I Finally Got Some Reasonable Photos Of The Plague Doctor Mask, And Have Posted It Up On My Etsy Here.

I finally got some “reasonable” photos of the plague doctor mask, and have posted it up on my Etsy here.

This sinister but highly capable healer is ready to bring your adventuring party back to fighting shape–for a price. 

It’s my contribution to this year’s @magicmeatmarch, a sexy plague doctor! Inspired by the global viral pandemic, because that’s a perfectly reasonable sentence to write in the year 2020.

I designed the mask in the last couple weeks, and modified one of my codpiece designs to work with the red cross yesterday. The chaps and jacket I’d made over the last couple years for different outfits, but I thought they fit with this idea nicely. 

Also, haha CORVID-19.

Since it's Pride Month (or Wrath Month as the case may be) I figured it was a good time to update some of my rainbow products to include other flag combos.

These are sets of bracelets you can wear as a big stack. I've made the rainbow sets for a while, but I just went through and updated the listing on Etsy to offer a bunch of the specific pride flag sets. They're made with anodized aluminum and EPDM rubber rings, so they stretch over your hand.

And they're available on my Etsy shop.

I can’t get quite all of the different pride flags right now, but I’ll do my best if someone asks. Notably, the lesbian flags call for a lot of similar colors that I’m unlikely to be able to match. Aro and ace are also tricky, since my normal supplier doesn’t offer gray rubber rings. I think I can source some from a smaller supplier though.

Escapism during times of crisis

I’ve been mostly quiet online this last month, because I wanted not to talk over BLM voices. The art I make is largely about escapism from the world, and I didn’t feel comfortable trying to share that during the peak of this moment. I thought it was more important for society to focus on the pain and amplify the public outcry. I felt that my saying “Hey look at this unrelated pretty stuff I made!” would be detracting from the introspection that society needs right now.

That said, I knew that eventually we would need pleasant distractions again. And personally, I’ve hit the point where I need to put some fun back into my life, or I will burn out hard. So I’m going to resume posting stuff, so I can recharge my energies before feeding them back into politics.

Keep going to protests. Keep holding power to account. Keep donating to community support organizations. Read up on police+prison abolition, and write in to your city council--it’s budget season, and defunding police forces is suddenly a big issue everywhere. Make sure you’re registered to vote. Talk to your friends and family about this stuff. Support Black and other marginalized creators (even though that’s not me). Keep wearing your face masks--the pandemic didn’t get bored, even if we did.

Society is finally confronting some of the problems it’s been ignoring for decades. And this is an exciting opportunity to make some real progress. It’s exhausting, and as always things will take a long time to change. But if we all keep pushing with the strength that we are able, we will eventually move society to a better place.

And take the time to step back and rest when you need, to keep yourself happy and sane. That’s what I’m doing, that’s why I’m here.

I do try to keep my art accounts to mostly just places to showcase my work, but if you want to get the firehose blast of reblogs of things I like and care about, here is where I do that: https://twitter.com/DracoLoricatus Recently it’s mostly been boosting Black Lives Matter and related issues.

Whoops I forgot to post this plague doctor hood. I finished it up around the end of May, then it sold off of my Etsy while I was in media blackout.

This one has room for glasses to be worn underneath, clear acrylic lenses, ventilation through holes and grommets in the beak, and ear cups for comfort (no more squishing your ears when you lace up the hood!) with a bunch of holes for uninterrupted hearing.

I really like showing off the un-dyed color of the leather when using this sort of aesthetic. It’s got just a light application of oil to darken it slightly (this hide was very light tan to start), then it’s finished with a matte acrylic clear coat.

I’d made a similar plague doctor mask years ago (here) as one of my first big whole-head hood style masks, and this design built on a bunch of stuff I’ve learned since then. I went for a more visually coherent eye design; used rivets for the long seams to reduce the assembly time; and I tried out the ear cup idea, building on the deer head mask previously.

Made a black version of my steampunk-ish respirator mask (previously seen here), also wanted to show it with the option for attaching with just a simple cord to knot instead of the full buckle arrangement. 4 oz vegetable-tanned leather, laser-cut, dyed and sewn together by hand, with brass screen beneath the grating. Not protective on its own, but you can wear it over a disposable or cloth mask. Available on my Etsy shop!

This vest was originally made by another chainmail crafter (I don't actually know who), to match a tail that I made for a commissioner some 4 years ago. The vest had some issues, especially at the side closures, and the commissioner asked me to work out a solution to those, and expand the vest further towards the waist. I may also need to reinforce some spots up in the shoulders, since it was woven with aluminum rings, where I myself mostly only trust steel in high-load spots.

This is still in progress, but I figured I'd show the photos that I've got so far. The final will be a bit longer than this, and the edges will be tidied up.

Here’s two posts of the original tail his was made to match.