pattern pieces to have all the designs match up at the seams, while making sure the designs were placed at the correct levels of the robe (clustered around the hems and sleeves) and trying to squeeze out enough for a full length robe was like a walking fever dream. Not to mention that the fabric had color gradients mingled in behind the design for extra fun times.

The material was also a weird satin stretch that made it difficult to lay out perfectly. In the end, I made the robe interfaced and lined throughout to help give it a bit of weight, so it could drape nice and smooth on my body. I really couldn’t have finished this particular piece without my friends helping me pin this evil fabric together and ironing each piece for me as I cut it out. I’ll always be eternally grateful to you three for helping me out in my time of need!!!!!!!

I think that’s most of what I wanted to cover in this post! I’m kicking myself because although I made earrings for Yona, I forgot to put them on in the rush of getting ready 😞 My wigs are both from Arda, a styled Nina for Lili and a trimmed Luthien for Yona!! I wish you can see more of Lili’s hair accessory on the back of her head, but you can see pictures of that on my cosplay blog.

If there’s anything else you want me to elaborate on with or any questions you have on anything I’ve done here that I might have missed, please feel free to send an ask!!! 🌸 

Yona // Lili // King Il // Photos by princesspotatobug on insta

[strawbunnyseason]

y'all know the "bellamy makes mythology references during sex" headcanon?? please tell me there's a "Cameron makes science references during sex" headcanon/fic

[magsjpeg-blog]

Look at the beautiful news that has popped up on my phone @teddybear-punk

[xobean]

the fact that both of them

BOTH OF THEM

have released a song on national coming out day