Gen Con 2018: day 3

My feet are killing me, I’m definitely a little dehydrated, and my hair is full of Ross’s styling clay to keep all the little annoying hair tendrils from escaping out from under my wig, but it’s all worth it, because…

This seriously made my entire convention.

That’s right, the costume I’ve been working on putting together for months, and have been so very excited to wear, won an award. I was so worried something was going to go wrong with this costume – that it wouldn’t fit me properly anymore (I’ve lost some weight since I last wore it), that the wig wouldn’t be done in time, that I’d sprain an ankle in those heels… but no, everything went together amazingly, and I am so, so happy.  And I got an award for my costume!

But I’d still be my happy exhausted self even if I didn’t end up winning that  awesome little award. You know why?

I saw so many faces light up today when they saw my costume, because they love Sailor Moon as much as I do.  I saw a little girl get excited and flaily and scream out “SAILOR MOOOON” when I walked by during the costume parade, and she got even flailier when I waved.  I love making others smile with my costumes, and I love finding other cosplayers from the same show who get excited when they notice that we’re all dressing as characters from Sailor Moon, or My Little Pony, or whatever fandom we’re representing in costume that day.  

That’s the main reason why I’m a happy nerd right now – because I got to make others smile.

Like Usagi here, who got really excited to see someone dressed as Sailor Moon.

Gen Con 2018: Day 2

Today was full of cosplay, LARPing, and suppressing fangirl flailing.

First off, Ross and I dressed as Star and Marco today! I look exhausted. XD

We had lots of fun, and it was a good test run for getting Ross into his Star cosplay for tomorrow. Plus, there was a fair amount of people who recognized us (and gave Ross some strange looks when they realized he wasn’t a girl), which made me happy.

I also got to play in my first LARP at Gen Con! Showdown in Sacramento was today, and I had an amazing time. J and Kasi sure know how to tell a good story. I’ll have pictures from the game soon – likely in time for my post-con write-up.

The best part of today, though, was getting to meet Echo Chernik (note: there is some NSFW artwork on her site), the artist for the Name of the Wind Art Deck playing card Kickstarter I backed last year. I really enjoy her artwork, and we talked about the Kickstarter a bit – and then she pulled out her sketchbook and let me look through some of the sketches she did for the Kickstarter.

And yes, I asked if I could take a picture of this page, and she said yes. I am so ridiculously happy that I got to meet her. She even signed a card with artwork for me (she’s doing that for all the Kickstarter backers who haven’t gotten their rewards yet!) – I’m going to have to find a tiny little frame for it.

So, that was my day two! Tomorrow is going to be crazy and awesome – I’m dressing up as Sailor Moon, finally! 😀

Gen Con 2018: day one

I survived day one of Gen Con! And I’ve had lots of fun (and spent lots of money, haha), and am so exhausted. I wanted to ramble a little bit about today, but expect better and less rambly posts after Gen Con is done. 🙂

The two highlights of today were pretty big things for me – first off, I got to wear my Sailor Moon wig today.

Isn’t it beautiful? Oriana did an amazing job with it, especially in such a short time. It’s heavy as heck, with all the hair in the pigtails, but it’s freaking amazing and I love it.

The second big thing: I helped run my first role playing game. Ever. Like, I wrote plot and did storytelling and panicked about how to handle doing all the things at once. But I did it (with some help from J), and people really enjoyed it.

The epic group of heroes from Return to Paragon City.

It was great to run a game based on a game that so many people enjoyed and miss. And I’m really glad I didn’t mess anything up – I’ve been anxious about this game for weeks. But hey, I did it (with the equivalent of training wheels, heh), and everyone had fun.

Daniel, Kasi, and I – the gamemasters for Return to Paragon City.

Now, it’s time to rest up, since I’ve got another big game tomorrow and a fun bit of cosplaying that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. 🙂

Gen Con 2018: it’s almost here

I apologize for the lack of a post last week and the week before — I’ve been swamped with Gen Con prep.  And oh, there’s a lot of it this year.

For example: did you folks know I’m helping run a LARP this year?  Return to Paragon City (based on the old MMORPG City of Heroes) is going to be my first stab at running a simple LARP, and I’m really excited for it (and more than a little anxious, I’m not going to lie).  It’s been awesome, revisiting the world of City of Heroes as my friends and I put together the story for Return to Paragon City.  I really hope it goes well!

In addition to helping run Return to Paragon City, I’m also going to play in a LARP too – Showdown in Sacramento!  Which actually sold out on the first day event registration was open, which was awesome and slightly frustrating, haha.  Thankfully, the friends running Showdown are the same friends running Paragon City with me, so even if Gen Con hadn’t increased the amount of available tickets, they’d have found a way for Ross and I to get in there and play (probably with a lot of generic event tickets, hah.)

I also spent most of last weekend making Ross the last piece he needed for his Star Butterfly costume – a star purse that came out far better than I expected it would.  And yes, I lined it with My Little Pony fabric.  Would you expect anything different from me? 😉

On the left is the purse in progress, and on the left is the finished product! He looks a little silly, but that’s kind of the point, I think. 🙂

I’ve only got two days of officially planned costumes this year, Marco Diaz from Star vs. The Forces of Evil and Sailor Moon. I’m excited to be Marco Diaz (and even more excited to see Ross in his Star Butterfly costume!), and every time I think of my Sailor Moon costume I get ridiculously flaily. (As I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now.)  Depending on how I feel on Sunday, I might throw on my “stealth dress” and wander around Gen Con as my Kishar character, Ëlinyr. Or I might wear my Sailor Moon wig and my Crafty Nerd t-shirt!  Who knows.

For those of you who are going to Gen Con, say hi if you see me!  Following is a breakdown of what costumes Ross and I are planning to wear on what days (when we’re not LARPing), so you know what to look for.

Day Beth’s costume Ross’s costume
Thursday Sailor Meta Moon
(or, Usagi in a Sailor Moon dress)		 Ravenclaw student
Friday Marco Diaz Star Butterfly
Saturday Sailor Moon Star Butterfly
Sunday maybe Ëlinyr?  maybe Usagi? exhausted congoer?

And for those of you who can’t make it, don’t worry!  I’ll be posting here and on Twitter daily while I’m at Gen Con, in addition to my usual Gen Con wrap-up posts after the convention.  I’m so ready for this, folks.  SO READY.

Here’s hoping I see some of you awesome folks at Gen Con!

 

State of the nerd: July 2018

It’s been a little while since I’ve done one of these, and I can’t really think about much else to post about for this week that I haven’t already rambled about recently (considering both Star vs. the Forces of Evil and Steven Universe left me going AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH for a few days with their season finales), so here we go!

I mentioned this in a few other posts recently, I think, but I GOT A NEW CAR YOU GUYS. Her name is Lapis 2.0 (or Lapis for short), she’s a 2018 Subaru Impreza, she’s actually BLUE (unlike old Lapis), and I love her dearly and I’m gonna drive her until she dies.

Here she is, all dirty after a weekend of LARPing a few months ago.

I’ve been doing a lot of fun nerdy stuff at work, involving two of my favorite things: making research posters and making videos. The big thing I’ve been tackling this week is learning how to use Adobe Character Animator a little better, and using it to make some videos for the Creating Research Posters course I’m updating. I showed off some of the stuff I’d been working on to my friend J, and he thinks I should make an animated version of my LARP character, Ëlinyr. (Challenge accepted.)

At some point I’ll make a less work-related animated video, but for now, here’s a screenshot from a video I was working on!

Speaking of Ëlinyr: she’s no longer an elf! Long story short: she decided to give up her elven-ness to anger her mother. I wrote a long rambly in-character account of how she initially dealt with being human, and if you’re interested, you can read it at Ëlinyr’s blog.

I’ve been knitting like crazy lately. I found a shawl pattern that I love so much, I’ve actually started on a second shawl with that pattern. It’s Drachenfels, and you can find it on Ravelry here. There’s also a kit on Craftsy that has the pattern as well as the yarn needed – I got the kit in the Energy colorway, and I love how it turned out.

Here’s the first Drachenfels, made from the kit I bought from Craftsy.

I had to move my sewing studio out of the garage due to the ridiculous amount of spiders in there lately. Ugh. I’m making some progress with making enough space in my craft room to actually use it for sewing, though, so hopefully I’ll have a permanent home for my sewing machine soon.

I’ve been playing a lot of Pokémon Go lately, and I’m really enjoying the new features they added to the game. Plus, it helps me get away from my desk at work and get active every so often.

I love how Pikachu and I match, haha.

So, that’s the State of the Nerd right now! Next week should bring us back to our regularly scheduled blog postings, I’ve got quite a list of ideas to write about, including a special series of posts for Gen Con!

Star vs. The Forces of Evil: the new obsession in the Crafty Nerd household

It’s no secret that Ross and I like our animated shows. I mean, come on, we met dressed as My Little Ponies, as evidenced by the following slightly blurry photo of us from Gen Con 2013:

How many people can say they met their partner thanks to a cartoon? 😛

Not only do we share a mutual love for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but we also both really enjoy Steven Universe (in case you hadn’t noticed, hah) — in fact, if it weren’t for Ross stumbling onto the show while I was busy one weekend, we probably never would’ve ended up becoming such huge fans.

I named my car Lapis, and stuck Lapis and Peridot decals on the back of it.  And have a plush Lapis as a permanent passenger in the car.  I think it’s safe to say I’m a huge Steven Universe fan.

Ross and I are both pretty big anime fans, too, although Ross might be more into it lately than I am. Plus, I like my old-school anime a little more, while Ross watches more recent stuff. (More recent than Sailor Moon and Cowboy Bebop, anyway.)

So, it’s only natural that when Ross stumbled across Star vs. The Forces of Evil, we’d both end up obsessed, right? I mean, it’s silly, upbeat, with a great storyline that really pulls you in, which is starting to become more of a thing in animated shows lately.  How could we not love it?

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The crochet-a-long: finally finished!

Well, it only took me six months instead of the two that the Woodland Blanket crochet-a-long was originally planned to last, but I finally finished!

Holy crap, it’s done!

I’ll admit, some of why it took so long to finish was because I kept getting distracted by other projects.  Which happens a lot to me, and which is why I’ve got piles of unfinished stuff all over the house. (From what I can think of off the top of my head, I’ve got two unfinished cardigans, two unfinished pairs of socks, one shawl I’m actively knitting, one I’ve got stashed in a box until I feel like working on it again, a third that’ll be the focus of a blog post next week, and a pile of stuff in the “Corner of Shame” that will probably never get done.)  And the more I let the Woodland Blanket sit forlornly in my craft basket, the guiltier I felt about not finishing it, especially with so many other projects I wanted to do.  And I only had 8 stripes and the border left to do.  So I sat down one weekend and cranked it out.

The border came out really well – I’ve never done a border like this before, it’s simply a couple of rounds of slip stitches.

It’s not a hard blanket to do at all, especially once you get the hang of translating UK crochet terminology.  The wave pattern is soothing and rhythmic to work on, and I absolutely love the colors.  The whole blanket looks fantastic, and I’m glad I resisted the temptation to just stop a few rows short from the end and call it done.  It’s the first big thing I’ve finished in a while, and I’m so proud of myself for sticking with it.

I especially love the gradual change from warm tones to cool blues.

If you’re interested in making one of your own, the pattern is free on Attic24 (there are plenty of pictures included that walk you through the pattern) and if you want to create it in the same color scheme, you can buy the yarn pack here.

How to stretch vinyl boots (carefully)

A couple of weeks ago, I rambled about how I was so incredibly excited that I was finally going to have a pair of Sailor Moon boots to call my own.  The boots showed up on Monday, and I excitedly went to try them on, only to find out…

…that my calves were a little too muscular for these boots.  Curse you, muscular calves! (Well, not really, I like my calves.)

I ended up messaging the seller (Catzia) telling her the boots didn’t fit my calves, and I asked if I could exchange them for a larger size in hopes that they might fit my legs better.  She said she’d be happy to exchange them, but before doing that, I should try to stretch the boots out using a hair dryer to see if I could get them stretched out enough to fit. And it worked!  They were snug, but I could zip them up all the way!

While I was waiting to hear back from Catzia, I found a number of “how to stretch shoes” tutorials out there. When I came across the hair dryer method, I figured it’d work for the boots (but didn’t want to try it until I’d heard back from Catzia) – but most of these methods focused on making the foot area of a shoe wider, not necessarily the calves.  And they all focused on leather shoes, and not vinyl boots.

Enter The Crafty Nerd, armed with a hair dryer and a pair of epic Sailor Moon boots.

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A brief (and random) interlude: good things about this week

I swear, I had a real post written up for yesterday.  It was only missing some photos, ones I had to take as I do the tutorial I’m hoping to share with you all soon (probably next week at this point, though).  I got it all written Wednesday night.  I was going to take the photos on Thursday, and post it on Friday, and keep up my posting streak of one post a week.  I had this.

And then my brain intervened, and said “oh we’re not going to do that, we’re not going to do anything but knit when you’re not at work, knit and feel miserable.”

Thursday ended up being a pretty rough day, and Friday wasn’t much better.  So here I am on Saturday morning, at 7 am, not wanting to break my posting streak.  So, instead of a tutorial, or cosplay planning, I’m going to share some of the good things that happened this week.  Because this week wasn’t just full of my brain being ridiculous like it tends to be at times.  There were some cool little things that happened that made me smile.

Please ignore my scruffy bath mat and oddly lit legs, my phone apparently decided that the boots were the only thing that needed a correct color.

First off, I got my Sailor Moon boots in the mail this week.  There was a little bit of frustration with them at first – they didn’t come close to fitting my calves – but the owner of the Etsy shop I bought them from told me how to stretch them so they’d fit, and it worked! (Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to take this picture.)  They look so fantastic, and I can’t wait for Gen Con so I can wear them around the convention on Saturday.

Peridot and Lapis, together again on the back of my car!

I also finally got a Peridot decal to go with the Lapis decal on the back of my new car!  (who is also named Lapis – that’s a story for another time though)  A friend of mine from work, Jake, makes vinyl decals, and when I couldn’t get the original decals I’d bought for Old Lapis because the seller’s Etsy store was on (seemingly permanent) vacation, I sketched up some stuff in Illustrator and had Jake make me some decals.  They came out really well!

And it’s not exactly a nerdy thing, but I can’t help but show off one of my kitties, Hannah, who was trying to make me feel better last night when I hit a rough patch:

My sweet, photogenic girl.

Isn’t she beautiful?  She curled up next to my feet after this and slept there all night.   (And then decided to use me as a landing pad early this morning when she jumped out of the window above the bed, oof.)  She doesn’t often snuggle with Ross and I, especially not in the summer, so it was an extra special treat to get Hannah snuggles last night.

Here’s hoping next week will be better.  At the very least, I’ll have more than enough time to get that tutorial I’ve been working on finished by Thursday or Friday.

Sailor Moon at Gen Con: it’s actually happening

This has been hanging on my craft room door since last Halloween, reminding me that this is going to be probably my one big cosplay for Gen Con this year.  I’ve actually been a little afraid to ramble about the costume on the blog, because every time I say “oh hey I am SO GOING TO COSPLAY AS THIS” on the blog, it never happens.  (Like Toothless.  And Rose Quartz.)

This one is actually going to happen, though.  I mean, I’m too close to having a completed costume for this to just say “eh, maybe next year”.  I’m remembering how I felt at Halloween when I put on this costume, when my inner sixteen-year-old let out a near-constant fangirl squeal every time I looked in a mirror.  I saw myself and said “I am Sailor Moon.”

This is one happy Crafty Nerd, you guys.

For me, this is huge.  I’ve done a bunch of Sailor Moon costumes over the years.  I made one by hand during my senior year of high school (and I do mean by hand, I lost sewing machine privileges during the middle of that project and some parts were held together by staples). I found a pre-made Sailor Moon costume at a Spencer’s back during my sophomore year of college — it was a child’s XL, I had to cut the bodysuit out to make it fit and wore it all over a white t-shirt.  I made a Sailor Jupiter costume for I-CON 2006 that turned out really impressively, and I wish I’d hung onto it because it was the best hand-sewn costume I’d made up to that point.

This year, I’m going to have a costume that’s well put together, that I won’t have to worry about falling apart because of my iffy hand-sewing skills.  It won’t have staples in it.  It won’t be a cobbled together collection of whatever I can find that’s “close enough” to certain costume pieces that I can’t make on my own or afford to buy somewhere.

There are three pieces I still need to get for my costume — one I just bought and am waiting for it to be shipped, one I’m pestering a friend for on Tuesday, and the third I think I could get away without if I need to.

The first thing, and something I’ve never actually had for a Sailor Moon costume before: the boots.

Oh my lord, they’re so beautiful.

I found these boots on Etsy, in the shop Catzia’s Collectibles.  This shop is full of beautiful Sailor Moon cosplay accessories, and I can’t wait to get the boots and see how they feel.  I’ll definitely want to break them in before Gen Con, so I don’t accidentally destroy my feet like I’ve done with just about every costume I’ve worn that involves heels.  (I wonder if I could get away with wearing these under jeans for work, haha.)  I’m ridiculously excited about these boots, you guys.  I’ve done Sailor Moon costumes with plain red heels, with black flats, even with a pair of grey and black Mary Janes with Sailor Moon socks.  I’m gonna have actual boots for this costume.  Sixteen-year-old me could cry happy tears right now.

The next is the wig.

Even this well-loved Sailor Moon wig is awesome.

I’ve told you about my wonderful wig-making neighbor before — and Oriana is hopefully going to start work on my very own Sailor Moon wig soon, which has me ridiculously excited.  (You need to see her Queen Beryl – I’m really hoping she brings that to Gen Con, it’s such a fantastic costume!  At the very least, maybe we can throw on costumes and do a photoshoot in our neighborhood.  I’m pretty sure most of our neighbors won’t even bat an eye.)

The last thing I need is the wand.

For an unofficial wand, this looks pretty darn good!

There are lots of places I could get a Sailor Moon wand. I’m kind of kicking myself for selling my old Cutie Moon Rod years ago, and I miss my old Crescent Moon Wand (which had an untimely demise due to a friend accidentally stepping on it, it’s my fault for leaving it on the floor).  I could hope to win an auction on eBay for an older Sailor Moon wand like the one I had in high school, or I could spend a stupid amount of money on a Proplica wand.  (And if I did buy a Proplica wand, I’d be terrified to bring it to Gen Con because what if something happened to it?  Then I’d be out $100, and I’d be a very sad Crafty Nerd.)  The pictured wand is one I might get, if I do decide to go with a wand. It looks pretty close to the original wand. While it’s a little expensive for something that’s not an official Sailor Moon item, it’s still better than worrying about breaking a Proplica wand on accident or going with modifying a bootleg toy to look a little more official.

You guys.  This costume is actually happening.  I am actually going to wear a Sailor Moon costume to a convention and not be slightly embarrassed by it because it’s not perfect.  Because this costume is going to be just about perfect.  And I can’t wait to wear it.