The man behind the mask

At long last I have come up with a stage act, an act worthy of a cosplay competition. Not to mention the fact hat I have made reapers mask as well. It is probably one of the fastest cosplay props I’ve made. The prop is made from EVA foam as usual and the result is quite stunning indeed. I have a very interesting and a bit silly way to approach this. By simply pressing a paper against the face, while marking out the eyes, the nose and the mouth with a marker pen. It can also be done with the help of a fried or family member with measuring tape, though that is hardly considered good fun. Ones the placement has been found, I proceed to use a transparent overhead sheet to draw out the pattern. It’s very easy to find reference material online, or just use the Overwatch in game gallery. Ones the lines are in place, it is simply a matter of cutting out the various parts. A scissor will usually do the trick. Take the template onto foam and trace it. Cut out the main skull piece, then the beak like nose, followed by the ridge on top. Naturally it is important to refer to the pesky reference picture as much as possible. The mind is terrible at remembering details and I have at several points done silly mistakes, because I got too overconfident. Glue the pieces in place after removing the studded backside with a knife, sand paper or a rotary tool. Which is also my favorite. It’s important to let the adhesive to properly dry and carve out the space for the nose under the beak. While this is well and all, the two pieces on the side has to be cut out as well, but those should be attached after the main portion has been bended with heat. It’s also recommended to cut out a small triangle on top of the skull, to make it curved a the top. When the piece got properly assembled I attached and adjustable strap, allowing me to wear it and other people as well. For the color I mostly went with white mixed with a dash of brown at different density, which I smudged with a sponge, to achieve a more smooth transition. Any slot aside from the eyes I also attached black fabric to make the contrast more striking.

One of these days I will build a Gundam for no apparent reason.

Sighing out

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Zaceron

Cop Stopped?

17th May, the Norwegian independence day. It comes around every year and is wildly celebrated by people form all over the country. Mostly by walking as a huge group waving flags. It’s also the perfect opportunity to advertise clubs and everything in-between, from bikes, old mobiles, Vikings and kilts. There are very few limits. Naturally I went in my Reaper cosplay, minus the guns. I don’t trust people and their ideas of what is considered a terrorist threat. I have spent way too much time and effort on them to let them be confiscated by a man in blue. It was bad enough that a constable was concerned about my spice bottle grenades. Yes I got stopped. Right after that I was stopped by some reporters as well. Some fellow with the worst hand writing I’ve ever seen. Which is saying something, I have worked with children.

I came across a couple of annoying things I might just have solved by now. First of all the grenades kept falling out and was very hard to glue in place. The second issue I had was the ammo belt, which was made with screws and ductape. That was not very smart. However the solution came to me today. I just used a more stretchy black fabric to make the loop and instead of short screws I used bolts, with a nut on the end.

The other thing I spent a lot of time on, while streaming was to assemble new hoops and fixing the paint job on my guns, which looks fantastic by the way, if I do say so myself.

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#independenceday

I need more Blanco

I have to paint most of the shotgun white, I guess that is why it is called El Blanco. Apparently it is a pun based on correction fluid and the Mexican prefix El. The clay rouses turned out fantastic, way beyond my expectations. My original plan was to go with thermo doll clay. It’s a simple clay that one pop into the over and let it dry. But I needed it to stay in shape until dry, so I went with troll dough instead. Also because it is very simple to make and very inexpensive. It can also be over treated. I also used the same substance on the handle grip. If this works or not, time will tell. However one thing is sure, this gun is not one to throw around as the paint job will go awry and clay will probably break. To rectify this I plan to use some ski card devices. The one you can pull out a thread from, that retract when letting go of the thread. I’m not sure what this device is actually called and can’t be bothered to look it up just yet. I added a lot of minor details and isolated a lot of the colors. It made me wonder if I should use a more ivory color palette. Other that I did stream a lot of Sleeping dogs. Which is why this blog has been a bit slow to update.  

Troll Dough 03.05.2017

Greetings and salutations, it is time for another stream update report. Lately I’ve been spending considerable time on various games. Such as unlocking stuff in Overwatch. I just had to get the officer Dv.a skin. For some insufferable reason America got it first. Naturally I just switched over to those servers instead. By definition it is cancer mode, everyone and their mother was shouting add me in the chat. Not only that people are carp, especially since everyone is lov level as well. Progress does not carry over. Slow loading time and people disconnecting is to be expected and they will be replaced with a retarded AI, which is likely to be better then the AFK player. The poor little sod has a habit of sauntering of minding it’s own business. Failing to use any meaningful abilities and recall when at full health. SO to say business as usual.

As for my El Blanco Reaper shotgun virtually all of the important elements are in place. I had to look up the actual model within the hero gallery, in order to get the details right. The bottom of the gun now resemble the actual model. The smart thing is to paint all the parts separately and then assemble them. But that does not work all the time and will make the process of painting painfully annoying. Colors bleeding over is a real annoying and real problem when I crave pixel perfect precision. Aside from that though, everything is good. Meanwhile I have some reservation about how well my flour, salt, water and glue dough will act when dry. If it drys that is. Essentially I molded the roses with air dried clay, that I coated with glue. Since without it the mixture started to crack, crackle and dry up. That being said though, this troll dough is excellent to entertain children with and can be baked in the over and then coated in paint. It’s not recommended to eat it, sice the salt makes it rather unpleasant.

1 cup water

1 cup salt

2 cup flour

Zaceron

Update 24.04.2017

Games, games and more gaming and photshop. Because I have a game in the works. Plus I’ve made more game videos uploaded to Gamers-Haven.org. The other reason I’ve been doing less cosplay the last week is also due to painting the living room white. Also why I have not been using the greenscreen effect while streaming.

Other things I’ve been doing is to clean up some plastic in nature, by carrying around a plastic bag, when going for a stroll. It’s the small things after all. I’ve come to the conclusion that if the political climate can change, so can the environment. Besides that I hate living with thrash and pollution regardless. After spending time in Beijing’s horrid air pollution I can say one thing. I don’t miss it one bit.

As I was saying, I’ve started to work on a game project, where I’m in the process of writing the design document and making a collection of weekly waifus on my Patreon account. Drawing lovely monster ladies is a fun past time and will also build the foundation for my in game characters. Stau tuned for more.

Greenscreens is a relatively simple thing to set up. Especially in obs, as there is a chroma kye filter. Hand up a bright canvas behind the gaming chair. Like a bright green piece of cloth, have some good lighting and wear a color that is not the same as the fabric. You can also probably go to the local paint factory/ store and have them mix up a green or blue concoction to paint on a surface.

I also spent money on upgrading my PC, but to tax returns I will probably eat a little bit less this month and the next one. Oh well, time to bake bread. 

Zaceron

Cold Steel

This is a boomstick, there are many like it and more will come. Great progress is achieved on the cosplay props front. Not only did I hammer out ball and chain cuffs for the foot. I also managed to upload a new video and updated my waifu collection on Patreon. Happy fun times all around. The cuff was created from an iron plate I cut into appropriate pieces and went to town with a mallet. The ultimate solution for any problem. A hammer is a fantastic stalemate breaker when some deluded fool only think there exist two choices. Unexpected results will occur, but results non the less. Some precaution is recommended. 

One thing is for sure though, working with iron and a hammer is quite fun and satisfying. It comes highly recommended. After all learning a craft is a nifty life skill. Especially when dealing with IKEA furniture and other things that has to stay attached to a surface. The next step is clear to me. I just have to complete my forge and get myself an anvil. A nifty tool of iron, that would have made my cuff a lot more refined. It’s a seriously tricky process to hammer a sheet of metal into a desirable shape with only logs to help and no heat. According to my father there is an old saying. Blacksmiths working without heat goes to Heaven, while those that have a forge goes to hell. Essentially I put the metal sheet on top of a log and start bending it with pliers and hitting it hard with a hammer. Surprisingly effective all things considered. About the only thing not made by me is the bolts, the plastic chain and the bauble. Making rudimentary hinges is not that hard it seems. Nor creating loops to pass the chain through.

Meanwhile I also did some more on the Reaper shotgun. It’s a fascinating thing, with a lot of details. Which I figured I could make with clay and melting the pattern with a soldering iron. It releases dank fumes and I’m probably better of with a sharp knife. The trigger guard is mostly made by assemnbling cardboard parts cut to the right size.

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Zaceron

Video editing 404 07.14.2017

Today was spent on editing a synopsis video of my lovely and slightly off putting Easter eggs. That video went from eight hours of stream, into a less than ten minutes long clip show, with voice over explain some of the process and choices. Much like my blog updates. I have not edited much if any video before and it shows. Especially in my get ripped with Dark Souls video. Where I though everything was to scale. Guess what, it was not. Apparently selecting the whole track and selecting scale to frame, failed me. Leaving half the video in the wrong scale. I have fixed it now though. But you tube is not capable of replacing a video. Only to re-upload it, onto a new url. Which is a bit annoying, but understandable and his been that since the beginning. After all we can’t have people replacing one video with another one. Yet cutting parts and basic editing is totally acceptable. I swear that I did check the content before I clicked publish. It did not occur to me to check a second time. However a more correct version is up. It is a first time for everything. Friday will be a problem indeed, since I will have little or no time to stream. I have to deal with a sim card delivery and a feedback meeting about the Nordic academy of sorcery larp. Where I will present my lovely and totally not bdsm useable cuffs. In all likelihood I will also get a system upgrade this weekend and stream some gameplay. I have also made a deal with a musician and this is the logo we agreed on. Look forward to his music. Enok Groven is apparently quite well known.