Dirty, Dirty Dirt

Howdy ladies and gents!!!

Be shocked and amazed two article in one month!!!! Been a busy first part of the month getting ready for TXA (Trek Trax Atlanta on April 20-22) and getting my Klingon on. Took a break from my Klingon costuming to work a little bit on the plague banner. I looked around at hobby lobby and such and realized that sand and mold pre-made tends to cost you a bit if you buy it. If you go to any hobby store and look for flocking like you use in a model it will cost you a bit. I was sitting around one day and wondered if i could make my own mold and dirt that would stick to my props and not suck my wallet dry. So after a little experimenting I ended up with this:

Inside

 

in sun

I posted a few of these pics on a costuming group I am part of and the main comment I got was that it looked to shiny and bright. So after a little experimenting here is what I came up with you will need the following ingredients:

• Modge Podge Matte glue ( you can get at any hobby store or here)
• Fine craft sand  (got 1 1/2 pounds at Hobby Lobby for $2.49)
• Paints (depends on what color you what your dirt or mold to be)

So lets get started this is what I use to make mine:

The paint colors I use are:

• Thrall Flesh
• Blighted Gold
• Dheneb Stone

 Now go get yourself a small container you dont mind using and something to stir with unless you dont mind using your fingers (I use mine). Pour yourself out a small pile of the sand ( the amount depends on how much you wanna make or how thick you want it to be:

 Now add in your glue I suggest starting out with a small amount and build up:

If you add to much glue then add some more sand to it, don't worry you can add more sand or glue if you get it to thick. Now is the time to add your paint (remember paint will add a little liquid to the mix so be prepared to add in a little sand). Give it all a good stirring to make sure the paint is mixed in. ****Now that you have added paint it will stain the same color as the paint so be careful.**** If you want to make a mix with out the paint then it will dry the color of the sand.

without paint

Paint added to mix

If you decided not to use any paint the mix will dry clear and a little bit shiny. the thicker you make the mix the easier it will be to make small hills or dips that can soak up paint.

 One thing here is that you can make this as thick or thin as you like. The mix will take a few hours to dry and then you need to spray it with some type of sealant or the sand will flake off as you touch it. With a little  paint and some washes you can end up with some pretty dirty dirt

Klingon Bracers..... The Next Generation

Hello all!!!!

Sorry I haven't written a post in a bit we have been really busy the last few weeks gearing up for a few local conventions in our area and also for our wedding in May. Before I get into today's blog let me do a little promoting for the local convention we are attending this month:

  This is a new Trek convention here in the GA area, it is also its second year running. It is a small convention that is also a great social convention. make sure you come by in April and check it out!

OK so on to today's topic wayyyyyy back in January I posted a blog about my $1.00 Klingon Bracers and promised to keep you guys updated on them. Well after a trip to Goodwill my $1.00 bracers have increased in price they are no a whopping........ wait for it...... $3.00 Klingon bracers! The trip to Goodwill was supposed to be a Nerf hunt but turned into a treasure hunt. I found a pair of children's shin guards that fit my arm just perfect and they only cost me $2.00 to grab:

The biggest changes that had to be made to them was to take the cloth padding out of the inside and a small amount on cutting to make them fit the original bracers

 To get the plastic original bracers to fit the shin guards I heated them with a household blow dryer ( yes I'm to cheap to buy a heat gun) and laid them on top of the shin guard and held them down with a few rubber bands pulled tight to hold them till they cooled down. After they cooled off I glued them down with hot glue and a small amount of Goop.

After they cooled down I decided to to continue the paint job on the plastic bracers onto the shin guards to tie them together:

If you look at a lot of pictures of the Klingon costume you see  claws on the gloves, I decided to take the idea and add the claws to the bracers. So off to Hobby Lobby I go, they sale in their leather working section a small bag of plastic claws for $3.00. I didn't add the cost of the claws into the bracers because I can use the left overs in another costume. So a little work with my Dremel and a lot of hot glue (now i think back I should have used epoxy) I got the claws attached to the bracers:

Tops

Bottoms

side view

The funny thing with the side view picture is you can see part of the crafting room and up in the top corner is a view at my idea/reference board for the plague preacher. Well right now the only thing to do to the bracers is shorten the Velcro strap so that it fits my arm without having a foot extra to tuck away:

Stay tuned for pics from Trek Trax Atlanta of the gauntlets in action!!!

My Heart goes out to you.......

Hello all!!!!

Sorry for the lack of articles this month been having a lot of stuff going on this month with getting engaged on Valentines Day... Yes I know big softy huh? OK at the end of our last article I promised you guys a special on my Valentines day gift to my Girlfriend (now fiance) so lets take a step away from costuming for a minute and do a little arts and crafts.

I have been planning to propose since about November but have been looking for a great (and geeky) way to do it. One day I was looking at the Wedinator picture site and this picture jumped out at me and stuck into my head:

 

I thought this was an awesome picture and decided that  this is what I was going to and bet that I could make it a little cooler. So away we go to our neighborhood Hobby Lobby. I walked around hobby lobby for a little bit looking at first for the items to copy this. I found them and then proceeded to look for ways to make it better. I have to give props to the staff of Hobby lobby for not looking at me like an idiot while asking questions about things. While I was walking thru the wood section  this jumped out at me For some reason this wood box just jumped out at me:

 I had found my box now I needed to find something for the "ring" to sit on. I walked over to the paper items section to see what I could find. I walked around a little bit till I found this:

 This is just a paper heart made form newspaper. the final things i picked up at Hobby Lobby was a few paints and then off to Wal-Mart for the "ring".

At Wal-Mart it took me a few moment to find out where they hid the rings at.... If you haven't figured out yet what the ring is.........:

YES !!!! Ring Pops!!!

This was the part that was geeky and fun for me. Now we get to the meat of the project making the project. The box its self was not that much work besides paining and sealing. The cool thing that happened was another one of what I call a "happy accident". I was trying to apply a clear glaze to the wood when it started to peel off. I decided to sand it off and start over, while sanding I noticed that the paint was taking on a very aged look:

So after stepping back and looking at that I decided to sand the whole box for that aged wood  look:

The heart was the most simple part all I did was cut a slot for the ring and painted the heart with maroon paint. The most work I did to the "ring" was painted the base silver since my Girlfriend dosent like gold. So after about a month of work here is the final piece:

The Girlfriend loved it so much she said YES!!! She decided that she wanted to save the ring pop so she actually took a small piece of plastic wrap and covered the "gem" with it to preserve it. 

So remember guys and gals that you can also make other things besides costuming look awesome and save your wallet .

Sticky Topic (Talking Tape here)

Hello again all. been a few days since out last post on here, got caught up with the Star Trek Online Free 2 Play event that started up at the end of January and the Big 2 year birthday even they had on Feb 2nd. But that's over so on to costuming.....


OK so I noticed that will all the talk about spray painting I hadn't talked about a very important thing...
TAPE!!

Now this is one thing that I will say go and spend a little bit of money and buy good tape. The Dollar Store tape is not a good idea and can screw you up in the end. The Dollar Store tape tends to tear off at crazy spots or not at all and also tends not to stick very well. I use 2 tapes in my projects and you can get them both at Wal-Mart for not that much. I'm gonna talk about them both from my experience and as the old saying goes "your experience may differ"
 

 MASKING TAPE

I love masking tape for the simple reason that its cheap and it sticks to its self very well. just a tip here keep it out of reach from your dog or you will loose the whole roll. The main problem I have seen with masking tape is that it you press it down to hard to a painted surface it will stick to the paint and pull it free. and if you have done a lot of spray painting and it you use it to mask that paint and it pulls it up..... No fun at all. I have had this happen a few more times then I care to admit. I usually use masking tape when I am lining out my main colors and using it to block out my secondary colors area.


PAINTERS TAPE

Painters tape is another essential I have found you have to have. The only problem I have with this tape is that it doesn't stick very well to its self and you do have to press a little hard on it to get it to stick. The upside to that is that it will not snatch up the paint that it is covering up. I tend to use this a lot to cover up my main coat when I am spraying on my secondary colors ( such as camo patterns, lines, and shapes). well ladies and gents a little bit of a short article today but after valentines day I'm gonna post of the awesome valentines day present I am doing for my GF and show you how cheap it was to make it...... Stay tuned.

Hose, Hose, Hose.... (and no it's not the Christmas edition )

 Hello all,

Well here we are guys the first article on the new website, took me a few days to get it set up and if anyone has any comments please feel free to send them to me ( Flattcat@yahoo.com).

 OK so I'm gonna talk about hoses today. I have been working on the plague priest costume for awhile now and one of the things I was worried about in cost (since well this is the cheap costuming blog's flagship costume) was the hoses going from my mask to my skull icon.



I decided to go and price this type of hose at Lowes and Home Depot and the lowest price I was able to find was between $5.00 and $7.00 a foot, and I was gonna prolly need a few feet. So i decided that was one of the things I decided to put off to the side to see if I could just find some free hoses somewhere. Well as I was looking for treasures at my local Dollar Tree I found this:

This is actually a product they sale that when you swing it around by the end it whistles and surprisingly they are called Whistle tubes (click picture for link):



So when I looked at them that's when it hit me "holy crap there is my ribbed hoses" so I proceeded to buy 3 of them to try them out. Turns out the flared end of the tubes fit the holes in my mask like a glove:

 

                           
These hoses are awesome because they will shape with just the heat of your normal everyday hair dryer, Hit them with the highest heat setting till you get them the shape you want them and then shit them with just the fan setting. When you are bending them don't try to do too much at one time cause they will collapse in on themselves.
 

OK so on to painting them now. 

I will warn you that they don't take paint very well if you dont rough them up a little bit with some fine grit sandpaper (remember kids wash them off after you sand them to get rid of the grit) I painted mine with the old stand-by my black Krylon fusion spray paint. 

 Yes that is a paper clip I used as a hook so I could spray the whole thing at one time but that's a whole different article. So now I have a $1.00 ribbed black hosing that looks as good as the expensive stuff. this is a picture of what I'm planning on doing with them, These hoses are not painted since they are not the ones I'm going to use, they are just so I can figure out sizes

And yes that is a Warhammer 40K book holding the goggles in place. I will be doing an article in the near future on the skull Icon so stay tuned. Now remember that this is a work in progress so this may not be the last you see of the hoses. Well ladies and gents that's all I have for you today so say tuned for our next article .

By the prick of my thumb (easy mutation claws)

Hello again all!!!

First I wanna apologize to all our loyal reader (if we have that many.....lol) about the stretch between articles. I seem to have gotten caught up with this thing called real life (and it sucks). For you that don't know me in real life let me share a little about myself before we get going. I left Active army back in 2008 and joined the reserves and have a contract going on till 2014, well lets just say that some "health"  issues have caught up with me in the long run and I may be ending my Army career a tad early. Below is a pic of my last flight home from the sand box. Now that I shared that little bit lets get on to today's topic....

 MUTANT CLAWS!!!!!!

Now when I say mutant claws I know the first thing that you hear in your head is "SNIKT" thanks to Wolverine. But now we are talking the kind of claws that you receive for being a good little chaos worshiper. OK so now lets go back to our favorite cheap store..... THE $1.00 STORE!!!

OK so as you see above we are starting with your plain old monster fingers, you can get 10 in a pack for $1.00. the first thing you need to do is try them on to get an idea of how they fit and where you are going to have to cut them down at.

As you can see in the above pix I had to cut them down a bit for them to fit on my big kid fingers, as you can see a little sloppy cutting but dont worry you want see them. The plan is that with the Plague preacher is that where ever there is open skin it will be covered by nasty gauze.

So that brown color just doesn't seem to fit in with the costume does it????

I used the Rotting flesh paint color and gave them a good coating but not thick enough to hide all the brown color.

and before some ask...... YES that is the rotating chamber of the Nerf Maverick...... hey it was around and it worked to help them stand up. so as you can see i left the nails brown for a good reason..... YES I am going to use nail polish to paint them!!! after raiding the Girlfriends fingernail polishes I finally settled on black. These plastic nails were just like trying to paint real finger nails, you couldn't just slap a thick coat on and go for it. you had to lay the polish down in layers and let them dry.

and remember if you not wearing some of your paint then you are doing it wrong.

So after letting the nail polish dry for a day or so this is how they turned out:

As you see they fit a little better now and look a tad dead and nasty, a piece of advice I can give you it that if you have a big thumb (like yours truly) you may have to slit the bottom of the thumb claw. These fit really tight soo we shall see what happens when I start sweating with them on. Well ladies and gents here we are at the end of another article about cheap costuming. If there is something you wanna see an article on, or want to know please feel free to drop me and email and I will see what I can do. If I cant write an article about it I will try to see if I can find a guest writer to help out.

Sharp and Pointy.......(plague knife W.I.P.)

When I started collecting the stuff for the costume I debated between a plague knife and a plague sword, well after thinking about carrying a sword and banner or knife and banner the knife won out. No need looking like the pack-mule of Nurgle. As Halloween was winding down I found this awesome looking knife at Target for $3.00 dollars:

 

After looking at it for a few i decided to cut it in half and use part for the knife and the other half for something in the future ( starting to have a huge Bitz box now)

After it setting around the house for a bit i decided to work on it since the weather here in GA has been in the 20's (-5 centigrade). So to go from that metal look to an infected stone look I had to go dig thru my paints box and decided on this color palette:

 

The first thing I did was spray the blade with beaten silver spray and then dry-brushed on the grey and stone colors to dull up the silver and give it that quartz/granite look:

After the main paint dried i went back over the whole thing with green wash to make it look infected:

1ST COAT:

2ND COAT:

FINAL COAT:

So after the blade dried we added a thick coat of a glossy varnish (gave it that wet look and tied the colors together. After the blade dried and with a little help and advice from my GF (yes I have one so stop laffing) we decided to get some leather strips( $2.77 for 3 feet of it at Hobby Lobby) and wrap the handle. I decided to use some of the brass studs (aka Carpet tacks) I had laying around to help stick the leather to the plastic handle and also to add some details ( yes if you notice everything is in groups of 3 aka Nurgles symbol):

 

After almost finishing up we decided to use some of the left over leather strip to make a loop to hang from a belt:

 

So here is the final knife... right now its finished for now:

 

Stay tuned I am going to be posting up some pics of some of the finds I have made at the Dollar store and also goodwill..