Creative ADHD….Oh Look! Another Idea!

I posted this on my personal blog a couple months ago and sadly it’s still plaguing me. So I’m reposting it over here (More thoughts and information coming soon on what exactly’s going on with my art and why I haven’t been updating)…

http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/17400000/artist-s-block-anime-17448294-731-700.jpg

I had planned to do a whole bunch of stuff today – projects, chores, etc. but cold, dismal, and rainy days have a habit of derailing my best-laid plans. (Not that I do nothing mind you. I have thrown in a few loads of laundry, finalised a costume plan for spring, and picked up a new storyboarding job.) But on the days that I have off from work, I have a serious problem prioritizing my To-Do List. I blame it on what I call ‘creative ADD‘ – where there are entirely too many creative concepts in my brain vying for top spot. (Then there’s the added problem of when I start on a project, I ended up getting an idea for another!) To paraphrase the White Queen, “Why, sometimes I [create] as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Actually, for me…make it ten.

I have no problem prioritizing when it comes to paid jobs or for specific events (i.e. deadlines). But open-ended creative ideas have a habit of piling up to the point that I get buried under them. Some have given the advice of, “just pick one!” and I daresay I’ve attempted that. But as mentioned earlier, while in the middle of researching for one project, a random photo or drawing will pop and off my brain goes to create another photoshoot/costume/unfinished art project.

I’d be lying if there aren’t some days I wish I could shut my creative brain off! The projects are of so many different varieties – costumes, illustrations, short films, photoshoots, blog posts, etc. – and in my typical fashion, NONE of them easy! (Now I do keep all of these ideas logged in specified places as not to lose any of the ideas. I have extensive libraries on my computer and Photobucket of reference folders full of photographs, Word documents, doodles, etc)

But I’m beginning to fear that I’ve pigeonholed myself into the Idea phase. I come up with a plethora of concepts and reference to support them, but never seem to get very far past that phase due to yet another idea (and another and another and another) surfacing. I have completed a few ideas from concept to finished product, but they are fewer than I’d care to admit. I haven’t been able to find a solid solution to this dilemma. The closest I’ve been able to come up with is tying my concepts to specific events (such as conventions, holidays, movie premieres, etc.). Having a deadline definitely helps, though strangely a self-assigned deadline like, “I’m going to finish this costume by ___ (fill in the blank with arbitrary date)” doesn’t seem to work at all. My will circumnavigates my brain in its realisation that it’s not a hard-set deadline. Oh how my creative proverbial cup overfloweth!

And on that note, I’m going to go make myself some tea.

Allon Book Series – Shannan Promo Photoshoot

After  months of searching I finally found a photographer who I felt could capture the character and story behind my costume. As it turned out, I got way more than I could have imagined. Lauren Wood (or Lauren Athalia as she’s called) is one of the most top-notch photographers I’ve ever met. Not only does she know how to wield a camera to maximize the beauty of a naturally-lit scene, but also knows how to use that light to bring out the best qualities of her models. I have a difficult time with photographers not lighting my face properly and thus my weak jawline becomes my undoing (i.e. my face and neck tend to appear to blend into one another in most photoshoots). I know when I look in the mirror I have a jaw! It’s probably a minor point to most, but Lauren managed to capture my usually elusive jawline on camera and I  couldn’t be happier. I wanted to give both my mom and Lauren the best pictures I could and boy did I get them.  (Please check out her website to see her incredibly photography. Who knows, you might see a familiar face popping out from behind a blonde wig and top hat. ——> http://www.laurenathalia.com )

The really special treat with this photoshoot was that I had a co-star, and a four-legged one at that. One of Shannan’s companions in Allon is a wolf named Torin. Lauren has a knack for procuring incredible sets, animals, and props. So my co-star was a real, full-blooded Timberwolf named Breeze. Now Breeze is not a pet (and I do not support having wolves as pets). I’m not sure about all the details, but she was a rescue. She was a bit skittish at first, as wolves are around strangers. It took about 30 minutes for her to warm up to me, but it wasn’t long before we started to call her Miss Kiss-n-Run as she’d bolt to lick my face off and then run around between shots. So without further adieu, here are Lauren’s beautiful photographs.

Photographs © Lauren Athalia 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Shannan Costume – Wig and Winter Shoot

I knew I wanted a wig for my Shannan costume. First and foremost, my hair is very very fine, thin, and there’s not a lot of it. Shannan, on the other hand, has thick hair. In the book it’s written that Shannan wears her hair in a large braid. Well, I can guarantee you that when my hair gets put back in a braid it’s about the size of a rat’s tail. Seriously. So I decided to save myself the embarrassment and get an actual wig. Now since this was the first time I had ever worn a wig for a costume, I was going to need a little extra help.

Aria Durso is THE wig lady of Middle Tennessee. Although her wig creations tend more towards the fantastical and theatrical, she has experience with more down-to-earth hairstyles as well. (You can see more of her delightful creations here —> http://acd-creations.webs.com/ ) After searching through an untold amount of braid images online, I settled on a style of braid seen on the runway for Alexander Wang’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection. It wasn’t pulled starkly back (as I wanted bangs like in my drawings of Shannan), but still secure and believable to be running around the forest in.

Man I wish I could get my hair to look that awesome every day….but I digress. Aria brought over two wigs for me to try on – one synthetic and one made of real human hair. Ironically the synthetic fit better! (I forgot to mention that in addition to having thin hair I also have a small head more akin to a child’s size than an adult. Don’t even get me started on trying to shop for hats.) So Aria went to town and I was graced with a beautiful wig that could not have been more perfect (EDIT: 12/6/11 – After multiple conventions and photoshoots, it’s only just now falling apart two years after Aria made it.  And I’m still getting comments that people think it’s my real hair!)

In January 2011, we actually had a real snowfall in Nashville! (we tend to only get a dusting every so often) So while everyone else was lobbing snowballs and building their snowmen (alright, so I did kind of build a snow Yoda…), I decided to grab my costume and head outdoors for a little fun photoshoot with my mom. Here you get the see the wig in action!

Shannan Costume – Pouch and Wineskin

I had sketched out a number of designs for a pouch, but Mrs. Elrod happened to find a neat looking pouch at a yard sale. While I didn’t see it as very functional for Shannan, we were beginning to run out of time to find a suitable alternative (and as it turns out the pouch was perfect to hold Mom’s business cards and Allon bookmarks at conventions).

We detached the colourful bits and baubles, save a couple light berry coloured ones that matched my belt and a neat hair tuft from the middle (part of a turkey beard perhaps?). The front side of the pouch had a long messenger-bag like strap with no real way to close the pouch except for a small velcro patch on the front pocket. Mrs. Elrod cut off the long strap and instead made two smaller straps in the back like loop holes so the pouch could then just slide straight on to the belt.

Mrs. Elrod suggested taking one of the light berry coloured beads, attaching it to the front, and wrapping a small leather strap around it to ‘close’ the pouch. The colour was fading off the bead, especially on one side so I grabbed a marker and went to town!

(I really look like I’ve got stained blueberry all over my fingers!)

The Final Pouch

The same process happened with the wineskin – found in a yard sale and then painted to match the rest of the costume. Sadly, the wineskin, while aged and distressed, was a modern plastic grey and red.

So out came the shoe polish!

 

The polish I ended up going with was an even older brand (as none of the ones above would give good enough coverage).

The leather part was fairly easy to buff to brown, but the plastic parts were a whole other story…I tried putting on a mask and painting the grey with mark like I did the beads on the pouch. But the plastic was slick and the marker ink wouldn’t stick worth anything.

I ran the marker dry trying to put coat after coat on but grey still shone through when it dried. Thankfully Mrs. Elrod came to my rescue with a brilliant idea. She took one one of the reject belts (for my main belt) and threaded it through like a strap. It ended up working great as it covered the grey as well as wrapping it around the red, blatantly plastic cap.

And the final pouch! (Not the best and will eventually be replaced with something more authentic looking. But it’s a start.)

Shannan Costume – Belt and Quiver

Since Goodwill tends to have belts for around $1- $1.50, we grabbed a number of leather belts to try out.

The middle belt ended up being the winner. Rather than being the typical one, maybe two-toned belt, this one was multi-toned and multi-layered. It had a gorgeous rich dark red running the length of the belt next to the cognac brown. And being used, it already came pre-distressed! The belt was way too big for me but we had no leather-punching tools, so we decided to just play around with wrapped the belt around itself. It’s worked every time since!

The quiver, on the other hand, was the exact opposite from the belt in terms of difficulty. While the belt was easy as Easy Mac, the quiver was vastly more complicated. Like the bracers, I didn’t want to have the typical tube with arrows stuck in it. I turned again to the Rangers of Ithilien and found their quivers to be both functional, different looking, but not enough to not be recognisable as a quiver. However, I have no idea how the craftsman at Weta created them, so I had to come up with my own method.

After deciding upon exact measurements, my dad and I created a quiver template in Adobe Illustrator. I then traced the template onto paper Mrs. Elrod gave me to use for a pattern.

I then cut out the middle diamond of the exterior of the quiver as the arrow bag would show through it.

Afterwards, I traced the template onto the pattern paper and labeled it accordingly.

Yep, it’s true. I’m horrible at drawing straight lines….The paper on the left is the initial idea for the quiver (not to scale) and the one on the right is the final pattern (to scale).

The Initial Design —-The Template —- The Final Pattern

Mrs. Elrod constructed the quiver out of the same material as the bracers. Unfortunately the diamond hole in the middle was abandoned as the seams ended up needing to be wider to support the stitching in the leather. Straps were attached, but something got miscommunicated from design to construction so the quiver ended up not being functional.

I still kept the quiver in the final photoshoot as it wouldn’t make much sense to have a bow and arrows for props but no quiver.

Shannan Costume – Pants and Boots

Surprisingly there’s very little to say when it comes to the construction of the pants and boots. Both were Goodwill bought with no modifications (with the exception of taking in the size 6 pants as I wear a 0-2). The pants are thick suede by Ann Taylor with a silk lining that is RIDICULOUSLY freezing when the temperatures dips below my beloved 70 degrees. As far as the look I wanted for the pants, I took inspiration from Faramir from the Lord of  the Rings films. Truth be told, the Rangers of Ithilien were the primary inspiration for my Shannan costume. I really wanted to create a rustic, unique, but entirely believable costume so I took quite a few notes from Weta Workshop’s costuming department.

 

 

At first I opted for woolen hose or leggings (ala Legolas or Aragorn) until I put the jerkin on and realised that with its bulk the proportions looked off. So I went with the Ann Taylor pants.

The boots are suede slouch boots with no apparent brand name. They’re definitely a wee bit snug, but they have a very interesting fitted foot shape not usually characteristic of tall boots. I originally wanted to go with something more along the lines of what Faramir wore, but I’m beginning to think there’s a conspiracy out there against making those kind of boots for women. But as it turns out, the boots I found work best being similar fabric to the rest of the costume (and there’s no lacing on the rest of the costume, so that probably would’ve bothered me aesthetically)

Now, for the actual boot colour!

Shannan Costume – Bracers

I had no specific design in mind for the bracers when I first designed the costume. My knowledge of archery and leatherwork was nil. All I knew was that I didn’t want the tubed laced-down bracers that I’ve seen at renaissance faires. I wanted something more durable, more substantial, and a bit different looking. It was frustrating at first as all I seemed to be able to find were bulky designs made for muscle men and certainly not for a gal with a six inch wrist. To make matters worse, everything looked too clean, too modern. I finally turned to Deviantart as I knew there were some actual leatherworking artists under the costuming section. After a few hours of searching I came across a fantastic costumer and dare I say master leatherworker by the screenname of Sharpener from Sweden (http://sharpener.deviantart.com/). I adapted a design from his various bracers. Mine was much more crude and simplistic, but it got the job done.

Mrs. Elrod drew up her own sketch to jot down sewing notes. We decided to go for an extended triangle front on top of the hand to protect the wrist as well as to cover the archer’s glove on the right hand. In addition, Mrs. Elrod added a triple stitch around the top panel. This tri-stitch is repeated through the whole costume.

The mock-up

I then tried on the mock-up to make sure it fit properly. Thankfully, with the straps, it had enough room for the undershirt to fit in, but snug enough that it was form-fitting.

The mock-up with final fabric

Now here’s some amusing trivia on these bracers. Guess where the fabric came from! Yep, a pair of teensy leather pants from Goodwill (and a suede skirt. Alas I didn’t get a picture of the skirt before it was diced).

The straps ended up being a little long, so we cut them in half. In addition, the straps themselves needed more weight to them as we were working with a soft, light leather and not a heavy duty one as most bracers are made with. Mrs. Elrod placed a thick, almost plastic-like strip (forgive my ignorance, I don’t know what it’s called) in the middle of the top layer of layer and a bottom layer of poly-suede. The layering gave a thickening effect and it made it easier to hold the straps down lest they slip through the D-rings if I decided to start flailing.

The next time I saw the bracers they were finished. I didn’t think to ask for a closeup of the bracers during my photoshoot, so here’s the closest shot.

Final photograph © Lauren Athalia 2011. http://www.laurenathalia.com

Shannan Costume – The Sleeves

The flowing sleeves were purely for aesthetic purposes and attached to the jerkin itself. The idea behind them was three-fold.

• To be unique and add femininity
• In keeping with the forest surroundings, they were to be cut to look like leaves
• To be related in design to Wren’s, the Guardian Trio Leader of the Southern Forest (and one of Shannan’s protectors) costume

I found a beautiful sage green fabric at Hobby Lobby to use for the sleeves. I wanted to keep everything as natural of fabric as possible, but getting them cheaply was a whole other issue. So, as with the cowl, I compromised a purchased a poly-suede fabric. (I even went outside to test it against the trees by the porch. It matched! Although it’s hard to see in the photo below, it has shades of umber and slate grey in it.)

In the sketch, the sleeve was a full circle sleeve. Mrs. Elrod suggested we go for a half-sleeve instead, only attached to the front and back armpit of the jerkin. It would save a bit on fabric and keep from having more fabric that could potentially bunch up under the armpit. I agreed and we moved onto the next step. Next up was trying to figure out the exact shape of the sleeves. I had drawn up a simple pleated sleeved (as shown on the left) while Mrs. Elrod fiddled with a more Renaissance-looking puff sleeve on the right.

In the end we went with the pleat sleeve as the one of the right looked too courtly for Shannan’s costume.

Final photograph © Lauren Athalia 2011. http://www.laurenathalia.com/

Shannan Costume – The Jerkin

This was undoubtedly the most unique and hardest part of the whole shebang! I started with the original design I had drawn for Shannan’s costume back in 2007. Although it was a quaint piece, I felt the design was just too simplistic. I’d seen it before.I had tried to make it a bit different, but my knowledge of costume was rather limited at the time.

So I decided to scrap the entire design and start over from scratch. I searched high and low through my references to find something that would work against the stereotypical female doublet grain. I knew I wanted the bottom to be longer and the top more simplistic, but things were starting to look hopeless as I racked my brain trying to come up with something. My beginner skills at costume design were starting to show. During a google image search I happened across an illustration that became my design focal point.

Sadly I cannot find the the artist who did this piece. I’ll admit that I copied down the jerkin almost exactly, mainly because I was trying to figure out how the artist designed it in the first place.

I had an intention to change the shape once I figured out the final design, but the more I worked with it, the more I thought it fit Shannan’s design. In the end, I kept the shape of the illustration’s jerkin, but changed quite a few other things. The changes made were:

• The lacing was replaced with D-rings and straps
• The jerkin’s bottom were cut into side flaps only to protect the hips rather than a full skirt
• Top was raised higher to protect the collarbones
• Different colour and fabric

The jerkin proved to be a tough little piece to do as shown in both the illustration and my sketches. It’s all one piece (all the lines are seam lines) and goes over one’s body like a vest, pulled together by straps in the middle. In addition, I wanted the jerkin to be made out of leather, preferably a soft, supple leather. I looked at fake leather, upholstery leathers, even elk hide. But the prices were just astronomical for my meager budget. I was beginning to wonder if I would have to scrap the jerkin all together and go with something simple. But nay, I stuck to my guns. I wasn’t going to compromise the design and end up with something that looked like I just stitched it together for a romp at the local comic convention. I wanted this to be a screen-worthy costume. Mrs. Elrod came up with an interesting design for a more rustic looking jerkin with military-esque straps pulled across the body. I’ll admit it took a bit to talk me into it as it was such a departure from the designs I had drawn up. But it was between that or no jerkin at all and that just wouldn’t do. So I surrendered to Mrs. Elrod’s sewing expertise and away we went.

The final design

However, Providence had a blessing in store for us. At Goodwill, Mrs. Elrod and I stumbled upon a rich suede coat that featured stitched panels. It gave it a look as if hides had been stitched together. It was a very light beige/cream colour, so I had a mind to dye it. Upon closer inspection, we found the jacket was from Hening Furs. I went onto their website to discover that coats similar to it run about $1,500! In the end, we managed to procure the coat for a whopping $30! What a steal! But yes, it’s true. We planned to cut it up, dye and distress it all in the name of costuming. Here’s some closet-ups on the jacket we procured on our last Goodwill excursion. It’s a heavy little bugger (and way too big for me). So here it is folks, the $1,500 coat that we cut up in the name of costuming…

The pattern, on the other hand, turned out to be another story. It was almost nigh impossible to find a pattern anywhere near the sketch. We scowered through every pattern book we could find, searched online. I even bought a dress at Forever 21 that I thought might work, but ended up not being the right cut (sadly, I couldn’t exchange it back for cash to put towards the costume). After a couple weeks of searching we returned to Goodwill and found a long dress that had some close seam lines. It wasn’t completely ideal, but it was the closest we could find.

Using me as a mannequin, Mrs. Elrod drew the lines on the bottom of the jerkin that we would use to cut out the final piece.

While I was at work, Mrs. Elrod cut out the silken lining from inside the suede jacket and cut off the arms. When I returned the next day, we went to work on adjusting the coat to fit me. We also discovered that the coat pockets were cut shallow. We weren’t sure what to do with them, so put them on the Do-Later list and continued on with the adjustments.

Mrs. Elrod penciled in where the middle trim would run for the straps to be attached to.

We then adjusted the front middle and back middle seams to overlap (as stated before, the jacket is entirely too big for me). The sides were also taken in lest the dreaded ‘tent’ form under my arms. The jacket was to fit snugly, but not form-fitting by any means. In the beginning of the book, Shannan is still hiding in the woods and attempting to hide herself from prying eyes. This includes hiding her shape to a point to disguise her feminine nature. Now, this was a bit troublesome for me as I am 21 years old and Shannan is 15. As such some of my curves were going to be harder to hide than others.

We then put the pink pattern over the coat (along with the costume pants and boots, which I’ll be discussing in another post).

A few weeks later Mrs. Elrod had transformed the cut up Hening coat into the final jerkin, complete with trim, D-rings, straps, shoulder pads (yep,…shoulder pads. Apparently my shoulders are a little too feminine for a strong archer like Shannan! ), and a butt-flap. I hadn’t drawn one in the design, but when we actually looked at it on me, the pattern just didn’t feel right. I’m rather partial to the bum-flap now. It, plus the flaps on each side make the jerkin feel like it has a bit more of a nature-inspired leaf pattern.

And here is the final jerkin!

Final photograph © Lauren Athalia 2011. http://www.laurenathalia.com/

Shannan Costume – The Undershirt

In the beginning, I had bucked Mom’s desire for a cowl in the design. I was pushing for more of a double funnel collar and leave the hood of a separate cloak. But as Mom rightly pointed out, “it’s in print,” so I relented, but not without sketching out a few more collared undershirts…

After viewing the sketches, Mom asked for me to combine design #3 and #2 (a simple shirt with the detachable cowl). Sketch #9 was my last attempt to weasal in a double collar. I kept the shirt design simplistic, but with a tapered bottom rather than a straight cut (I find it stays tucked in. With my insanely long torso, shirts coming untucked is a frequent problem).

However, this sketch was the death of the double collar. Although it looked lovely on paper, again Mom insisted that it be a detachable cowl. Thankfully we both agreed on a design for the cowl (see previous post entitled Shannan – The Cowl) and thus I hammered the last nail in the coffin of the funnel collar.

Nary did I have a day to sketch a new undershirt before I struck gold in the local Goodwill store. Upon perusal of the racks, I came across a wonderfully rustic looking shirt that was not only my size but 100% linen!

Can you believe the tag says it’s a XS from Gap?!