costumes – Neon Shores http://neonshores.net/ a mess of creativity Thu, 25 Mar 2021 19:53:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7 Sleeping With Ghosts – Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo https://neonshores.net/2017/04/18/sleeping-with-ghosts-jacen-solo-tenel-ka-djo/ Tue, 18 Apr 2017 05:34:15 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=983 A few years ago Nate and I had some ideas for some Jacen Solo/Tenel Ka Djo (from Star Wars: Expanded Universe/Legends) photos we wanted to take. We put them on a list, got a couple more ideas that would include new costumes and this project was born! It grew a bit here and there and we never had a chance to work much on it (or name it or do anything for it really) but last summer we decided we really wanted to get some stuff done for it since we had been talking about it for so long and had so many notes on things we wanted to do for it! We tentatively called the whole thing Sleeping With Ghosts (after a song by the band Placebo, where the lyric “soulmates never die” stood out to us while listening to music during a plotting session) and ended up going with that name permanently. It fit better than we originally thought so why not? 😉

Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo - Sleeping With Ghosts

So that’s all how it came about — but what exactly is it? It started as a set of photos but has sort of grown into a multimedia collective of Jacen/Tenel Ka related works and things we’ve made. Costumes, photos, fanmixes, gifs, alternate universes — there’s a whole number of things we added into our planning/ideas list and began to work on when we decided we were definitely starting this whole thing.

To stay updated with the project, you can check out the main site for it or follow the tumblrpinterest or instagram!

Here’s a glimpse into just a small part of what we’re doing for this project — the alternate universes!


Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo - Sleeping With Ghosts

  “You know you absolutely cannot post this photo anywhere, correct?”
“Ugh, I know. Political matters, families, blah blah blah. Just let me pretend we’re allowed to be normal for once. And it’s not just any photo, it’s called a selfie.”
“That sounds ridiculous. Who came up with that?”

Yesterday In A Galaxy Next Door is a modern AU and includes Jacen the photography nerd plus his pets as well as his super-secret girlfriend TK – both of whom would rather not be in the public eye but usually are thanks to the politicians in their families.


Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo - Sleeping With Ghosts

“Some called her Lady Caedus for a time until there were whispers of a new designation, which came only after rumors of traitors in the Hapan Council. Those against her went after the most important things: first, her daughter, then the control of her court and finally the safety of her people. She had been a force to reckon with as Tenel Ka Chume Ta’ Djo, but now with supposed new powers and Darth Caedus – often rumored to be Allana Djo’s father – on her side, her grandmother’s supporters finally began to do what they should have done from the start. Fear the Queen Mother.”

The Galaxy Can Burn is a Sith AU and gathers some highlights from some odd timeline where Tenel Ka joins Caedus after something happens to Allana. We know that TK would never go dark/give scrublord Caedus the time of day at this point but it’s always fun coming up with this crazy stuff so why not have a Sith AU? 😉


Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo - Sleeping With Ghosts

   “I know you aren’t really big on jewelry, but I figured this might hold some value to you. Somehow. Maybe.”
“Is that a piece of gort eggshell?”
“What else would it be? Come on, Your Majesty.”

I’d Give You The Galaxy takes a look at some universe where Jacen didn’t go on his five-year journey after the war with the Yuuzhan Vong and instead helped rebuild around him — physically from all the devastation and emotionally with everyone close to him. Also, he visits Hapes a lot for some reason??? Really though, Hapan traditions be damned — these kids are gonna get married somehow (most likely in secret) and this is the AU where it’ll happen!


Jacen Solo & Tenel Ka Djo - Sleeping With Ghosts

    “You know you terrified Allana, right?”
“I know. When I see her–”
“If. If you see her.”

The Galaxy’s Good is a what-if of epic “Jaina not killing Caedus and him possibly being redeemed” proportions. Allana’s with the Solo family (as Amelia), Isolder is dead and the Queen Mother of Hapes wonders if there is a chance that the Jacen she knew could fully return. Ruling the Hapan people for so long though, has stifled any optimism she might have had over the years, so who knows? Maybe Jacen Solo will be a scrublord FOREVER. ETERNAL SCRUBLORD DAMNATION. 🙂


That’s just a small peek at all the stuff we’re working on for this collection. Keep an eye out for updates at the links listed up above if you’re interested! (Also, woo-hoo if you’re interested! More EU & J/TK fans! <3)

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Hotline Miami 2 – The Fans – Corey & Tony [COS] https://neonshores.net/2015/09/28/hotline-miami-2-the-fans-corey-tony-cos/ Mon, 28 Sep 2015 17:09:04 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=848 Hotline Miami 2 - Corey & Tony

We were finally able to finish up the last details on our Hotline Miami 2 costumes and bring them to MAGFest Classic! We got some awesome photos– in the heat! And humidity! Really, it was so effing hot but we adore all of the photos that came out of this shoot so it was worth it. I also got a leg workout while holding an ~almost action pose~ (it was done both with and without the mask and she could feel sweat dripping down her face SERIOUSLY IT WAS HOT ALSO LONG PANTS AND JACKET WHY COREY HOW– YOU ARE A GODDESS). You can see those and more shots from this set on our Hotline Miami costume page!

Hotline Miami 2 - Tony Hotline Miami 2 - Corey

Thanks to Denis for getting the photos above and Roger of Monki Makr for getting the one below!

Hotline Miami 2 - Corey & Tony

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Hotline Miami – Jacket & Biker [COS] https://neonshores.net/2015/09/16/hotline-miami-jacket-biker-cos/ Wed, 16 Sep 2015 00:53:21 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=822 Hotline Miami - Biker & Jacket

For more photos of these costumes, check out our Hotline Miami costume page!

Last month at InterventionCon we finally got the chance to wear the Hotline Miami costumes we’ve been 95% finished with for the longest time. We put the finishing touches on the costumes the week before the con (bloodied up the Jacket mask and other fun bits like that) and on the Saturday night of the con, went outside in the heat and humidity to get some shots! Many thanks to Roger of Monki Makr & Denis for playing photographer and photographer’s assistant (also the DJ, which we’ll get to in a moment) for us that night.

We wanted to make sure we got photos masked (errr, helmeted in Nate’s case ;D) and unmasked so we did the unmasked shots first. The wig I was wearing was the first wig I used for Carol Peletier. I knew it had to be more of a blonde color but the cut was exactly what I needed. Since I had a new wig for Carol, I figured I could experiment with this one and if I messed it up then I wouldn’t be too disappointed since I wasn’t really using it for anything. I knew Rit had recently come out with a new line of dyes that worked on synthetic fabrics and that’s exactly what I wanted to try for this wig! The line is called DyeMore and I ordered some in the color Sandstone. It worked out perfectly and colored the wig easily, making it the exact color I was hoping it would!

Hotline Miami - Jacket & Biker

After getting the unmasked shots, we swapped the wigs out and started wandering around in those. Did we mention how hot it was holy cow. I could feel sweat dripping down my face but looking at the photos later I realized it was worth it. This “Supreme Chicken” mask I found on Amazon (for much cheaper than the original rooster one I was looking at and couldn’t afford to drop $50 on) – after being covered in makeup and fake blood – was perfect. I am short and made sure my jacket was a size that would look somewhat fitted so I was worried the mask would look really big on me but together it all ended up looking better than I thought it would!

Hotline Miami - Jacket Hotline Miami - Biker/Helmet

 

While we were taking pictures in an empty parking garage, Denis decided it would be a good idea to play a song our friend Erin had introduced us all to. It was the 1987 Crystal Light National Aerobics Championship theme. He pulled the video up on his phone and through our mask & helmet we could hear the wonderful keyboard riff. What did Roger and Denis say to do after that? Dance, of course. And naturally, we did.

Hotline Miami - Jacket & Biker
There were lots of gifs that came out of this. We have a whole mess of them on our tumblr.

We’re hoping to bring these back to a con in the future. Preferably one in the winter so that we don’t sweat ourselves silly. But we had a lot of fun in them at Intervention regardless. It also made us get off our asses to finish our Hotline Miami 2 costumes (which will have their own post in the near future!) and even spawned a crossover costume group this past weekend. More on all that jazz coming soon! Also, I had way too much fun editing these photos – especially the 80’s-VHS-inspired ones.

Hotline Miami - Jacket & Biker

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It’s The Glitterati’s birthday! https://neonshores.net/2015/06/04/its-the-glitteratis-birthday/ Thu, 04 Jun 2015 23:28:11 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=808 For the past two years (this will be the third) we’ve thrown together some original outfits celebrating The Glitterati’s birthday! They’re our favorite crew in the Dance Central series and their birthday is June 4th! Since we can’t draw or anything of the awesome sort, we figured we could throw our celebrations in the ring with outfits.

In 2013 we did glowing black and green and 2014 was concept art inspired!

Happy Birthday to The Glitterati! Happy Birthday to The Glitterati!

Someday we want to put together an original outfit set that’s all inspired by peacocks since they’re just right for the Glitterati, but for this year’s b-day outfit we settled for black with slight peacock touches here and there (plus we wanted everything to be a little grunge-tinged too – hence this fabric we found for the background + grain). Maybe this outfit is the preface to the peacock set later!

We did heavy makeup in blues/greens/purples on the main eye for each of us w/ silver & black on the other eye (the one under the hair, hehe). We also thought we’d only do half the lipstick too. Basically, one side of each of us is plain(ish) while the other has a glove with feathers at the end, dark eye makeup/dark lipstick, and the feathered ear cuff things. We added a splash of green with the green feather tank for Kerith and the green glitter-caked shoes for Jaryn.

Happy Birthday to The Glitterati!

Happy Birthday to The Glitterati! Happy Birthday to The Glitterati!

We’ll always be crossing our fingers for a Dance Central 4 where Kerith & Jaryn cause the mischief they mentioned in Dance Central 3!

For more photos, you can check out the post on our tumblr!

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Morning Glories [COS] https://neonshores.net/2014/04/11/morning-glories-cos/ Fri, 11 Apr 2014 20:14:34 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=737 Morning Glories

Last weekend at Eastern Shore Fan Con, myself, Nate, and Denis were very excited to be joined by Bria of White Hot Room for a costume group of some of the students from the comic Morning Glories! If you’ve never heard of Morning Glories here is a good summary of what it’s about on Wikipedia – don’t read too far into the Story Arc section though because SPOILERS! (And here is an awesome tumblr powerpoint presentation about why you should be reading it.)

Also, check out Bria’s Morning Glories post with more photos over at WHR!

Jun - Morning Glories Ike - Morning Glories

Jade - Morning Glories

We were more than happy to recommend the comic to anyone who asked us what we were dressed as that day. This happened more than a few times as we bounded around the campus where Eastern Shore Fan Con was held snapping photos and acting generally fitting to each of our characters.

It’s Denis’ fault that Nate and I got into the comic. Bria had read the first few issues and Denis lent the rest to her to catch up. This is when the idea was born for a group costume! Of course, Denis’ wardrobe usually looks casually smashing and is full of slacks and button-up shirts and ties and stuff, so we figured he was just suggesting it since he already owned everything and dresses like this normally. (“But I had to buy the slacks and tie for this outfit!”, I can hear him saying right about now. ;D)

Heather as Jade
Bria as Zoe
Denis as Jun
Nate as Ike

Morning Glories

Many, many thanks to Roger who took many of these photos and directed us into place. It was especially awesome when he was inside taking photos from the second floor of us outside and had to try to move us around with no words and just hand signals. He finally called Nate (who was the only one who had his phone outside with him):

Roger: “You’re all fine where you are except Denis.”
Nate: “He said we’re all good except Denis.”
Denis: “WHAT?!”

Morning Glories

Overall, ESFC was a lot of fun and our costumes were actually pretty comfortable. I got to wear my well worn-in Converse and Nate found an awesome vest with a scarf already attached on Amazon for $10 that fit Ike pretty darn well. (And there might have been one purchased in black too for a future Saints Row/Glitterati crossover.) We’re planning on wearing these again! By then maybe we’ll fill out some more of the group!

Ike & Jade - Morning Glories

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Toy Story 3 – Barbie & Ken [COS] https://neonshores.net/2013/09/22/toy-story-3-barbie-ken-cos/ Sun, 22 Sep 2013 04:29:24 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=733 Nate and I get a lot of questions about these costumes, especially around Halloween so I thought I’d edit this older blog post from our old Zhobot blog with more info on the process and bump the date up to now so it can easily be found by anyone who might want to be Barbie & Ken for Halloween this year! October is coming up fast! 🙂 Photos on this post that aren’t progress shots are many thanks to the lovely Katsuya Weller! <3


Toy Story 3 – Barbie & Ken

For Halloween 2010 & Katsucon 2011, we had the awesome opportunity to make and wear Barbie and Ken costumes from 2010’s Toy Story 3. We had the idea after the second time we saw the movie in theaters, but didn’t think we would be able to pull it off. Once October 2010 rolled around, we decided we’d go for it and started to get things to work on to try to get the outfits all put together. Here are some of the behind-the-scenes things in case anyone is thinking about making their own Barbie and/or Ken costumes!

The first thing we focused on were the main parts of the outfits – I ordered a turquoise bodysuit from River’s Edge Dancewear and found a pink belt on ebay.Toy Story 3 – Barbie & Ken

Nate’s outfit was proving to be a tiny bit more difficult. We found a pair of blue shorts at the thrift store and a very flashy gold belt on ebay, but we knew a blue leopard-print shirt wouldn’t be as simple to just stumble across. We already knew that we would have to make one. We had a pattern for the shirt but the only leopard-print fabric we could find (after scouring the internet and a couple stores) was either faux fur or a very floaty see-through silk. The fur just wouldn’t look right (and was way too thick) and the silk wouldn’t work right for the pattern we had for the shirt (and was also a little darker blue than what we needed). We bought the silk, thinking that it could possibly be fudged, then realized what we could do. We took a light blue, short-sleeved button-up shirt and basically attached pieces of the blue leopard-print fabric around/over the shirt. We had six pieces to attach – the collar, the two sleeves, the two pieces on the front and the piece on the back. The pieces on the front covered the buttons/button holes, but we figured it didn’t matter since Ken clothes never have real buttons anyways (it’s usually the plastic snaps or velcro – which is what we used to keep his shirt shut). XD

Toy Story 3 – Barbie & KenBarbie’s shoes were simple – I ordered a cheap pair of hot pink heels (that are a bit painful to walk in!). Nate had to find blue slip-on shoes. That was easier said than done. He ended up getting a pair of slippers and painting them with blue fabric paint. The best part is that they have fake fur inside so they were very comfortable and warm, especially when it was a little chilly on Halloween.

I was aiming to make a pair of legwarmers that looked like hers with a pair of plain white ones and three colors of bias tape, and they looked good while they were in the process of being made but the white ones I had were weak and didn’t hold shape very well so they stretched and sort of stayed that way, so at the last minute I ended up using a regular pair of legwarmers with colors that matched well enough (there were a couple extra colors in the ones I used). The best part though is that they looked really good and instead of hunting for more later, I’ll probably just stick with the ones I used on Halloween. I love when stuff like that happens.

As for hair, I looked through a bunch of wig sites and on Ebay. I found a specific “Barbie” wig that was in a ponytail and sort of a dark blonde. But the ponytail was a little lopsided and it was super expensive. I ended up finding a lighter blonde wig on ebay with a detachable ponytail that was $30 cheaper! I ordered that Toy Story 3 – Barbie & Kenone and cut the bangs past my eyes. I was going to cut off the little curls on the side too, but I ended up liking them too much and they helped cover up my own hair by my ears – my hair is really frizzy and always a pain to keep under wigs.

I sewed the pink sash that goes in her hair (and sewed Nate his ascot, haha!) and the makeup was simple eyeliner, pink eyeshadow and pink lipstick. Hot pink nails too, of course. >D

For his hair, we fiddled around with the idea of making a plastic headpiece, but figured if we just used a product that could make his hair rock hard then it would work just as well. Then he wouldn’t get “hat head”/sweat profusely in a plastic hair piece. We used lots of hairspray (still not enough!) and used a little bit of hairspray color to make his hair more of a reddish-blonde.

We loved the costumes so much after wearing them on Halloween that we decided to bring them to Katsucon in February (along with our mini-Lotso!)~ The con wasn’t too far from us and we were familiar with the location, meaning I wouldn’t have to wander around in those crazy shoes trying to get to con-space! Those things hurt like a mofo – it wasn’t even the height, but the pointy toes. -_-

Toy Story 3 – Barbie & Ken

This has to be the most colorful costume we’ve worn and the most bubbly characters we’ve dressed up as! 😉 Nate was lucky with his super comfortable slippers. The inside was toasty warm and had some support. He also got to hold little Lotso, which we (and everyone around us) snorted all night cause he smelled like strawberries.

A couple of years later I got a second wig because the first one was kind of heavy. Besides that, these costumes have been worn a few times and every time we have a blast in them!

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Happy Saints Row IV Month! https://neonshores.net/2013/08/07/happy-saints-row-iv-month/ Wed, 07 Aug 2013 04:13:15 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=720

This post could be considered a Happy Late Late Late Independence Day post since I put some of these photos up on tumblr on July 4th, but it could also be considered a WOO LESS THAN TWO WEEKS UNTIL SAINTS ROW IV COMES OUT post as well!

Basically, here are a bunch of different Saints Row IV costume photos we’ve taken over the past few months because LESS THAN TWO WEEKS YES! You can see more in our Saints Row gallery over at our Flickr!

Boss, Kinzie, and Asha - Saints Row IV Boss, Kinzie, and Asha - Saints Row IV

With the help of our friends Denis (the photographer for the Washington D.C. shots) and Bria (a usual partner-in-costume-crime with us as Asha Odekar) we got some photos of our Saints Row IV Kinzie Kensington and Boss costumes as well as a couple of shots of half of a new Matt Miller costume! Nate is currently working on a full one, but he put together the top half for a couple of portraits.

Saints Row IV Month! - Kinzie Saints Row IV Month! - Matt Saints Row IV Month! - Asha

As you can see above, we tried our best to emulate the Cabinet portraits with what we had. We couldn’t help ourselves. HAVE WE MENTIONED HOW EXCITED WE ARE FOR THIS GAME?

Boss, Kinzie, and Asha - Saints Row IV Boss, Kinzie, and Asha - Saints Row IV

The Washington D.C. pictures here were taken the last weekend of June when we went into the city. The always-awesome Denis got some photos of Asha, Kinzie, and the PresiBoss with the Capitol, the Washington Monument (which is under construction/repairs from the earthquake here a couple of years ago) and in the National Museum of Natural History – as well as around the Mall. We took the Metro into the city too, so we talked about the PresiBoss on the Metro and cackled about it.

Kinzie Kensington & Matt Miller - Saints Row IV Kinzie Kensington - Saints Row IV

The next day we grabbed the Cabinet portrait shots of Kinzie and Asha and took a few photos with the Saints flag Bria and I made that weekend (look for a tutorial for the flag here soon :D). A few weeks later we were able to get the Matt portrait and a couple Matt and Kinzie arguments in photo form because wow, they have a history. The one above is probably the photo of Kinzie and Matt with the least bitchface/side-eye in it.

Kinzie Kensington - Saints Row IV Boss, Kinzie, and Asha - Saints Row IV Boss - Saints Row IV

Basically, we’re just extremely excited for Saints Row IV. We hope you’ll join us for the other posts this month as we celebrate Saints Row IV Month! 😀

Boss - Saints Row IV
The Boss “admiring” the Hope Diamond at the Museum of Natural History.
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Dance Central 3 – Kerith & Jaryn (The Glitterati – Haute Blooded) [COS] https://neonshores.net/2013/07/23/dance-central-3-kerith-jaryn-the-glitterati-haute-blooded-cos/ Tue, 23 Jul 2013 03:31:22 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=700 Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

(For more photos of this and other Glitterati costumes, check out our GG page!)
 

In October 2012, as the release date for Dance Central 3 grew closer, Nate and I were worried our favorite snarky twins wouldn’t be making an appearance. Luckily, they did! It was a small one in story mode, but it’s there and it’s pretty saucy like The Glitterati pretty much always are. Their new outfits were absolutely fabulous and we had no idea how we would make them but we wanted to make them so bad. We told ourselves: SOMEHOW.

For the next couple months, we collected materials and brainstormed ideas, hoping to have them done for Katsucon 2013 in February (hahahaha, didn’t happen) but didn’t end up finishing them until PAX East 2013 in March. We were glad we pushed them off though because there were so many little details we wouldn’t have been able to add if we tried to rush them for Katsucon. So like we did with the DC2 Crew outfits & Street Style outfits, here is our post detailing the adventure we had putting these costumes together! We’ll go piece by piece like we did with the Crew outfits blog post.

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

SHIRT/BODYSUIT: Kerith’s shirt and Jaryn’s leotard came from a place that has saved us a good number of times when it comes to spandex costume pieces: River’s Edge Dancewear! The pattern for the leotard had to be modified with a higher neckline when they made it, but they had the two items that were closest to what we needed and could be made in a fabric that we could work with for these pieces. We got 12 different fabric samples from different places (you can see some of them below) – some weren’t the right color, some weren’t shiny enough, some could possibly work – because we thought we might have to try our hand at making the shirt & leotard ourselves. (I’ve never sewn a leotard before so I was veeeeery nervous.)

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

One of the fabric samples we got from R.E.D. was used in our dye test bath just in case the dye might take and it would turn out closer to the shade of their shirt/leotard (because none of the fabric samples were exactly right). Luckily, the dye did take and luckily it was closer to the color of their clothes! This meant we could order the shirt/leotard from R.E.D. and dye them, which is exactly what we ended up doing. They’re actually pretty comfy too and all the shiny we need! AND WE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO SEW ANY SPANDEX, HUZZAH! Below is a shot of the leotard and shirt – Kerith’s shirt had been dyed but Jaryn’s leotard hadn’t yet.

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

VESTS/COLLARS: We looked long and hard for a fabric that was the right shade with a pattern similar to the one on their fabric. What we found that ended up working the best was a home decor fabric! It was the right weight and had a good pattern so we ended up buying numerous yards (waiting for a sale to hit before we purchased!) since we knew we would need it for the vests, collars, Jaryn’s shoes, and also her waistcape.

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

I took a pattern for a jacket from a historical costume, modified it, and sewed it without the sleeves for our vests (making mockups in muslin first to make sure we had the right fit for each of us). The lines were all handpainted on with a dark copper fabric paint and the GG logos on the backs were embroidered on a thicker fabric in a multi-colored metallic floss and then cut out and attached to the vest. We were going to embroider them straight onto the vests but we ran the risk of them messing up so we wanted to make sure they came out okay before they went onto the vests! The gems attached to the vest had to be color-matched to our rings so it was fun searching for those! The green ones on the front of our vests are Swarovski crystals whereas the others (the greens on the back and all the yellows) are all plastic. We wanted to put the fanciest ones in the front, haha!

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

The collars were measured, cut out, and pleated very carefully by Nate and then I sewed them onto the vests. It was hard making them work because they needed to stand up but they also needed to be pleated, so there was a lot of trial and error with scraps and different types of interfacing. More on how the collars came to be can be found in the next section!

JARYN’S BUTTCAPE: I LOVE BUTTCAPES. Nate was the saving grace with this as well as the collars. He took to figuring out the pleating like a champ and I’m extremely grateful for that because I was still sewing vests and working on painting the details on them. He made sure to measure the length out correctly so it would match my short fry self and not Jaryn’s fabulously tall frame and then drafted out a pattern and cut the pieces out of the fabric as well as Decor Bond, which would be what helped hold the pleats on both this and the collars (many thanks to Lin for the help discovering tutorials and such on this – LIFE SAVER <3). Nate ironed all the decor bond on and I hemmed all the pieces (4 sides on all 8 pieces), sewed the pieces together (to make 4 fans with 2 sides of pleats), and then sewed the 4 fans to a long piece of tulle so they all stayed together. I added some armholes to the tulle after that and slipped it on under my vest. I got lucky there cause I had no idea how I was going to attach it to myself or the vest without weighing down the vest.

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

P.S. Have I ever mentioned how much I love butt capes?

KERITH’S PANTS/BELTS: I have never made a pair of pants in my life so I was extremely nervous about making these, especially since they’re fairly tight on Kerith (of course, thanks Kerith XD). We were going to look for a pair we could possibly modify, but with how specific the color of his pants matches the rest of his outfit plus all the design work along the top hem of them, we knew we’d have to try to do the whole thing. I made a mockup with a similarly weighted fabric and made them fit Nate before cutting out and sewing the pattern in the brown fabric. The front closes with velcro because we didn’t want to put in anything crazier than that for fear of screwing it up when we started doing the hem work at the top of the pants (the two layers of fabric and the curved hem).

As for the belt, another hit in the home decor fabric section! We knew Kerith’s belt(s?) was/were brown with a faint pattern on it and when we saw this fabric it just screamed to us to use it for the beltpiece. It was very thick and frayed a lot, so we ended up lining the edge with brown bias tape, which actually worked out in the end because it kind of looks like there’s a brown trim on his belts. Since the belts sag on Kerith we had to make them sag on Nate, which meant there was a trusty safety pin or two holding them onto Nate’s pants.

G BUCKLES: My sister had gotten some InstaMorph moldable plastic for me for Christmas one year and for the longest time it sat on my worktable because I wanted to use it for JUST THE RIGHT THING. Basically, you heat up the little balls of plastic in hot water and then mold them – they dry in whatever shape you mold them and can be remolded with hot water. As Nate and I stared at the buckles on Jaryn’s vest and Kerith’s belt, my mind went to the InstaMorph. It would be lighter than certain types of clay, more heavy-duty than paperclay – it would be just what we needed! Nate fiddled around with shaping it and I tested out some paint on it and when we figured out that it would be perfect, Nate sculpted the G’s and added the pins to the back then I painted both of the buckles.

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

ARM/LEG PIECES: Nate measured our arms and my leg and patterned out these pieces out of Worbla. He attached thin flat strips of wire on the insides and then shaped the pieces so they would fit. I painted them with layers of bronze, gold, and a slight tinge of silver paint and then glued all the gems on each piece – I think this is probably the part that took the longest. I was still finishing up my leg piece the night before we wore these costumes at PAX East. SO MANY GEMS. I was worried about keeping the leg piece up on my leg while walking around, but I ended up sewing velcro to the tights I was going to wear and gluing the opposite pieces into the inside of the leg piece and it stayed up just fine! Phew.

SHOES: THEIR SHOES. HOW DO THEY DO ANYTHING IN THESE SHOES? Kerith’s shoes look like they’re a piece of his pants – like the tops just meld into his pants. So Nate had to cover a set of cheap slip-on shoes he got in the same fabric as his pants and build up the top so it reached over the pants. I took a pair of platform sandals – I used the fact that I had to cover them as an excuse to give myself a couple of inches since Nate is so tall! – and covered them in the same fabric we used for the vests/etc. Jaryn has these flaps on her shoes around her ankles in the front and back and I made those a separate piece from the shoes so I could slip those on and then put the shoes on under them. I added brown trim to those which was the same trim we glued around the bottoms of both pairs of shoes. The crystals that you can see on the bottom rims of the shoes are actually drops of different colored glitter glue. We were going to glue crystals to them, but we didn’t have time and figured glitter glue would be just as shiny (and cheaper :D)!

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

MISCELLANEOUS: The wigs are new/different wigs than the ones we use for the other two outfits – their hair is longer in this game and styled differently. Wigs are our enemies so these are one of the things we kept putting off because we were worried about them. They need to be poofier, but we are satisfied with the way they came out! The face makeup takes less time to do than the cheek lines from the other two outfits but we had a grand old time finding just the right shade for the eyes and ended up using an orange color with some gold-dusted over it. Also concerning makeup, white nail polish will always remind me of white out. The rings were made with pieces we found at the craft store!

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati

Overall, we are extremely excited with the way these turned out! Usually, there are things we end up wanting to fix on our costumes but when we look back at photos of these we just end up going I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS US (maybe we need to redo the shoes) BUT STILL. We’re really happy we made these and look forward to wearing them again!

Dance Central 3 - The Glitterati
Miscellaneon, Daniela, Denis and Chris as Taye, Lil’ T, Glitch and Mo! Thanks to Jamie McKiernan for snapping this photo for us!
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Capes for Your Butt [SPimH] https://neonshores.net/2013/07/23/capes-for-your-butt-spimh/ Tue, 23 Jul 2013 03:14:55 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=681 Sometimes there are things I feel the need to write about; things I love that don’t fit anywhere. Therefore, I have added this tag/category to the assorted list of crazy here: Special Place in My Heart. Because some things video game-related or otherwise just hold special places in my cold, unforgiving tiny heart.

So welcome to the first post of the SPimH tag/category. I needed to talk about my love for waist capes – or buttcapes, asscapes, halfcapes – whatever you want to call them (I usually favor asscapes; IT JUST ROLLS OFF THE TONGUE) so here is the Special Place in my Heart tag and here are the asscapes.

I have always thought regular capes looked really slick, but wow okay, a half cape – a cape that hangs over your lower backside instead of upper where it can possibly restrict your shoulders. You still get the cool, flowing action just in a different place. I DON’T KNOW WHY I LOVE THESE SO MUCH.

Sydney Losstarot - Vagrant StoryI’m not sure when my love for them began. I feel like it was in 2000 when Vagrant Story came out for the PSX and the main villain, Sydney Losstarot, sported a super-fab waist cape. That was the first time the word asscape came about in our house. I was looking at him in the game and saying, “What would you even call that thing?” My sister almost instantly went, “Asscape?” And we both chuckled like the mature adults we never will be and that word has lived on in my vocabulary since then.

Kuja - Final Fantasy IXNext up, and during that same year year of the asscape? was Kuja from Final Fantasy IX – SO STYLISH, SO EVIL, SO… FLOWY AND MAGICAL AND ATTACHED TO UNDERGARMENT BITS? I think the asscape with the super tall boots is rad though, so rock it, Kuja.

Riku - Kingdom HeartsThen I played the first Kingdom hearts game in 2002 and gasp– do I spy another asscape? Squaresoft/Square Enix (whatever they happened to be way back when, still Squaresoft? It’s been too long) just loved handing me asscapes. It’s like they knew. Riku (while in Heartless/Dark Mode) wore a pretty awesome asscape complete with some belt action. WHO DOESN’T LOVE BELTS not Tetsuya Nomura!

Nitro - Galerians: ASHGalerians: ASH came along in 2003 and a favorite Galerian of mine, Nitro, happened to be sporting an asscape. Now, it started higher than some others but still fit the criteria. As long as it didn’t start at the shoulders and covered the region of the backside I loved it. Still can’t pinpoint why. This is also when I noticed that most of these characters that I loved with these draped lower backsides were villains in some form or another. Perhaps having an asscape makes you evil, who knows. Is it the wonderful butt fabric’s fault that Riku went into Dark Mode maybe it is. Fabulous accessory for being evil though. It must be up there with a curly mustache to twirl and amazingly arched eyebrows.

Tenel Ka Djo - Star Wars: Expanded Universe Tenel Ka Djo - Star Wars: Expanded Universe

I started subconsciously putting my love for asscapes into costuming. Miss Tenel Ka Chume Ta’ Djo (there’s a mouthful) of the Star Wars: Expanded Universe has been a favorite character of mine since I got into Star Wars (a long time ago in galaxy far– you get the drift) and she only has a few official images of her, most of which are from the shoulders up. So when making costumes and outfits of hers, I got to throw in some of my own ideas to round out the whole outfit. She’s not really a fancy-dress-up type (even while she’s the Queen Mother of a 63-planet consortium) so I brought asscapes in to make it somewhat fancy while still keeping it functional in case she needed to fight. Like a boss and all that. First was the Legacy of the Force: Tempest cover (which I’ve made a couple versions of a waist cape for). Then I ended up bringing a different butt cape – technically one that went on the side! SIDECAPE? – in to a costume I threw together for a younger (two-armed, pre-Lightsabers!) Tenel Ka in a week before Katsucon 2012 (you can see I reused the sleeves from the Tempest cover Tenel Ka – was not gonna sit and scale a whole new set of sleeves together NOPE).

Jasmine Jolene - BioShockAlso with a BioShock costume I made – Jasmine Jolene – I saw another opportunity for a fabric tail. There isn’t much official art of Jasmine so I ended up looking for inspiration from a few pieces of fanart of her and also realized I could buttcape the outfit up SO WHY NOT? I thought it worked with the setting she’s usually in and gave a new dimension to the outfit instead of just being the corset and shorts.

Jaryn - The Glitterati - Dance Central 3In October of last year, Dance Central 3 came out and it was like the heavens parted and light happened to shine all over my face and someone was singing something somewhere because my favorite Dance Central character, Jaryn, was… wait for it, wearing an A S S C A P E.

The Glitterati - Dance Central 3It was a sign! I mean, we knew we were going to costume as the Glitterati in their DC3 outfits (if they were in it, which they are, so YESSSS!) but after I saw the asscape, I knew it was meant to be. It was a pleated asscape too. Extra fabulous.

I’ve been fiddling with making some of my own waist capes (I’ll be proper and use the correct[?] term now, sorry) and have been getting a ton of different ideas for fabrics and patterns and so on, so you might see another post on these in the future! I just had to share this to start because these hold a special place on my backside in my heart.

What characters with butt capes have I missed? Let me know on Twitter (because I know I’m missing some)!


Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.

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Happy Birthday to The Glitterati! https://neonshores.net/2013/06/04/happy-birthday-to-the-glitterati/ Tue, 04 Jun 2013 02:53:12 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=679 If you know me and Nate (us personally or us as Zhobot :D), you know that we love Dance Central. The Glitterati, in particular. June 4th happens to be Kerith & Jaryn’s birthday and we wanted to do something for it. We weren’t sure what. We had some sketches of some ideas for original outfits for the Glitterati so we thought maybe we could put one of those together for some photos. The problem was, the three weekends before this past weekend we were out of town and had no time to make anything. This past weekend, we were catching up on things we missed the previous three weekends (sleep, mostly!) and realized their birthday was soon and we should actually get started on our original plan to make these outfits. We were suddenly pressed for time! We rushed these a bit, for those reasons above, but had fun making them and goofing off for photos (like always with us and K & J). We also got chocolate mousse cake and lemon raspberry mousse for the photos/mini-party, so it all worked out in the end.

Below is a photo of us in the outfits! There are more photos of our Glitterati birthday outfits on Zhobot’s Facebook page!

The Glitterati - Dance Central - original outfits

We also recently got the costume pages done for our three in-game Glitterati costumes, so check those out in the costume section!

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