January 1, 2014 by aidensong

Masters of our Fate

Tyrel is done with your talking…

As a role player you get a perspective on life that’s generally inaccessible to the masses. You get to explore aspects of your personality that are being squelched in other areas of your life, find out what would happen if you went with your gut instead of with the crowd, take that chance on being a hero instead of hiding in the back of the battle and you learn exactly how little control you can have over an outcome.

At a recent game my ex walked right into a trap set for the inquisitive mind and sprung it by asking too many questions. The results were rather devastating to his character. It made me question my deep seated need to understand the world around me. Do I ask too many questions?

Anxiety is a terrible thing to live with day to day. A little fear now and again is good for the soul. A lot robs the soul of its vitality and its luster. “A life lived in fear is a life half lived” according to Strictly Ballroom and I’m watching this play out in my own, but without all the humorous moments and the wise asides by children. I’m also severely lacking in sequined costumes and men who dance as though David when the Ark returned to Jerusalem, but that’s a post for another day.

The price of understanding is knowing the answers to the questions and realizing that the bad results number far more than the good. Our world is not, in fact, set up for us to be successful. Too often the fear of those undesirable outcomes cause us to bring them to pass, which feeds our anxiety and creates an emotional maelstrom of a world to try and navigate. I don’t want to be like this anymore. My body can’t take it and my mind can’t handle it and my soul is aching from it… so what does one do to change their little world?

I have begun by rethinking my way through my entire worldview. Not the place most people begin, I know. Who is God? What is He to me? What do I want Him to be? Where am I going with my life? Is that really where I want to go? Is the music something I’m meant to do or something I’ve latched onto as personal therapy and naively believing that it will help someone else as well? What of the art and the clothing design/construction? I love them but should I be doing these things? Why am I here? What is peaceful to pursue and what is selfishly annoying everyone around me? Am I lovable? If presented with romance again, would I want to pursue it? Am I EVER going to own my own house? Should I? Am I, as I so often feel lately, in desperate need of being rescued or is this something I’m capable of doing on my own?

And then it hits me: I’m asking too many questions. And I am paralyzed.

Please, God, make me a stone… with a sweet nougaty center. In the above picture I might look like I can take on the world, but I assure you that my insides do not match my outsides.

My mother taught me that you eat an elephant one bite at a time, so tonight I am doing math. Tomorrow I will do paperwork and maybe move a thing or two. As I make these decisions and I actively choose one fear to face at a time, perhaps gradually my wings will grow lighter so that eventually, I’ll be ready to fly again.

Blessings on your new year regardless of your faith, religion or creed. My best to you all.

May 29, 2013 by aidensong

Easy Costumes: the Simple Shirt

Last blog I wrote about the financial challenge costuming can be and mentioned that I was going to do a series on inexpensive costuming. Here, in Part 1, I give you: the Simple Shirt.

What you’ll need:

Thank you, amazon.com for the image

1. A collared dress shirt, preferably in a solid color that fits the time period (no neons or pastels). Look for black, white, off white, dark blue, red, dark purple, dark green, brown or dark grey. In my opinion those are the best color choices for immersion. For size I recommend you obtain one that’s too big for you. The look and feel of the day was far baggier than what we find comfortable by most modern standards. Also, a larger shirt is less restrictive when you’re sword fighting. Lucky for you, shirts like the one above can be found at almost every thrift store in existence as well as most garage sales, attics and the dusty backside of closets. Especially for the ladies: try to get one that hangs down to about mid-thigh or a little longer so that you can belt it without it constantly untucking itself from your movements.

Things to avoid: patterns and pockets. We’re going for simple and immersive here. Avoid polo shirts. They’re incredibly not time period and there’s really nothing you can do to make them immersive. Avoid stretchy materials. They’re hot and uncomfortable to wear over a full weekend of athletic activity.

2. A seam ripper.

3. A pencil

4. A decent pair of scissors.

5. A length of leather lacing. Here’s where the expense comes in. You’ll probably have to buy a roll of leather lacing from the craft section of Walmart or you’ll have to get it at your local craft store. You can also order them on the internet. A friend of mine opts for the boot laces instead of getting it on a roll like I do. Here’s what it looks like:

image courtesy of amazon.com

Here’s the Amazon link to this particular item because if you try to use the search bar you’re bound to wind up with all sorts of interesting pictures that you don’t necessarily want to see. http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Split-Suede-Leather-Black/dp/B001NW2QQA/ref=sr_1_51?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1369865718&sr=1-51&keywords=craft+leather I’m pretty pleasantly shocked by the price of this. In store prices are significantly higher.

Now that you have your materials together. Here’s what you want to do.

1. If you hate the way the collar looks (some collars are too skinny, some button down onto the shirt, or you’re like me and just hate collars in general), then use your scissors and cut it off.

I recommend you keep the part my finger is on and cut to the right of the seam that is to the right of my finger. You’ll have what is called a “mandarin collar” left.

This shirt is by no means expected to last you 20 years, so I’m not going to have you “finish” any of it. Finishing work is meant to prevent the material from fraying and ripping, but it takes a knowledge of sewing that is beyond what this tutorial is designed for. The area where you cut the collar from might fray some, which in my opinion just adds authenticity to any adventurer’s outfit, but because you left the seam to the right of my finger intact it will not rip easily. If you’re playing an aristocratic or rich character, you might want to just find a shirt you like the collar on already.

2. Take your seam ripper and pop the buttons off the front of the shirt. You want to slide the inside of the curve under the button and gently, but firmly, push against the threads. The blade on the inside of the curve will slice through the threads and the button should pull free. Then pick out the threads and use your pencil to mark a spot on the shirt where the threads came from. Repeat until all the buttons are off the front of the shirt. (If your shirt had buttons to button down the collar, just take the buttons off and remove the threads. Don’t mark these with the pencil.)

3. Now you’ll be using the long pointy side of your seam ripper. Place that point on the mark you just made with your pencil and push the point through the fabric. Wiggle the seam ripper around until you’ve created a hole large enough to fit your leather lacing through. Do this for every pencil mark on the front of the shirt.

4. Starting at the bottom of your shirt, thread the leather lacing through the button holes and the holes you just ripped in the same way you would lace up your shoes.

Congratulations! You now have a Simple Shirt. If you don’t want to lace it up every time you put the shirt on, just pull the shirt over your head to wear it.

You’ll notice here that I lace my shirt down, not up, in order to avoid it getting caught on my armor. I also removed the buttons from my sleeve cuffs to give the sleeves a more open swashbuckling appearance.

SPECIAL NOTE: Most leather doesn’t react well to being washed, especially if it’s dyed to a color. I recommend you remove your lacing before you wash the shirt to avoid any dye seeping onto your costume or wrecking the lacing itself.

Some variations:

VarI: Go sleeveless! Cut the sleeves off the shirt with the scissors. Be sure you cut on the sleeve side of the shoulder seam to prevent the shirt from ridiculous fraying and potential ripping.

VarII: Using a T-shirt instead of a dress shirt is possible, but not as immersive. Cut the collar from the shirt with your scissors and cut a line straight down the center front to the desired depth. Most people prefer to end this cut just above the bottom of the pectoral muscles when the shirt is being worn. Use the seam ripper to create holes across from each other (like on a shoe) and lace the leather through. I highly recommend going sleeveless if using this method.

I’d love to hear from you if you try out this tutorial. Tell me how it went in the comments below!

May 28, 2013 by aidensong

Inexpensive costuming

A marmot character. Photobomb courtesy of Gizmo.

So what better way could there possibly be to spend your Memorial Day weekend than gaming in someone else’s chapter? So that’s exactly what we did. Dustin and I packed up the dog and a short list of gear and we headed out to Tecumseh, KS to play The Edge of the Wilds with Heroic Central. It was a really interesting experience as this game capitalizes on a tribal element that you don’t usually see in high fantasy games. And there were ticks. Lots of ticks.

So while I was up there I was amazed by the youthfulness of the Central player base and it got me to thinking. When you’re young you really don’t have a lot of cash to throw at your costumes. The above costume is roughly as follows:

turban: $6

red shirt: $8

blue pants: $12

boots: $15

black leather armor: $3.50

belt: $3

belt pouch: $2

shoulder bag: $5

furry gloves and tail: $8

paint: $6

foundation: $7

brushes for applying paint: $5

TOTAL: $80.50

You show that number to a high schooler and they’re going to explode with OMGs. This is just the price for the costume. it doesn’t include the price of the event, the Heroic membership fee that gets you insurance during the event as well as other extremely helpful doodads or the price of food during the event.

Now I’m really going to blow your mind. My costume was EXTREMELY inexpensive for the look I achieved. It could have been more inexpensive, however I hadn’t quite yet discovered the local thrift shops when I purchased the red shirt and the pants… and if I was able to sacrifice a stuffed animal for the fur. *shudder* I just can’t do it. It looks at me while I’m trying to rip the seams and makes me want to cry. Velveteen rabbit, anyone?

Now lets make it more accessible to the regular human being. My red shirt, blue pants, shoulder bag and boots were all purchased over a year ago for another character. They were just sitting around my house. My belt and belt pouch were also purchased for yet another character and were just sitting around my house. The turban is a length of fabric I purchased 10 years ago as a makeshift table cloth. The glove pieces under the fur on my hands were originally skeleton hands from a ruined Halloween costume we’d purchased to make packets out of. I paint as a hobby, so all the paint and brushes were sitting around my house. The black leather armor is a leather jacket my husband found months ago and picked up because it was stupid cheap at a thrift store and he figured we’d use it eventually for the leather in it.

For this specific character, I spent $15 and a reasonable amount of time for a pretty kick ass costume. Most high schoolers can scrounge up $15. If you don’t do something that requires the unique foundation/paint mix that I use, you could spend less than $10. Here’s how.

1. Check your closet, your mom and dad’s closets, your grandparent’s closets, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, best friends, garage sales, thrift stores, consignment shops, and talk to anyone you know that’s been doing costuming for a while. There’s likely a bunch of things just lying around that you can repurpose into your costume. Always start with the stuff that’s free to see if there’s something that might work. Another great way to save money is to hit costume shops during the off season or check into those “only open for Halloween” shops a week or so after Halloween is over and they’re trying to clear out their inventory before they close.

2. Learn to use one of these:

Thanks to Amazon.com for the picture

This is a seam ripper and if you’re trying to save money on costuming, it’s your best friend. My leather armor was a leather jacket that came to my knees. I used a seam ripper to take everything off it but the vest portion that I wanted. To avoid overheating issues I removed the lining (also with a seam ripper). Then I put it on and stuck a belt over it to hold it closed. The end. Easy cheesey. Just don’t stab yourself with the ripper. It hurts. A lot.

3. Learn to view every sheet, curtain, tablecloth, old couch or cushy chair, prom dress, coctail dress, ruined leather anything, blanket and comforter as a potential costume. My husband’s shiny mage shirt was a women’s plus sized dress shirt before I took a seam ripper and a sewing machine to it. His one shouldered monk robe was a women’s satin bathrobe with lace on it.

4. Learn how to sew on a button. It’s inexpensive, relatively easy to learn to do well and incredibly necessary when you’re learning to reclaim items into costumes.

5. Reassure yourself as you look at this weird jumble of stuff you’ve collected that costumes evolve over time. As interactive theater players or larpers, we have the privilege of wearing this outfit more than once and there’s nothing wrong with changing it up as you go. In fact, this is completely normal.

There’s the basics. As I continue blogging with my costuming how-to stuff I’ll be including ways to skimp on the cost while still providing a really amazing looking result. Stay tuned!

*please note the boffer weapon I carry is not included in this as I consider weapons/shields a separate crafting category. If you’re curious, my boffer is worth about $15-20? I didn’t build it so I’m not sure exactly.

April 20, 2013 by aidensong

Phys Rep Wings

Wings are ridiculously fun to wear and a huge asset to any cosplayer’s closet, but they’re so expensive! The wings I was wearing during my recent encounter with a marauding car cost me almost 30 bucks. I’m so glad it only knocked one feather loose!

Winter harping with Gizmo, the celestial dog.

With the economy the way it is we’re all looking for ways to save a buck and a lot of us are turning to those handy DIY tutorials all over Pinterest and Youtube. We get so excited because we think we can finally save ourselves money (which we don’t have) by investing a little time (which we have plenty of). Unfortunately, sometimes things go sour. Sometimes that awesome looking tutorial lets us down. Here’s a review of one of those moments.

This is the first set of wings constructed for my Tavern Bard, Winter. Winter plays the harp during tavern on weekend events for Heroic North Texas and I thought it’d be really cool to construct wings that have a harpish look to them. Then, when I played, there’d be my harp in front of me with a harp echo behind me. It’d be visually stunning! It’d be so amazing. I was sold on the idea and scoured the internet for about 3 hours looking for just the right tutorial.

Of course, I found the pantyhose over wire hangar tutorials and a couple cloth tutorials (this one is admittedly quite awesome for a basic idea that I might tweak later), but they weren’t going to help with my harp idea. Then I was pleasantly surprised by http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-Cellophane-Wings/. While the idea itself is sound, the application phase was quite lacking. This girl’s rep test had to have been at some tame party where everyone just stands around and admires each other.

Winter debuted in March of 2013 with her beautifully constructed wings. Time spent on them: close to 15 hours.

I followed the tutorial except that I did an all around design for my wire, fully outlining the wing shape.
I then added tiny wires to represent the harp strings, using florist tape and liquid super glue to secure them firmly to their positions on the wire frame until I could do the covering and taping required by the game to keep my wires from poking out an eye. Wiring was extremely time consuming.

The next step is to add the cellophane. You know that spray glue she recommends? It doesn’t dry clear. I ended up with a frothy/filmy pattern all over the wings. It doesn’t matter so much on hers because they’re colored. Mine were supposed to be perfectly clear! The froth also obscured the wire harp string design I’d already worked so hard to do! I was disappointed, but I thought my design was still pretty stellar and I was running close to my deadline so I continued.

Cellophane is on. Now you can seal off the edges (I used my liquid super glue instead of hot glue because it’s faster and less dangerous at 3am) and shrink wrap the cellophane onto your frame.

Cool! I managed to do the shrink wrapping without burning myself (which is impressive that late at night with a tool you’ve never used before that’s applying serious heat to a meltable substance), and I only got distracted enough to burn a couple holes straight through. Winter is a battlemage anyway, so the holes just add authenticity, right?

IMG_20130314_011859

Then you’re supposed to refine your shape. Here’s where I got ingenious. I build boffer weapons with my husband so I’ve got a pretty good grasp on artistic taping. My black frame outline, inspired by actual butterfly wing patterns, is done completely in duck tape.

If you’ve never tried to tape a curve with duck tape before, you can’t really understand why, but it took 4 hours to tape the wings. After I was on site and wearing them, I realized I’d actually missed a couple of spots after all that, but they were too small to be noticed. I finished them the morning I had to leave for my weekend event. And boy was I tired.

The wing harness was my own design because the way people usually wear wings is either a great way to cut off your circulation to your arms or it’s never going to stay put in a stiff breeze, let alone a battle. Thankfully, that weekend I was non-combatant so no one was allowed to swing a sword at me, or the whole thing could have been a total disaster. I got the wings secured into my harness, which is specially designed to keep the wings at a nice 45 degree angle from my back and STAY THERE, and proudly stepped out of my cabin to meet the first wind test. The wings immediately buckled. A friend assisted me in getting them straightened out again and I proceeded to the tavern. On the way they buckled again and slid out of the harness on the bottom. *sigh* I spent the rest of the weekend asking people to assist me in getting the wings straightened out and stuffed back into the harness. I have decided these were the phys reps from HELL.

Here’s where I think it all went wrong.

1. She says she usually uses 12 gauge wire for her wings. I think she’s crazy. After the breeze, which wasn’t very strong, and getting bumped into at tavern the 12 gauge wire was all kinds of kinked and messed up. I got it home and reinforced it with coat hanger wire. Even then, the 12 gauge wasn’t doing it’s job and they’re a kinked up mess again. All that work and they’re really not salvageable.

2. Spray adhesive doesn’t dry clear. That’s really good to know. I think next time I’ll drop in some iridescent glitter or maybe just use colored cellophane to offset this problem. maybe I won’t try to stick them together at all, just bond them to the wires with the glue and shrink.

3. Practice with a heat gun is invaluable. It only takes a blink of distraction, literally, to add a hole to your design. And my mother used to shrink wrap professionally, so it’s not like I’m clueless here on how it’s done. I used to stand and watch her, so I know how to tell the plastic is heated enough and it’s about to shrink and when it’s about to tear.

4. The black taping was beautiful, but time consuming and it’s already peeling after 3 wears. Maybe sticking closer to her design in this matter would be better, but I’m concerned still about the safety of having those wires just hanging out there in a battle.

Conclusion: I’ve decided to redesign my wings completely. My next weekend event in May will require me to have a set of wings for Winter and a set of wings for my Pegasus debut. I’m considering doing an armored set of wings instead because the materials used would be far sturdier than the stuff I originally used and it will require far less feathers if most of the top of the Pegasus wings is armored.

Have a DIY wing story or idea you want to share? Leave me a comment below!

March 20, 2013 by aidensong

Fantastical Weekends

You know the age old concept of looking forward to the weekend because you can spend the entire thing drunk and pretend you’re someone else? What if you could do it without the alcohol? Yup. I’m sure after my last post it won’t surprise you all that much, but I’m a role player.

photo by Dustin Bumgardner

Most people have never heard of role playing and it comes in many forms, so I’ll describe what I do. Improvisational theater is where you have no memorized lines and only a vague idea of what the story is. You know who you are and where you are and that’s just about it. This is usually done in a class to enhance your acting or public speaking skills, but some of us have made it into wonderfully long events where you get to go to a campsite or park somewhere with 30-100 of your fellows and dress in full costume as your character to do improvisational theater for as long as the event lasts. And (my favorite part) your character gets to keep coming back to that same world with those same people for as long as you choose to attend the events! It’s like a video game, but you’re actually playing your character physically instead of pushing buttons.

Why would you do this? Because it’s fun. Because you get to enter a world that you wish you’d grown up in where there are dragons, faeries, talking cats, majestic lion folk, wise elves and staunch dwarves. In our land there is an evil queen who gained her station by poisoning her husband, who wasn’t much better than herself (or so we heard). Magic things can happen and grotesque creatures abound. There are puzzles to solve and people with their own agendas and battles to be fought with foam covered plumbing supplies. Who wouldn’t want to try it just once?

If high fantasy isn’t your thing, there’s also the post-apocalyptic version: Aftermath, the post-apocalyptic version with zombies (because who doesn’t love a good zombie game?): Dystopia Rising, or you can do the vampire version: Vampire: the Masquerade.

My particular flavor is Heroic. We have a chapter that’s based right here in the DFW area, an amazing support staff that handles writing all the plotlines, keeping track of all our characters as they grow, feeding us at weekend events, taking pictures of our incredibly awesome costumes and epic battles, marketing us to bring in new players, someone to make sure there are people there to play the monsters we fight against and there’s even a team that helps new players build their characters, make their costumes and teach them how to play! Last weekend this young chapter had its very first weekend long event at which I was privileged enough to be their tavern bard. We had a great time and I’m looking forward to our next full weekend event in May.

That brings me to a special passion of mine: costuming! The more you read on this site, the more costumes and costuming ideas you’ll find that have been produced and tested by yours truly! When it comes to creating that perfect phys rep (physical representation of something necessary to play the game) you just can’t shut me up! And my husband is right in those trenches with me. Last night he spent about 6 hours coffee dying paper for a new spell book.

So today I wanted to present to you one of my latest creations that I was particularly proud to have accomplished. It’s fairly inexpensive, easy to wear and so incredibly necessary to most fantasy/medieval costuming. Let’s talk about ARMOR!

At any given live action role play (LARP), interactive theater doing fantasy/medieval and even some Halloween parties you’re bound to find many different levels of awesomeness in armor. Some things are period replica and can be ordered online. These pieces are made of metal and are often quite heavy. My friend’s full suit, which is quite impressive, weighs about 80lbs! Others make their own armor that ranges in the 10-30lb range, like my husband’s suit made from roof flashing. But I’m a girl and I have womanly curves that aren’t accommodated by unyielding yet shapable earth. I also have no desire to be running around the park (literally) with that much weight pulling down on my shoulders. Then my husband presented to me the idea of foam armor.

In many games your armor must LOOK like metal. That doesn’t mean it must be made of metal. So if you’re willing to break out the glue gun and some paint, anyone can recreate a very attractive piece that will fool the untrained eye in a jiffy!

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 sheets of art foam (that stuff you used in kindergarten- sold at most craft stores and in the children’s craft section at Walmart in 8.5×11 sheets)

Hot glue gun with glue sticks (kids, let mom and dad help you with this part. This glue is HOT)

Spray adhesive (I use Locktite)

Scissors

A ribbon or belt to hold it on

Exacto knife or box cutter (again, kids, let mom and dad help you with this. Blood isn’t very attractive on the finished product)

paintbrush or sponge

old rag

acrylic metallic paint in the color of your choice

acrylic black paint (for antiquing, optional if you don’t want shiny armor)

spray shellac, optional

Here’s how it’s done:

1. bond the two sheets of foam together with a permanent bond per the instructions on the can. Let it dry overnight. I recommend doing this in the garage or outside somewhere because of the smell and sometimes the spray adhesive drifts off your project a little. Wouldn’t want sticky glue on Mom’s carpet.

2. Cut the bonded foam into a square. It should end up 8.5in by 8.5in.

3. Mark with a pencil the place where your ribbon will go through. Make sure it’s wide enough to accommodate the ribbon or belt and that it’s the same distance from the edge on both sides. Mine is 2in from the points.

4. Use the Exacto knife or the box cutters to cut slits where your pencil lines are. (Let an adult handle this part, kids.)

5. Pencil in the pattern you’d like to have as the raised portion of the armor. Then carefully hot glue over your pencil lines. Don’t worry, the pencil won’t show once you’ve painted the finished piece. (This is a part to have an adult help you with, kids.)

6. Let your glue dry. It doesn’t take very long. Have a snack!

7. Once the hot glue has dried, remove the little spider webs the glue gun leaves behind so you just have the design you wanted without all the little strings.

8. Next, use your brush or sponge to coat the top and edges of the whole thing in your metallic paint. Wait for this to dry. You might need to repeat once or twice to get a good coverage so the color of your foam doesn’t show through. Be generous with the paint and make sure it gets into all the little nooks and crannies!

9. When the metallic paint has dried (about 10-15min), cover the whole front and sides again in black paint. Again, be generous so all the little nooks and crannies are filled. Then immediately go back over the black with a rag and wipe as much of it as you can off. This leaves black in some spots, but not all, which gives the armor an aged look.

10. If the armor looks too dark (like the black stuck to it too much and you want lighter colored armor) lightly go back over the front with the metallic paint. DO NOT try to jam the color in the corners and crannies this time. We’re just trying to hilight the high spots and the middles of the wide open spaces.

11. Allow the paint to dry completely. Then spray the shellac and let it dry according to the instructions if you’re concerned about making sure the color is water proof. You can also decoupage the piece, but keep in mind this will make the piece stiff and inflexible so you’ll have to dry it against you (which is uncomfortable to say the least). I didn’t seal mine with anything. I wasn’t that worried about it.

12. When the paint is completely dry you might want to flip the piece over and do a metallic base coat on the back of it just in case the back accidentally shows when you bend over or something. Since I was playing the lap harp while wearing mine, there were definitely times when one of my points bent far enough for people to see the back.

13. Thread your ribbon or belt through the slits you cut in the foam earlier and put it on!

Now you have a beautiful piece of armor that is light and flexible! Congratulations!

If you build a piece from this tutorial I’d love to see it! Feel free to post about it in my comments below!

April Spencer's World

Tag Archives: LARP