#progress

I made an Excel sheet to keep track of all my gifs. Do I have more important things to do? Yes. But it was quite fun, until I had to manually search both blogs and my folders to update the sheet.

Take it as a little preview of whats to come. Short reminder that some characters take longer cause I record everything myself (some exceptions are certain transofrmations taken from youtube)

podencos:

“In a 1994 Harvard study that examined people who had radically changed their lives, for instance, researchers found that some people had remade their habits after a personal tragedy, such as a divorce or a life-threatening illness. Others changed after they saw a friend go through something awful, the same way that Dungy’s players watched him struggle.

Just as frequently, however, there was no tragedy that preceded people’s transformations. Rather, they changed because they were embedded in social groups that made change easier. One woman said her entire life shifted when she signed up for a psychology class and met a wonderful group. “It opened a Pandora’s box,” the woman told researchers. “I could not tolerate the status quo any longer. I had changed in my core.” Another man said that he found new friends among whom he could practice being gregarious. “When I do make the effort to overcome my shyness, I feel that it is not really me acting, that it’s someone else,” he said. But by practicing with his new group, it stopped feeling like acting. He started to believe he wasn’t shy, and then, eventually, he wasn’t anymore. When people join groups where change seems possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real. For most people who overhaul their lives, there are no seminal moments or life-altering disasters. There are simply communities⏤sometimes of just one other person⏤who make change believable.

One woman told researchers her life transformed after a day spent cleaning toilets⏤and after weeks of discussing with the rest of the cleaning crew whether she should leave her husband.

“Change occurs among other people,” one of the psychologists involved in the study, Todd Heatherton, told me. “It seems real when we can see it in other people’s eyes.”

The precise mechanisms of belief are little understood. No one is certain why a group encountered in a psychology class can convince a woman that everything is different, or why Dungy’s team came together after their coach’s son passed away. Plenty of people talk to friends about unhappy marriages and never leave their spouse; lots of teams watch their coaches experience adversity and never gel. 

But we do know that for habits to permanently change, people must believe that change is feasible. The same process that makes AA so effective⏤the power of a group to teach individuals how to believe⏤happens whenever people come together to help one another change. Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.”

⏤ The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg

**Warrior Peach WIP**

Slow updates cause been fighting demotivation issues, but also no streaming cause I’ve been bouncing back and forth between project ideas.⠀

Over the past couple days during the free time I had, I started doing mockups of other armors. This included the shoulder armor, as well as the boot patterns! To do both of these- like most of this costume, I wrapped myself up in plastic wrap and then masking tape and then outlined what I wanted.⠀

One of the interesting things I’ve done with both of these pieces is used poster-board to play around with some of the shaping. For example there is that little ‘lip’ on the armor that tape couldn’t shape, so I played with a piece of poster-board until I was happy. The same went for the shoes that have a 'steel toe’ as I’m going to call them, so I added some posterboard there to give my cheap sandal bases some 'lift’ that I could get the better shape for where the fabric will be going.⠀

Hopefully at some point I’ll get the bodysuit done. I tried to time myself so that the armor was completed before it became too cold outside to spray paint. At some point in my life I’ll work on an armor cosplay where it’s warm outside hahaha… ha..⠀

**Warrior Peach WIP**⠀

Again thanks for all those who joined the stream the other day! I didn’t feel too productive, but that might be my anxiety hahaa.⠀

The two things I worked on the stream were forming the bracers, as well as the leg armor. For the leg armor I did the same process of wrapping my leg up in plastic wrap and masking tape, then guestimating where things will sit on my legs. One problem facing is my legs are both thicker, and smaller than the ref images.⠀

I also heated up the armor with a heat gun to begin shaping it. I did get to learn how much heat that L200 works well with. (I also learned I cant use masking tape on it or it will actually rip away the foam ug.) One fun thing I did was kept trying with my heat tool what kinda ways I could put the divits or cuts into the armor. The one angular tool at high heat will work SUPER WELL for cuts once I get to that part of the armor! I’m looking forward to damaging it once everything is done.

**Warrior Peach WIP**⠀

No stream last night because I was over doing some mutual babysitting with some cos-buddies! ⠀

While we were hanging I decided to get a jump on cutting out the foam for the bracers. This was done by first tracing out everything twice with a marker on the foam, keeping careful consideration to flip one side for the right bracer.⠀

This was my first time working with L200, and I’ve only worked with craft before. It’s a soft foam, and it appears very porous on the inside which I thought was interesting. But I didn’t have any resistance to my fresh exactoknife (really need a bigger one.) Like its sensitive, yet firm all at the same time. I’m not sure /how/ to describe it.⠀

Once the pieces were cut out, I used contact cement on the inside seams, let that dry, and then made sure to stick it together at my seam markers. And viola! Two sides of two bracers each! Need to clean up the seams a bit, carve me some divits, and then plot how I’m going to attach them, but so far so good.⠀

**Warrior Peach WIP**

Want to give a super shout out to all those that joined me on my Twitch stream yesterday, and @cosplaysupplies who is sponsoring this armor build!

It was a super productive day, which was great given how bad I’d been fighting depression. A full draft was finished off the arm bracers that I’ll make of L200 foam.

The process started with making a live mockup on my arm with saran wrap and masking tape. The photos here are my second draft as I wasn’t happy with the first. I used 3 different markers to keep track of my steps= blue for gridlines and draft lines, red for more details, and black for final. I always use black as a final as it allows me to overlay more tape for making other drafts for smaller parts.

From this mockup I was able to make posterboard patterns for the foam pieces, as well as wrappers to make my groove lines with my hot knife. It was a great productive stream and I plan on doing more!

Warrior Peach WIP

I’m finally getting started on the Warrior Peach by @skirtzzz! It’s going to be a task since I’m very unhappy with both my mental state and my body at the moment, but you know what gonna press through cause I want to cosplay this dammit.

The first task before me was getting the bodysuit ready before I felt prepped to do the armor. Since I can’t wear a bra, I’m trying these Silicone Breast lifts from Hiramex (found on Amazon) to at least help with boob movement underneath the armor. Even though I have heavy cups they are really doing a great job at least reducing boob rash!

With that done I started making a guesstimate on the bodysuit. With some excess spandex from other projects I used the bodysuit pattern from Kwiksew to give me a high collar suit and just didn’t cut out the full legs. Way more fabric than needed, but gave me a starting point. From there I marked off where I wanted to cut away fabric, and then slowly trimmed and reshaped. With my first draft done, I re-cut it from new fabric and re-sewed. To be honest I’m super happy with draft 2, but I’m having crotch issues so I’m going to go with one more final draft and then think about cutting the full suit.

**???**

Last clue for the cosplay I’m wearing at Colossal East! The uniform is completely done, and I simply have to finish the wig now, then pack up and goooo. I hated doing another cos so last minute but I hadn’t had inspiration for weeks, and it felt good to be doing this in a not crunch-way but just getting stuff done.

**???**

Still working on my ‘unknown cosplay’ unless some people wanna take a guess as to what it is still! A few people have. This is my first school fuku and I gotta say I’ve been having fun and proud of it. Also first time doing double pointed darts and I /love them/ but they are also a pain lol.

**???**

Working more on my trying to get myself in the rhythm project. Hoping to finish this by Colossal East so then I can focus on Peach!

Wonder what I could be making… who am I making?

womp womp

Holy wow, I’ve made so much progress in the span of 5 hours. My art doesn’t make me want to die yeet!