[skratch's sketchbook] Why Do I Keep Dreaming Bigger!?

By chiken_skratch. 28/07/13, 01:51 am

I've seriously screwed up my right arm, not sure how, but bending my fingers or wrist causes shooting pain to go right up arm, so I can do duck all atm, lol. That and my left hip is being a Richard and making walking very difficult, *sighs* It's like my body thinks it's 85 or something, lol. It should be noted that I haven't actually done anything that would warrent my arm and hip to be in pain, that's just how my body works at this current point in time, lol... OTL
I don't know how long it's gunna take to heal, but whenever something like this happens it usually take about 2 weeks-a month to heal/stop hurting. And without the use fo my right arm I can't make cosplay, and 2 weeks-a month is a lot of time lost that I despereately need to make Rem and Ryuk, so I'm just gunna go ahead and call it off, unfortunately.

I should still be going to Auckgeddon, I just won't be cosplaying Rem and Michael won't be cosplaying Ryuk because Ryuk's near all hand sewing and Michael can't sew, lmao.
Might cosplay them next year, might not, but Death Note is just not on the cards for me this year.

By slinky. 28/07/13, 02:57 pm

Oh no!! that really sucks to hear. I hope you heal up soon ;;

By chiken_skratch. 14/08/13, 05:26 am

@Slinky - Thanks, My right arm is pretty much better, but my left hip decided it would die again lol. Oh, and I should have a tutorial out about how I made the tails before Auckgeddon.

RIGHT!!!
So I still want to make something epic for Auckgeddon, something "simple" and epic, so I decided on Naruto in his 6 tails Kyuubi release form.

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I make a very simple wire base for whatever bone part I am currently making. I'll use the basic forearm bones (Don't know the term, I never did biology, lol). I use various wires; from thick stong very hard to bend into specific shapes wire, to semi-strong thin wire, to jewelry wire which is very thin but bends very easily. (I'm writing this to the soundtrack of my cat cleaning her butt, just incase you wanted to know)

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Then I have a little bit too much fun applying line after line after line of hot glue. Like, seriously, you've got no idea how fun hot glue is. I want to make all my props out of hot glue from now on, thats how much I love it. I keep adding layers in specific areas until I have the shape I want, for instance, up the top and down to bottom of the bones to give them those classic bulbous shapes.

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Now I am very aware that the bones are mishapen and bumpy and what not. I wanted them to look that way, like they were still being formed with chakra and hadn't settled yet/were still growing. I would have used a chicken wire base and expanding foam/paper mache method if I wanted them nice and smooth like actual bones. I'm gunna cover these hot glue bones in paper tape and paper mache so that the surface area is at least smooth, but I wanted the bones themselves to look warped and mishapen, and hot glue and wire will always ensure warped and mishapen, I imagine you can't use this method for many things, lol.

I've also made the skull part. I've got photos of the wire base and stuff, but they are on my sisters camera... which I've temporarily misplaced... so, yeah. When I find it I'll post the wire base pics. But for now, enjoy What the skull currently looks like.

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And it sits on my head like this, please excuse my charming bare face and the like:

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I'm currently doing the other part of the forearm bones, but need to go out and buy a WHOLE LOT MORE HOT GLUE. Seriously, I've gone through so much. Don't ask how much, just know that it's a LOT. But it's cheap where I get it from, so that always helps. C:

By monochromaticsky. 15/08/13, 02:58 am

....some friends and i are going to bringing naruto cosplays up to auckgeddon...WE SHOULD HAVE PHOTOS <3 <3 <3 <3 especially since i'm gonna be going as Sai and we have a Sakura~you should be our naruto >3<//// in his released form~ and also hope that you get better...nothing like health/body problems to complicate everything..

By chiken_skratch. 15/08/13, 05:22 am

@monochromaticsky - OMG that would be soooo bloody cool!!! What day are you all going as Sai and Sakura??? Or are you doing all the days as them?? I'll PM you my cell number now so we can find each other at geddo. SO EXCITED NOW!!!! Haha, I won't be getting any better for years to come, but thank you very much for your support C:

By chiken_skratch. 24/08/13, 09:30 am

So I've been very very busy making bones and building up an impressive hot glue gun callus on my right index trigger finger. And I am proud to say I've only burnt myself once so far, and it was only the tiniest of burns as well.

I have finished the forearms!!! YAY!!!! The were a total Richard and we are no longer on speaking terms. But I took a picture of them just before I condeemed them to the darkest corner of the lounge whilst I worked on other things.

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For the bone claws I bought some polymorph friendly plastic seeing as I just can't work the hot glue precise or smooth enought o make little claws with. Well, I say little, but the full paw will be just bigger than my own hand. I made the tips first:

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Then I thought I cud just melt the ends of them back down and attach them to the ends of the wire guides on the paw part... It took forever to remelt through all that plastic, and then I botched it several times, So I just through them all in and spent like half an hour melting them all back down OTL

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So I started the claw and paw parts again. But this time I've decided to start at the base of the paw first and make the actual claw part individually:

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Next I'll make the small bone that connects the claw to the larger bone in the paw. And whilst polymorph is a blast to work with (provided you're quick enough), I got very bored with it very quickly once I realised I had screwed up royally, lol. So I've still got to psyche myself up to finish the rest of the claws and paws. I hope Naruto realises how much I love him. *cries in corner over the multiple times I stuck my hand in boiling hot water to get the plastic out when I forgot that just because the plastic is safe to handle, doesn't mean the water is*

And my final thing to update right now is the start of the spine/ribs. Jesus, I spent over an hour bending a stupid single strip of wire so that the top sat at the base of my neck and the bottom of it bent outwards to where Naruto has a little mini extended tail bone to make a mine bone tail, it's actually quite cute but is going to be a total pain in the butt to make. (anatomy pun intended). But the reason I spent so long on make it is so I that when I stand up straight the spine will stick out from my actual back with quick the substantial gap, and then when I bend over it "should" curl around my own spine but still have a little gap between my back and the bone spine. For something that looks very simple, it took forever to make. Then I had to do some warped dance to figure out where the three sets of ribs need to go. And this is the bery basc wire base of it so far. I'll add little thin wire guide lines along the spine so I can use less hot glue to make the vertabrae.

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Hear me go on about tail logistics if you want:

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By Paul. 25/08/13, 06:14 pm

You are making amazing things with hot glue!

How many sticks of glue have you used?

By chiken_skratch. 26/08/13, 03:14 am

@Roy Mustang - Thanks!! It's horribly fun making things with hot glue.
Ummm... lots. Lots and lots. I've used 15sticks of the 20cm length type. And there are about 30sticks in the packs I get that are abot 10-13cm long. And I've been through at least 7-10 packs of those.... so lots. Lots and lots. XD.....OTL But the packs that I buy are cheap as, $2 for those small 30 packs. Oh, and I'm using the mini-width sticks because the hot glue gun I'm using is the small type, so that might make the ammount of glue used sound a bit dramatic, lol.

By chiken_skratch. 05/09/13, 01:26 pm

Oh I am so procrastinating this body suit like a mofo. I can't wait to paint it, but the actually making a pattern for ity and then sewing the actual thing is just not appealing at the point, lol. I miss making bones :C

Speaking of bones, I only have the thigh bones to do and the claws/paws. The spine, ribs and hips are now completely done and I fit in the chest concavity delightfully. Hehe. I think I'll go over the ribs and some parts of the spine with a bit more hot glue just to make sure it is nice and strong and can take a little bit of a beating with me wearing it all day for three days in a row, lol. I was going to cover the hot glue bones in masking tape then paper mache it then paint it, but when I started placing the masking tape over the skull it lost all of it's personality that the little dips and grooves and spirals from the hot glue gave it. And I know that sounds stupid, bones having personality, but seriously, it just looked really boring. I looked more bone like, being all flatish and smoothish, but it lost all its flare. So I'm just gunna seal over the hot glue with some PVA glue then paint it with wall paint so that you can see all of the little details and grooves. If it comes out anything like my hot glue sand hand ~~that I still haven't completely finished~~ for Gaara that I made then it will look like what I think hardening and dense chakra looks like. But enough logistics on hot glue and paint and hardened chakra, come see how I made the spine look like a spine with hot glue and wire!!

So you've already seen how I made the base of the spine, with thick wire bent and curved to form perfectly to my spine and what not. Well, to get the shape of teach of the vertebrae I got thin jewellery wire and bent it into the shape of a vertebrae and hot glued it into place. I started at the top and then worked my way down. I only have progress shots of the lower vertebrae and the hips and the sacrum and stuff because I got far too excited when making the cervical vertebrae (neck bones) and the thoracic vertebrae (mid spine) and only remembered by the time I got to the lumbar vertebrae (lower spine) and the sacrum (butt bone where your hips sit) and the coccyx (tail bones).

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Once the wire bases are done and shaped and secured the way I want them I fill them in line by line with hot glue until the become solid and look totally bad ass, like so:

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I have the correct amount of cervical vertebrae but not even near the right amount of the rest due to lack of space and me wanting to make things look as dramatic and large as I could. Also, the hips bones are meant to curl around the sacrum, but I didn't want this for the spine I was making because I didn't want to have to try and somehow make the hips curl around my own hips without it being seriously uncomfortable and hard to move in or too big to allow me to move in them and looking out of place a bit. But I couldn't just scrap the hip bones entirely to make my life easier so had the hip bone sit flat just a wee bit above my own hips and had the sacrum under that curling up into a slightly extended coccyx to look like a little tail that will nestle itself somewhere in amongst my six tails. And the thigh bones are attached to the hips so I really couldn't skip over the hip bones. The anatomy in trying to make this all work out is ridiculous lmao. But I hope all the research I did makes it just that much more believable and I doesn't hurt to know what a few bones in your body are called, lmao.

I haven't taken photos of it yet, but I have done the ribs, will probably make them a bit thicker, and attached the shoulder blades and arm bones to the spine and holy damn is it looking badass or what!!!!! So bloody cool!!! I'll take photos of them at some point in the near future and show you all what they look like so far. I just have to remember to attach the ligaments and the muscles fibres to the skeleton before I start painting it all.

OH!! And I did a Cecil Baldwin cosplay from the podcasts of "Welcome To Night Vale". TheWolfsBane was my amazing photographer!!! HAd heaps of fun painting my arms with his supposed tattoos!!!

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By thewolfsbane. 03/10/13, 02:37 pm

Aw girl! Everything looks so good!

And thanks for the name drop ;)

**Guest** Guest

Please tell me you are entering the competition with this! It's jaw-dropping.

By chiken_skratch. 22/04/14, 08:17 am

@Ravin - I am hoping to enter the ole 6 tails in the Hammygeddon 2014 comp this year. It wasn't finished in time last year unfortunately so I couldn't enter it in.

SPEAKING OF THE OLE 6 TAILS!!!! Here's a photo of him on the Auckgeddon Monday I believe. I'd lost one of his arms on the run to the bus stop the day before which is why he seems a bit limbless in the photo below. But lucky for me a cosplay mate of mine found it and put it in her car and gave it to me later on that day!! LUCKY!!! THE COSPLAY GODS BLESSED ME ON THAT HOLY OF DAYS!!!!
[skratch's sketchbook] Why Do I Keep Dreaming Bigger!? - Page 3 Befunk11

[skratch's sketchbook] Why Do I Keep Dreaming Bigger!? - Page 3 Befunk11

And some more photos of him from the day

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And some other photo's of the costume from various angles:

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Now he was short two tails here due to a lack of time and fabric paint. There was also a very serious long list of malfunctions with this d-bag of a costume and seeing as I was in such a rush to complete it I didn't get to do a test-wear/run in it and discovered all of the malfunctions at the con, lmao. First up, that right bone arm kept falling off at it's elbow joint. I had to keep going back to my course's stall and getting my tutor to use his pliers to put it back together again, but it was probably the highlight of his day seeing some random run up in a red and black striped suit with four tails bouncing behind her and a skeleton stuck to my back and asking "Do you have pliers?" Whilst waving a bone arm in his face. He didn't believe I was who I said I was until I took off the skull and unzipped the suit to take a blinding look around and a gulp of fresh air, my hair all squashed and sticking up in every direction, hahaha. Now he calls me "Kyuubi."
Second malfunction was actually the first malfunction that happened. I carted the whole thing upstairs to put it on and heard a rip the moment I pulled the suit up over my hips. There was a MASSIVE rip where the stitching came apart at the crotch. But I had come prepared for this, so whipped out my needle and thread and began sewing the rip up. At that point the entire cast for the Supernatural panel that was there walked past me with my hand down my pants sewing the massive rip up, and I just smiled at them and said "Hi." and they smiled back at me and complemented my skeleton carcass that was sitting next to me and said hi back and it was all just a very amazing experience considering I was caught with my hands down my pants, lmfao.
And then there was the whole debarcle with the thread used to keep my tails up continuously snapping and I can't thank Maylee and Elishia enough for all their awesomeness xoxoxoxo I ended up using thin wire to keep the tails up in the end and that worked like a charm, but I didn't like the way the tails sat when I saw the photos of it, so I've got to work on a new way to keep them up now. Joy. Here's a picture of them at work

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Which is where we find me now, making alterations to the 6 Tails of Death. I gave him some pretty hot glue claws on his hands and feet instead of the glued on sharpened acrylic nails he had before. I'll upload photos of how I did that later, I've gotta upload them from my ipod first. So have me giving him a manicure and pedicure instead

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