#-variations if angle outta my ass

[honkowo]

WHEEEEEE ETHNICITIES POST PART 1!!!!!!! COS I GOT NO CLUE HOW 2 GO ABOUT CULTURES N SHIT!!!!! LOL!!

OK SO ive FINALLY finished the 5 main colour variations (& overall morphology) for angels!!! posting these separate from the culture post cos i still have fuckall idea for that(plus theres already a fair few images in this post if i tried combining the 2 i would have..... a long ass post lol) ANYWAY:

SALT DESERT: least populous of the 5. theyre essentially tundra angels but w thicker skin & MUCH paler. built to handle extreme temperature variation as well as VERY STRONG air currents & high altitudes. body type is typically tall & skinny, with long wings & sail. theyre 3rd best in terms of long-distance flight.

TUNDRA: most populous of the 5. theyre the goldilocks in terms of preffered climate, in that they stick to the tundras & savannas of homeworld(not too hot/cold, average wind speed, etc). body types vary, but theyre usually on the leaner side for aerodynamics, with long wings & sail. 2nd best at long-distance flight.

CENTRAL CLIFFS: 2nd most populous of the 5 & are built to survive the warmer temperatures of the equator throughout the year. body types are typically on the heavier side to help with burrowing & to accommodate for the much higher likelihood of getting domed by flying debris, as well as broad-but-short wings & sail. theyre 2nd worst at long-distance flight, as theyre more suited for climbing & gliding than powered flight.

NORTH/SOUTH COAST: 3rd most populous of the 5. coastal angels are the largest of the angel types, and are built to survive & navigate the seas & frozen coastlines of homeworld with ease. theyre the best at long-distance flight, as they often take regular journeys from the north to the south to ferry resources between both the coastal spheres as well as other spheres that might be up to trade. body types are usually TALL & WELL BUILT, with a long sail & wings.

TROPICS: 2nd least populous of the 5 as well as the shortest. theyre an offshoot of coastal angels who preffered to burrow amongst the more varied plantlife of angel homeworld. theyre the worst at flying, often only able to glide & fly in short bursts(similar to earth chickens) as theyre almost entirely suited to burrowing. the average body type for tropic angels is short & stocky, with short wings.

like usual, gif stills r under the readmore :)

angles:

map:

(was gonna send the stills but i hit the image limit LOL so youll have 2 have the merged map sorry)

[shimmersing]

So I’m working on my KotFE/ET Lana cosplay and finally making some progress. Like writing, cosplay has been missing from my life for the past few years. Aside from the usual last-minute-procrastination cosplay mood, it’s just kinda getting back into the game after an absence.

I am a Serious Cosplayer cosplay grandma with a 20-year history and a recent move into the organization side running contests now, but I’m still learning new things with every costume. It’s wild.

Anyway, I thought I’d share some of the progress while I’m procrastinating putting off leaving the house to get thread.

YO HERE’S OUR GIRL:

Picture-heavy under the cut.

Sewing is my strength and always has been, so on ‘soft’ costume pieces I always feel like I have a lot more control. I use that as an opportunity to nitpick details when I’m not being a lazy asshole and taking shortcuts.

Today, that means the stupid hexagon on the sides of Lana’s tunic.

I decided to go with single-fold bias tape as applique because as I obsessively scrutinized looked at caps and in-game references, I noticed that there was a slight shadow that indicated a ‘raised’ area against the base garment. Speaking of texture, that damn hexagon is rarely an actual hexagon because game textures don’t behave like real fabric AUGH. Other thoughts were paint, fabric applique & satin stitching.

TOOLS:

Bias tape

Pins

Hot af iron (I really need to invest in one of those baby irons for quilting but whatev)

Wonder clips (THEY REALLY ARE A WONDER)

Pattern (made in MS Word)

Assorted stuff like scissors, ruler, ironing board/table, probably a pencil

So the great thing about bias tape is that it holds a fold VERY well when ironed. And a nice crispy fold makes for a great miter. What’s a miter you say? It’s that corner bit on a picture frame or window where an angle is formed. You want it to look tidy & consistent.

How? BEHOLD:

Clip a piece of bias tape to your pattern (make sure it’s long enough to go around and then a little extra. You can always cut off more, but you can’t put it back. Okay, technically you CAN put it back but it’s a pain in the ass and looks like shit. Measure-twice-cut-once and all that). Use what clips/pins you need to keep everything aligned.

Take another pin and use it to help you get a nice fold that lines up with that angle (at an angle that if you extended the line, it would bisect the hexagon). Folding this way ensures that the miter will be consistent at each ‘corner’.

(sorry, kinda fuzzy.) Get your fingers outta the way and iron that motherfucker. Watch out for the pins and clips and stuff.

Now fold it BACK over so the original fold is as minimal as possible and line everything up with your pattern. MOAR IRONING. When you turn it over, you shouldn’t see anything aside from that one neat fold.

SO PRETTY. (Pin is just there to hold it for the photo.)

Put some more clips on to keep it out of your way and keep going.

Apparently even Word can’t make a damn equilateral hexagon, so I had to mark on the pattern which way I wanted up and down to be. That up and down will line up with the side seam later. OKAY keep going, all the way around.

I leave the final angle open for later, ‘cause it’s finicky and easier to work with once everything else is glued and sewn.

Right side up ooooo pretty.

So here’s the trick with getting it on the side of the tunic without destroying your patience. Normally we sew a top/shirt/whatever 1) front/back seams 2) shoulder seams 3) side seams 4) sleeves/facings (with slight variations). This pattern actually didn’t have any back seam, but I needed one in the back so I added it.

I needed the side seams to be REALLY flat, so going sides before back was necessary. All that to say THIS IS THE SIDE. Also pictured is the bustline dart on the front.

PS: IRON YOUR DAMN SEAMS or I will find you and iron them for you.

You need to measure down from the arm seam (where the sleeve will attach to the rest of the tunic) for placement. 1) this helps you be consistent with both sides. 2) Like... measure shit. It’s more professional. Don’t eyeball stuff, it never ends well.

You can scale pretty close measurements from your reference images (here’s a link to a website called MATH IS FUN to explain it. I know it sounds insane, but try it, it’s not that bad). tl;dr Based on my reference images vs. my actual measurements (all 5′2″ of them), the top of the hex needs to be about 2.5 inches from the armhole (also how I got the dimensions of the hex itself despite Bioware’s best efforts at thwarting me with inconsistent reference material.)

So line up the hex with your sleeve seam marking AND the side seam (which should line up with the middle/center line of the hex - use your pattern or your ruler, whatever works).

And then do this three more times.

Now, I know you’re going, “Beverly, this is a lot of time-intensive bullshit,” and I’m gonna tell you IT IS NOT. Having to futz around with eyeballing things and making mistakes and fixing said mistakes takes far longer than careful preparation and execution.

NEXT TIME ON BEVERLY’S COSPLAY BULLSHIT: How to get that shit to stay there so you can sew it down without pins and massive frustration (hint: we’ll be making a visit to the quilting section I KNOW RIGHT?).

[fbe7784-blog]

A Road Story; or, Satori in Wisconsin

Seven seven eighty-four. Thirty-five years on and it still rates as the momentous experience in my life. Certainly it never crossed my mind as we piled into Boisson’s Chevette to head for the Ticketron outlet that I’d still remember that day; it was a pretty astounding twenty-four hours, and I’ve probably been trying to figure out what exactly happened ever since.

In classic fashion, we (Mike, Kent, and myself) left without tickets, camping gear, sustenance, and, as it turned out, a bowl. At least we had money enough for lawn seats and doses. We made a quick stop to see if our friend Ben wanted to come along (which he did, leaving a note on the fridge: “Mom-- went to see the Dead. Be back later”), and then we were off to Southlake Mall for the tickets. Later on I would discover how easy we’d had it, walking in the day of the show and getting four tickets for $40 or so, but at that time it was just another errand. As I recall we stopped off at Hegewisch Records too, but we didn’t have enough cash for even the cheapest paraphernalia (why no papers? you ask; I have no idea). I recall the sun shining in a bright blue sky, tunes on the deck, and the summer air blowing through the windows as we made our way out of Indiana, around Chicago, through Illinois and into Wisconsin: a thoroughly uneventful trip to Alpine Valley. Along the way, we tried to work around our lack of an implement using the car’s cigarette lighter as a modified chillum with a decided lack of success. No matter though, it would all work out.

Arrival at the venue proved mind-boggling. From the instant we drove into the lot I felt a very real sense of dropping through a trap door into an alternate or parallel world, truly terra incognita. I mean, I’d seen a few longhairs and stereotypical potheads, but never this kind of display-- it was like stumbling onto some hidden alien hideout, with a mix of bikers and frat boys, Renn Faire extras and Computer Lab weirdoes, fools and fakirs, cowboys, grits, and hippies straight out of Central Casting. I distinctly remember gawking at one freak merrily bopping along the lane between parking areas and his extremely amused reaction to my open-mouthed staring: he shook his head with a grinning laugh and wagged his finger at me as he sing-song-ed “You don’t know what’s going to happen!” He had my number.

We finally parked and in the first bit of weirdness discovered that we were right next to friends of mine from Earlham College: Kevin, Marti, and oddly enough Matt, with whom I had done the “New Wave and Punk” radio program my freshman year. I think Blind Bob was with them too. A completely unplanned happening and a total surprise! Introductions all around, cold Wiedeman’s handed out, and attempts at orientation made. We had parked in the front lot, fairly close to the theater’s entrance, and it was a pretty lively scene; lots of vending and general hustle and bustle going on. I turned around and Mike handed me two hits of Red Saucer bought from a passer-by (“fresh dipped, three days outta’ Berkeley, man!”), some for K and B and we were set-- down the hatch and here we go!

The first waves started as I sat on the front bumper of my friends’ car, watching the continual flow of people headed to the show. I became aware of a non-stop susurrus as all the beautiful hippie women drifted by and then a slight echo or ebbing and flowing of white noise from the sounds of voices calling greetings or advertising wares; I felt illogical movements throughout my body like I was inflating and respiring in a rhythm that was picked up and repeated by everyone and everything I looked at. I found myself unable to speak and quick check of my traveling companions found them equally stymied in that capacity. My older/wiser college friends laughed their asses off as I tried to explain in some sort of lobotomized, molasses-covered mime language to a wandering sticker-saleswoman that, in fact, I had no money and would be unable to purchase her wares. She was considerably less amused.

The flow of people toward the gates had increased and it became almost synchronized, like some sort of huge Busby Berkeley number, or a Fleischer Brothers cartoon in vivid pulsing colors. I looked in the direction of the gates and was amazed to see a dome-like dark purple glow emanating from just beyond the fence, as if some huge extra-terrestrial craft had descended, pulling the earth towards its base, and now, as my more mobile friends assured me, it was time for us to enter that dome. A crush of bodies as we got nearer, a rush of babel and laughter and flashes and flickers of faces and feet, a whirring tempest of flesh and sweat and teeth, and still the inhalation and exhalation of all creation keeping pace with mine, increasing until they were indistinguishable and then suddenly we were through the turnstiles and onto the cool humid grass sloping down towards the stage.

There’s a definite feeling that’s unique to the lawn at Alpine. It’s hard to pin down with just words, but my memory of it is always the rustling paper buzz of cicadas, the stillness of the air as it darkens with twilight, heavy with midsummer moisture, and a permeating vapor of organics, the bubbling smells of mushrooms and bark and leaves. That great stretch of lawn, dotted with blankets and, yes, even picnic baskets and coolers, conversation volumes bouncing between raucous jubilation and whispering anticipation, and again the distant sound of little bells and bare feet whisking through the grass. There are fireflies in my memory but they probably didn’t come out until later. Lots of people didn’t like the venue for various reasons but I’ve got nothing but great memories of the place and the various shows I saw there. It really is a special place.

We finally sat down in a spot about halfway down the slope and now the first really big wave arrived. The angle of the hill seemed to increase dramatically, and the cheerfully echoing tintinnabulation morphed into the ceaseless brass clangor of a thousand temple gongs. Everything outside of a ten-foot radius began to smear slightly as friends and neighbors passed in and out of sight. The initial strangeness of the other attendees began to manifest in the occasional extra eyeball or an odd lizard-like tail. It was getting more and more difficult to keep standing and I distinctly remember a bug-eyed Ben crawling across the grass toward me asking the eternal acid question: “what... is... going... on?” I hadn’t really thought about that, and now it seemed like a fairly important thing to figure out. I glanced around and discovered we were surrounded by nothing but bikers and this fully and truly freaked-out my Sex Pistols t-shirt-wearing self so I had to lie down with my eyes closed to ride out what I was sure would be an inevitable stomping. The “Great A-Horr” as Keyz put it, I think. So, I rode it out. Full on, full-blown mind-manifesting trip through the internal galaxy, visiting a dozen past and future selves, discovering that they were actually the beings sitting next to me, the eternal connection to the infernal and divine all right there with me inside a glowing purple sphere spinning somewhere out on the very farthest shores of my own personal Big Bang. Eventually the maelstrom of psychic winds began to ease a bit and I felt considerably more relaxed, my spine unknotting itself a bit, fingers and toes uncurling. Breathing for what seemed like the first time in ages.

I opened my eyes and announced that I was now ready for the show to start. Near universal guffaws informed me that I’d missed the whole first set, and so, fairly unfazed by this I set off in search of the bathroom. That trek was wild and wooly (and a great tale in its own right) but was successfully completed and somehow I managed to make my way back to my friends to compare notes. Still not a lot of verbal skills among us but all seemed well and we relaxed, drew deep breaths, and plummeted into set two as the twilight turned to darkness.

Nothing particularly special on paper, the second set contained music I was familiar enough with as well as unfamiliar variations that opened door after door, revealing unimagined vistas and possibilities. Some pieces imprinted deeply and became part and parcel of how I understand myself, like the darkness and betrayal of ‘Cold Rain and Snow’ or the regrets and redemption of ‘Brokedown Palace.’ Other sequences simply tore away at my expectations for musical performance, vigorously demonstrating the deep value of opening oneself to what was happening at every moment, letting go and being fully ex stasis.

The combination of the blotters, the music (and christ on a crutch! can you ever forget how that sound system could move every tone through your whole body, vibrating the spaces between your cells), and the very real manifestation of the crowd’s energy all catalyzed in the great, green alembic of Alpine Valley. It seemed that we had truly left life behind in the gravel of the parking lot, that there would be no returning, so best now release your grip and to dive into the heart of the cauldron. I remember that Candace’s lights carved the pillars and trusses and roof of the pavilion into twisting Aztec temple walls filled with mystic flowers and then gaunt, electric caryatids of Gothic saints, then a full illuminated medieval bestiary of day-glo dragons and falcons, and a sudden molten eruption like Rodin’s Gates of Hell before flickering back into ordinary steel and wood as the music drove us further and further out of bounds.

At one point, it sounded as if the gears of the universe were being forcibly stopped, a deep, dangerous grinding and screeching that shook away what was left of the ground below us, gargantuan cable tethers thrumming with the strain. Then shuddering stars shot beams of light catching bits and pieces of the people surging around me, writhing and melting against each other, turning into literal waves washing back and forth, up and down the hill, crashing against the white hot engine on stage, rushing back again and again, a bubbling witches’ brew into which I dis-incorporated and then reformed over and over until with one last massive exhalation it all became Alpine Valley again-- still vibrating to be sure, the grass seething with garter snakes of energy, rippling quicksilver just escaping from the periphery of my vision-- but actually back on earth; speechless, agog, poleaxed by the enormity of the trip-- mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come since I first left home.

We slowly slogged and stumbled up the hill, still seeming impossibly steep, and eventually got back to the lot and our car. The air filled with the smell of gunpowder, beer, and cooking food, the high- pressure sodium lights giving everything an odd sheen. Fireworks arced and exploded randomly everywhere as we cooled off with beer and little watermelon. Kevin gave me a fraternal shoulder punch and asked: So whatcha’ think? All I could summon was a shaky “Wow.” I compared notes with Kent, but mostly we were kinda’ speechless still. The facility staff didn’t seem to have any intention of making anyone leave, and things carried on into the night as the lights were turned off and the hooting continued. It took a little doing but we managed to convince Mike that he should not attempt the drive home and we made do with what crashing space we could find in the car, waking with the dawn to figure out which way to go.

I had experienced all the parts of that day at separate times, or in partial combination, but none of it, nothing at all had prepared me for seeing the Elephant.  Haven’t quite figured out what he told me, but I’m working on it.