Black Rock Shooter photoshoot with Bryan Regan part1 Insane Black Rock Shooter

Hi guys, no time no post...>.> but today's post is pretty awesome!  I'm here to share with you guys some photos from our Black Rock Shooter photoshoot with Bryan Regan, a local professional photographer who we had a wonderful opportunity to work with.  

Below are photos of me as Insane Black Rock Shooter for Animazement 18.   Remember, you will see a bigger photo if you click on it :D

we took these pictures near the train tracks about 10min away from the Raleigh convention center.  The location was great, but Bryan's lighting skills are even better! 

I'm really happy that this photo shows the blue streak in my hair.  It took me a while to sew them in ^.^

Close up of my face........wahhhhhhhhhhhh =_=;

and here are some outtakes:

my hair and shoulder piece fell off >.>

dude, I'm trying to say something here!

The broken Insane Blade Claw Q_Q

Many many many thanks to Bryan Regan for dealing with our ridiculous personalities!!  Stay tuned for more awesome photos from Bryan of Black Gold Saw and MZMA.  I promise there will also be crazy photos from Katsuya Weller coming soon as well!  :D

Mimi

Insane Black Rock Shooter cosplay part 5: the breast plate tutorial

Hi guys!  Now that I have caught a mild cold from Stuart, I finally have some time to sit down and make another IBRS progress report (kinda late lol).  I think this would be useful for whoever is trying to make light-weight armors.

First, let's recap.  I have already shown you the fun foam pieces I made out of a modified shirt pattern I had:

in order to make them with a little bit of depth to look like the armor IBRS is wearing, I had to add more layers of foam.

This gives you an idea of how thick the breast plate is

Comparatively speaking, the armor I made was not nearly as thick as the figure's.  Next time, I would probably use something like a thick yoga mat to make the armors.

The foam I found in Scrap Exchange that I used for the middle section to add thickness to the armor.  I cut it according to the pattern I already made.

Hot glue the thicker foam onto the already existing fun foam layer

add tape to get rid of bumpy areas and glue another layer of fun foam on top of the grey foam.

This is what the back looked like, I used some masking tape to hold the layers while the glue was drying.  I have not found anything better than hot glue yet to stick foam together.

Smoothing out the gaps by filling it with hot glue and scrape the surface with a piece of card

details on the filled gap

then mod podge the surface to prep it for contact paper

I also taped the edges with black electric tape to hide the grey foam.  I think model magic would work as well and make less creases, but I didn't have any at that moment.

with the contact paper glued on.  Contact paper sticks really well to craft foam once you mod podge it.  However, it becomes extremely unforgiving with mistakes.  Make sure you have a card ready to squeeze out those bubbles.

pieces of the back armor, I made this a little thinner because it would bend more easily for a better fit that way.

mod podge

with electric tape and contact paper.

The basic breast plate is finished.

The sides are held together with elastic and Velcro.  Do buy the industrial grade Velcro, because the regular ones just won't be sticky enough to hold the armors together.

After few adjustments, I added more details to the breast plate and voila!  Oh also, since craft foam can kind of hold a shape after it is been heated, I recommend heating it and bending it before you apply mod podge and contact paper.  They will become rather...burnt.

This displays all of the armor pieces I made for the cosplay.  I did acquire some thicker craft foam from Michael's later on that I used for some of the leg armors.  Other than that, the shoulder piece and some of the arm pieces are all thickened with the method described above.  I wanted to show you guys the details for my other armor pieces, however, I was too busy to take photos and this is the only one I have now.  Q_Q

Anyhow, let me know if you have any questions!!!

btw, I'm doing this Otaku House contest right now for this costume, please vote for me!!!  Thank you!

- Mimi -

Insane Black Rock Shooter Cosplay Progress:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Murumuru cosplay - the final touch! (a small wig tutorial)

Murumuru's costume was super easy to make...until I started to work on the wig, which was a disaster.  My original plan was to attach the two LONG ponytails I purchased from Arda wigs to my Eruka wig.  Let's just say that it didn't work out very well, the Eruka wig had to be preserved for the second appearance of my Eruka cosplay and it was way too thin to work with.  So I had to purchase another wig last minute from cosplay.com (due to the fact that Arda was closed Q_Q).  

The wig took way too long to arrive.  It got shipped out after I made a paypal dispute with cosplay.com.  So, don't buy from them.  

Here's the wig untouched.  It was a lot darker than the "silver" ponytails from Arda.  The quality of the wig was pretty good, except that they stitched up the eyelets in the back where you could adjust the size of your wig.  tsk tsk

Murumuru has this weird bang thing going on where it lifts up and makes a little pocket thingie (this is hard to explain Q_Q) kind of like Sephiroth's hair.  It took me ages to find a tutorial on how to make this happen, but I did find a Japanese tutorial HERE.  It uses a frozen glass bottles to form heated fibers.  Aslo..apparently this type of hair is called the middle M letter (途中Ｍ字).

so I took some hair, heated it up with my hair dryer and then rolled it down with a frozen glass tube I found. Then I teased the down side of the section and brushed the top smooth.  Hair spray was then applied to keep the shape of the "M".

Done with both sides.

I have to say, I thought my job was done after this since the ponytails were clip-on.  I was totally WRONG. There was no way on earth those heavy clip on ponytails were going to stay on that wig.  Especially when I have to make outer decorations for them. 

taken from THIS POST on cosplay.com

Now, the image above is where I got my inspiration to make my ponytails.  However, instead caulk, I used hot glue.  I know that some of you are probably frowning at this point, but I was in such a time crunch that I had to use whatever dried the fastest.  I made two little stubs on the wig and hotglued them to harden.  Then, I took the clips off of my ponytails and carved two pieces of pink insulation foams to fit/hotglue into the ponytails.  Last but not least, copious amount of hot glue were applied to the foam and the stub to hold both together.  You have to be VERY patient and hold the ponytails up until all of the hotglue is dried.  The drying process took about 10min.

After attaching the ponytails, you will notice that your wig has gotten so heavy that it is impossible to put on. Do not worry!  Just sew some wig clips in the front and you are good to go!  It will just hurt a little bit because your hair line will get pulled back really tightly.

Photo courtesy of  David Song

Photo by Stuart

and Voila!  My entire costume :D  More photos will come since Katsuya Weller is awesome and has posted some preview shots of our Mirai Nikki photoshoot already! 

Insane Black Rock Shooter cosplay progress part 4: more on the sword

Hi y'all!  I finally finished my Insane Blade Claw! (what a silly name for a sword.)  Anyways, just to recap (you can find part 1 of this tutorial/progress HERE): I used spray foam to make the structure of my sword, and then I carved it.

My plan was to masking tape the whole thing, and then paper mache it with newspaper and the paper pulp thingie.  Well, I kind of changed my mind >.>

The masking tape process was definitely necessary, considering that the spray foam formed a ton of holes on the sword.  (I forgot to take a picture Q_Q)

I also paper mached my sword with newspaper to make the entire thing smoother and less fragile.  I just went to Home Depot and bought a tub of wallpaper paste and dipped strips of newspaper into it.  Then, instead of using paper pulp mache (which I bought...and needs to be returned >.>), I just mod podged the entire sword three times.

Mod Podge is amazing, it makes the small paper creases smooth!  If you are not very picky (like me), you would be happy with the result of this.  Then I sprayed the entire thing black with matte spray paint.

As you can see, it is not very smooth, but it is good enough for the grungy look I'm going for.

Here's another shot, you can't really tell the traces of newspaper anymore.

Then I dabbed some of the gold 3D fabric paint onto my sword to give it a rusted feel (I have other gold acrylic paint, but they were not nearly as pigmented as the fabric paint for some reason).

The paint also made it a little shiner than the matte spray paint. Not what I was going for, but okay~

Then I used "Delight" paperclay and made a hilt for the sword.  I really didn't think this clay was good enough for the hilt at first because 1). it was super expensive for a 3oz package, and 2). it had a sponge-y feel to it that made me think it was not sturdy enough.  However, after letting it dry for a couple of days, the light and squishy feeling actually made the hilt very comfortable to hold.  You can sand this type of clay, but it doesn't sand nearly as well as stoneclay.

After sanding, I wrapped the handle with electric tape and attached my foot-long chain to it!  Voila!

That's all for now~
Mimi