Staring at my test pieces trying to decide if I’m ready to paint the real thing. It feels like every picture I take looks different and sometimes it matches the reference and sometimes it doesn't. Color is my nemesis because I have ZERO confidence in myself when it comes to evaluating color. 😭

I am going to get a signature form Ben Starr, tho! Got this art printed on canvas just for that purpose. Blurring it because it might be considered a spoiler. I wonder if those traumatized by E33 can still tell what it is, tho. 😂

As cool as it would be to get a bunch of CritRole signatures at FanX, ya girl cannot afford to drop $375+ for scribbles. Even if they are scribbles from people who have made a huge impact on my life.

The footage for the second hoodie conversion tutorial has been recorded! Hopefully I can get it edited before too long.

When I did my paint test, I didn’t pay attention to my ratios as I mixed paint because I was just trying to see if I’d get something I’d like. Since I did, today I went about it much more scientifically! I plan to tweak the lighter one a smidge, but I ran out of lilac paint, so I have to wait.

Plus, even if I could get the dye to work NOW, veg tan leather darkens over time. So eventually (maybe even by the con 😬) they would go back to being the wrong color. And so I have turned to leather paint. And as sad as I am to not be able to use dye, Daggum if I didn’t get exactly what I wanted.

I REALLY wanted to dye the armor for Owlbear. And my dye tests on the untooled leather looked promising. Problem is, tooling & wet-forming darkens the leather. And the dye I’m using is so diluted, that the color of the leather has a HUGE impact on the final result. So things were coming out too warm

Making good progress on the greaves! Each greaves is made up of 6 different tooled pieces. I will have to do the final assembly after dyeing them, which is very scary, because if assembly goes wrong… that’s a lot of work lost. 😭 Here’s hoping it doesn’t go wrong!

This might be the craft room clean that I am the most proud of. I didn’t just tidy, I went DEEP. Organized. Three things away. Unearthed things that hadn’t seen the sun in years. So excited to have this space be the most functional it’s been in a long time.

I'm so tired of reading books that are just mid. So I'm coming to y'all with pictures of my TBR shelf to ask if any of these are bangers. I need something GOOD.

I dyed the base of the bracers dark purple. It'll be a bit until I dye the rest because I want to dye everything that's the same color at the same time. These are the only pieces that are dark purple, so they went early. And photos of how the wing extensions work. They are stitched onto the base.

Both bracers are now mostly complete! Gotta wait until my glue arrives until I can make any more progress. So now is a good time to take a break and clean my house. Unsure if next I’ll work on the greaves or work on putting together the under layer & armor attachments. 🤔

Oh! And here are all my fabrics. This costume is a fun exercise in walking the line between purple and grey/brown. The more saturated purple at the bottom is the lining that you won’t ever see. 😂

Speaking of dye, I custom mixed my own dye for this project. It’s all Angelus dye, but their purple dye is SO powerful that my formula is: 94% neutral dye (AKA diluter), 3% purple, 3% mahogany. The fabric under the leather sample is what the gambeson will be made out of.

Awkward video because I was too lazy to set up my tripod. 😝 But all the components of bracer #1 are complete! Waiting until I have at least the other bracer and greaves done before I dye/glue/etc because I want to do as much dyeing at the same time as possible.

Happy with my tooling practice, and also successfully patterned how to do the wing that sticks out (gonna tweak it a smidge, tho). So it’s time to start trying the real thing!

Getting started on @hannahartwork.bsky.social’s Owlbear design! Can’t promise to update on BSKY often. 😅 check IG for more regular updates!

Figured it was about time I uploaded my cosplayer “resume” to my profile. I would absolutely ADORE more opportunities to guest at conventions, both as a panelist and a judge. And I figure the only way to make that happen is to start putting myself out there. So… hello world! Here I am. 😁

I’ve been in a reading slump this month, so I was debating what to read to try and bring myself out of it. And it was amusing to me that it took me several minutes to realize I was debating between two @seananmcguire.bsky.social books. 😂

Never really got better at posting progress on here as the crunch intensified. But we did the thing, fam!

Wet forming the leather armor for my boots! If you didn't know, leather acts a lot like foam, especially if you plan to paint it rather than dye it. And it's A LOT more durable. Which is why I prefer to use it on things like shoes.

MOAR PROGRESS DUMP.

Here’s a video I took pre-priming/assembling that shows off how the blue sections of the swords glow in the dark!

I have been bad at updating progress on BSKY. 😅 But for the most part I’ve just been trapped in the hell of priming-sanding-priming-sanding ad nauseam. But I finally have all of these pieces in their ready-to-be-painted state! Though I’m going to hold off on that until I also have the armor done.

If you liked THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR, please read this book ASAP. 😭 Made my heart hurt in the same beautiful way.

Excited! But also nervous because I know I’m not gonna know most people there. 😅 If you’ll be at AB, sound off so I can follow some people in advance? #AnimeBoston #AnimeBoston2026

Not sure I can forgive Dropout for making the blue of the shirt and the blue of the pants TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT SHADES while not including the teal of the shirt anywhere in the pants. The teal shirt is my favorite, but the fact that it doesn't actually match the pants prevents me from buying it. 😭

Almost exactly 6 weeks after starting the first book, I finished all 2200+ pages of this trilogy. And it was very good! But I'm genuinely starting to worry I can’t find joy in books that are <500 pages long anymore. Gonna take a break from epic fantasy & look for some smaller standalones to read 😅

Making progress on the hat! I have the foam base, and successfully 3D modeled and printed a test brim!

Application deadline is Friday, so I decided to stop here and focus on making the application as solid as I can!