I’m making progress. But it doesn’t feel like it.
I have half-finished pieces, supplies, and scraps scatterd about.
It’s not until I see these check-ins that I can acknowledge that you know what, I did do something.
Will I finish? Yes. I am certain. It will be tough but I don’t care.
This is basically done. At least the hard part is. Just need to stitch on the cape attachments (snaps this time instead of loops!) and sew on the backboard for the orbs.
⭐ This Week’s Focus
Challenge Item - Void orbs
Other - Blade of the Black Empire (BotBE)
🧵 Shit I Did
- Made a harness! Now I have a way to attach the cape and orbs.
- I finished the rest of the sewing on the dress, including hand stitching the lining and sewing in the velcro for the collar.
- Put new foam on the cape and reinforced the top straps that hold the rings
- Replaced the bottom portion of the collar with thinner foam so it would sit better under the dress.
- Bought polycarbonate rods for the orbs.
- Attempted to get a ‘hello world’ for the orbs but didn’t get anywhere.
🔮 Thoughts for Future Work
- I need to think of the system as a whole. Not trying to finish one piece at a time. There are too many dependencies. The location of the gold trim is dependent on the height of the corset. The dress dimensions depend on the undergarment corset.
- Feeling pretty stressed about everything right now.
📋 TODO — Next Week
- Finish the Blade. Yes.
- Finish the harness. This requires printing a piece for the rods to attach to.
- Break out the airbrush. Ren faire is coming up and I can’t delay it any more.
📸 Photo Dump
The pogo allllmost fits in this hole! With a little sanding, I was able to get it to fit along that seam line.
I made this container in Solidworks so I could use it when I reprint the blade section. It took a couple tries to get a good fit.
FInally. A piece of the costume completely finished. I will do a final double check later and glue on any last bits that might not be secure all the way. Seeing it on my wall gives me inspiration to finish the whole build.
This wig looks SO MUCH BETTER. Honestly, it’s close to the haircut that I used to have before my bangs grew out over the years. Very happy with this purchase and excited to try it out.
I cut these on the laser cutter at the makerspace. I decided to secure them after I figure out where the corset sits.
7
The collar was falling apart so I made a new foam covered with fabric piece that fits under the upper edge of the dress. It is secured with velcro. The funny thing is that I made the dress fully lined, thinking that would look cleaner inside. The problem: I had to hand stitch the inner edge of the velcro. Had I done a lining strip like the pattern suggests, I would have been able to stitch it on by machine. Lessons learned!
7
Soldered all of these wires and made sure to get it right the first time.
I tried to get fancy with these slides to make the harness adjustible, but they didn’t really hold the straps in place. I ended up removing them and making the straps fixed. Much better tha way.