new photos!

Jason Chalker manlyart.com took videos and pictures last night! YAYYYYY thank you!!

CLICK THE PHOTO to see the whole picture!











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there is also VIDEOOOOOOOOOO click here to go to YouTube!

wolf is DONE!

I broke my promise and worked on it some more...finished just in time for the Revolution Tattoo art opening. The cool thing is that my boyfriends family and two close friends got to see it the very first time it all came together, as they had come over to hang out.... so that was awesome. I got a great reaction from them, but the true test was to see what total strangers thought.

So i got my pal Sarah to escort me to Revolution. It's close enough to walk but, wolf suit alone in a city might not be very smart. Jason ( Manlyart) also came by to check things out!

I drove:


Is there a problem , officer?



ok ok, i didnt actually drive. I had to ride in the passengers seat and could barley fit my fat wolf ass in it.


So we drove down, my arm hanging out the window. Crossing the street some guy passing in his car "HEY WOLF!" and there were alot of stares. It was great.

Outside the gallery.


Getting photos of this is really frustrating. The flash just messes everything up and you can't see much. The fur relflects to much light and the teeth look ivory white and flat. It looks so much cooler in real life!



See, you can barely tell where my arm is in front and the tail just looks blobby. Daaaaaamn.


The gallery was great, the people there dug the costume. When i first walked up, people reacted with the best thing a costumer can hear: "WOAH!!" Sweet relief, people dig it. I had just finished it hours before the event and was a little anxious to see if it all worked well.

I got poked in the breasts alot, people not realizing i have boobs behind the big foam chest, LOL. I thought it was funny. Alot of people asked about how it was made and wanted to touch it or get photos with it. A few people got really close to my face and stared at the mouth and eyes..haha! I had a good time and was so happy it was well recieved!

So i celebrated with some Guitar Hero. Isnt there a band called Guitar Wolf?



Sorry, i really couldnt resist.


So this test run helped me figure out what needs to be fixed and how long i can last in it. Which is not long. It's deadly hot in that thing. I did cool down quickly when a breeze came by since my suit is made up of many pieces and the seams let in some air, but this will require some kind of cooling system. A neck cooler or a vest or something. Pretty hot! I'd also like to add some grey fur to parts, as several people have suggested. A stripe down the head,back, some on the back of the arms, chest and maybe legs. It will break up the shapes a little and not be so blotch solid black. So back to National Fiber Technology for me!
Besides that, sewing up some seams, loosening the head elastics and maybe a new tail. Over all im really happy with it and REALLY relieved it's more or less completed. I feel like i have my life back, haha!

I'm going to get Jason to take a few decent photos of the costume this week, so more soon!

werewolf art!

People are awesome. I have been given some really sweet gifts lately...art of my werewolf costume!


First from Emmy! Clicky to see her other stunning artwork But here's what she made for me!



Then one from the always loved Neogeen This girl does some awesome monster designs... But here's the quicky sketch she hit me with over on livejournal, best comment ever:



And here's one from a blogger watcher, Max! Some sweet looking photoshop. What a nice suprise to find in my comments!




Thank you! It's awesome people are watching and it really makes my day to receive such kind things :D HAPPY HALLOWEEN (almost)

-mel

National Fiber Technology fur is awesome.

It's actually VERY close to being completed. I did a bunch of boring stuff that isnt all that exciting for photos...like installing the velcro around the waist for the undersuit/over shirt to connect to each other and the velcro in the elbows that will attach the upper arms/paw section to the overshirt. Bo-ring!

I also received my National Fiber Technology hair! It's ridiculous. This stuff is so perfect. I dyed it black with some leather dye this weekend, a very messy smelly process. Buy LOTS of rubber gloves! I got the whole head completed and covered...i did about half of the hunch of the back until i ran out of dye. The longer hair will run along the middle of the back to about it's buttcrack and then some will be added to the back of the arms and maybe legs if i have enough left over. I may try out making some sections dark brown or even red. Anyway have pictures...the hair needs to be trimmed a little:


Again, the website that I found this hair is http://www.nftech.com/. Nice people, great service, wonderful products! I will be using them again for upcoming life size head sculpture projects ;)

Oh yeah..another mistake i made. The multiple coats of resin on the teeth got too thick and the jaw had trouble opening and closing smoothly as the teeth began to touch and rub too much. It's easily fixed with a dremel tool bu now i have to repaint the bottom canines. Just a heads up to other folks trying this out :)

Roadkill. Not much to see but this is the front of the body. Kind of a black blob, sorry. But i really like the shape of the chest and legs now that the foam has been fixed up. Not that you can tell here.



A few finished pieces! Head, jaw, feet, arms and the ninja hood that goes underneath the face. The chin of the hood has velcro glued on...which matches to the velcro inside the wolf's jaw. This makes the jaw movement a little tighter and more realistic, i think.




So what's left? Sewing together the dozens of pieces of fur to each other to hide seams when the costume flexes. Dying the rest of the long hair and gluing that on. Velcro to the bottom of the pant legs to match into the shoes. Making a tail ( i really want to boobytrap it for people that will pull on it..but id feel awful if a little kid grabbed it, so no dice... i like kids.) Picking up the white contact lens. Painting the left hands claws and sealing them, painting the fixed teeth.

Um, what else? Wow...nothing. That's IT! I'm on schedule to finish it this week like i had hoped thanks to NFT pulling through for me.

Oh more boring stuff only a few people will care about: I did pop a jaw hinge this weekend while showing it off to freinds after a few beers and that had to be fixed...it's good it happened at home instead of out somewhere. So i went ahead and strengthened a few other parts. Yawn..sorry, yeah it's boring. But hey if you are building a suit and using this as a tutorial keep that in mind...get things super strengthened before you go out. Nothing will give you costume blue balls faster than getting somewhere to have fun and finding you forgot a piece of the costume or something broke. Boo!

orange contacts!

Got my contacts today! They look really cool without the mask but with the mask on they just look good...not great. They don't pop like i hoped they would, they sort of look like mildly freaky brown eyes. I did have a thought to buy a pair of yellow ones since i got them for so cheap anyway..but i think i may just buy one yellow lens and have different colored eyes..one yellow one orange. i thought it would be a cool way to give this costume a little more personality and make it a little freakier. If it looks dumb, I'll just buy another yellow lens.

one arm finished!

Taken in front of the mirror so excuse angles, wierd crops or crappiness! I used an opera glove to make the base for the fur and foam to glue on to. There is a little bit of foam in there to beef up my skinny forearms.The paw is now permanetly attached to the arm fur, making it all one piece that pulls off. It will attach to the body's arm via velcro.



Har, har. That sign is on our bathroom mirror. I also have one over the toilet that says " safety first:wear googles" because god knows what i do to that toilet requires eye protection.








So there you have it, one arm done. The fur pieces still need some trimming to line up and blend together better...but it's pretty much done. Now to do the other paw!

I also found an event to debut the suit at. The tattoo shop that i started getting work done at is having an art opening with "costumes encouraged" on the 13th. If the werewolf isnt ready by then, i may just wear the demon....but i'll be shooting for then!
http://www.revolutiontattoo.net/home.html

Next, refining the suit and adding some different fur lengths :D

full test!

CLICK the photos to see the full view!


I hate and love this part...trying it all on for the first time. I love it because I get to see it all come together and I hate it because alot of things end up needing some changes. All that hard work and I have to redo things! Ah well. For the most part it is a success, but there are a few changes that will be made.

Here's a pic of the foam test i did before furring the torso. The neck went up way too high and was fixed.


The chest being furred.


Everything put together! It looks super crappy since alot of glaring things like seeing the shoes needs to be fixed. This is just a loose test for me to figure out what needs to be fixed before I put any work into making this polished and ready to go.



I have a few issues with the legs. They look great, as a digitigrade illusion, when I stand with a totally straight leg. But once I bend the leg, it looks plantigrade ( flat footed). The reason for this is that I did not make the top thigh foam go over my knee enough so when the knee bends it pops out and ruins the effect. This can be fixed by adding a foam piece over my knee. I also have a problem with the length of the foot. I want a stubby dog like paw, not a floppy cartoon foot. So I need to remove the toes and reset them further up on my shoe. I may redline this to show what im talking about.

Straight leg:


Bent leg. Ick.


I think the side view looks fantastic. The chest goes up a little too high into my neck and I need to add velcro to the undershirt (to fasten to the body suit) so it doesnt pop out ( as seen in the front) I might trim down the back hump a little, since im adding really long fur to the middle of the back and neck and the foam has a wierd angle by the top of the head. The front of the chest needs some trimming on the bottom....needs to be narrower going toward the stomach ( it also need to wear a de-boobing bra....not that mine are huge but boobies sort of offset the foam a little)


This is some of the fur that will be added to the wolf. This is a sample from National Fiber Technology http://www.nftech.com/. I will be using grey and black course long fur to accent his back and neck, back of arms, chest and where ever it needs it. I dont want just a solid black blot of fur for the whole thing.

NFT is a great place. Thier fur is high quality and so is the treatment of thier customers. I'm just a small fry, they are used to dealing with big clients but they have been totally helpful and cool and really went the extra mile to get my samples to me. How refreshing!



The mask needs a little tune up as well...it sits too low on my face now that a little wieght has been added to it. I think a sliver of foam in the nose bridge will help. i also made the elastic WAY too tight. After wearing this for 5 minutes it felt like the top of my head was going to pop off. Still more comfortable than the demon mask but not quite ready yet.

the front view of the wolf isnt too hot. One critique i got from boyfriend and roommate was that the chest, waist and hips were too aligned and needed to "V" out at the top. I think they are right. Ugh it pains me to even post the photo of the front view but I want people to see what i did and...try to avoid it the first time around:



Pretty awful! Ick.

So as for the rest of the costume, I still need to add more fur to parts, build the forearms, fix some holes and sew the fur seams together. I think it needs a tail after all, too.




So, next is making the forearms, and applying the NFT fur after fixing the foam mistakes! Today i'm ordering my contacts. I think im going to go with solid orange ones, yellow would be cool too but it's kind of been done alot. Hey and orange eye and black fur = halloween colors!