This Project Kept Me Busy Through July And The Start Of August. Someone Ordered 30 Of These Horned Crowns

This project kept me busy through July and the start of August. Someone ordered 30 of these horned crowns for a high school color guard act. I’m not sure what the act is exactly, I guess it’s bull-themed. This was the second such large order actually; someone else ordered a similar number for a different school last year. I guess I’ve stumbled into a niche market?

Now I’m geared up to make some new stuff.

I grabbed some friends for a photo shoot today! I took like actually 500 photos so it’ll take a couple days to fully go through them, but here are some fun ones that might not get used in product photos because of having multiple designs mixed and also because wow they’re ridiculous.

Whee my friends are great.

Oh, also, I know I’d said I’d been hoping to take some chainmail tail commissions soon, but last weekend when I was hiking in the mountains in North Carolina to see the eclipse I sprained my wrist. (I slipped and fell on a rock while swimming in Sliprock Creek. I’m not even kidding.) The eclipse was awesome, but hiking back up a mountain with an injured wrist was pretty bad. Glad it wasn’t my ankle though! Anyway, I got it looked at when I got back to civilization. I’ll probably be in a splint for another week or so, and I’m probably gonna hold off on chain-mailleing for another week or two so I don’t mess it up long-term. I know there were a couple people who’d been asking about tails coming up, and I’m sorry that this will delay them more, but such is life.

Anyway, the next few days will involve me going through and updating photos on a bunch of my Etsy listings, and posting a couple new ones that had been waiting on photos. Expect a bit of an influx of photos everywhere I am online.

Made this set of bull horns for that color guard group. I wanted to try out making horns in this way, being hollow and stitched together. The end result was really nice, but wow it was a trial to stitch these together.

The basic challenge is, when you’re sewing through a piece of fabric, the needle has to go somewhere. When you’re sewing right up at the thin tip of the horn, where does the needle go? The answer turns out to be that you have to sew it in two halves, then you sew the two remaining seams at the same time, keeping it really loose until you get far enough and have enough room that you can tighten them up. These took 8 hours to stitch together, which for reference was about how much time it took to sew this plague doctor mask. Because of the amount of time it took, it doesn’t make sense for me to offer this design for sale. But I really did like how these turned out, and I think I would like to use this style of horn in future large masks where the size and impact of the piece can justify the time investment and price. I might also be able to make not-fully-closed horns in a similar manner, that should take significantly less time.

I took these process photos for my own reference really, but I figured people might be interested in seeing them. I’ve got some final photos that I’ll dig through in a bit.

Hey, are you open for commissions right now? I love your work and would like to commission a large tail from you. However I am unsure if you are open for tail commission. If you are not open could you give me a ( approximate) time until you are? Please and thank you. -C0FFEE.

I’m not open at the moment; I’ve got a bulk order of masks that I need to make over the next couple weeks. I’m planning on opening for tail commissions at the end of the month when I return from a vacation.

Finally posting this canine hood now that I got nice photos of it! When making it I’d had a serious, attentive sort of personality in mind, with the angular snout and the upright ears. But my friend made it look really playful I thought. 

It’s up for sale on my Etsy shop!

This one was sort of a first pass at making this type of mask, so I cut it by hand and kind of worked it out as I went. If there seems to be interest/demand for this, there are some things I’d adjust. But one thing I was thinking ahead for, is the ears and snout are removable, so I could have a variety of styles to snap on and off.

And even if there isn’t that high a demand for this from the people who follow me, the buckle arrangement I worked out here is pretty good as a framework for making a large full-face mask. So I do plan to make other masks with this as a starting point. The next thing I tackle will probably be a dragon, because of course I need to do a dragon.

I took this dragon tail commission partly to check on whether my wrist was back up to speed. It’s mostly back. I need to be a bit careful with the direction I exert force in. And I did this one too hard too quickly, and I’ll probably be sore for a few days.

Pretty straightforward red and orange anodized aluminum. Red on top, orange underbelly. I think the holes on these scales were shifted a fraction of a unit down on the scales, because my standard 35-inch pattern came in at 33 inches long. Kind of funny how small manufacturing variations add up to something I can measure. Weight is 3 pounds on the nose.

I was happy to have a couple days free that I could make this during, but I’m expecting to go back to being super busy for the rest of the month. I’ve got a lot of stuff to do for my day job, and I’m trying to finish a LARP that I have to run early in November. I’m hoping to be able to open for commissions again in early to mid November.