#Sized with the length. when you could have scooted some proportions around and made it look great!

[fisherrprince]

one of. My biggest cosplay tips as a guy who hasn’t made that many but is currently making crazy adjustments to 3D print files online. Is keep an eye on your sizing and proportions. You don’t want things to be accurately sized to how they would be irl, especially if your character and you have even slightly different body types, you want them to be well-proportioned, so that you look as close to natural wearing the costume as you can. Like it was made for u. For me this means sizing up a bunch of buttons and buckles to be more stylized on my body and sizing down a prop in places so it’s good looking but still practical and not dragging on the ground bc I have shorter legs than an elf. I have different proportions than the character so im maintaining the design’s shape and relative size (which pieces are big medium small on the character) by scooting things around until they fit right

[cherokeegal1975]

Unexpected Cargo, Ch. 2

Refuge       Little Girl landed tiredly next to him on the steep sandy grade a few yards away from the cave entrance.  Goldie leapt off of her withers and onto Johnny's back as he lay prone with his forehead pressed against his left forearm, trying not to vomit as the cramp subsided.       "Get up!" Goldie squeaked urgently in his ear as Little Girl pushed him with her wet muzzle, dampened with tears of fear and worry, soaking the cloth of his robes as she started to cry again.  "They are too far away to see us, but I can still hear their noisy engines coming our way."       Johnny shifted and Goldie jumped off his back.  He tried to breathe as slowly and deeply as he could.  He had already retched up everything in his stomach several miles back.  The next time, a couple of miles later, he only got the dry heaves.  As his queasy stomach began to settle, he made it to his hands and knees when he felt a warm and sensual ball of electric heat formed in his lower abdomen.  It spread rapidly in a matter of seconds to every part of his being, causing him to shudder uncontrollably while it held him in its thrall.  Just as abruptly the sensation had come, it vanished and he felt better.  No upset stomach and no bad cramps.       The whole experience lasted only a moment and Johnny was finally able to stagger to his feet unassisted.  Somehow he knew the sudden attacks were over and that he would be fine now. Little Girl shape shifted back into her human child form so she could fit more easily through the cave's opening and swung the satchel over one bare slender shoulder.  As it was often her custom, she went nude (since clothes could not change with her), finding clothes unnatural, impractical and confining.  Generally, the only time she put on clothes was when they went to town, which Johnny insisted on for her own safety.       Goldie went into the cave ahead of them, eager to be inside before the sandstorm she knew was coming in about an hour's time.  It was another survival adaptation that made desert rats such useful companions to those who had them.  Johnny entered the cave himself behind Little Girl's slight frame.  He had to duck and squeeze through the crack in the rock, snagging his robes and his loose pants before he could make it through.       Once inside, the passage opened up immediately to a spacious room with a small crack in the ceiling that let in daylight and could serve as a smoke hole should anyone need to build a fire.       He paused only a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dimness of the cave, then walked straight back to where Little Girl and Goldie crouched at the edge of a small spring in the stone floor.  With a sigh of relief, he knelt between them, pulled back his sleeves and reached out with his hands to the gently rippling surface of the life sustaining water.       He glimpsed his dim wavering reflection in the pool before he cupped his hands to fill them with water and drank, reliving his parched throat.  He resisted the urge to gulp it down as a precaution against upsetting his stomach again.  The stubble on his face was prickling his hands as he drank and he thought he needed a shave.  He hadn't managed one since the day before yesterday.       Johnny was dusky skinned with fine and sharp angles in his features, high cheekbones, fine black brows, high arched nose, big liquid black eyes with long black eyelashes and full masculine lips.  He was handsome, even charming when he tried.  His hair was covered with head dress made of a reddish brown cloth that was held in place with a woven black head band.  Under it his shining black hair was long enough to fall all the way to his feet.  He kept it bound in a tight bun at the base of his skull most of the time to keep it out of the way.  It was considered to be a sign of strength and masculinity for a man to never cut his hair, a tradition he had adopted soon after joining his tribe as a boy.       His body was long, lean and hard muscled.  His long fingered hands were strong and callused from years of rough work.  He could never get fat, what he didn't work off, the desert sun seemed to sear away.       Little Girl in her human form was similarly lean and hard muscled.  Her skin was golden brown and her nearly waist length wavy and curly auburn hair glistened with golden highlights.  Her eyes were large with chocolate brown irises, fine brows, full pinkish lips and the general cast of her facial features was rounded, angelically perfect and amazingly gorgeous.       In her dragon form she was also quite beautiful.  Elongated triangular head with powerful jaws, almost raptor beak shaped lips and dog like teeth with the upper canine elongated just enough for the tips to protrude slightly.  Powerfully muscled all over, with a horse like neck, lizard ears, large cat eyes the color of topaz with hints of light emerald green in the centers.  Each eye was protected by a single thick and smooth bony brow ridge.  Her hard scales, smooth as a serpent's, were a deep goldenrod color that blended well with the hues of the desert.  Most dragons have snake-scoot like armor plates that run from just under their chin all the way down to just past the base of their tails.  However, Little Girl's kind didn't have that particular feature; she was just smooth scales all over.       An unusual feature of her species is that the females have a marsupial like pouch to carry their eggs and young.  Her powerful hind limbs were slightly longer than her forelimbs, the better to jump into the sky.  Another feature unique to her species was the reddish brown feathered eagle wings and soft fur like feather mane that ran all the way from the top of her head to her withers that stood straight up.  Along the top of her tail she had a similar strip of feathers from the base to its tip.  Both were the same color as her hair in human form, only in her true form, the golden highlights were iridescent metallic gold colored patterns.       Little Girl's feet closely resembled monkey paws with sharp curved dark brown claws with rough scales on the bottoms that gave her better grip for climbing.  Her forepaws were every bit as nimble as a human's hands.  Her head, wings and feet looked slightly too big for her.  Her head was just a bit more rounded and softer in appearance than the adult dragon's.  As she aged to maturity her features would harden into a fiercer countenance and her body parts would look less ill proportioned.       And Goldie?  Well, she just looked like a big healthy and slightly plump rat the size of a small domestic cat.  Her shining fur was her most unusual feature, even for her kind.  It was a golden, streaked here and there with copper and bronze without being metallic in hue.  The bare skin on her tail, slightly enlarged ears, feet and nose were brownish with pink undertones.  She had another unusual feature for a rat, her forepaws were actually hands.  She was quite lovely in her own way.       Her black beady eyes, the way she moved and interacted with her environment, belied her high intelligence.  Desert rats were magical creatures with talents for food and water detection, weather sense, teleportation and human speech, though not all bothered to learn to speak a human language of any kind, preferring their own rat language.  The exception to this was the companion rats living with some of the nomadic tribes of the deep Red Sands Desert.  Constant close contact with humans, who treated them with kindness, respect and spoiled them rotten made them want to be more helpful and communicative with their human friends.       They were tough and well adapted to their desert environment.  They could go for days without water just by getting moisture from the plants and animals they ate.  They were amazingly good swimmers and had a special magic that prevented them from drowning.  They could remain immersed in water for days by using their magic to form an air bubble over their noses and mouths that constantly replenished itself from the oxygen in the water.  This saved them from drowning in the lowlands when it sometimes flooded during the rainy season, as they could accidently be swept away in the torrential waters that nearly always originated in the distant mountains to the east.  This magical talent also enabled them to hunt for small aquatic cave creatures like blind fish, small cave shrimp and salamanders.       Another odd trait of her kind was their extreme longevity.  Normal mundane rats averaged about two years in their life span, desert rats could live eighty or more years.  They were not as prolific since they didn't need to be.  They mated as often as they wished any time of the year, but females only became fertile once every three years.  When they did have litters, they often did it in a big way, having as many as fifteen pups at a time.       The odd family trio took their time drinking from the spring until they finally got their fill.       "Ahhh," Johnny sighed after dabbing his hands and mouth dry on his sleeves.  He sat back on his heels as his two family members finished drinking.       They were all exhausted and in need of food and rest.  Johnny wondered what was in the satchel Little Girl had been carrying for so long through the sky.  He hoped she had at least managed to steal some food from the camp because he hadn't eaten since yesterday morning.  He was pleased to note that his current gastric discomfort was mere hunger and not the bad cramps and nausea head been enduring the past week.  He was feeling better and better by the moment in spite of being so tired.       "What's in the bag?" Johnny asked Little Girl as she too sat back on her heels, facing him as she did so.       She wrapped her small arms around her legs and leaned her chin onto her knees.  She looked up at him with those big liquid eyes and answered with a regretful sigh, "Not much.  Just the royal seal in its box, a few ration bars and some tubers I managed to dig up a few miles back.  I was looking for the charmed mirror grandmother gave you,  but I think I found it smashed with the other things the guards broke.  One of the men almost saw me and Goldie wanted me to hurry up.  So I hid and started singing so she could help you."       Johnny smiled at Little Girl's thoughtfulness and practicality.  "You and Goldie did alright, baby girl.  Though I would not have been upset if you left the royal seal behind.  Just this once I wouldn't have minded not being able to fulfill my contract with Princess Elena.  That seal is more trouble than it's worth."       "You're not mad?" Little Girl said as she stared at him with wide eyes.  She looked surprised and half pleading for him not to be angry with her.       "No, not this time," Johnny said affectionately as he reached out and tucked a loose strand of her silken hair behind her right ear.  Then he waved an admonishing finger at both of them and added with a gentle smile, "Just don't make disobeying me a habit.  I would rather you two stayed safe."       "It was my idea to come back after dark," Goldie said stubbornly.  "If she hadn't come with me I would have done what I could alone."       Johnny smiled and stroked Goldie's head with love and gratitude.  "Thanks both of you, I don't know when I could have escaped if you had not come back for me."       Johnny stood and retrieved the dark brown satchel and passed out the sweet potato like tubers the purple berry thorn bushes grew and the three ration bars between them.  As they ate, Johnny tried to think of what to do next through the increasing sleepiness that was slowly dragging him down.  After a few moments he could think of nothing else but to go back home to his family.  He'd been putting it off, fearing the royal guards would follow him even there, but now he saw no better option.       Johnny could hear the increasingly strong wind howling outside through the cave entrance and the small crack in the ceiling.  He looked up and saw the flying sand that was rapidly dimming what little of the morning light that managed to filter its way through the crack.  Good, their pursuers won't be able to hunt them in this weather.       "Goldie, I need to get a message to Mom," Johnny asked, as his rat nibbled on a piece of ration bar.  He didn't have much hope that Goldie would make it to his mother's tent just now.  Storms could interfere with certain spells, especially when a big electrical charge was built up in the atmosphere.  Teleportation was just one of those spells that were affected negatively by fouled weather.       Goldie regarded him thoughtfully over her piece of ration bar with her beady black eyes.  Then she tilted her head back and stood up on her hind legs, looking up and through the crack in the ceiling.   Long whiskers twitching, she tested the air with all her senses, detecting things only she could with her magic.         Then she dropped back down to her heels and looked at him.  "Can't do it.  I promise to go when the storm passes.  It will blow itself out in a few hours.  What is your message?"       "I need you to bring us home.  My sand ship has been captured and vandalized by Prince Richard's guards and they are still hunting us.  We are hiding in the Crack in the Rock Spring Cave."  Johnny paused to think of anything else to tell his mother.  Then he thought better of it, best to keep the message short and tell her everything when she found them.  "That should do for now."       "I can remember that," Goldie nodded and then resumed nibbling on her bit of ration bar.       They tried to make themselves comfortable as possible on the cool and uneven cave floor to get some sleep and wait out the storm.  Little Girl stretched out next to him in her full dragon form, hugging him and flipping a huge wing over him like a blanket.  Goldie snuggled under Little Girl's wing and made herself comfortable on Johnny's belly.       Little Girl and Goldie were soon fast asleep, but in spite of his exhaustion he found it difficult to fall asleep himself.  His mind refused to stop working.  How has his life turned out so right and so wrong at the same time? 

(This book can be bought on Amazon either as a paper back book or as a Kindle.  Just type in Unexpected Cargo by Meriah Smith and it will pop right up.)