The Prop (And Armor) Blog

Do you know where this costume is from? (Well, you will if you cheat and look at the picture file names. But you wouldn't do that, right?)





I think I'm getting better when it comes to working with vinyl--at least when it comes to simple things, like cuffs and waist cinchers. (I even made the gold decoration around the chest ornament using etched vinyl over craft foam and styrene.) I'll have to make a video tutorial about this at some point after I finish the one I'm working on. (Actually I'm working on two.--One is a general introduction to cosplay--although I worry that info might be a bit too generalized and pretty much common knowledge by now. The second one is going to be devoted to blades, but I'm still gathering footage for that one and won't know when it will be done.)

I called the Dremel service center, got the info I needed, packed the Dremel into a box, addressed it, put it into my car so I could take it to the post office---and then forgot to take it to the post office. Even though that had been the primary focus of my trip. Sigh. Even though I don't like shoving the blame onto my fibrofog whenever crap like this happens, the only other reasonable explanation for a brain fail this big is that aliens came to me while I was sleeping last night, sucked my brain out with a tube and then replaced it with Ragu Spaghetti Sauce. (So yeah. I'm gonna blame the fibrofog for this one...)

It's WHORIN' TIIIME!!!!!!

I finally got around to posting my fancy doll pavilion on ebay: (Those of you who hate annoying yet utilitarian self-promotion, avert your eyes now!)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140380792205

The auction link should have all the details concerning the tent and all of the goodies it contains. (And this will be the last time I mention it until just before Feb. 11, when the auction ends.)

Oh, I posted another auction as well.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140380796759

You may have seen this item before. (Well, seen me make this item before.) The person I made it for wanted something smaller and rounder for their shoulder, so I made them a different one and took this one back hoping to sell it. (Does Cosplay.com even allow you to post auctions anymore, or does everything have to be sold directly through that Marketplace of theirs? God, I do miss their now-defunct Spam board where you could just post a link to an auction and know that hundreds of people were going to look at it. Relegating all selling activity to a tiny, ordered niche makes sense from a "let's make everything nice and legal" perspective, but it does tend to cut down on the amount of casual attention your item gets (Not to mention that I don't think you can post auction links there. Sigh.)

I'm not even sure what their proper name is. Mom just used to call them "no-bake cookies" which is painfully generic and which does nothing to convey their brain-achingly delicious nature. I think I've seen similar recipes online that referred to them as "graham cracker cookies" or "coconut cookies", but that doesn't seem to do them justice either. You can't just name these cookies after a single ingredient and expect that name to work--these cookies are greater than the sum of their component parts. These cookies are a divine gestalt of flavor, a shining, magical spark of orgasmic gastronomancy. As such, I can only make them once a year because their rich awesomeness would just be too great for my frail will and aging body to handle were I to make them more often.



Oh sure, they don't look like something that the angels could only dream about when trying to imagine something even more wonderful than Heaven, but trust me, they're THAT good.

RECIPE:
2 Cups Crushed Graham Crackers
1/1/2 Cups Chopped Walnuts
1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 Bag Small Marshmallows
1 Small Bag Shredded Coconut

Get yourself the largest bowl you can find. Spread out some wax paper and lay out some graham crackers on top of it. (Make sure you get either plain or honey flavored crackers, not the cinnamon flavored kind.) Start crushing the graham crackers with a rolling pin. (If you don't have a rolling pin, use a can of Spaghettios or something.) Crush the graham crackers into a fine powder and then pour them into a measuring cup. (If you buy one of those 3-pack graham cracker boxes, you'll find that it'll take 1-1/2 packs to make 2 cups of crushed graham cracker crumbs. This will make it convenient for you if you want to make a double batch of cookies to give to your friends to devour by your lonesome while you hide away from the prying, begging eyes of the undeserving rest of the world.

Once you've crushed all of the graham crackers and have deposited them into the bowl, dump the walnuts and marshmallows in there, along with the can of sweetened condensed milk. (Don't make a mistake and buy evaporated milk instead like someone I know who totally isn't me did one year. Sigh.)

You'll need a rubber spatula to get all of the milk out of the can and to stir all of the ingredients together. You'll also need a REALLY big bowl to do all of the stirring in, since the marshmallows and cracker crumbs love to go flying everywhere. Make sure EVERYTHING is mixed to a more or less uniform consistency. Make sure all of the marshmallows are coated and all of the crumbs have been soaked in milk.

Now comes the fun part. Take a small bowl and fill it with some shredded coconut. (Wash your hands first, of course.) Prepare the container in which you'll be storing your cookies by laying down a layer of wax paper at the bottom. Now then, take a small amount of the coconut/graham cracker/marshmallow mixture and form it into a ball that's about 2 inches in diameter. Dip the ball into the bowl full of coconut flakes and roll it around until it's completely covered by the coconut. Deposit cookie into storage container. Repeat process until all of the cookies are made. (If your storage container is deep and you plan on putting many layers of cookies into it, place a layer of wax paper between each layer to keep them from sticking to each other.)

You should have enough in your batch to fill about a gallon ice cream bucket full of cookies. You can store the cookies covered at room temperature or freeze them for later (although freezing might dry them out. Do not eat frozen cookies unless you like the nasty gooey texture of cold gelatinous marshmallows. Ick.)

All told, the ingredients should cost you about ten bucks, although if you're savvy, you could find most of them on sale at varying points during this time of year.

Enjoy! (Unless you're diabetic, in which case rip out your computer harddrive, have all of its temporary internet files erased to wipe out any trace of the recipe and then have the harddrive sent to that warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant is stored for good measure.)

Switching gears: Instead of relisting the handmade doll items back onto ebay, I've decided to upload them all onto my brand new Etsy store:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/amethystscloset

It turns out I already had an account there (I just had to update the new expiration date for my old credit card.) Don't know why I didn't do this years ago, other than the fact that I just didn't have very much to upload until now.

Non-doll stuff and costume supplies will still be available for sale by me on good ol' ebay...

Ours was okay, only I wish the cooking instructions on our turkey loaf had been more accurate. After following them to the letter, Mom cut into the turkey only to find a frozen block of pink ice sitting in the middle. (Next year we're deep-frying that baby, threat of house-shattering-hot-oil-explosions be damned.)

I managed to set up my BJDs into something of a charming Christmas Tableau:



Rufus' trumpet is nothing more than a plastic ornament that just happened to have the right finish and be the right size for him. It was the best 50 cents I ever spent at the Valu-Thrift.









I have managed to post a few of the ebay auctions I hope to post this month in time for the holidays. (I only hope people haven't run out of spending money by now.) I have some more items to post and am hoping to get that done before the weekend ends so I can get back to my regular projects.

EDIT: Some possible good news in my future that may help in the promotion of my website. (Not that you can SEE my website half the time since my new webserver likes to randomly cut out. I've been getting a lot of e-mails from people asking where my online tutorials went since they're unable to find them. Sorry about this. If you're having trouble getting my pages to load, come back in a few minutes and try again. That will hopefully fix them.) With the advent of the new FMA series, I really have to revamp my Automail tutorial. (I'm hoping I can get my webcam to work as I want to make a few new armor construction videos. I switched operating system recently so there's a good chance my webcam WON'T make my computer go kerblooey next time I plug it in.)

White opera gloves! Why are they so hard to find this time of year? I swear, they're abundant until right after Halloween, at which point every department, boutique and bridal store in the nation socks them away in some dark eldritch corner of the universe to be brought out again only during Prom Season. (Sure I could order a pair from ebay, but I need them now. NOW! *Sigh.*)

I had hoped to wait until I'd finished a few more projects, but ebay decided to have a special today whereby it allowed you to post 5 auctions with no insertion fees. So I've posted a few items here:

http://shop.ebay.com/aa_chan/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

(It was tough to do, what with me being down at my parent's house and all of my images and html editing software at home on my computer, so I'll try to polish up the auctions once I get back. If you have any questions about the items I'm offering, please let me know at dietzt@cloudnet.com.) Hope everybody has a happy holiday!

Actually wool isn't that bad a fabric to work with. It's when you have to sew with it on your lap and it gets all scratchy and starts to overheat you that it gets annoying. And I'm already annoyed enough what with my website still not working properly. It's got until this time next week to shape up otherwise I'm going to have to throw another unintimidating internet tantrum (after which I'll probably grit my teeth and start recoding everything with grim, defeated resignation.) Sounds like a fun way to close out a week.

My Renaissance BJD Pavilion Auction ends tomorrow on the 5th. Here are some pictures of the tent:








Dolls not included of course. I also found some fancy hairclips while rummaging through some post-Halloween sales and found, after removing the clips, that they made pretty good doll wigs:





I may post these for sale on ebay in the near future. Gotta finish hand-sewing that wool coat that's been the bane of my existence for the past three days. Sigh. I'm also still working on that Pepakura armor tutorial (just trying to primer and sand the curved parts of the helmet) and I have some e-mail to answer. Please e-mail me at dietzt@cloudnet.com if you have any questions about the items I'm selling...

My website isn't working anymore. Again. I did get a confirmation e-mail from my new webhost saying that they registered my domain name so that's a hopeful sign anyway. Might take a few days before things start working again though. What I want to do is post a new tutorial I'm working on--I'm trying to make futuristic looking armor with Pepakura paper patterns, tagboard and styrene. (I'm hoping this will boost the demand for the styrene I'm selling.) I'm also trying to finish up some long-running projects that have been taking up space.

Here's the link to my current ebay auctions:
http://shop.ebay.com/aa_chan/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

Hope everyone had a good Halloween. A friend gave me a huge bag of parade candy that he had been saving to pass out on Halloween. (Mmmm. 4 month old candy. I mean, YUCK, 4 month old candy. Except for those tiny tootsie roll toffies. Those are still good. Those are indestructable. In fact, I think they were all made in one big batch at the beginning of time and have been packaged and doled out to humanity slowly over the centuries. It wouldn't surprise me.)

That is, my website should be working now, as I've finally figured out how to change the nameservers with my current domain host. I thought at some point the process was going to involve my having to sacrifice a dozen black pullets to the Almighty Gods of Internet Bureaucracy, but thankfully all I had to do was skim some technobabble-loaded e-mails and punch a few keys. (I can't say that my websites are working absolutely perfectly yet, as I noticed a few links on my cosplay site not functioning as usual. I'll give it a few days for the whole domain situation to sort itself out before I start adding content again.)

Oh, and I've learned a sad but important lesson today. If you want to send something like this to Canada:



You probably want to send it via Registered Mail or some really uber-expensive, uber-trackable way because it WILL get stuck in customs for a month while panicky Canadian authorities try to figure out if you're a major arms dealer trying to flood their country with rusty machetes. (Have I mentioned that this Jason machete is plastic and has about as much chance of cutting your skin as a semi-melted marshmallow peep?) I suppose it does look rather menacing under an X-Ray but come on! How long does it take to determine that an object is plastic anyway? You'd think just lifting the package would be enough of a clue. Real metal knife = heavy. Plastic knife = light.

It just shows the danger of shipping realistic looking weapons across national borders. You would think that I would know this lesson by now, except that most of the weapons I typically make tend to look more like something produced by the Whammo! corporation than something you'd actually use to kill someone with. As such, Customs tends to ignore them.

I'm selling more stuff on ebay this week. (I broke down and listed my yaoi doujinshi and Zelda armor for sale and included some BJD stuff.) I also included a very expensive book on how to print comics, if you're the type of person who insists on doing it themselves and can make hide or hair of all the technojargon contained within. Here's my link to the auctions:

http://shop.ebay.com/aa_chan/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

And here's a slapdash yet instructive Youtube video showing what I've got for sale (yes, there's a video there despite what the blank black screen would have you believe):



Thank you Windows Movie Maker, for making this possible...

...what with it being constantly gloomy and raining. Sure it puts me into the Halloween mood, but I sort of wanted to get some nice sunny autumn walking done in Quarry Park before Winter parked its heavy, big ol' white butt here. I can only wonder if I'll get the chance.

This might be the funniest thing I've even seen in my life:



My ebay auctions end tomorrow. I'm selling the last of my white spiked Kakashi/Hitsugaya wigs (and I'm fairly certain that it's the last one in existence since I think the company stopped making them.) So if you want one, now's the absolute last chance to get one. I believe I've gotten all of the world shipping snafus straightened out so hopefully I won't have any nasty surprises this time, cross muh fingers...

I made a movie about the latest round of ebay auctions ending Oct. 5:



I hate to be so commercial these days, but it has been a long time since I last cleaned my closets and put things up for sale, (so if I sell everything, you won't have to put up with this crap again for awhile.)

I am selling some computer software and memory cards from my early computer days (so if you've got an old machine or digital camera and need stuff that's compatible with them, you might find it useful.) If you're into makin' stuff like I am, you might like this XACTO Hobby Knife Kit I'm selling. It has a bevel cutter, a saw and some other stuff which I'm not really sure what it is. (I prefer knives with disposable snap-off blades myself, so it's little use to me, but if you're into cutting matboards, wood carving or anything else craftsy, you might like it.)

I've answered most of my e-mail. I think. I'll go over it again when I get the time. In the meantime, enjoying my new desk, although I wish I had a bigger monitor and higher seat. I feel so small tapping away in front of this monolith of a desk. Sigh.

Which is good, because I think ebay is trying to subtly drive me mad what with it randomly deleting descriptions after I write them up and click the "Continue" button. By the way, I did relist most of the stuff that didn't sell last week. (Some of the costumes and wigs I posted for lower prices, so it's definitely worth your time to check them out.) I also listed a few new items, mostly stuff I found while digging through my file cabinet. (I had to move said file cabinet to make way for the new Uberdesk I got for my computer.) Before I go into that subject, I'll just post a link to my latest round of auctions:

http://shop.ebay.com/aa_chan/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=

BUY SOMETHIN WILL YA!

Anyway, it was an eventful week for me. I had to help a friend move to a new apartment and said friend gave me his old computer desk, which was a little worn but very wide, unlike my old computer desk which seemed to have been made for some sort of Pygmy dormitory where everyone has tiny Tyrannosaurus Rex hands and types at their keyboards all hunched over. I've got a lot of non-ebay, Halloween-related costume work to catch up on, but I should have enough time to get it all done.

Today's Youtube-related Random Goodness: How to Deal with a Tiny-Wienered Tough Guy Who Likes to Beat Up on His Girlfriend In Public:

I managed to send off most of the ebay stuff I sold. Thank God most of my overseas buyers were understanding enough to pay the proper price for shipping. I can't say the same about the Ebay sellers I ran into on the Ebay Discussion Boards, most of whom thought I was an idiot or pulling some kind of scam. I understand that the big-time Ebay wheeler-dealers have to put up with a lot of dishonest and stupid crap (hence their suspicion and condescension,) but still, I think my point was and is valid--that Ebay's Worldwide Shipping drop menu form is prone to being misunderstood by casual users who are not used to it. (I only thought I was telling people that Worldwide shipping was AVAILABLE, not that it would only cost them $3.12 no matter where on the planet they happened to LIVE.) It was a stupid mistake, yes, but one that any one of you could have made if you had a lot of stuff to sell and were occupied with determining prices, writing copy, etc...

Anyway, I've still got a lot of stuff posted on ebay that I want to sell. Good stuff, like wigs, costumes and doll miniatures. Not a lot of it has been bid on so far so please take a look (and tell everyone you know who might be interested about my items.)

Like this one:


It's a KILT, Man! All you need to do is add a puffy shirt and you can dress up as.....a guy in a kilt.... wearing a puffy shirt....Yeah....

My first round of auctions are over. I thought it odd that most of my bidders were from overseas until I started getting payments from them and noted that they were sending me ludicrously small amounts for shipping. I soon realized that ebay's International Shipping calculator (accessible from every auction page) was set to "First Class International Mail: $3.12" no matter WHAT the location of the buyer was. (No wait. A couple of the Canadian buyers got off with paying only $1.75-_-) Unfortunately, this world is filled with people who are dim enough to believe that you could ship a 4 pound package halfway around the world for the price of a McDonald's sandwich, and I've had at least one threaten to pull out of their auction if I insist on them paying the true price for shipping. I've shot a letter filled with impotent, passive-aggressive nerdy rage to ebay about this and I expect an answer within 24-48 hours, but I'm not too hopeful. I expect it to be along the lines of "Oh, you didn't know how to set up your auction properly. Somehow (in a way we haven't quite figured out yet) this is all YOUR fault. Tough shit. I hope you enjoy being bent over the rocks and financially sodomized by your new foreign penpals. And don't forget to send us OUR cut if you have any money left over!"

You see why I have absolutely no trust in corporations these days?

I had to go through all of my still-active auctions and post a note begging out of the country bidders to write to me for an accurate shipping total. I guess I'm paranoid enough to NOT believe there could be people out there who fail to double-check something if it seems too good to be true (to be fair, there were a few buyers the last round who did, but such wisdom seems harder to come by these days.)

I blame MTV.

I've got everything posted on ebay. Here's a sampling of my items and the sad, sad stories behind them:

Death Note DVD and Poster Package: Got this for winning Best in Show at AnimeDetour. I'm sure it's a good movie but as I could just Netflix it (and as I'm sure the box set has some intrinsic collector value to it,) I'd rather just sell it and use the money to buy material. (Because Lord knows, I don't have enough fabric lying around my house...)

Beautiful Short Red Wig: I originally bought this for my Queen Esther cosplay but when it arrived, I found the color was too hard to match hair extensions to. (I don't think I've ever seen a wig or extensions that are this exact color. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen this color anywhere in my whole life. It's the kind of color you'll only find in Schumacher-directed Batman movies. (That might frighten the wee out of you or intrigue you enough to buy the wig --in which case you'd better have some welder's goggles handy when you open the package.)

18mm Acrylic Doll Eyes-Bright Blue:Why can't I take a clear picture of these? Who's going to want to buy some blobby round things that they cannot see? (Please! Someone buy them so I don't have to spend another half an hour trying to focus my camera lens to the correct nano-millimeter needed to take a clear picture of them! )

A Mannequin Leg:I originally bought this hoping it would come in handy for my armormaking. Unfortunately, the leg is too skinny to make a proper leg form for most people (unless I wrap it in enough cotton batting to absorb the Atlantic Ocean.) It would make a good Halloween prop though. (Just dip it in some ketchup and pretend that you were out chainsawing hookers or something like that...)

Blue Hair Extensions: What is Kanekalon, anyway? I suppose it's to hair what French Resin is to BJDs or what Rich, Corinthian Leather is to...um...leather. It's something that's supposed to be really good, but when it comes right down to it, nobody really knows what it is or if it even exists outside of some marketing ploy. Anyway, this blue, kinky hair I've got is 100 percent Kanekalon. Therefore, you should buy it so you can feel superior to your pathetic, Kanekalon-deprived neighbors. (Watch them seethe and run away screaming with jealousy when they see you approach with THIS stuff tied to every available limb of your body and poking out of every orifice. Ha!)

Red Tartan Kilt: So I said to myself: SCREW trying to sell this plaid fabric that I bought for a costume but never used and have been trying to offload for the past year. I'm going to make a KILT! THAT'll bring in the bids!(Unfortunately, it's a Men's size small, and since most casual kilt wearers in this country are well into the morbidly obese body-mass index range, there's little hope that it will sell this round. If only I'd had more plaid, I could have made a bigger one. Sigh...)

InuYasha Costume: Yes, I wore this once and yes it comes with the wig. I've also posted the Sesshoumaru costume that I made for my friend (which HE only wore once.) Don't ask me to bring down the price on that costume--the kimono is 100 percent silk and it comes with a wig and sword. (I'll be losing money on it as it is...)

If you want to see all of the other items I've posted for sale, please click on the link below (and remember that some auctions start a couple of days later than others, so be sure to mark what times the items you want end.)

http://shop.ebay.com/aa_chan/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=

Thanks for looking!

Winter has finally shown up after dragging its feet for a few weeks. Can't complain since it is the right time of year for this kind of thing, (and this is the "Siberia of America," which means that I should just be happy it's not raining Yetis or anything...)

The good things that happened to me this week:

*Sold my HeroQuest board game on ebay for 83 dollars. Not bad for something I managed to pick up in a thrift store for a buck.

*Am about 50 percent finished with my Cosplay Site upgrade. (Thanks for the Thumbnail-making software naiad_kitty,-- although it's prompted me to go back and remake all of the thumbnails for my already-completed gallery pages. Oh well. I had to do some code-tweaking and link removal on those pages anyway...)

The bad things that happened to me this week:

*You remember back on the day before Halloween when I was struggling to get some boxes mailed out? It just so happens that it was a very rare turn of events--two identical costumes sent to two different people in two identical-looking boxes. I filled out my Express shipping labels, handed them and the boxes over to the postal workers, handed them a check for 115 dollars, and then I assumed all would be well. (After all, they were a government agency and I was paying them a lot of money. Surely they would take the utmost care to make sure the right package got to the right person.)

WRONG! They switched the effing labels. So now I have to try and sort out what to do with the post office (can I get some kind of compensation for them cocking things up?) and get the right costumes to the right people. (This last part's not going to be easy since I haven't heard from one of the parties whom I sent a costume to for over a week now--I don't know if he even GOT the package or if it's sitting on his porchstep in three feet of snow. My earnest e-mails have been met with dull, stony, e-silence.) Sigh. This has been THE month for Fate to really fuck with me. (My days of trusting the damn post office are over, btw.)

*Those damn BJD Cargo Pants that I keep trying to sell on ebay but to no avail. I know I may have vastly underestimated the ball-joint doll community's interest in Hot Topic inspired fashion, but I at least thought I would have had ONE person show an interest in them by now. They took me five hours to complete. Each! They have working pockets, white lining and and enough eyelets and chains to outfit an army of goths! Do I have to dip them in gold and stuff them with Brad-Pitt- cloned homunculi to make them attractive enough to buy? Ye gods... (I just wish I could have taken the time I wasted making them and put it towards something more useful--maybe do some site updating or work on my Orphaned Comic Series...or pick my nose with a knitting needle, or listen to Dane Cook--anything! Sigh.)

Will repost some stuff on ebay soon and try to finish my site upgrade. Stay tuned...

I've finished the art for most of my new gallery pages. I've counted, and I have exactly 125 items/props/costumes to add to the site. Next step: make a gajillion thumbnails and then work on the gallery pages' html. (Now I know WHY I put off updating for so long. It's about as much fun as copying a dictionary with a dip pen. While sitting on a chair made out of angry wolverines.)


My ebay auctions are still going. Only a couple more days left until they end:
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZaa_chan

Working on a helmet made from laminated posterboard. (I'm finding out just what this stuff can do. Its pretty cool...)

Stay tuned...

Random Youtubery of the day:

SLIDEY THE CAT! APPROXIMATELY 30 PERCENT MORE LOL THAN LOLCATS!

Alrightie. Just a few updates on my condition:

Current Non-Commission Projects:

Updating my website. I haven't changed my site design since 2005 (and I don't think I've added anything new in the way of project pictures since early 2007.) The site looks like total crap in the latest version of Firefox, so a massive retooling is necessary. (I also want to add some links to my Ball Joint Doll Projects.) I'm currently going through all of my recent project pictures and I can see that there are at least 20 - 30 costumes and props that I need to add and to prepare gallery pictures and navigation links for. (Bleh. That'll teach me to let Site Duties lapse for too long....)

Writing my Compendium's Advanced Armor Volume. I want to try and get that finished before the Christmas Shopping season, if I can...

Posting New Ebay Auctions. I'll continue to harp upon this until I can get the majority of this stuff sold. Here's a link to the auctions:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZaa_chan

Some BJD stuff, some cosplay stuff... I've posted some pics from the auction onto this blog already, but here's some thumbnails of the doll wigs that I'm selling:

















(Most of these are "Buy it Now" so when they're gone, they're gone...) Just comment if you have any questions...

ADDENDUM: Sigh. It seems Youtube is laying down the banhammer on all of my how-to videos that feature Vince Guaraldi's music. I can't blame the man himself for this turn of events, since he's been dead since 1976, but it does create quite a quandry for myself. I have no plans to replace the banned videos, since they suck ass. I've always wanted to redo them with a better quality webcam, but I can't afford one right now. (I was thinking I might sell the one I have but I don't know if I'd get anything for it if I peddled it via ebay. Anyone out there have a need for a mid-quality Logitech Quickcam? It's pretty good for most web-cammy things that don't involve a high amount of detail. I can let it go for twenty bucks--less than half what I paid for it. Just e-mail me at dietzt@cloudnet.com if you're interested.)

So I've finally gotten off my duff and posted a bunch of my doll stuff for sale on ebay. (I'm selling some old cosplay stuff as well-- a couple of old costumes, and some fabric at deep discount.) Here's a sample of the things up for auction:










I'm selling a HeroQuest game as well (for about half what I had hoped to get for it. I really doubt I'd get any bites if I had my initial opening bid price of 15 bucks any higher, but if you know anyone who would want a game like this, please tell them about my auction.




By the way, you'll find all of my auctions on this page:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZaa_chan

Thanks for looking!

Well, I managed to sell two pieces of artwork during my last round of ebay auctions. That's 20 dollars, minus the 12 dollars I spent posting everything, leaving a grand total of 8 dollars to add to the Angelometer:



I haven't added the money that paypal is skimming from the transactions to the total because I'm depressed enough as it is. My life is starting to resemble that scene in Napolean Dynamite where Napolean counts up the money he's made from working at the chicken farm and finds he's only made a buck an hour or so. Is it any wonder why I hate, loathe, abominate and despise selling anything on ebay?

So now I'm at a crossroads. Do I relist everything in the vague hope that more pictures will sell this time around? Or do I try and mount everything on hooks and ship it to anime convention art shows around the country in the just-as-vague hope that someone there will buy something? I dunno. Someone mentioned to me putting up a donation bar for the Angelometer, but I honestly want to give people something in return for their generosity. (That and imagine how depressed I'd feel if no one donated?) I'll think about what to do with the rest of the art. Stay tuned...

I've been going nuts with the vacuum-forming machine this week. I've found it most successful in the making of simple, semi-detailed things:


I've also found it handy in making gemstone molds for large gemstones:



I had to carefully line the molds with wide, clear cellophane tape so the resin wouldn't stick to them. It was a lot of trouble, but it can be a useful way to make faceted gemstones if you don't feel like trying to make molds for the gemstones out of modeling clay (which can be hard to clean off of a resin object.)

I have about half a dozen projects underwasy (and have finished making the patterns for some of the clothing I'm working on. ) I'll get to everyone's e-mail asap.

Thanks!

E-mail. I WILL answer it soon. I've been spending the majority of my time working on Otakon commissions. (That, and I've been trying to prepare for KakkoiCon as well.)

My quest to buy a DIM Angelo head continues unabated. To that end, I took my collection of silver and garnet rings (which I bought long ago at a thrift store's "going out of business" sale) to the local pawn shop. There, I sold them for 27 dollars. A pittance for what they're probably worth, but seeing as I've tried selling them at several venues already (jeweler's, ebay, convention tables,) and had not ONE taker for them, and...well.... this was probably the only way I'd ever get ANY money for them. (Things aren't worth crap if you can't find a buyer for them.) Case in point.


So here's how the Angelo-Meter stands so far:



My goal is $150. I've got $27.00 so far. *sarcastic woot.*

I've posted a slideshow of my anime-style tarot prints on Youtube:



I've tossed in some tinkly piano music and a link to the ebay auctions where I'm selling prints of the pictures:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZaa_chan

I really hope I can sell a few before KakkoiCon, as the hotel there looks to be very expensive. (By the way, if anyone here is going to Kakkoicon and is need of a room or a roommate, please let me know. I'm desperate to cut as many costs as I can so I don't again experience anything like "The Great Credit Card Disaster of AnimeDetour".)

Here's a recent picture of a project I've made. An original (not-designed-by-me-or-made-for-me) green satin kimono:



God I love Casa Satin. Polyester satin is really the only kind of satin that's worth two craps. Never, EVER use that acetate "bridal satin." It's thin, wrinkly, and gets ruined when wet. (Your protip of the day!)


I think I'm going to have to stop going to Quarry Park for awhile. At least until the end of the summer. Right now the park is chock full of the two things I most loathe in life: bugs and people in bathing suits. Blech! And I'm not sure what kind of bugspray I used before going to the park yesterday, but rotting meat would have made a better repellant. It didn't work AT ALL. I'm not sure what kind of Supermosquitos we have roaming the backwoods around here, but it's enough to chill one's rapidly-draining blood.