Harpy Costume: Update

Been an interesting week so far. Manny has a tooth that is causing him a lot of pain! It is one of his wisdom teeth, so on Thursday he will be getting BOTH of his bottoms removed. Luckily for both of us, my work is letting me move my hours to Friday, so I can be with him after he is done. While he's had a major toothache, I've had a sore throat. My voice is partly shot, and it is bothersome, but other then that, I feel fine, and oddly energetic.

I've been thinking about the costume a lot, and working on it too. Manny has helped me with starting to build the wire frame of the primaries, as furniture foam will not hold up material to the length I want the wings to be (5ish feet each!) and so far so good. Also found some packing foam from work that I can use instead of furniture foam for the tail! A good find. I'll still probably need foam for the toes however, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I've drawn out the costume to some extent, trying to focus on keeping to an earthly colored theme. I'll be wearing mostly black, with some green along the edges, and the falcon/hawk hood I am commissioning from a friend of mine will be brown and black with dark green coque feathers (rooster tail feathers).

That's the preliminary design, but we've talked about some minor changes. But I've finished the wire wings!

They don't look like much, but they will work :)

Another update on our afflictions... Manny had his bottom wisdom teeth removed, and I have been sick for a long time, hacking up a lung and what not, had a fever on Tuesday. Thankfully Manny has been feeling better, and so have I, in little ways. Still coughing. :( 

Till' next post! I'll post some pictures of the drawn out costume and the WIP of the wings. (Finished writing this post on April 2nd even though it is published the 27th of May!)

New Updates: Harpy Costume

Been quite a time since my first blog! I'm going to try to get better at these, and I have several drafts I never posted because I never finished them. If I make smaller goals, I think I'll be more successful with this... hopefully. I've actually been kinda depressed over the last month, work had limited my hours to four a week, basically one shift. Two months ago I had 16, and they slowly took away a shift every week or so. I was severely frustrated. I had talked to my scheduler and he basically said tough luck to my need of more hours. Well, good news, I'm back up to 12. Its not 16, but hell, 12 is a lot better then four. Hopefully they aren't giving me false hope and I'll be able to stay around 12.

In my first post I mentioned that I was going to try to publish a book, and I'm still planning on doing that! I'm just putting it aside for a while, until after July.

Other news... we are registered for Comic-con 2011!!! http://www.comic-con.org/

We went last year, and had a great time! This year however, I want to bring a costume with me :)

Over the last two years I've wanted to make this costume of a character of mine, who happens to be a harpy. Now, my version of harpies are actually very animalistic, and their human form is stretched, and their necks are longer then humans. This harpy was born with a disease called Sapienism where she has the same proportions of a human, perfect for a costume when I can't be 7 feet tall! So she is more like this:

These are just basic models of my harpies, the red is where there downy feathers and obviously the wings are where the ovals are. So it would be fairly hard for me to make a costume of one of my other harpy characters, just from sheer impossibility. So Seirakyn Swift will be at comic-con, IF I can finish the costume in time.

Now for this costume I'm obviously not going to be naked (lol like they would allow that anyway) I'm going to create a top and a skirt like bottom, very tribal with a few animal skulls, beads and some fur in places. I want to buy a rabbit skin bag to accessorize, but we'll see. (http://cgi.ebay.com/Large-Rabbit-Fur-Purse-Leather-Tribal-Medicine-Bag-/310297946518?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item483f32e996) The wings I plan to make out of fleece, and until I find another way, I'm going to use sharpies to draw in the markings. She's an osprey type, so shes mostly white and brown. The feet are also going to be made out of fleece, the toes will be cut from furniture foam with replicated acrylic bear claws for her talons (http://cgi.ebay.com/12-Grizzly-Bear-Claws-Claw-3-inch-Reproductions-Coyote-/310243562287?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item483bf5132f). I'll cover the foam with fleece circles laid over each other to look like scales, and pen in shadow to give it definition. I'm thinking about sewing them into tights and wearing that, with a base of flip flops. I can add foam to the back of my heel to make it look like my feet are longer and bent like a birds. I'm still working on a wire idea for the wings, so that when I extend my arms the feathers won't drop because of the fabric! Wish me luck! This idea is a dream of mine I've had for too long, and it has kept me awake at night, maybe this will help me sleep better.