One week. One week until PAX. Yep. It's crunch time. I know I said I'd update "soon" sometime last week, but I feel like I've been really busy. Busy spinning my wheels, mostly... I was putting off certain things until I acquired more supplies and putting off other things to work on this new great idea I had, which turned out to be more time consuming than I'd hoped. And what am I doing now? Waiting for shit to dry. I knew that was going to be my biggest time sink, and here I am, glaring at paint and glue and clay ... waiting for shit to dry.
But there's good news, too! Things are starting to get done. And by done, I mean, "These things are finished." Let's start there, shall we?
Remember those Nuka Cola caps I had been painting? Well, it feels pretty good to have all of those done, and I'm really pleased with the way they turned out. So pleased, in fact, that I'm thinking about making a bunch more of them and adding them to my Etsy store...? Maybe? We'll see about that. Anyway, on with the process...
Here they are, all shiny and new looking! All 35 of them. They looked a little too new, though. So I decided to experiment a little bit and splatter them with coffee. Yes, coffee.
They're still wet here, and not quite ... splattered enough, but I figured what works for aging paper might just look like old stains or light rust on a bottle cap. When they dried, I wasn't disappointed! And don't worry, I didn't waste a fresh cup on staining some bottle caps. I used the old sludge coffee at the bottom of my French press for that business. Ew.
Even after staining them with coffee, I knew I wasn't done. For one, the dried coffee was just going to rub off, and they were still too shiny. I just so happened to have a can of matte acrylic clear coat laying around that solved both of those problems! A little shiny silver dry brushing, and I had my finished product:
That's a terrible picture. Let's try that again.
And there you have it! Caps are finished! I feel like they kind of took forever, but I think they were well worth the effort.
Another thing I managed to track down was a pair of black gloves. It being the middle of August, I was almost afraid I'd be out of luck. Sure enough, though, apparently August is the time to start planning for winter...? I found a pair of plain black gloves, whacked the fingers off, and attached this ... thing.
This goes next to the good ol' Pip-Boy 3000. Once I get it finished, that is. Ah, now I'm getting ahead of myself. Pip-Boy is definitely not on the list of finished things. But this is!
Well, mostly. But ... hell yeah! That's the most important part: The Vault 101 jumpsuit itself! It's still a bit baggy in some places, and if I could do it all over again, I'd use a stretchier material. It's probably going to get some weathering before it's totally done, but there it is. Complete with knee and elbow pads.
Now for the less done things. I guess I should start with the sad progress of the Pip-Boy.
Doesn't look that different, eh? I guess I've just been too busy working on everything else to really get a lot done on this guy. But there's some progress. Mostly ordering the steps in my head, trying to figure out what needs to be done now to do the next things that need done. Like painting the little bits. Oh, and waiting for shit to dry...
Speaking of waiting for shit to dry, I had this brilliant idea. Sort of a way to kill two birds with one stone. See, I was sort of lamenting the fact that I wasn't really going to have time to build a weapon to carry around. I'd feel pretty bad ass walking around with a sweet Gauss Rifle, but that would take a hell of a lot more time than I would have to build it. I also needed something to carry stuff around in. My jumpsuit has pockets, but I'm going to want to bring in more stuff than I can carry in a couple of pockets.
When I went to GeekGirlCon a couple of weeks ago, I sat in on a cosplay/costuming panel hosted by the wonderful ladies at Crafters in Disguise, and they made a case for being creative when it comes to bags and things of that sort. And that's when the idea hit me.
Wouldn't it be great if I made a "bag" out of a mini nuke?!
Yes. Yes it would. And here's the progress so far:
I know, I know, it doesn't look like much so far and ohmygodIonlyhaveaweektofinish(!?!), but this guy is gonna be super simple. Just, you know, waiting for shit to dry.
The body is made of several layers of paper mache, which I built over a balloon. A few coats of gesso later, and it's ready to be sanded so it looks a little less like little bits of paper. The part of the ring that goes around the bottom is made out of Crayola Model Magic, another sweet suggestion from the CiD ladies. I've always seen it at work but never used it before. I gotta say, I'm a believer! It's super easy to work with and extra light. All I have left to do is cut some shapes out of craft foam, glue it all together, paint it, line it, and attach the strap! Wheee!
And with that, I'll leave you with a picture of the chaos that my normally slightly-less-than-orderly workspace has become. Six more days. Wish me luck!
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