[AB] Get Some Supplies, then Seal the Deal!

After a long day of playing retro PC-98 Touhou games, I had the opportunity to go to Joan's Fabrics and grab the required materials!

Fabric shopping is always fun, especially when you have a knowledgeable mother who asks the equally knowledgeable sales ladies about certain techniques using words you have never heard of like "What about interfacing?" I'm always impressed by my mom.

Looking for a not-firetruck red fabric that could flow nicely, was comfy, and was somewhat rigid was actually kinda tough because purple didn't work, nor did brown, and I didn't want to look like the costumes you can buy online.

With many choices, The first fabric I saw was a maroon and super comfy fabric! If it had more than a yard and a half, I would have impulse bought it. I'm glad I didn't but it was still awesome!!! While carrying around this super-fabric, I spotted a linen fabric which was comfy, rigid, and breathable. It even had a really rustic, "I've been around the block for 1300 years" feel, and it was pretty cheap too! The next choice was a polyester fabric that draped nicely and felt comfy as well. Two tough choices.

>

I asked one of the ladies who worked there for her opinion. She said the linen would be rigged enough, and breathable, but it wrinkles so easily and was more expensive. Her opinion on the polyester was less breathable, but smoother drapes and almost no wrinkles. I decided to go with the polyester finally, which was a good choice I believe! 3.5 yards of that bad boy were cut for $25. Now I have plenty to work with and some extra for the suspenders/arm bands/ whatever else I may want it for.

I also got some interfacing, because it would make the seals sturdy enough to survive the rigors of walking around, yet make them papery enough to still be "paper" seals. $1.49 got me 1.5 yards of thin stuff, and I got 1/4 yard of some thick stuff too for the same price.

>

 For the suspenders, I found some clips that will look cute. It took a long time for me to be able to explain the back of the suspenders to my mom. the leather triangle patch thing that holds the 3 pieces of elastic together. I'm just gonna find a ring, tie and sew the fabric to it and maybe cover it if I have some spare leather, if not... whatever.

>

Overall, it was $37.66 for the whole shebang, not bad at all! Plus I get the fun of constructing a pair of pants!!!


When I got home, excitement was high but energy was low, so I sat on the computer and drew out the seals on photoshop. It was fun, but for some I may have gotten a bit too carried away with the designs and they look kinda... bleh. Nothing a little doctoring up won't fix. And so I ensured a straight line, I used a 1/4" grid on photoshop and basically did pixel art.

It's like MS Paint or KidPix!
To make the lines, I set it to "snap-to-grid", displayed the grid and ruler.
Next I used the rectangular marque tool, and held [Shift] to add to the selection.
Once it was drawn out, I used the brush and drew all over the screen, coloring only the selection.

When I printed it, it filled to the whole page rather than the 3.5" x 6" I set the canvas for. When I used windows photo viewer, it had options for 4 3x5 prints per page. I can deal with it being less than a dissection kit in thickness and length.

>

Salvaging the larger one, I turned it into a concept for the large bow atop her snowy dome. I think it looks kinda cute. Gotta do something about the face beneath it though.

>

With 20 seals mocked up and about 14-17 being "good" I called it a night.

[AB] Concept Sketches and Game Plan

After work, I got home and tried to sketch an image of Mokou. I think for a 10 minute attempt at reproducing ZUN's "Great" artwork, I did a decent job.

Now with Aderpable eyes that look... arguable normal

I also found costumes online. I laughed at the $99-$120 I'd pay for a pair of flat red pants, a white button-up shirt and cloth suspenders.

Curtsey of hellocosplay.com
The pants actually don't look bad, nor does the shirt and $99 is pretty cheap, but I'd rather do it myself!

The upper-priced ones came with bows or you can buy them separately, but the costume itself didn't feel "Andy" enough...

Curtsey of  hellocosplay.com 

Also they didn't come with shoes. I found out why........

Curtsey of hellocosplay.com. Not bad boots, but I think repurposing my old boots would be cheaper!

SIXTY NINE DOLLARS AND NINETY NINE CENTS! For a pair of brownish boots made of leather that I would only wear for one day, and they're probably unable to get a 13 double wide size for me... Nope!

This lead me to my decision, I would analyze the costume and make it myself! Or edit old clothes if I had them!!!

So, with a very helpful mother, I began thinking. She suggested making the pants myself. I liked that idea, because then I can make them super poofy, no problem! I might even be able to do the MC Hammer Slide! She also said don't worry about the shirt as much, another good idea.


PANTS~!

I discovered a fantastically simple and easy tutorial on how to make poofy pants thanks to FelixCorvus This tutorial seems really straight forward.

With an idea of how to make poofy pants, I did a typical Andy thing and drew out the directions in my own words... Thank you Intro to Biology Prelabs! No matter how annoying it was to wake up at 06:00 to finish it for a 09:30 lab! (Don't tell Doctor B.)

Not bad in my opinion. I owe a lot of this to FelixCorvus's tutorial, and the dress tutorial up top.

Cosplay (dot) com had a good tip for making poofy pants also, basically you take tights or comfy pants, then sew on extra baggy pants and stuff them with something called tulle or crinoline. It seems like it could work, except I might favor cotton or some other soft thing so I can bring my legs together and move without carrying too much weight, or spending too much money. Or I can just wear baggy pants like a champ.


SHIRT~!

I found a cool tutorial on how to make puffed sleeves on a dress. I am not making a dress, nor do I plan on making a shirt, so this tutorial will probably not be used, but its a really cute dress and if I have kids one day, or nieces/nephews, I'd like to make it!

If I wanted to use it, maybe I'd make a poofy "sleeve" that would be fit and gathered on top of a shirt I already have, and hey, I have an "aged" short-sleeve button-up shirt from concerts past I am not using! PERFECT! Just need a thin, red band to go around each arm!

SHOES~!

In my crusade to not spend $69.99 on shoes, I haven't thought about them at all... Maybe I'll go to a used shoe store and try to grab some for cheap, or I'll just wear an old pair of boots I spray painted HA!

WIG~!

I found a wig on Etsy, after asking my fellow members of the Anime Club for advice. They had great ideas... however I didn't want to spend over $30 on a wig, especially since there's probably $10 worth of shipping from China/Japan/UK/Taiwan/Pakistan/NOT USA. The wig should be prepared in 4-7 days, then it is ready for shipping! I'm quite excited!

One meter of snow-white hair! Oh dear!
Curtsey of uFashionWigs at Etsy.

SEALS~!

I'm planning on making the seals on her pants out of sticker paper, printing the designs, or fabric and using fabric paint or something. I may even velcro or iron them on, so I can wear the pants as pants or as cosplay pants, who knows.

In total, and from the artwork I have seen (many reference pictures) She has anywhere from 6-10 seals per pant leg. She also wears six bows in her hair in addition to the massive bow atop her head and two smaller ones on her boots. All these bows appear to be made from the seals also.

Yay for chicken-scratch!

 I think it would be fun to make each seal unique, so I took an index card, split it into equal parts, and drew random "seals" on each line to see what designs I could come up with.

Like Alien Pyro-glyphics! Get it, because they are fire-proof seals... ha ha ha.

I then decided to try and find the "right" size for the seals. I used my dissection kit as a size guide, since it is long and rectangular, it seems to be a good size, so I traced it out on graph paper for extra straight lines!

I found that 1.5 boxes is a good thickness for the lines, with one box between shapes. The borders of the seals will also be 1.5 boxes I think, or perhaps 2 boxes.

13x27 boxes of smelly sharpie.

SUSPENDERS N' STRAPS~!

I believe I will simply drape over and (perhaps) pin the suspenders to the shirt, since the pants have a "hakama-esque-fly-type-whatchamacallit" that the suspenders are attached to. I fear if they were actually holding up the pants, they would compress it too much and it would lose the effect of being splayed out and stiff.  I'm planning on using simple cloth for these, but I may try to borrow a pair and just make them lose.

For the arm band things, I'm likely going to use cloth, or if I can find a simple elastic band-type device I will use it.



Tomorrow my mom and I are going shopping for fabric! I believe I'm going to draft up some pants templates, perhaps suspenders, and we'll see what they have for "seal fabric."

[AB] Lets Make a Cosplay Costume!

So, activity on this blog has died down mainly because I've been lazy, but with Anime Boston approaching, I have decided to go full-out and cosplay a character, wig and everything... Maybe even colored contacts... assuming I can handle contacts in the first place.

I have always enjoyed the Touhou characters, the story, the games, and especially the music. That's when i woke up one morning and thought, "Maybe I'll cosplay one of them!" At first I thought I'd just make one of the 50+ "iconic" hats and wear one of them. With a little pressure from one of my friends and my love of making things, I decided, "Nah! This will probably be my last time to cosplay until after graduate school -assuming I get in- So lets go all out!

I thought back to the previous conventions I went to and how people would cosplay these characters... And I had a few, less-than-pleasant flashbacks. If a guy "cross-plays" one of these characters, they usually won't shave their legs, arms, nor face. Not that they have to, and many probably do it because a) its common, b) who cares as long as you're having fun, and c) who cares!

I on the other hand, want my cosplay to look decent to myself, therefore I scoured my memory and recalled a certain character who wears pants, and long-sleeves. This means I don't need to worry about thick calves full of hair popping out of a frilly skirt, and hairy armpits. Also the costume is relatively simple!

Fujiwara no Mokou, The Extra Stage boss from the 8th Touhou game: Imperishable Night.
Art by ZUN, because... ZUN

Mrs. Mokou is a pretty cool character with a sad backstory. Your aristocratic father has just been humiliated by a commoner calling herself a princess! In shame, your father becomes an empty shell. You discover an elixar of immortality, the same one the "princess" used to make herself immortal. Snatching it away before it is destroyed, you feel a surge of power and are now immortal! Still feeling pain and rage, you and the "Princess" battle to the death daily, killing each other countless times, but never truly dying. For 1300 years this has continued, like the tides... for ever, and ever... Except you can control (or rather create) fire!

So, for this costume, I will be wearing a long white wig, Poofy red pants, red shoes, a white, poofy shirt, and red suspenders. Pretty simple. The bows she sports are made from the seals on her pants.

Anime Boston is Easter weekend. A little later than I probably should have started... but with no school, I have plenty of free time!

For whatever reason, I am super-mega excited to do this! Even if it looks trash, I just wanna wear the pants of poofosity!

[JP] Let's Learn Japanese!

Today I found my japanese work book and, with more free time, I can return to the blog!

I have already finished book one of YesJapan's "Japanese From Zero!" But revisiting it would never be bad! I am also mustering the courage to purchase Anki, a smartphone app for memorizing things, but am not there yet.

The book is quite helpful since it is progressive, each chapter learning more and more hiragana. 

Each time you learn more kana, the words get replaced. So if you learned "hai" (yes) when you learn vowels it would look like haい. When you learn the "H" row, it would appear as はい. So eventually you get from "wakarimasen" to わかりません which is sweet! And there's no kanji yet, though with vocab they show you the progressive, kana, kanji, and English definition so you have early exposure. It is a really fun way to learn!

[NOTES] Lets make a concise Notebook!

This project idea I have been thinking about for a while now, but never really had the motivation to pursue it: Make a concise collection of my notes from college.

I want to make this for many reasons:

a) Have a copy of pertinent information for the future.
b) Have a collected reference for graduate school.
c) Perhaps have a gift for people I know that are going through college as a biology student.
d) Give me great review before graduate school.


So how am I going to do this... well, I thought about that over the past few days and I think I'm gonna start off by digging up all my books, going through them for cool references/hand-outs, then going through the notes.

I'm thinking of setting it up in chapters:

Guides.
Notes.
Lab procedures.




Guides.
This section will include general information and tips.


      The first few things that come to mind are that super-handy list of anatomy words I got from A&P. Lots of prefixes, suffixes, and full words. I will likely set that part up as:

Prefixes:

     Word     Example of use       Definition

Desm    Desmosome             Bond

   Hist       Histology                 Tissue

Pelv       Pelvic girdle            Basin

Suffixes:

        Word     Example of use       Definition

     -ology    Histology               Study of

-some     Desmosome            Body

       Something like that. I also like my guide to writing laboratory reports (Specifically for Dr. B, Goodwin, and others who utilize the MCLA guidelines, but its handy.) I will likely throw in other examples such as RMBL's guide to lab reports for Ecology, and their publication guide. I will probably throw in a lot of stuff from RMBL about presentation, public speaking, and other such goodies.



Notes.
This section will include notes from various classes about various subject matters and will be tabbed for quick-reference.


        Here I will consolidate all the info I have collected, over probably months,  into a nice and easy-to-use collection of my notes. I'm planning on either re-writing the notes or typing them and trying to copy the illustrations and figures I drew, so everything can be (for the most part) intact and semi-professional looking. I will probably start off by copying every page, even if they are not 8.5x11". (Like more than 1/2 of my notebooks.)
I predict this will be the most time-consuming part!



Lab Procedures.
This section will have example procedures/exercises, as well as reports and directions for collecting and presenting data.


      I plan on having notes on the procedures such as "DNEasy kit use and extraction is best done on a cold day (Not proven or an actual note) as well as notes on the procedures such as, swirl the loop, then gently run it up and down the side of the tube before removing it. As well as (possibly) including a copy of each lab report I have done, likely following their respective labs as examples of presenting data.


If it turns out that I need to have three separate books, that is much better than the amount I have now... its kinda destroying my book shelf.

[MAC] Part Two: The Gauntlet

After successfully installing Yosemite on 3 of the 2010's, I ran into an issue with the last of the quadruplets.

It wouldn't erase. After scratching my head a bit at why the hard drive was formatted and partitioned for MS DOS, I tried looking at the partition options, and I could make a new partition, formatted correctly! (Or so I hoped.)

I tried that, and bumped into another issue. It can't be verified, so the existing partition can't be erased. It said I need to run First Aid... Well that can't fix it because it can't be verified. I tried verifying the disc, and still no luck. 

I have decided to drop it off with a note that I can't fix it, but Mad Macs might be able to. I felt defeated.

Lucky for me, the older Mac minis took the flash drive and can boot with it now for whatever reason! (Even though it takes forever.)

I am so happy now! This is actually starting to work... Other than the broken one, I might finish before work on Monday!

[MAC] Part One: Project from Work

At work we used many Apple Mac Minis to display our posters and other showtimes information, but we recently switched to ChromeCast and now have a ton of Mac Minis to deal with. The solution, sell 'em on eBay! The problem, they are old with a don of bulk ware on them.

My task is to wipe them clean, install Yosemite, and make up a spreadsheet with details so my boss can sell them in one fell swoop. A daunting (time-wise) task indeed.

I have a flash drive with Mavericks still on it, but I need Yosemite so I began downloading it onto my Mac as per < osxdaily.com/2014/10/16/make-os-x-yosemite-boot-install-drive/ > 

Formatted for "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" I am ready to partition it! With a GUID partition table, so it will work on Intel-based Macs. Their walk-through was simple and to the point.

Terminal is now called up and by copy-pasting a command sequence, it takes a loooooong time, but it is finally done.

With the drive re-formatted to the correct version of OS X: Yosemite. I now venture on the task of installing it on all 11 of the Mac Minis I got from work. This may take a while... But at least I have a cool set-up and a use for my aaxa Technologies P3 mini projector!

I tell it to go to the boot selector (Holding [Option]/[Alt] while the computer is turning on). I then double click on the drive I labeled "Install OSX Yosemite", rather than the normal Hard Drive it would boot from, everything should be working fine... But it decided to boot from the hard drive instead and brought me to the main Desktop, rather than going to disc utilities/ the install program.

I tried it on one of the 2010 MacMini's and it worked fine.

albeit a bit trippy due to the angle, projector, and camera.

I won't be able to work on this tomorrow due to other obligations, but it seems to have picked up some steam, now that I know it works on the 2010 models.