Oh God I Still Have More Photos To Go Through From That Photo Shoot.

Oh god I still have more photos to go through from that photo shoot.

This is that superhero mask that works with glasses.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/542418778/wondrous-hero-mask-glasses-compatible

This weekend I wore this around at Anthro New England for a while, and got a whole lot of people asking to take photos of me. But I neglected to get any photos for myself except for this selfie.

I rocked out for hours in this hood, the tail that goes with it, and an assortment of other stuff I'd made. I guess it's broken in now.

I definitely have a list of improvements to make for the next iteration, too.

Leather dragon costume! Matching set of head and tail! I’m very excited, this project was many months in the making. 

Aesthetically I was aiming for something sort of halfway in between a fursuit and kink gear. I think the black leather and rivets pull the image pretty strongly towards the latter, giving it a sleek and somewhat sinister vibe.

It’s a hollow shell, not built on a resin or foam base. The leather used is a somewhat firm but flexible chrome re-tanned one, with a very clean semi-glossy finish.

The head has enough space to be worn over glasses! You can see mine in some of the photos. The eyes are clear acrylic, giving a pretty good unobstructed field of vision. The horns are birch plywood laminated together into a solid form. The head opens in the back and laces closed with nylon paracord. The tail is stuffed with poly-fill, and held on with a pair of belt loops.

I designed everything in 3D in Rhino. Because the pieces were pretty big I actually hand-cut all the leather pieces rather than laser-cutting them as I often do. (The plywood for the horns was laser-cut.) You can see some of that process here.

And of utmost importance, this is up for sale! Here’s the Etsy link! If it sells I’ll get to make a new one and try out more new ideas!

I'm at Arisia! Got me two tables filled up nicely with leather masks and armor and jewelry! Hooray for getting enough stuff produced to have a respectable booth, even though I only had a week's notice!

Here’s a comparison series with a couple jackal masks. A while back I was experimenting with an alternate method of doing black leather. On the right you see the normal black dye I use. The left mask, though, I used a chemical process to color. You rust a bunch of steel wool into vinegar (making a solution I believe is called vinegaroon), then when you brush it onto the leather it reacts with the tanins in the leather to produce a black or very dark brown color. It’s apparently the same chemical reaction that was used to make super long-lasting ink Back In The Day. If you really hit the leather hard with it, it does go quite dark black, or if you’re a bit light with the application it stays a dark brown as seen here.

I ended up not continuing to use it much for a couple reasons. It seemed to change the texture/stiffness of the leather a bit, making it less pliable and more dry, so it seems to want to get oiled or waxed more than I normally do. I also had a couple issues when it touched other masks, where some of the chemical leeched out into the neighboring pieces and got a blotch of black on them. So it’d need to be sealed harder all around the piece, where I usually like to leave the back side of the leather un-sealed for moisture/drying reasons. (The vinegar solution tended to soak all the way through the leather, so only coloring the front surface wasn’t exactly tenable.) But honestly, mostly the issue was just that it was yet another process and option to have materials for and to fuss over, when it didn’t seem that it was going to be substantially different from my normal process, at least from the point of view of the customer and finished product.

The vinegar-iron colored jackal sold at Arisia, so it’s no longer sitting around in a box! Hooray, somebody is enjoying it!

I’m so happy this is continuing despite the Great Reckoning. Though I gotta think of something new to make for it soon. The last number of big new things I’ve been working on have been themed together, but “vaguely kinky dragon outfit” is maybe a bit out of genre for Magic Meat March. Gotta think about “sexy dragon slayer” a bit more.

This year’s event will go on

Hello everyone! Apologies for the inactivity, but #MagicMeatMarch is indeed still happening this year! The promotional image and post has been delayed, but is still coming! Here is a little preview (pose not final) and in the meantime, stay tuned and spread the word! Thank you!