Starting Chell

Chell has been on my "to cosplay" list since day one, and I've decided to give her a shot this year. Here's what I have done already:

I ordered a costume jumpsuit on Amazon. It was the only one I could find that (1) might fit me,
(2) didn't have any printing on it, and (3) was a reasonable price.

Step one of the portal gun: painting a shipping tube black.
(I knew I was keeping this tube for a reason.)

As of right now, the task list sits at 29 tasks to do in 90 days (in time for Tidewater Comicon) and it's the costume I intend to enter in the cosplay contest. If all my plans pan out, I'll have amazing long-fall boots, a portal gun that switches from orange to blue lights (and stores my wallet/phone/glasses), with a GLADoS potato on one of the arms (that might even talk... we'll see). Plus the jumpsuit, tank top, wrist wrap, and haircut.

Distressed Bat

It's really scary to have to distress/age something you've already created. You put in a lot of careful work to make something that looks really nice, and then you have to mess it up on purpose, but equally carefully. It has to be messed up in just the right way. Last night, I finally distressed Harley's bat, and I'm pretty happy with it.

I would assume that the edge of the end of the bat would get a lot of
wear and tear, so I did quite a bit of distressing there.

There's one big spot at the top that seems to have been well-used,
and a smaller area on the flat of the bat where you'd typically
aim to hit the ball (or skull, or whatever you're aiming at as Harley).

A few more little spots. I didn't want to go overboard,
so I just picked a few places that might get used to the point
of wearing off paint, and stopped myself after five or six.

In the reference images, the lines dividing the layers of tape
are very clearly defined. It looks kind of like dirt and grime have
set into it on the edges of the tape. So I colored them black for emphasis.

All I did for distressing it was use a metallic silver Sharpie and my finger to smudge it around quickly before it dried. The tape lines are just black Sharpie (it bled on its own, which I thought looked really cool and gave it a shadow without me doing anything). Also, while smudging one of the spots, my finger slipped and my nail dug a little divot in the side of the bat, since it's just foam. So I silvered it up and made it look like it was damaged in a fight.

So, it was fun, but it was tense. I didn't know if I'd be able to paint over it if I messed up, since I hadn't tested that.

Studs/Brads

I learned yesterday, by testing them, that brads are much easier to put in the leather than actual studs. So that's what I'm rolling with.

Problem was, I had small silver ones, and what I needed was large black ones. So I went back to Michael's today and did not find what I needed. What I did find, however, was large brads that look like baseballs. So I decided to get those and paint them.

As you can see, it was going to require a couple of coats. Then I saw something else already sitting out on my sewing table and decided to try it to see if it was more effective...

Nail polish! It was thick enough to cover it with one coat, it's shiny like metal would be, and I'm fairly sure that it won't chip (but I might need to put on a clear coat just in case). I don't think they'll fully dry before I go to bed tonight, so I'll have to work with them tomorrow.

Harley's Bat

I was wandering through Wal-Mart this morning, trying to pick up some barcodes for Shopkick (we'll see how long I stick to doing that) and I found myself near the toy area. And I thought... "Bat." Nowhere near the "shopping list" part of my brain, but constantly poking at the ever-active cosplay part of my brain, I've been thinking I need to find a cheap wiffle ball bat or Nerf bat before the summer's over and they get harder to find.

To make this, of course.

So I found this at Wal-Mart, on sale for $4, and I think it's just perfect. It's a little kid bat, so it's shorter (and therefore less likely to bump into people at a con or get too heavy after several hours on my back) and it's made of that dense foam stuff so (1) it's not a weapon, and (2) it should soak up the paint really well.

Since it came with the ball, if I have the extra time and effort left, I might try to turn the ball into this:

(In her right hand.)

Truth be told, I think I'm more excited about working on the bat than on the outfit, because there's no sewing or patterning or measuring or mathing involved. Just look at a picture for reference, and paint.