I was going to do it this month, BUT things have come up and I am going to have to step away from it for the time being (if things settle down, maybe I can resign up for later this summer)

Going to be participating this year, focusing on the ABCs of Imps book, but will be doing other things as well :3

dangerous-ladies:

So you wanna wear a cape?

(God, this new uploading system is balls. It took me forever to arrange them in the right order, because according to Tumblr, despite the pictures being both numbered and uploaded in order, they should just go where-ever they please.)

In this tutorial you’ll be learning to make a basic single-layer cape that attaches from the collarbones. It is patterned as a circle so that it drapes and flows, giving it a lot of body and “flow” when you walk. It has a hand-rolled hem on all sides to give it a clean, finished look without any raw edges.

It works for characters with “trimless” single-coloured capes, such as Superman, Mon-El, or Thor. I will be doing tutorials for trimmed capes or double-layered capes (or capes that have different coloured layers) at a later date, as well as a proper tutorial on collared capes.

What you will need:

• Basic sewing equipment (pins, tape measure, scissors, sewing machine)
• Sufficient fabric; a half-circle cape will take roughly 120”x60”, but ideally you just need a rectangle that is double in length as it is in width. You also want this fabric to be light-medium weight and made of polyester so that it is easier to care for and IRONS WELL. A tiny bit of stretch is alright, but be aware that the more stretch there is, the more your cape will desire to be as close to the ground as possible… and who likes a droopy, sad cape?
• An iron and ironing board.

To make things easier, you may also want:

• A flexible ruler makes life easier to do the curve of the neckline.
• A friend to help play “compass” with you.
• If you have the physical constitution of wet paper towel (as I do), you may want to pop an Advil, because you’re going to hemming for fucking hours.

Ready? Here we go.

Spread your fabric out on the nice, clean floor. Fold it in half down the middle so that you have a square. Then fold it diagonally, so that you have a “slice”; the third and fourth pictures demonstrate this, but you basically want to have something that will open up to be one piece. This is going to save you a lot of time pinning the bottom curve of your cape.

Once you have your fabric laid out nicely and the edges lined up beautifully, take your measuring tape and decide how long you need this cape to be. Josh here is 5’7” or so, and we cut the cape to 57.5”, this way the finished cape will land just around his ankles from the back of his neck.

Remember compasses? Not the kind you use to save your lost ass from the wilderness and find “North”, the kind you used in sixth grade math class like twice and thought was really cool but had no practical use for.  Well, now you get to do something Similar. Line up your measuring tape with that top “point” of your fabric, so it sits nicely in the middle. Have your friend put their finger on it, with enough pressure to keep it from sliding but still leave it room to “swing”. You’re going to use this to draw a large curve across the fabric, using whatever length suits you — if you want to cut a 58” long cape, then use the 58” mark on the measuring tape to pin across. You can see us doing this in picture six. 

Finish pinning the whole way across and then cut just below the pins. When you open it up, you have a big ass cape! (Picture seven.) But it doesn’t have a neck curve yet, and you’ll want to add that so it hangs around your neck nicely. Fold it up again in half (don’t worry about the pizza slice this time) and measure your neck to see how wide you want this neckline to be. We picked 20”, which means we needed to cut an arc that spanned 10”. Now, I’m impatient with math, so I just bent my flexible ruler into a curve and used my measuring tape to make sure it was equal distance away from the corner, but if you’re better at math than I am, you can figure out how many inches you need to “swing” just like you did to cut the bottom of the cape. (A 10” half-circle needs about a 6” swing, for the record.) When you’re done that, cut.

And now you have a cape!

But it’s not finished yet.

If you’re fancy, you may have something called a “rolled hem foot” that lets you do stuff like this easily, but a) I find those things more trouble than they’re worth and b) what am I, a wizard? I’m not fucking around with a foot when I can do it manually. You might be a wizard, though, so if you want to explore this magical sewing foot, you can read someone else’s tutorial here.

But if you’re cool and want to stick with me and learn how to do it manually, that’s cool, too.

Now, if you just folded over the edges once and sewed it down and called it a day, your cape might still be okay. But you don’t want fraying –– that stuff is ugly, and you’ll appreciate the extra work of doing a rolled hem, which is just a fancy way to say “fold that shit over twice.”

Picture 9 shows this pretty clearly, I think –– fold over the edge you want to hem once, iron it, and then fold it over again, so that the ugly raw edge is trapped inside. Pin it all. You’re going to want to pin it very evenly and close together, and TAKE YOUR TIME. If you rush it, you’re going to end up with an ugly, uneven hem, and it’ll bubble up in weird places because you’re hemming a big curve, here. This can be very tedious and take a long time, especially if your cape is huge. (This is why it is usually faster to just make a double-layered cape. UGH, HEMMING.) But the results are worth it; a single-layered cape with beautiful hems is gorgeous and usually less bulky than a double-layered one, so they fly better.

Once you have everything pinned (taking care to pin down the corners neatly, too) you can sew it all. Take your time and make sure the fabric is tight/flat when you sew over it, lest you end up with weird bubbles and misplaced hems. Stay close to the edge of the hem, so that you don’t end up with overhang.

Speed will only sabotage you.

Once you’re done sewing it all down, take out any remaining pins and give the whole thing a good ironing. This should smooth out any remaining warps in your fabric, as you’re using a polyester and they can be warped back into line a little with some heat. 

And then enjoy your cape. You earned it. 

Go race some airplanes.

twinzik:

cosplayhelpandtips:

Need a quick and easy way to make gloves in the shade of your tights to save on body painting? Well just get two pairs of those tights, trace your hand on something stiff like cardboard, sew around it, and DONE!

The best part about this method is that you can still add a little makeup on top of the tights to do some adjustments in matching colors/ adding details (wrinkles, knuckles, veins, ect), but you can do this BEFORE you wear your cosplay at the con, giving it plenty of time to dry!

And don’t forget to add some fake nails to make the job look even more natural! One more quick tip is to use clear or color-matching nail polish along the seams to make sure you don’t cause any runs through the fabric.

-Twinzik

(source this’ll take you to the Facebook fanpage status this originated from)

Someone shared Hopie’s info on armsocks! Awesome!!

queensimia:

helpyoudraw:

Skin Tutorial by acidlullaby from DeviantArt

Also check out the rest of their Tutorial gallery section for more tutorials about skin!

Thanks to reflectuousechoes for telling us about this tutorial! 

don’t remember if I’ve reblogged this or just liked it, either way have some skin painting tips.

(incidentally, anyone know of any good ones for darker skin?)

silvermender:

nevertoomanyspiders:

gkazul:

arandadill:

Shoulder Tips

Needed this for about twenty years

this is a godsend

where have you been all my life

sparkle-fluff:

queensimia:

tobediff:

Section One of Part Three!  Some interesting approaches to wrinkles in clothing.

Holy shit, someone translated Hitokaku tutorials into English?! GIEF TO ME

this is such a fantastic way of explaining it!

pythosblaze:

animationtidbits:

Guide to Drawing Horses & Birds - Cedarseed

Reblogging this so I can find it again. ‘Cause daaaamn

helpyoudraw:

Ciameth’s Wing Tutorial by Ciameth from Deviantrt

eyecager:

https://www.facebook.com/Anatomy4Sculptors/photos_albums

Such a fantastic resource!!

pythoskeeps:

dyemelikeasunset:

Tutorial: Feet and Shoes

A little old, but hope it helps!

Yes thank you

pythosblaze:

helpfulharrie:

Source: sakimichan

Reblog for reference!

crispysnakes:

Hey guys, so as you’ve probably heard a few times over the past couple of weeks Thomas Cobb, the guy I got my baby Slice from, is fighting an ongoing battle to keep his boas.  

You can get the initial story here.  He was washing brand new bins in the yard (for the boas) when a neighbor called the cops with a suspicion that ‘he must be growing or breeding something’.  Animal control and the cops showed up, and as he had nothing to hide he invited them in and showed them around.  His basement is built specifically to house his collection.  He has the best caging and materials money can buy, his set-up is top notch, secure, clean, and professional.  The animals are VERY well cared for.  The cops left saying all was well and it was noted how clean everything was.  Shortly after that incident the city turned around to tell him he had to get rid of all but one animal, citing the city’s exotic animal law as a reason when in fact they were caving to the pressure of the nosy neighbor and her sympathizers.     

Thomas is a stand up, honest man and a responsible herper.  He had just moved to Salt Lake recently and was unaware of the need for a permit.  The exotic law in itself does not state a limit to the number of animals that can be owned, and vaguely encompasses all non-native animals (turtles, sugar gliders, guinea pigs, etc. - the things you usually find at pet stores).  As you can imagine this law is not enforced and people still own exotics.  Nevertheless, they cited his lack of a permit as a reason and attempted to get him to remove the entirety of his collection down to one snake while denying him the ability to actually apply for a permit.  

Thomas fought back and thankfully, he was granted a little more time to work things out.  This is the current situation.  He has been been meeting with the city council in order to work things out.

Now just yesterday, the nosy neighbor submitted a petition to have Thomas’s snakes forcibly removed.  Her reasons were that she is ‘worried for her kids’ and she touted that a neighbor that owned snakes would ‘bring the value of the neighborhood down’.  The ignorance displayed by both her and the people supporting her is astounding, and reflects the incredibly poor attitude many uneducated people have about these animals.  In response, Thomas’s supporters have put up a petition to counter hers in order that he can keep his snakes in peace.   

I ask that you guys take a minute to sign the petition above.  We all love our animals and no one would want to be forced to part with any of their beloved pets.  Please help Thomas keep his boas.   

frankenbolt:

moriartygodofmischief:

This mallard is a friggin genius

…THAT FIRST ONE.

THANK YOU DUCK.

michelinamm:

These are so hard; you’ll feel them everywhere-great for the inner thigh