My name is Amara. 8/10 people pronounce it wrong.

Painting on legs is done!! the paint I used is 1 part white, 2 parts gold… but it still just looks white for some reason…

Also did vacuum forming for the first time tonight for the “kitty” bulbs on my speakerhands, and helmet bodywork is all done (but not painted)!

And speakerhands are not available for photos right now because I am having to redo the gloss on them >:/ TIP: NEVER USE KRYOLON GLOSS COAT, OPT FOR RUSTOLEUM CRYSTAL CLEAR AUTOMOTIVE SEALER (GLOSS) + TURTLE WAX SUPER HARD SHELL

Anyway yeah, worst quality pictures ever… but whatever, I’m anticipating the ones of the full costume that will be happening in less than two weeks :3c

progress report before I take a quick power nap, then get back to work

My hand hurts from dremeling…

So tired… have to keep going… ￣ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

Saboten is in a week and a half, I can sleep when I’m dead

Everything is messy right now! 

And nothing in this picture is actually 100% complete except for the shoes… but I have not posted enough progress lately due to busybusybusy… so… there we go, now I don’t have to feel lazy about it anymore :P

camwhoring with these on is really, really hard, so I am including EVERY PICTURE, deal with it

… they still need some details painted on (especially the goldish strip near the elbow), and I have to make the kitty face “bulb” and insert the electronics (LEDs, speakers, etc.), but the hard part is done!! FINALLY

Also, ignore my wig, it needs help :x

How we went about creating the base for my Nekomura helmet :] 

Now to paint it with resin, fiberglass it, and move on to bondo.
The ears and bow are left off because they were kind of ridiculous to transfer into papercraft format… so I will make them separately myself from paperclay!

Credit to original MMD model to ISAO
Thank you to the lovely Andrew for doing pretty much all the 3D work while I worked on the speakerhands :’D

Some more photos I took during the creation process. It is my first time using expanding foam. Bottom is a before and after type deal, as in the back is what the speakerhands look like BEFORE I carved into them, and the front is after with one of my speakers inserted. :]

NEKOMURA “DYNAMIC-PHONON BUSTER” SPEAKER PROGRESS #3

My friend Luluko pointed out recently that my progress updates are delightful in that they are making no sense, and I think this may be the icing on the cake of that sentiment. Have some gently hipsteresque, instagram-free photography of my current phase in the creation of these things.

Hint: I have paper mache’d a total of 8 balloons of various sizes (6 will be thrown away). Next steps are: cutting shapes out, hot glue, expanding foam over pieces once the cans have arrived in the post, carving, sanding, fiberglassing, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, drilling, detailing, then painting + piecing it all together once I return to America and have income again!

NEKOMURA “DYNAMIC-PHONON BUSTER” SPEAKER PROGRESS #2

Some ugly progress photo just so you know I’m working on it. These are just bases for us to build skeletons for the armour around. 

We finished soldering together everything for the LEDs since this was taken (they’re so bright!), but I don’t wanna take more photos until something pretty is made. :] So here are the electronic guts before the LEDs were assembled. As my friend Victoria pointed out, it looks like I am building bombs in Andrew’s living room, so I am kind of eager to get past this stage and have the cardstock “skeletons” put on the outside at least.

When everything is turned on (speakers + LEDs, which are currently like, taped to the side), I actually kind of feel like I am shooting energy beams when I wear these. :’D COSPLAY IS FUN

Honestly, this is coming along very nicely! All the electronics are complete now!!

NEKOMURA “DYNAMIC-PHONON BUSTER” SPEAKER PROGRESS #1

Sound system “guts” complete! They work beautifully!!

Speakers, speaker wire (will be hidden/sewn down inside of sleeves) extensions made by soldering them to male and female 3.5 mm jacks, then plugged into a Y headphone splitter on a tiny clip-on mp3 player to be concealed inside of costume.

These things are REALLY loud. Once the outside “skeletons” + handles are added and I can hold onto them and do a little booty dance, I will take a progress video with a sample of myself speaking to show just loud these really are. :p I’m fairly confident in their ability to stand up to the roar of convention crowds.

Thank you to my beloved Andrew for doing basically all of the soldering while I stood over him, drinking strawberry vodka out of a mug and strongly emulating Bill Lumbergh. ♥