I'm a Knight!

Happy Halloween!
I finished my knight costume!

I spray painted it silver, then added some black paint around the edges to make it look weathered, and then I coated it all in some acrylic sealer. The only problem is that I was only able to let it dry for a few hours before I had to put it on this morning... so I smelled very strongly of spray paint and acrylic sealer... Oh, well.

I'm a Knight... Part 2

Finally, I was able to make some progress on my cardboard armor!

The breastplate is a tight fit, so I ended up lacing the sides and shoulders, so I can actually get it on.

I started covering the pieces in paper mache, putting toothpicks in the holes so I could make sure not to accidentally cover them.

Then, I designed my pauldrons. I had to kind of guess how they would fit on the breastplate, but I don't think it will matter too much.

I also added a hole on the top of each one, to connect them to the shoulders of the breastplate.

Now all that's left is painting the pieces when they're dry, and then I can wear them tomorrow!

This is Why I Never Get Anything Done...

I'm so easily distracted... It'll be a miracle if I get my knight costume finished by Halloween...
So, I was looking through some pictures I had saved, trying to get an idea of how to proceed with my armor, and I happened across this cool origami box tutorial that I had never tried before. So, naturally, I wanted to try it. And then I thought it was so cool that I had to make ten more...
These are the prettiest ones I made:

At least I had gotten a little bit farther on my armor before that...

It looks kind of weird right now because I tried mod podging over part of the front piece... and then I realized that it wasn't quite the right shape and I that I probably should cover it in paper mache instead. But now I have a back to it as well. My next step is finding a way to connect the two pieces at the top. Hopefully with less distractions this time...

Mole-locs!

Happy Mole Day!

I decided to make a festive plushie for the occasion- a murloc mole (AKA a mole-loc).

Two years ago, when I was in Regents Chemistry, my teacher had us make stuffed moles using this pattern for Mole Day, and told us to be as creative as we wanted with it. So I made Han Molo and Chewbacmole (I would have made just Han, but I thought he would be lonely)… and that actually was what made me realize that sewing plushies wasn’t so hard, and that creating an elekk plushie might be a legitimate possibility.

So anyways, I decided to make another mole using the same pattern this year. Plus, since I’m taking AP Chemistry, I had a good excuse :)

I'm a Knight... Part 1

I finally decided what I’m going to dress up as for Halloween this year! A knight! It is a bit last-minute, but at least it’s better than the past few years, when I literally came up with something the night before. One time I wore a blue shirt with a red bandana as Merlin, then the next year I drew blue arrows on my forehead, arms, and legs, and was an airbending master. And last year, I put slightly more time into my costume and dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow.

I had gotten the idea from camp, since one week my cabin all dressed up as Johnny Depp characters. It was pretty fun. And the best part both times was seeing people's reactions to the beard and mustache.

But anyways, this year, I’m going to make a better costume. And I have over a week to do it! I was going to try to finish a can tab chainmail shirt that I started a few years ago, but the tabs kept breaking away from each other, and it was frustrating. So, I’m making cardboard armor instead. This is what it looks like so far:

I’m not sure how many pieces of armor I can finish before Halloween, but I’m planning on at least making some pauldrons, and maybe a back for the breastplate.

To All the Rabbits I've Loved Before

So... yesterday I finally had a little break from homework, and I had a chance to do fun stuff again! And, naturally, I forgot about all of my half-finished projects and started something new instead... I was looking at some pictures, one of them being a Horde symbol, and I realized that if you turn it a little, it looks kind of like an eye. So I decided to add one to the rabbit icon from World of Warcraft:

I think it looks a little more interesting than the plain old rabbit, though maybe a little evil, too...

I Think I Just Redefined Small

Ever since I first learned to make paper cranes, back in like kindergarten, I’ve always had this strange obsession with trying to make them as small as I could. At first, that meant I cut a piece of origami paper in quarters and made them out of that. When I made my first set of 1000 cranes for one of my friends, they fit in a coffee can, and I thought that was good. Then the set of 1000 I finished last month fit into a jar. I’ve always wanted to know the smallest cranes I can make with my bare hands, and I figured now was a good time to test it out. These past few weeks, I’ve been too bogged down with homework to really do any crafts besides occasional cranes, so I thought that this would be a nice, quick craft I could do. I started with 5 squares, measuring 2, 1.75, 1.5, 1.25, and 1 cm square.

Surprisingly, I was able to make all of them fairly well (though the smallest ones did take a bit more time).  

I think that 1 cm is probably the limit of how small I can make them with this thickness of paper, though. Especially with the smaller cranes, the creases become extremely important, and with the last one there was barely enough paper to make the final creases at all…

It’s also amazing the difference in size between the cranes made from 2 cm and 1 cm squares!

Maybe I’ll eventually try to make even smaller cranes, but at least for now, I think these are pretty small. :)