Friday, December 11, 2009

Steamy Travel Trunk

I came up on an ugly, beat up old foot locker at a thrift store for $5. It was fugly... blue and purple fake leather... but it had promise. After buffing off all the crud from the metal fittings, and recoating the old ugly fake leather with new less ugly fake leather, I printed up a bunch of old hotel luggage tags and travel stickers and the like. A quick dip in some milk a run through the toaster oven aged them nicely.



I definitely tried to select exotic and steamy locations for the stickers. One of my favorites is an old one from back when Atlanta was called Terminus. I also found a lot with zeppelins and the like, even a luggage tag from the Hindenberg. And some of them aren't quite real, like the Miskatonic stuff.



I put a coating of new fake wood on the inside, but other than that I haven't detailed it. Eventually, I want to do up the inside with all the sort of things a soldier might have in his foot locker at the front: letters from home, pictures of the sweet heart left behind, propaganda to prevent identification with the undead enemy, that sort of thing.

It was quick, easy, and amused me, plus I needed something to put all my guns in to take them to the con. This sure does the trick.

New Guns!

OK, new guns!
Well, they were new guns back in August, but I never got around to posting them...

So, I came up with a new, totally top secret way to put a nice fake wood pattern on repainted plastic toys. I like it, and I kinda just took it and ran with it... so here's the heat the wife and I were packin' at DragonCon:

We'll go ahead and start with the Lady's pistol. Now, there's a joke behind this. Lots of girls tote around little stuffed dragons and the like at cons, but that's just not oddball enough for Celeste so she got her self a duck. I took one look at it, and knew what gun she needed to carry:


I made the holster, too, with scrap leather and pop rivets. This was the first one I made (I'm going to post some more holsters shortly) and I had a lot of fun working with leather.


So here's the gun in close-up. Regrettably, it no longer works, but it broke a long time ago. Its a pretty simple mod, just painted brass, with the fake wood on the frame and some fake leather (I do that with textured spray paint and lots of ink and dry brushing) on the grips. The label text is a dry-rub transfer.



Here's the side arm I had slung on my hip (holster to come, in that other post I was talking about).


Its a small Nerf gun, with lots of extra junk plastic hacked off and lame details smoothed over with putty. The leather grips use the same texture spray/ink/dry-brush trick. I've since removed the metal ring from the back. The gun still shoots little foam darts, 'cause that's what makes Nerf guns fun!


This one isn't steampunk at all, but I did it at the same time, and its a gun, so there. Its really just a paint job, all I did to the original resin cast model was fill in the casting gaps and sand it smooth. The only neat trick I pulled was to air-mix the paint, spraying with two different colors of spray paint, one in each hand, at the same time.


For the same reason John Chriton called his "Wynona," I call mine, "Milla." ;D

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Good by, grandpa.

Well, crap.

My grandfather died night before last. I found out last night.

He'd been sick for a long time, so I'm not really "sad," about it in the simplest sense of the word. Honestly, I'd have been far more upset of someone was taking a diabetic, blind, deaf, 83 year old with a broken hip and forcing kidney dialysis on him. He had the option, and opted out. My own father had a chance to talk to him before the end, so at least he got out some of his deamons. So did all grandpa's other kids. Then they just turned off the machines and let him slip painlessly into a coma.

Adios, grandpa. Wish I'd known you better.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Away Team, painted

No hady pics just yet, but I'm putting the finishing touches on an away party featuring classic Trek Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Yeoman Rand.

Edit: OK, figured out what I've got here. The figures are pretty shit, full-on ancient (1978, according to the casting tabs), and looked like this when I started:



That's supposed to be Kirk, His Yoeman, Scotty, and Sulu according to this blog:
http://groknard.blogspot.com/2009/01/heritage-star-trek-1604-kirk-rand.html


But I wanted the main team and didn't figure on finding another pack of the long out-of-print Heritage line (wonder who's IP I'd really be stepping on to recast the fuckers?), so out comes the green stuff and the plastic card. A tricorder here, communicator there, and they sort of kind of maybe start to look like who I claim them to be.

But man, you want a break from brownish green WWII? Bust out some Technicolor space men.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

DragonCon 2009 -- The Ladies of DragonCon


DragonCon 2009 Posts:
DragonCon 2009 - After Action Summary, Thrusday and Friday
DragonCon 2009 - After Action Summary, Saturday
DragonCon 2009 - After Action Summary, Sunday and Monday
DragonCon 2009 Costumes: Super Heroes
DragonCon 2009 Costumes: Star Wars
DragonCon 2009 Costumes: misc.
DragonCon 2009 Costumes: SteamPunk
DragonCon 2009 Gun Babes
DragonCon 2009 - The Ladies of DragonCon

Here we are, at the end of our coverage of DragonCon 2009. As such, I give unto you... the Ladies of DragonCon. (Just like the other posts, right click and view image or save for full-size, and if you want to see the shots that didn't make the cut for the blogpost, check it here, on photobucket.) Now, without further ado...

We'll start with a few lovely ladies I met while hanging out with Photognome:












Show us the pasties!








DragonCon, natural environment of certain breeds of goth hottie:






























Hummmmmm.... Ilsa....


















I love how the dude in the back is trying to not be in my obvious hotty shot.


Elf booty got soul










Yes, you can kinda see it...




Barbarian Booty!


this old guy ain't goin' nowhere






















She comes every year...








Everyone loves a make-out shot


lucky bastard, no one tried to hit me...


Clonetrooper: "Yo!"


So, so tall...






Not bad... just drawn that way


Dawn, the comic with the most skew between popularity of comic and popularity of costume


Clan of the Cave Women...






She was having fun, much like the dude in the back, until the law caught sight of it...








As a child, I watched a lot of Star Trek, and I'd like to think I learned a thing or two from Kirk.


Deal me in.


You can't see it here, but she had lights in her hair




Love the light-up corset
















Love the contacts... and hate that damn yellow tartan! (Actually, that's just 'cause the guy in it was a chode)


















check out the shoes




Another happy customer!




















more spanking...


"Costume" becomes a very loose term by Sunday night...





And, in closing, I think this t-shirt sums up my position perfectly:


Yes, yes they are.