Cake or Death Eater?

"Um... Death Eater, please."

 

Yep, it's time for John's big Death Eater reveal!

Ready for your close-up, Sweetie?

Oh yeah, he's ready.

 

Epic side-eye.

I've already done tutorials for the mask and wand, so the rest of the costume was relatively simple - assuming you can sew. (Which I can't. Good thing John can!)

John sewed the tunic from heavy embroidered upholstery fabric. It was pricey stuff, so to conserve fabric and provide a little ventilation, he used an old black t-shirt for the back panel. The pants are cheap cotton dress pants, and he's also wearing a cotton balaclava to hide his neck and ears. (Whose idea was it to have Leaky Con in August in Florida, again? ACK.)

The tunic fabric was solid black, so to make the embroidery stand out I gave John a good dusting with Fuller's Earth - the fake dirt & dust scenics use on actors. If you have a specialty paint store around, they may have it - it's quite cheap and SO FUN to use. (Just make sure you're outside; it's fine as flour and very dusty!)

  

 

We made the hood and robe using a pattern for a wizard's robe, just leaving off the sleeves and making the hood a bit longer & pointier. (I cut, John sewed.) It took a whopping five yards of fabric just for what you see here, so it billows out quite dramatically when John walks around.

 

The bracers are plain black vinyl which John hemmed & set with grommets on the inside edges. They're held on with black leather cording wrapped through the grommets and around. (The vinyl still looks quite new, so John may still rub on a little grey paint for age.)

John made the wand holster out of old leather belts, a large steel ring, some patterned vinyl, and metal duct tape for the decorative bits in the middle. (The tape looks great, but is pretty fragile; one end keeps peeling up. For my own belt I used a heftier glue, though, and it's holding up so far.)

To grunge up John's hands I swiped a little black craft paint over his nails and knuckles, and then had him wash his hands. The paint sticks in all the skin creases even through gentle hand washing, so it's a nice option for conventions. (And if you REALLY want it to stick, use black primer. That'll stay on for days.)

And finally, my favorite shot!

SO COOL.

Coming up next: my own Lady Death Eater! 

We Eat Death For BREAKFAST (Sneak Peek!)

 

Full photo shoots coming soon!

The Best Tweets & Pics Of SDCC!

What's that? You haven't been obsessively following the flood of San Diego Comic-Con photos and tweets all weekend?

That's ok. I HAVE.

Now get comfy, and I'll catch you up on some of my favorites:

 

By far the most entertaining celeb at SDCC has been Misha Collins, aka Castiel from Supernatural:

 

 

(Mark Sheppard will be at CONjure here in Orlando this weekend - really looking forward to seeing him there!)

On Sunday Misha even served coffee to fans in line for Hall H... while wearing a cupcake apron:

Ha!

There were plenty of other celeb selfies to enjoy, though:

 

 (The cast of Arrow.)

I spent a few sick days on the couch inhaling the first season and a half of OUAT, so now I understand the love/hate relationship most of its fans have with it. Heh. (SO ANGSTY. And yet... I keep going back for more. Dangit.)

Yeah. Like that.

Avengers!!

Robert Downey Jr, being himself:

 

Pretty much everyone was talking about this new Wonder Woman photo:

And I never thought I'd say this, but Ben Affleck is lookin' good. BATMAN GOOD.

Miscellaneous happy-making things:

 

For my fellow Bronies and art lovers: Katie Cook & Andy Price:

Can't post so much Misha without Jenson & Jared, of course:

And SO. MUCH. CUMBERBATCH. The man dominated SDCC this year!

With John Barrowman!

 

And the cast of The Hobbit!

Now in flip-flops!

 

 (I'm actually more fascinated by his body guards eying the crowd. I love behind-the-scenes, candid photos like this.)

And while I'll fangirl right alongside you over Benedict, I have to sa...OMIGOSH LEE PACE!!

 Pushing Daisies fans, represent!
(He's also up there in The Hobbit pic, with floofier hair.)

That's one perk of waiting in that infamous Hall H line: the celebs do tend to come visit!

Two of my favorite famous people:

And at my friends' Paul & Storm's W00tstock, even!

My friend & fellow blogger Amy was all over SDCC, and I highly recommend following her Twitter and reading back for all the goodness. I especially loved her coverage of the Supernatural panel:

You can read her article on the whole panel here at IGN.

More cosplay!

(Not sure what the armored guys are from, but I love them.)

Holy false feet!

My jaw is on the desk. WOW.

A couple of sites posted this awesome shot of Batgirl ziplining across the Gotham skyline outside the convention hall:

And guess what? I KNOW THAT BATGIRL! It's Briana, the lovely Mad Hatter Disney Bounder John & I stepped out with some months back. Go, Briana!!

Official cosplay slideshows will be springing up everywhere soon, of course - and in fact there's already a great roundup here on io9.

If you know SDCC, then you probably know #AdamIncognito, the game Adam Savage plays each year where he dresses up in costume, and everyone else tries to find him. He only lasted about 20 minutes on the floor Saturday, but here's the video (and explanation!):

 

This man is seriously my Maker hero. I could watch him build things over on Tested.com all the live-long day.

And finally, possibly my favorite thing about SDCC: Nerd HQ, the off-site event run by Zachary Levi:

Not only does Zach snag some of THE best guests for panels and guest photo ops, everything they raise is for the charity Operation Smile. So much awesome!

Even better, Nerd HQ streams all their panels live online, AND posts them all on Youtube for us non-SDCC-attending geeks! So guess what I'll be devouring this week. [crazy eyes]

Hope you guys enjoyed the virtual visit to SDCC! It's the one con I don't mind missing each year, given its madness and thorough coverage online - but it DOES have me pretty pumped for the conventions we're hitting this weekend, and of course for Dragon Con next month!

Speaking of which, this Friday John & I plan to be at Leaky Con - dressed as Death Eaters - followed by Tampa Bay Comic-Con on Saturday and CONjure on Sunday. So if any of you want to meet up at one of those, be sure to tweet at me!

And FINALLY, as a reward for making it through this monster post: time to announce this month's art winner! 

So, my randomly selected winner is... Evelina Persson! Congrats, Evelina, and please e-mail me your mailing address & choice of prize from my Pinterest Art Give-Away Board! 

*****

UPDATE: Ack! I was supposed to announce TWO winners, wasn't I? Sorry, guys! Ok, my second randomly selected winner is.... ScaperMama! Congrats & please e-mail me your info, too, Scaper!

July Art Roundup: Supernatural, Sherlock, Star Trek, & More!

Thanks to SuperCon in Miami, I have lots of new artists to share this month! I tried to do better this time by asking artists what wasn't available online, so I could buy more things for the give-away board that you couldn't easily get yourselves. Makes my give-away board that much more enticing, no? ;)

First up, Franciso Perez. His new take on Mario &Yoshi would be perfect in a kid's room:

 "Mario & Yoshi" 12X16 print $17

I'm also digging his minimalist Batgirl:

Check out his store for more!

I picked up one of these from Cryssy Cheung for the give-away board:

 Leia & R2D2 8X18 print, $15

I love the unusual size, and the soft watercolor background.

She also has cute 5X7 prints like these for only $5:

 Click over to Chryssy's etsy shop for more!

Melru of Ionitron doesn't have an online store - she only sells at conventions - but check out her super fun MegaMan:

And I liked Melru's Mario print so much I bought one for the give-away board! Who love ya? Huh?

 Love that soft color palette.

As John and I were walking through artists' alley we were stopped in our tracks by the most stunning painting of Spock:

Amanda Tolleson's art is so photo-realistic she's routinely accused of using actual photos, so she started taking process videos as proof. (She had one playing at her table on an iPad.) Wowza.

Her Sherlock and Supernatural art is equally jaw-dropping:

In fact, John bought her darker Castiel print for his man cave. Then I picked up that Sherlock up there for the give-away board, since Amanda doesn't have an online store.

Don't fret, though; Amanda will still sell via e-mail, if you're interested! Head over to her DeviantArt gallery to see the rest of her work, and you can contact her through her website for prints. (I don't remember the exact prices, but they were really reasonable - in the $30 range.)

 And speaking of Castiel, here's John's favorite art piece of the con:

 "Wayward Son" by Newsha Ghasemi, 13X19 print, $15

John loved how this illustrates something we never got to see in the show: Castiel rescuing Dean from hell. (And check out the hand burning his shoulder. Very. Cool.)

We've been watching Supernatural again from the beginning, so all the fanart really caught our eye this con. :)

Newsha had so many great prints, but this was my favorite:

"Someday I'll Be..." 13X19 print, $15

Check out all the Disney version homages here: Eric's wearing Ursula's shell, Ariel has a fork in her hair, and around them on the beach is Sebastian, Scuttle, a pipe, dancing couple, etc. LOVE. And I kind of like how both of them have tattoos; it adds more life and depth to them somehow.

And I have to say, this resin-coated print is STUNNING in person. The colors almost look metallic, the reds and blues are so vivid. The image here just can't do it justice.

And if you like that, Newsha also has a Beauty and the Beast one:

 "For Who Could Ever Learn..."

Love all the castle characters on and around the little side table.


And finally, one more big print you can only buy in person at a convention or win here at Epbot:

 Maleficent, by Danielle Otrakji

Such a great style! (And did you miss the dragon eye?)

I still have lots more to share and post to the give-away board, but my scanner suddenly isn't co-operating [>.<], so I'll have to save those for next month.  SO... give-away time!

Since I'm swimming in new art again (LOVE having that problem!), I'll choose TWO randomly selected commenters this month to take their pick of anything on my Pinterest art give-away board. I'll announce the winners sometime next week, and as always, I'll ship anywhere, so happy commenting!

[UPDATE: The give-away has ended, and my winners are ScaperMama & Evelina Persson! Congrats, ladies, and please e-mail me your mailing address & choice of art from the Pinterest Art Give-Away Board!]

And happy Friday, too! Hope you guys have an awesomely geektastic weekend. (John and I are happily ensconced in a major makeover of his man cave. WOOT! There will be construction pics soon!)