Thor cosplay: Mjolnir

    On January 17, 2018, I started work on Mjolnir, what I figured would be the easiest or at least most forgiving part of a female Thor cosplay. In and around various other projects, I built an external framework, filled it with foam, and watched it explode awkwardly out badly-joined seams. On March 26, I gave it up as a bad idea.

 

     Version 2 started off on May 27th, using a solid core this time: two yoga blocks. I carved a channel for the handle, used a butter knife blade to ensure it would all stay together (this was before I knew about contact cement), and filled in the gap with caulk and extra EVA foam strips.

Greenhouse/ craft area

     For the last few years, I've built a small but useful greenhouse under the back porch to keep potted plants over the winter. It was cramped and simple, but it did its job, and gave my gentleman somewhere covered to smoke in nasty weather.

     Unfortunately, because it was small and just closed in with 2x4s, the smoke would largely come back in the house with him when he re-entered, and then slowly seep out all the sides... including the one where the air intake for the HVAC sits.

Why people hate insurance companies

     In early October, I received a letter from my insurance company asking for documentation to support an insurance claim from a visit in May. Annoying, but more annoying because it was a yearly checkup at a practice that I'd been to the year before - also for a yearly checkup, also coded in plain English on the claim as a yearly checkup - that they'd contested and I'd proven was covered. But, bureaucracy, so ok, I gather the documents and send an email as requested on October 24th, well within their 45 day response time.

     No acknowledgement of receipt, no response.

     Two weeks pass, the deadline to submit passes...

Delicious baking error

    A while back, I was in the process of making cookies and my brain somehow short-circuited. I'd mixed together butter, eggs, sugar, and brown sugar, then confidently grabbed the eggs from the fridge and dropped two more in. Not really sure why, but of course I only realized it after I'd added both, and was standing there, staring at the soupy mix in confusion. Should I toss it? Double the whole recipe? Attempt to scoop out the extra eggs? All of those required significant effort, and I was already tired, so I said to heck with it, it's extra protein, I'll just continue on and see what happens (always a good idea...).

     What happened is I ended up with something more like muffin batter than cookie dough - not as wet as cake batter, but definitely too sticky to roll into cookies. Again, though, I was too invested in it to stop, so I just dumped it all into an 8 x 8 pan and shoved it into the oven to see what would happen.

Classes and sketches

     Found a little specialization thing on Coursera, where I've done several French-language courses just for the fun of it, on cybersecurity. I knew next to nothing about it, and it seems to keep popping up in conversation, so I figured I'd learn a bit in all my spare time. Although it does require a fair bit of note-taking, there's also some time during the lectures where one's hands are unoccupied, a dangerous thing. Found a sketch pad and a pencil just hanging out near my desk and...

New skills but not standalone

     One of the things I really appreciate about thermoplastics is that it requires a lot of secondary skills to create a finished product. I enjoy exploring new things, and learning how stuff works, so limiting myself to just 4 hobbies was a bit of a downer, even though I realize it's necessary to really make strides in any of them. Thermoplastics is nice, however, in that it requires at least a minimum level of skill in several other things. Deconstructing a 3D concept into 2D pattern pieces, molding and shaping forms to fit the wearer, a reasonable knowledge of glues and adhesives, some amount of painting, how best to attach pieces to the wearer (velcro, straps, ties, etc), and knowledge of a wide range of materials.

Halloween and making patterns

     Several years ago, I bought a green work skirt that I adore. It's got a half-elastic waist, so it looks smooth and dignified in front, but is gathered in the back and comfortable to wear at a desk job in ways that (in my opinion) zippered dresses aren't. It's made of fairly thin cotton gauze over an underskirt, however, which means it's slowly gotten more worn, the seams are loosening, and one edge is starting to fray. Not so horrible that it doesn't look nice in an office, but all it would take is one good snag, or getting caught on something in the washing machine, and it'd be dead.

     On a seemingly unrelated note, I'm dressing up as Anna from Frozen this year, and as I was looking through my small stash of fabric, I found four yards of a perfect dark blue for her winter skirt, in a light, flowy fabric. Since I do not currently have time, skill, or supplies to replicate the embroidery/ patterns on the original skirt, I figured I could take artistic license with the pattern, kill two birds with one stone, and recreate the green skirt so I can use it again after Halloween (I have slight issues with one-time-use things, especially when I'm handcrafting things).

Exercise goals

     In 2017, I somewhat randomly picked a physical fitness goal to hit by 2019: to do a pike-to-handstand (link). I keep seeing it done in "people are awesome" youtube videos, which I watch occasionally as an end-of-day feel-good mood booster, and they look amazing. I found a couple sites that broke it down into separate parts, and I've been working on them as part of my regular workouts.

     In a similar vein, NerdFitness, the geeky website I use for fitness information, released a "Rings and Handstands" pack that takes you step-by-step on how to do things like handstands, handstand push-ups, ring L-sits, ring muscle-ups, and ring front levers. It was half off, as an introductory price, so I went for it, and have been working my way through some of the progressions there, as well, since many of them target the same muscles and skills as pike-to-handstands.

Halloween! (back to sewing)

     Tough decision, but I've put thermoplastics on the back burner for a little bit, so I can get two sewing costumes done. One, for Halloween at work, is Anna from Frozen. I'm not aiming for exact, but I have a green shirt, pink scarf, and black boots, so I decided to make a black vest and blue skirt and call it close enough. I made it my goal to finish the vest this week so I could do the skirt next week, and not be last-minute frantic panicking which seems to be a costume/ cosplay staple.
   
     This week absolutely conspired against me. I made the decision on Monday, but ran late at the gym. Tuesday was my birthday, and the house needed cleaning. Wednesday I had jury duty, which was literally across the beltway from where I live and got out at 5:30. Got home with enough time to cut the fabric out, fake a workout, and turn in. Thursday was an evening class, and Friday was preempted by a friend having issues.

     Ok, fine, the weekend will be plenty of time to work on it. Except Saturday was lovely, and my gentleman suggested finishing some outdoor work we've been putting off, with a pressure washer that we borrowed from a friend and really need to get back... and I'd been meaning to winterize the garden anyway... and then we'd promised to meet some friends for dinner and card games... and that was the end of Saturday with no sewing done.

A setback

     Since most of the weekend was horribly rainy, I put cosplay on the back burner and did a full house clean. I was pleased to discover that I have a complete winter wardrobe ready, and only had 2 plastic grocery bags full of stuff to donate - mostly stuff I hadn't worn all summer or all last winter. The weather finally cleared up this weekend, but Saturday was taken up with a convention (no cosplay - we got off to a late start), which meant Sunday was occupied with domestics. I did get to put a final coat of clearcoat on Mjolnir in the morning, thinking that was the end of painting, and I could finish off the handle and at least check that off my to do list...

     It got a little breezy when we were out; when we got home, Mjolnir had fallen over and messed up the paint on two corners. I sanded them down, put a new coat of paint on, then a new clearcoat. Propped it up carefully so it could dry, and left it alone for an hour or two. Brought it in, went to hand it to my gentleman for his opinion, and it dropped, hit the floor. Three more sides messed up, and the painful realization that this is not going to work. The clearcoat is stiff, and there are too many angles on it to try to be careful and ensure it doesn't hit things (I know I will not be able to prevent it dropping, falling, running into things, bumping other people, etc etc at a con). So... I guess back to the drawing board.

     Update: I sanded all the paint off and tried to grind down the edges where the plast-dip had started coming up. Something happened (not sure what) and the coat of plasti-dip ended up wound around the Dremel head, and ripped off over half of the hammer head. So now it's back to being a naked set of yoga blocks. :(

More Thermoplastics!

Exciting, what?

To summarize:

    1) The first stab at Mjolnir was a horrible, horrible failure. I read an article about building the exterior, then filling it with expanding foam to make it solid. I can do that, right? Well, yes and no. I cut it out, glued it together, and planned on filling it a bit, waiting for that to dry, filling it more, letting that dry, etc. Surprise! Most expanding foam cans are single-use only, because there's no way to stop the applicator from, you know, getting dried, expanded foam in it. So I quickly grabbed a length of pvc pipe, shoved it in there, mostly straight, and filled the whole thing up. 

     Three hours later, it had muffin topped out the end, and seemed pretty stable. I cut off the excess, glued on the end, and left it sitting on the treadmill (don't ask why the treadmill, I have no idea). I wasn't too keen about all the gaps at the joins, though, so I stalled for a bit, trying to think of how to fill them. Three days later, I heard an odd noise, went downstairs, and found the foam had not set up on the inside, and had exploded out one of the seams, forming the most bizarre stalagmite formation around 3"-9" tall on the treadmill. I apparently did not take a picture of it, which makes me sad because it looked hilarious, but alas. I cleaned up as best I could, threw the whole thing out, and went back to the drawing board.

     2) In the meantime, a couple of the guys at Kenpo Karate class had destroyed two of the practice knives I made, so I went back and tried again. The second batch is half rubber cement, half hot glue, to see if either of those held up longer. I also decided to try spraying them with plasti-dip, a rubbery

coating material that made them less harsh against the skin, and (hopefully) less likely to pull apart at the seams. Class has been on hiatus for a bit, so I haven't had a chance to test them yet, but they look much better.

     3) Back to Mjolnir! If I couldn't fill a hollow form, the next idea was to make it out of a solid block of foam. Surprise, surprise, there aren't many calls for solid blocks of EVA foam 9"x9"x6"... but... yoga blocks are roughly 9"x9"x3" soooooo... I got two blocks, hollowed out the handle area, then cut a hole in the pvc pipe and shoved another butter knife blade (from the Kenpo stock) through

it, to prevent the head and the handle separating in case of use. Scuffed up the edges, and glued the two blocks, handle, and knife blade together. After it all set, I spent a hour or so bonking absolutely

everything I could see (it's very therapeutic and giggle-inducing), just to ensure it was secure (it is).
     Next step, fill in the gaps and cut it to size. I use regular bathroom caulk (I can't remember my logic here, but I'm sure there was some) and extra bits of foam from the mats to fill in the center gap, measured out the sides, and discovered that a saw works amazingly well on EVA foam for major shaping. Went outside and used a mouse sander to even it out, and voila! Mjolnir shape!
     Once the shape was right, next step is decorating, and apparently life hated me, because it proceeded to rain, be stupidly high humidity, or some combination of the two for literally a month and a half. I set Mjolnir aside and worked on the next piece for a while (see below), but finally got a break today when the weather was gorgeous, and humidity was "only" 59%. I set up an assembly line and got two kenpo knives and Mjolnir painted, and the next project glued together all in 3 hours' time. I was slightly delayed by the fact that the textured spray paint I found for Mjolnir would run no matter how thinly you sprayed it,
so I had to paint one facet at a time, and hold it level for ~60 seconds so it didn't run. There are 18 faces to Mjolnir. It took some time.
     The first time I painted it, when the humidity was too high and I was putting it on too thickly, I had sanded it down, and gotten a nice brushed metal look. I debated doing that again, but I'll be honest, I like how it looks without it. So now I need to find another decent day to put the final gloss coat on, then work on the handle and the strap and Mjolnir will be DONE!

Thermoplastics - practice knives

Taking American Kenpo Karate lessons through a local community college. The teacher instructs us on empty hand as well as knife techniques (the theory being anything you can do with one can be done with the other to greater or lesser effect). Unfortunately, only one student has practice knives, so we don't get to do much actual practicing.

Until I show up, and think "hey, I could make those out of thermoplastics..."

Signs of stress

     This past week was a bit stressful, with several major deadlines coming due at once. One of my coworkers doesn't handle that sort of stress well, and would ask me - quite literally - every fifteen minutes if I'd had updates on any of them. While I'm fairly stable under stress, that was a little much for me; rather than bring in my nerf guns and teach him the folly of his ways, I simply decorated a desk plant I have and placed it where he'd see it when he wheeled his chair back to ask me questions:

Stories

     As mentioned in my previous post, I've gotten away from telling stories about myself. Telling stories in general, however, continues. Here's the first part of one I've been working on lately:

Sylvia Bishop, Chapter 1