Frock Chick

Today I managed to mix latex do support my latest set of Montral. They look really great, got a lovely curve. But the weather has turned which means I have to leave them alone for several days again or I risk collapsting the latex against itself. If it was super hot it would be very easy to avoid bumping into them for a short period of time.

But I have nearly got the hilts sanded back, so I need to pick up some Rub n Buff as the only way to finish these- metal paint just is not going to allow for the fine detail to show.

But I thought I’d share a theory.

At the end of The Clone Wars Ahsoka leaves the Jedi. She also gains respect for Ventress who basically helps her more than anyone in clearing her name. Ventress used curved hilts.including when she helped Ahskoka, in fact they are recognised even in some darkness.

In Canon Ventress owns the only curved hilts- aside from Dooku whom of course Ventress was apprenticed too.

I won’t spoil Ventress’s arc but suffice to say I can’t help but think she had a lasting impact on Ahsoka who by this time was rethinking what it means to be good, what it means to be loyal.

The curved shape cannot just be a coincidence. Even if it’s not a straight up homage it has to be part of her thinking.

Lightsabers are a reflection of the Jedi who wield them and as Ahsoka no longer thinks of herself as Jedi. So she uses all her learning to create them. The crystals are from a sith after all. She reuses them after removing all trace of the sith, but also without leaving any trace of Jedi training.

To say I’m invested in an Ahsoka who has learned her life is not what it was and has gained a lot of insight, even to know her limits is a bit of an understatement. I am very nervous about her fate in Rebels, I’d quite liked to have had her remain where we last saw her. We know others manage to hide from the force for decades. I am okay with that.

I’ve had my first infusion, not feeling terribly great but that’s because it is doing what it is supposed to. So I feel flu-y. Time for some more paracetamol and a rest.

So I can’t really use too many “spoons” outside of healing. Tomorrow I’ll rehem Elsa (horsehair braid really does help the hem kick out.) Friday is my nerve conduction test (really scared I’ll wind up sick in the room. Not great with needles any more.)

So I’ll have to wait til after that for Ahsoka. Luckily she isn’t a heavy project. Just frustrating.

Instagram importer isn’t working all the time, so I’m trying to backtrack a bit.

I’ve been doing slow work on hilts and montral. The hilts will likely end up with a layer of rub nbuff as I can’t get my pigments to work with my air brush.

But the tunic and mitts are going well.

To make the little windows in the mitts I used a stretch fusible on the inside layer. This is so that all the stabilising stiches are on the inside.

What this means though is I had to turn the upper edge in  and overcast it to shape. I then turned the seam inside out and used my finger nail to press the seams flat and machined them. I worked as far in from the underside as possible then from the other end. And finally stabilised the seam allowance on the inside layer.

The tunic has been refitted and an extension added to hold the tunic in place. This will snap just forward of the seat And I have taken the neck in at the back so it swoops around to the back of the neck.

Here the mitts are inside out. I will overlock all these seams as soon as possible. Today I need to hem my Elsa cape 🙂

Thank goodness! I took the day to redo the montral and front lekku for a nice clean line. It’s worked which is nice 🙂 I was thinking about taking a break from the costume because of them but I think it’s going to work out.

But yay. It’s also inspiring me to work on other scifi type gear 🙂

Including Maleficent 🙂 I’ll need to work with her under better lighting to get a good scan- the ends keep being missed in the IR camera. I may be able to heat up some paler clay to see if that helps.Ditto putting lines on. I’ll see how I go today and tomorrow. But latexing is my main task for the next few days. I say days as the weather is not yet warm enough to cure quickly so I have to cure smart. So no putting the stand outside where it can blow over (had that) and where I can’t prod at it make the support collapse (done that!).

Hmm I may need to quickly put some extra support underneath. Fingers crossed.

Yes. I also need to get some pigment into a container to mix into her colour too. BTW her pantone swatches do not match the final result, so it’s going to be interesting!

My Take A Breather costume- A remake of my Jem dress 🙂 The belt and shoes were still fine but I also have a glorious new wig. So it needs a really glam dress.

And Ahsoka belt and bracers. I now have the belt wet forming on a dressform.

The horns separated in temperature change, the plastic went up and the clay went down. This necessitated getting the horns able to be worked on more easily and able to be tidied away.

Take the seat off a stool and replace it with the sculpting surface. Perfect height for sitting at 🙂

My back lekku is a little short and the front sit too close so I also had to change how I worked with her.

So I put my old head cast on a dress form. Her neck is so short because I was aligning bust and chin. My shoulders sit much lower and my neck is rather long. This may help exlpain how much work I need to do on patterns to fit them! And why dress forms are rarely helpful.

This is a waratah. It is not supposed to be a standard (long skinny trunk and ball shaped top.) But that is what we have. Also the bottle brush at the back is not a single tree but is doing what the waratah was supposed to.

Finally some of the ducks are back. This one taps on my door for food. And then goes to the other end of the drive to the house to ask for more.

But I am nearly back to where I was. I decided that I was too annoyed by the short back lekku to be happy. Side track to making a new stand for sculpting and I now have wiggly lekku- one attached two on the floor.

And so much mess.

So much.

But the back lekku has a layer of latex, there is latex grouting on the new montral seams (actually an older cast that was still in pieces) and I also templated a headband for her.

The site will default to your WP login but if you aren’t logged in you can use FB, or Twitter at the very least.  Woo!

After using the shape bender I used hidden geometry to work out why the end looked blunt and then added lines.

And then used Solid Inspector2 to check for errors. It actually fixed some things that were meant to repair, but not my edges which I did expect.

And then I found trying to slice through horizontally just did not work. The model is perfectly horizontal but as soon as I intersect faces it doesn’t. So lots of short pieces like for Ventress 🙂 I know that worked so this should work too 🙂

I started making fairly the overlaps to help join those pieces once printed but I’m not so I like them, so I’ll spend a little more time today on making ring supports instead.

Each hilt is more than 10 pieces. This is to better reflect the different materials (copper, silver, black) Also to allow the same print to be used as non functional and functional by having some separate blade holders able to be used simply as support, the end cap being functional with the D ring holder and screw. I kept getting errors using the bolt making plugin so I’d rather just not use that atm. It should work at a larger scale but I did find scaling could be unpredictable with curves,

These also have to be arranged in correct alignment for printing. which I will do once the connecting sections are added.

I find this quite painful and painfully slow work. A lot has had to be drawn by hand even after using tools and plugins. For example the supports I’m making can’t be just extruded as they connect into pieces on a different angle. So I have to copy from one piece and add to the first and then measure and draw to size. Luckily 5mm seems to work well so I can at least be fairly consistent with that 🙂

It’s seriously fiddly work, lots of copy paste and drawing on the inside and outside

This is where I left her Montral. The lekku are the next on the agenda.

I have a cunning plan, but I have managed to move and misplace or actually corretly store so many costume elements this year that I am not sure where all my lekku making materials are.

Sadly probably no pictures while I actually do the work. Latex all over the place and latex cures super fast when in thin layers so it’s easy to lift finger prints or grab fibres from anything if I am not careful 🙂 But it’ll be much the same way I worked on all my lekku.

So that is the plan for tomorrow- work out the lekku proportions and start marking the montral for seamlines with the lekku- I hope to hide the seam in the paint.

I sometimes think I should try and capture the fun times of working with SKU on screen record. And with mic on so you can hear the sears. They get a creative. Though the f’bomb is usually muttered. and the s’bomb gets stretched out to sheee-er-gerrr.

I saw my PC space with other so it means trying for levity in the stress.

So lots of what the foo, whyyyyyyy? *push keyboard away*  but whhh-hy-hhy-hy-hy-hy???

Never the less she persisted! Yes I went there. It’s basically the mantra of my life. And there will be a post!

I started with the original images, Note, this is a screenshot, it really is that blurry to work with. I wanted to do a line art originally but used a photocopy in hand and on screen just scaled to hight.

I actually then started a new model with the hilts cropped to height to make it muuuuch easier. And yes, when you import images you need to scale them once in as well. Unless there is a keyboard trick… there probably is.

then I made a series of guides and then drew curves and loved it. Until I realised yes, the sides are totally rounded, I did say the images are fuzzy!

So, Viola! (that was a pun.) New guides new scaled image and new face made the same way. From here I extruded a series of tubes leaving the inside empty. It worked really well for Asajj. But I am making mie a touch simple in the joins this time.

Guides guides everywhere!!!!! This was to create the inset grip of the longer hilt. Basically pecil and extrude and some maths!

And yep the decorations are in place. But I wound up having to move them on my longer hilt. That was just a bit frustrating.

Then came the other pieces; inset switches, what i think are peg/screws to hold the end caps in place, the long end cap holder, and the large button. Finally the emitter caps!

The large button. I goofed and wound up with the circle not centred so yesterday was a day of fixing issues like this. I placed everything together (they are all separate components so they will print separately and in whatever orientation works best. I also adjusted length and made the end cap holders fit smoothly to let them pass so we can gain acccess to the insides to put electronics inside.

Here you can see I had yet to place the end caps. But the are there not. I also got the emitters to their final shapes and sizes. One emitter needs some smoothing but aside from that I think I’m happy.

So today with the emitters lined up correctly it’s time to get the pencil out and start cutting.! Had a few practices but it’s not really been perfectly even as I didn’t have then perfectly on my guides.

It would be so nice if there was a super easy way to scale in SKU! It really should be as simple as selecting all, choosing scale and typing in the measurement- but there is a trick to clicking and unclicking and holding the mouse while typing(?) and so I am amazed I managed it. But scaling up by 1000% means I can do half mm in my print.

It is essentially an architectural tool so I get why it is much more sensible to have started at this size. Anyway.

Not bad for a single day where I had a big rest in the middle! My ribs are still sore, and my muscles in my forearms are sore (the shortened bones in my hand mean the tendons and muscles are overworked all the way to my elbows.)

So there are little greeblie details to add but I genuinely have to stop typing in 3,2,….