Almost Ready! (Days 1169 - 1181)

Progress!

With Fanime coming up soon, I've been making tons of progress! I'm so happy that I decided to only make one cosplay this year instead of my usual two or three. I'm nearly done with all of the beading, I just need to finish the hanging strands, and I need to make another store run for those.

More progress!

Even more progress!

This part of the beading is finished.
I just need to add a few more things on the back.

By the way, this is the awesome beading setup I've been using It's all my mom's, save for the measuring tape, and it's pretty awesome. I line up rows of beads on the bead board (the gray/blue thing on the left), I can line up up to four rows at a time, but usually I only do two, it saves me a lot of confusion. Other than the bead board, I think the most useful tool is the silver spoon thing that's laying on top of the bead board in this photo. It's just a long scoop with a pointed end, and you use it to scoop up small beads, like seed beads, that are too tiny to pick up with your fingers.

In addition to beading, I put a few more finishing touches on previously "complete" pieces. I put bobby pins on the inside of the headpiece so that I can wear it without the pins showing, and I put small orange feathers on the arm bands. I was debating whether or not to use the orange feathers for a long time, but I really love the way they look.

I also did a few test-runs of makeup I'm thinking of using for this cosplay, and ultimately, I decided to simplify my makeup a lot. So I wasted money on three pairs of false eyelashes, whoops! I'm kicking myself over it, but I'm not going to over-complicate a perfectly good makeup just because I'm cheap. Speaking of being cheap, I still have to buy more makeup because what I've been using for test runs is super low-quality.

Beading (Days 1164 - 1168)

So almost all of the construction on my Ho-Oh cosplay is finished! All that's left is to figure out how to secure the headpiece properly, and since the construction is finished, I moved on to beading!

Most current progress picture of the whole thing.
My face was exceptionally weird looking.

Beading progress.

After thinking I had finished half of the beading on the top, I decided to try it on. In addition to still having a small construction issue (which I fixed quickly afterward), I realized that when I'm wearing it, the top has a completely different shape than it does when it's on the dress form. So now I'm going to have to take off a bunch of the beads, put on the top, and mark where I want the beads to go. Which really, I should have done in the first place.

For a while, I was struggling with whether or not I even liked the beading on the top, or if I should just leave it plain. Ultimately, I think I like it. It looks very different on the form than it does on me, and the beads give it a lot of sorely-needed depth that it lacks when I wear it. However, I feel like if I start taking beads off to fix them, I might give up and take all of the beads off and leave it that way, haha.

Beading doesn't take too long, I work on it a couple of hours at a time, and it goes by pretty quickly. My arm is a little tired from it, but other than that, I have no real qualms with it.

Headpiece (Days 1144 - 1163)

Not much progress, but it's something. I started work on my Ho-Oh headpiece. It's nearly complete, it just needs a way to attach it to the wig. I'm thinking bobby pins or large combs. Either way, here it is so far.

From the front.
The chain doesn't hang that far in my face,
it sits differently on my head,
and I have a bigger forehead.

And the back.
It'll be a little curved once attached,
to sit on the head better.