The Devil’s Carnival Approaches!

And I need a new outfit.

First of all, if you haven’t heard anything about The Devil’s Carnival, please take a moment to watch this trailer:

And then watch this one, which just premiered today and isn’t yet on YouTube. If you’re even remotely familiar with Repo! The Genetic Opera, the guys behind that are behind this. Some of the actors from Repo! are even reappearing in this, though not as their same characters. Why do I bring that up? Well, the creators of that film did something special with it: They took it on tour, showing it to fans who wouldn’t really otherwise get the chance since it got the shaft from its distribution company. And if you’ve already guessed it, they’re doing the same thing with The Devil’s Carnival! And I most certainly intend to attend the Austin premiere with two of my good friends.

But I can’t just go in any old thing. Of course not! If going to the Austin premiere of Repo! taught me anything, it’s that more fun is had when you dress up and go all in! So here’s the plan for that:

I’m still working out the final kinks (and I’ve got to dig out a tape measure), but this’ll be the outfit. Putting it together should be fairly simple; I have most of the materials already here in the house! (Yes, that includes the pink leopard print fabric. What can I say? I have friends with awesome tastes in fabric and gift-giving ideas.) Now if I could just pin down what sort of makeup I want to do… Something sort of clownish, but fun. I’ve been experimenting, but haven’t really hit on anything perfect yet.

Are any of you attending or planning to attend when the Carnival comes to your town? Let me know in the comments!

The Bid on a Beaded Bracelet Benefit + “We’ll Carry On.”

First, I meant to announce this as soon as I put it up, but you guys all remember the Zero Percent bracelet post, right? (It wasn’t that long ago!) Looks kind of like this?:

Well, I am pleased to belatedly announce that I have put it up for auction on eBay, and you have until March 20th to decide whether or not to place a bid. 100% of the proceeds from the auction will go to AmeriCares Foundation, Inc. with the hope that whatever money is made from the auction will help make earthquake and tsunami relief in Japan even just a bit easier. If you’re on Tumblr, if you could reblog this post on the subject, it would be super appreciated.

I’m also happy to announce that I’ve completed another bracelet and that it, too, is going up on auction. Rather, it’s already posted, but you won’t be able to start bidding until Wednesday, March 16th (which would be tomorrow). The bracelet looks like this–

–which turned out a lot neater than the initial sketch:

But that’s okay, because as long as the final product looks good, the sketch can look all manner of lived on and lived in, no? At least, I think so…

When the second auction goes live, I’ll post the various ways you can help spread the word. For now, check out the bracelets and leave any questions or comments in the, er, comments section!

“I am ZEROPERCENT.”

“And I’m YOU when I feel like it.”

I’m not quite sure how to introduce this next bracelet, since I’m running on six hours of sleep, lots of caffeine, and I’m still pondering how I’m going to announce what I want to do with this bracelet. So I think the best thing to do would be to just post the pictures with minimal commentary and then get back to shaking some sort of announcement loose from my sleepy brain. Yes? Yes. So let’s get to the pictures!

I had a bit of a coffee-accident partway through the beading process–which is to say, my dad accidentally knocked over my cup while delivering dinner to the table. Lucky that the actual threads (which are white) were on the elevated loom! The black iridescent beads in the bowl had to be rinsed through at least once, though.

Pink and black iridescent seed beads, thread, .45 wire, slightly larger beads, findings… Somehow, I managed to knock this out from start to finish in one general day with breaks, finishing around midnight or so? (Though even with breaks, my shoulders hated me this morning. They’re still sort of sore.) Closeups!

In the original design above, I was only going to use one bead. Then while I was actually putting the thing together at this stage, I figured that three might be better both aesthetically and functionally. It was, I think, I good decision.

All total, from clasp-to-clasp, Zero Percent measures about eight inches. Too big for me, but I’m not planning on keeping it. What am I planning to do with it? Soon, soon…

Sometimes, I Design Costumes.

One: I did finish the Killjoys masks. Pictures have been long overdue.

Two: I finally figured out what Girl Automatic wears most often! Not only that, but also what she wears when she’s having what I’ve come to call a “Maestro moment”. Yeah. Anyway. Time for some sketches!

Teamwork at its finest.

Cross-posted from the entry I left on The Crane Game:

I’m part of the university’s Asian culture/anime club, without whom I might not have actually re-learned how to fold paper cranes (and, thus, not have started The Crane Game in the first place). We’d kicked around the idea for a while of building a giant crane out of recycled paper squares for a while, but last Thursday we finally jumped into action and did it. I got the idea to film it on my cell phone (yay, Blackberries!) so that I could show Patricia (our president) what we were up to, because she was at home terribly sick. The voice you hear sort of narrating the whole thing is mine.

I have a feeling this attempt is only the start of something bigger.

Cross-stitching.

Worry not, dear readers; I’m still alive despite all the revelry enjoyed during New Year’s Eve–which largely consisted of surviving a packed crowd downtown and narrowly getting crushed by some old drunk guy.

Anyway. I recently rediscovered all of my cross-stitching equipment and, largely out of boredom, started making a…well…I’m not sure what I’m going to call it yet. Chances are good that it’ll wind up a bookmark. Here are some in-progress shots, taken with the Blackberry:

You can click the pictures to see bigger versions of each, like nearly always.

When it comes to cross-stitching, I pretty much wing it in terms of patterns. Last night I got an idea to combine this with listening to Who Killed Amanda Palmer? and see what kinds of pattern each song inspires, but I’ll probably use grid paper and colored pencils (and more 10×10 cross-stitching boards) to plan it out first, since I don’t have that many different colors of thread. It should be an interesting venture, since I let music influence me so much in other areas of art.

It could also get a little maddening, but we’ll see.

Also? I must have reached the epitome of boredom or randomness, because I created a ten-minute video of myself cross-stitching. There will probably more of these happening.