Monday 30 January 2012

Future Cosplay: Pinkie Pie Cupcakes Version

I’ve been meaning to do an update post but I thought I’d do this first since I just wrote this plan up. I’ve decided for one of my future cosplays I’m going to be Pinkie Pie, the cupcakes version. If you don’t know, Pinkie Pie is one of the main characters from My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and Cupcakes is a whole fandom based on a fanfic where she well… kills other ponies and bakes them into cupcakes and all sorts of psychopathic things… I love it, so me. And well I’ve been looking to make a costume that requires more work, so it’s perfect. Here’s my plan so far, think it’ll be my summer project.

Things I need (and how I plan to do it):

Cutie mark dress

Originally I was going to completely make the dress from scratch but because I’m paranoid about getting the size right and I’m not going to get a dressmaking dummy until September (and I wanna start asap) I’m going to start by buying a plain (as possible) dress that fits me so I know I’ve got it right and then I’m going to sew the cutie marks on. I’m not sure what material I’ll use for those yet, I want to use the same for all of them obviously. I’m thinking maybe something like silk in varying colours for pony skin, whatever I can get cheaply really, maybe three or four different colours, and I think for the actual cutie marks I may use felt or something. I know they’ll stick out a bit but I’m not good enough at sewing to just sew cutie mark patterns onto the dress so… yeah. I also need to figure out how I’ll do the Pegasus wings.

Unicorn horn necklace
At this point I think I’ll be making the horns out of paper and painting them and using a normal piece of string to put them around my neck.

Hooves
Yeah, I really wanna do this properly so I have to have hooves too. I’m thinking altering some pink mittens for my hands because I don’t want to restrict them too much. I’m not completely sure what I’ll do for my feet yet. Should all else fail I’ll just get some pink shoes.

Pink skin
Again, I really wanna do this right, so I’m gonna get some body paint and any part of my skin that shows is gonna be turned pink.

Pink wigI’ve seen a couple of good wigs so that shouldn’t be a problem. I wanna do the straight hair version, most wigs have at least a little curliness, but I don’t mind that so much.

Fake blood
I think I’ll be getting some of this anyway, maybe putting on my face and hair a little and quite possibly bits of my dress.

Rainbow Dash cupcakes
Well, it’s not like cupcakes are hard to make… and it kinda feels like a necessary thing for this costume hehe.

Skull hatI know it didn’t happen in the original story but I love the idea of using Gilda’s skull as a hat… so I think I’ll be attempting to make that too. Not completely sure how I’ll do that yet though.

Extras?
Maybe a hacksaw prop or something? I’ve been considering it… Not sure if I’ll do anything else yet.

Thursday 5 January 2012

The Most Fun I've Ever Had on a Budget

On Monday my holiday ends and I have to go back to Liverpool. I wonder how much post has built up. I can finally get my Christmas present from mum. I’m lucky because it also happens to be the same day a big uni project is due in and I’d heard it was due by 4:30 – I get back to Liverpool at 3:45 – but now it turns out we can take it in any time before the place closes. I also need at some point to pick up the first assignment I did for one of my uni classes so I can find out how well I did (if I did). Apparently everyone did well…

The Budget
Anyway, now getting to the reason for the title, I thought last semester was budgeted but this is even worse. I found out we need to book accommodation for next year in January and have to pay the deposit at the same time. That’s about £200. Before I started uni I couldn’t afford the deposit for this year so someone – I think from the uni – covered it for me and apparently I had to pay them back in this lot of money too. I’m not sure how to do that though or even who to contact or who it was – my dad dealt with it – so I hope they contact me to tell me how to give them the money. In any case, that’s £400. After rent is taken out of the money I get I have just over £700, taking the 400 away that gives me 300. However, just because this has happened I don’t intend to go back on my plan of buying a TV. I want it too much (just for my PS2). So after buying the TV and paying the TV license (since it comes with freeview and I’m doing the pay quarterly method) I’ll have £178 for food, laundry and anything else until April when I get my next lot of money. My budget for food was £20 for 2 weeks, but that adds up to £160 so I’ve put it down to £15 a week (£105). I don’t think it will actually be that difficult to stick to. Then it’s £5.20 a week to get laundry done, but that should fit easily into the remaining money I’ll have.

What I’m Going to DoSo, on this budget I won’t be able to get a lot of treats or buy any other new things or even go out anywhere properly until April. I think I’ll just have enough so I can still go to the anime society – 50p a week, surely I can afford that.

Other than that, I suppose there’s not much to worry about. I can’t get any new books but I still have some to read which I might do and there’s a lot to read online. A lot of music and films and stuff can be found online too so I’m fine there, I don’t really spend money on CDs anymore, just listen to songs on youtube… I don’t know how I feel about that hehe…
And then of course I’ll have a TV so I can watch stuff and I have all these games to play that I’m sure can last me until April (some of them I know I’ll be playing a hundred more times anyway hehe).
I’m also going to be writing a lot, as I said in the last post at least one story every day, and then I’ll still have assignments and stuff in uni too. Then there are other things I want to work on like my drawing abilities so I’ll have a lot of time for that too. I also want to find some other projects too so there should be plenty to take up my time.
This really is going to be the most fun I’ve ever had on a budget. I guess I’m just lucky I still have all this stuff I can do, and hopefully the lack of money will really make me appreciate it… one would hope.

The Really Bright Side
I thought the deposit for next year’s accommodation would be in April. Since it isn’t, the only big money thing from April’s lot of money is for my storage thing during the summer, since I can’t take everything home, but even that should come to less than £100. Then there are two lots of TV licence money to save (since I won’t get money during the summer) and money for a train or coach to get home to London, and then back to Liverpool again in September. Even those things don’t cost that much! So I’ll have more extra money in those months than any time during the rest of the uni year. Which is great because I can save some for summer, and of course the MCM expo in May.
I am sad that I can’t get my cosplay stuff until April because I was really looking forward to it, but I’m sure I can survive until then.

The Super Late Christmas and New Year Post

Christmas
Christmas did not feel like Christmas this year… that’s all I have to say… aside from the general Christmas stuff all I really did was watch TV and play games all day, it was just a normal day. I had more fun around the time though, I went out a lot with friends. One of them well, we have a lot more inside jokes now hehehe.

I also didn’t get a lot of presents this year. One friend bought me a jar of marshmallow fluff so that was pretty cool. Then my other friend bought me my Sephiroth plushie, that was back in May but we said then that the plushies we bought each other were Christmas presents. So yeah, hardly any presents for my birthday or Christmas this year. Again, still waiting on the Christmas present from my mum since she couldn’t afford it for Christmas. She’s given me the money for it now but I’m waiting until I go back to Liverpool and ordering it online so I don’t have even more stuff to carry. Not that presents are all I care about, I couldn't afford to get many for others either, but that does make it feel a little less Christmassy.

And now so there isn’t a massive clump of writing, here’s a funny picture of Sonny:




New Year’s

So… New Year’s day… midnight… that’s one of the times when my cats get really scared, they hate fireworks and Sonny, the one who’s closer to me, always stays really close, sometimes snuggling right up beside me. He does that anyway but it’s even cuter when he’s scared. I remember one year we were just hiding under a big blanket together…
And then there are the parties… I got dragged to one for a while. Lucky me to walk in just when the embarrassing drunken dancing was starting. I think my mum was trying to get me drunk because all the drinks she game me were a lot stronger than usual. I left as soon as I could. Nothing against them, I’m just not good at parties.

And of course, New Year’s Resolutions. I’m cheating and starting mine from today. I wouldn’t even say they’re actually NYR’s because there’s a whole list and it doesn’t really feel like that to me… let’s just say goals for the year. I have a lot more goals but these are the big ones that need focus.

1. Write at least one short story a day. This is the most important. I’ve been trying to do it for ages but now this will be my motivation to get it done. It’s also important since I want to be a writer and since my writing is essential for my university classes.
2. Get better grades in my uni classes. They aren’t bad but they could be better. I want really high ones…
3. This I suppose is always the standard one, just to be healthier. For a while I was managing to exercise every day but now I’m going to try again to actually do that. I want to both lose weight and get stronger. I also want to have a better, more balanced diet. That won’t be easy on £15 a week for food but it should be more come September.
4. Good idea, stick to the budget. It’s not such a big deal if I go over because I do have £200 overdraft available on my bank account but I don’t like to use it.
5. Get better at drawing. I also want to get better at other skills but I suppose this is the one I’ll focus on for now.
6. Finish all the games I currently own. Yeah, I know that’s a bit dumb to have as a goal, but I’m really determined to get through each of them at least once. I’d rather do that before getting any new games I mean. And since there’s one I really want coming out this year, that’s extra motivation hehehe.
7. Be more confident in social situations. I already am in most now… just a few left to go and it’s like I don’t even have a syndrome… lol

Hmmm… that’s all I can think of right now. It’s already too many. I’ll probably think of more goals later but well… this can be the list for now.


Right so... that's all for this post then...