Industrialist

Need some face protection while working in the factory or repairing your airship? Well, the Industrialist is for you! 

This stylish mask would also be a wonderful addition to the battle suits of any of you fine sky pirates.
(Warning: Leather will not protect you from ray guns.)

Now, this one was named by a good friend of mine. The idea behind it was to be more like a worker's mask - nothing fancy, but nice and protective.

Apparently, the idea of having sticky-out guard eyebrows is hilarious. Perhaps it was just that I described the function as 'To stop things falling onto your eyes, I guess.'

Still don't understand that myself, but hey.

It's probably pretty obvious with all the brown and brass, but this little guy is supposed to be over at the steampunk end of the spectrum.

Of course, it could look a bit nifty with some weathered nickel rivets and some black or battered brown for that lovely post-apocalyptic look which I am slowly falling into these days.

Unlike all of my other masks so far most of which I need to finish (I'm looking at you, Famine!), this one has an adjustable strap over the top of the head which makes it sit just nicely on your face and has very little chance of falling off. Also, it looks pretty cool.

Hats could be a problem, though, depending on your type of hat. I'll have to try some.

If for some reason anyone wants one (and I don't see why not - It's my favourite so far), they're for sale over here.

AFWVG - Emily-With-A-Y

I am a horribly neglectful blogger.

The design for Emily-With-A-Y's shift dress to go with the straitjacket. Tattered everything, patches, cogs and (of course) black and white stripes. One thing I forgot to put on the design drawing was the text. The plain side has writing from the book and some copies of a few or the drawings of Leeches and rats.

Not just any insane asylum!" She exclaimed indignantly, as though I had gravely offended her, “Though you certainly do not deserve it. You are a very lucky girl indeed, for you have been assigned a bed in the most progressively innovative, the most morally experimental, the most, ah, the most ingeniously directed medical institution for the mentally ill, led by my own dear son, Doctor Montmorency Stockhill. You are the worthy child, are now an inmate of the Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls.

The cogs on the dress were made in the same way as on the straitjacket, and all the patches/striped parts were sewn on with big red stitches because of that one outfit that EA made.

The sides are pulled in with four fabric straps that are tied at the back. I figured that the Asylum dresses wouldn't be fitted at all, instead being a one-size-fits-all affair. With the straps, it can be pulled in at the waist, giving the dress more shape while still keeping the look of 'it doesn't ft particularly well, really.' I have to thank my tutor for this idea. I was a bit stuck for an idea of how to pull it in, thinking of corset-esque lacing or some buckles like on the straitjacket. We discussed it, and she suggested having straps of the same fabric as the dress instead of more leather, and it was a genius idea.


Then there are the manacles. What kind of asylum inmate doesn't have restraints?

They're just a simple leather wristband with a brass ring popped on there. They're fastened with buckles which, although entirely ineffective for a real mad girl due to the ability to unfasten, they look damn cool like that.



The whole costume, popped on a mannequin, all set up for my degree show. I accidentally managed to find a mannequin that matched the pose of my drawing. It took me a long while to sort the hair out. Stupid small head...

AFWVG - Doctor Stockill II

Another costume (mostly) down and time for another post. The infamous Doctor Stockill is nearing completion, and I am very excited about it.

First up, the coat.
Simple black coat, not particularly fitted. The leather on the arms hold syringes and knives (which I still need to make most of), and straps are trigger-clipped from the D-rings on the back of the shoulders to the back of these arm bands.


I am very much hoping that it does indeed look rather doctory. Black rather than white for this doctor, because, of course, he is a plague doctor. As far as I know, they were all black with pointy faces, right?



Speaking of pointy faces...

There he is with that plague mask and the air tank for it. Luckily for Peter, my model for Doctor S., it's not too heavy.

My favourite thing about this costume is how similar it actually looks to my final design for it. That, and when Peter decided that he would walk through the canteen at college while wearing it. The comments ranged from 'Oh my god...' to 'Holy crap, that's creepy.'

Perfect.

AFWVG - Asylum Straitjacket

The first of the 'clothes' costume parts is pretty much finished - The Asylum Straitjacket.

The design got tweaked a bit during construction - it got mirrored and the 'WVG' on the back decided that it wanted to be in leather.
It felt like I was doing 'real' leatherwork, hitting a lump of shaped metal into the leather to spell out letters instead of just hitting a different lump of metal to put in holes or hammer in rivets. Fun stuff.

Since straitjackets are generally sturdy beasts, I got some denim for this, since it is particularly hardwearing. The denim then got treated to a most lovely tea-bath, but I imagine it was probably less than impressed to be left in a box of cold almost-water overnight. Such are the trials of a straitjacket...

The front and back of said straitjacket. After it was all put together, it was thoroughly distressed (poor thing...) with a bunch of sprays to give it that horrible and grimy look. The most grime is on the elbows and shoulders, since this particular straitjacket ties your hands up on your shoulders instead of around your waist. Why? Because I thought that would be more interesting. And I don't know how to escape from that kind of strait-tying (Unlike the standard way, which I can. How do I even know that? Not a clue.)

Also, having the arms up makes my lovely cog nice and visible. I'm quite proud of that section. It's a lot smaller than on the design, but I like it like this. It's less BAM! STEAMPUNK! than having a massive cog just whacked on there. Yes, I want a bit of steampunk in here, but not that much.
The buckles are rather nice too, I like to think, and they serve the purpose of making the jacket slightly tighter. Just slightly. Maybe I should have put them further apart...
Never mind, eh? It looks good, and that's all that matters. It's not like I'm going to be actually using this to restrain a mad person.
Though, if that event just happens to occur, I'll be more than sorted. It's not too unlikely, actually, with the levels of strangeness people are getting as the deadline gets closer.

And just because, here's a photo of me in my wonderful straitjacket. 

On a sidenote, I now have a real live website! 

Ooooh, exciting.

Only not really.

All my fancy stuff is now hiding at http://infected-illusions.com/, and this blog is over at http://blog.infected-illusions.com/ as well as on blogspot. Go have a look. There are some nice, pretty drawings. And some nice, pretty animations. And some nice, pretty photos.

(...am I selling it yet?)
That's gone now, unfortunately.

Pyrate

Got myself a new, quick project. I'm (hopefully) going to make this outfit for the next Emilie Autumn gig I go to on April 13th.
Planning on having lyrics from Insects vs. Robots' Fire in the Sky on the sleeve and back of the jacket.

Bring out the fire
What's in your mind?
Do you feel alive?
The sky is on fire tonight 

AFWVG - Plague Mask II

Updates on Stockill's plague mask!

On the right is the first costruction - craft foam, duct tape and those goggles. That got chopped up to make the pattern for the leather version.

The lenses for those goggles ended up being the lenses in the final version too, but the 'goggle' parts were made from wonderflex. Amazing stuff.

And the (almost) finished version. Veg. tan leather, coloured with antique stain and joined with brass rivets. I'm thinking that it's quite good considering that it's my first leather project. The finished version (which will be photographed eventually) has a few more rivets and has been waxed to give it a nice, almost shiny finish. Somehow, it looks more like 'real' leather to me. Strange, since it is real leather.

AFWVG - Plague Rat

FINAL DESIGN



AFWVG - Doctor Stockill

FINAL DESIGN

AFWVG - Plague Mask

The plague mask is an interesting one. It's mentioned just once in the book, I think, in a single paragraph at the bottom of page 206. I could have easily decided to do a generic 'doctor' outfit for Stockill, but since I'm only making the one costume for him, I thought I'd go for something a bit more iconic.

I think the 'plague doctor' is a fairly important aspect to the story since, and here comes a spoiler, Doctor Stockill is trying to create his own strain of the plague so he can create a cure for it, thus getting rich from it when he releases said plague across London. Alongside that, plague masks just look menacing. And menacing is perfect for your average evil doctor.

My first plague mask idea came to me while I was about to fall asleep one night (actually, that's a lie. My first ones came to me when I was in Germany, but those drawings aren't all coloured and pretty. And, quite frankly, they're pretty boring.). The thought was this; one step up from the usual plague mask. I can't help but think that, since he is trying to make the plague, Stockill would be quite aware that it wasn't transmitted by smell. Although, in the book, the mask is described as being stuffed with herbs and things, I thought that I'd industrial it up a bit. Industrial and a bit more high tech - air tanks. Air tanks and filters.

I've played with different shapes of mask (though they are all fairly similar), different types of eyes, different brass fittings... Since I can't cast metal, the interesting bits would have to be very lucky finds or made out of something else and painted. Ideas are sculpey (which I don't think would work too well), Wonderflex (something which I've never used before but read a lot about) and casting things in resin. 

With the eyes, I'm considering going with something styled like eye-cup welding goggles. They just scream 'industrial' and have that same shape as your generic plague mask. I have a couple of pairs with a 'cybergoth' styling to them, which cost me a fair bit of money, so I don't especially want to mess with them. I hunted down a plastic version that I can happily ruin. Probably wouldn't use them, instead using them to make a copy out of Wonderflex or whathaveyou. Going to start working on fake brass bits next week, see what works, and finalise my mask design from there.

AFWVG - More designing

This lovely evening, I am going to share a bunch more designs. At last count, I have 45 which is, for me, a hell of a lot. I usually have about 10 or something. Oh, and then another 19 of back views and such.

Finalising my designs now so I can start making next week, something that I'm sure my tutors will be happy about. With any luck, I'll go to Newcastle and hunt out some leather and brass bits on Wednesday. Shouldn't be too difficult, I've been told about an apparently good shop. More on that if it is.

I am having difficulty, however, sourcing some black and white striped fabric that has stripes of more than 1cm thickness. It's hell, I tell you. Hell. So many of my designs have that on them in some capacity.



ASYLUM GIRLS

Some Ward B girls and a straitjacket. That might be my final design for that, but we shall see. The Ward B girls match the style of my various Emily-with-a-Y designs - same shape 'dress', same types of patches and tears... in fact, they are similar pretty much across the board. The girls differ from Emily, however, because they have ankle cuffs (an indication of being 'more' mad) and collars. I ditched the collar from my Emily design after realising "Oh, this is for a musical. She'll need to sing." Emily would, however, get the ankle cuffs in what could possibly be Act II, or whenever she gets sent down to Ward B herself.

COUNT DE ROTHSBERG

The Count here has, as you can see, the same patches and tears as the Asylum girls in the second design. The first design lacks them, but is otherwise practically the same. This is because he is seen through the eyes of 'Mad' Emily as well as 'Sane' Emily. I'm not sure why, but I have always seen the Count as wearing a red coat. Maybe it's in the book, maybe not. I don't even remember. It's far too late to go reading it right now, so I'm just going to assume it's just in my imagination. That red, however, also serves the purpose of separating him from Stockill (who wears black) and Lymer (who wears white.)

DOCTOR LYMER

Speaking of Lymer, here he is! Same elements from the other costume designs. His coat is white, making him obviously a doctor. It's as simple as that. 

PLAGUE MASK

And oh, here is the fun one. I've never worked with leather before, so this is going to be interesting. Not entirely sure of how it is going to go yet, but I am definitely leaning towards having the pipes to a filter or air tank. I'm going to try and stay away from 'unnecessary' chunks of brass. It always bothers me when I see steampunk things that are just covered in seemingly random brass bits. That, and I don't especially want to learn how to cast metal just yet! I do have a plan, though, for making brass parts, for this and the Plague Rat's claw. More on that later.

Until then, I have a sketchbook to rearrange!

AFWVG - Initial Designs

Back to the fun stuff! I've been working mostly on research, which isn't exactly fascinating stuff to blog about. I did, though, go down to London this week for a trip to the V&A and the Science museum. Some useful stuff there, like so;

A bit miffed that the fashion gallery at the V&A was closed, but oh well. Thinking of going to York, having a look at the museums there.

But anyway, yes. Designs. I've narrowed the characters down to three for my final designs; Doctor Stockill, Emily-with-a-Y and one of the rats. I toyed with the idea of Jolie, Madam Mournington and maybe a chaser, but I stuck with those three in the end, being pretty major characters. I'm trying to keep to EA's general look, but have it not too close so it just becomes copying. 

EMILY-WITH-A-Y

White shift, black and white stockings (of course). Also a straight-jacket because, well, she's mad, isn't she? (and she does wear one for a while in the book, hurrah!)

She's got writing/drawings on her dress because 'little mad doodles'. And her half of the story is all letters and diary things.

The second girl there is Jolie Rouge in the same style.

DOCTOR STOCKILL

Stockill in all of his Punktorian glory. The long coat is 'Plague Doctor' that he wears on page 206. Gonna have it as his general doctoring coat, adding a leather plague mask (oh, fun!) for that bit.

Another version here, this one more 'punk' than 'torian'. Not so fond of it. Well... I like it, but it's not particularly 'Stockill'

RAT

Not sure which rat. Generic rat at the moment. Edward of Basil or someone. Yeah. Person as rat because musical. I have another version of this (not scanned yet) where it has a mechanical arm/leg. Why? Because they got experimented on.

So thar you go. Some initial designs. Going to work on them over the next week since I have no lessons. Curious to see how different they'll end up being.