Saturday, May 30, 2009

The Bus

Original post from May 23, 2006 on another blog that's closing up.

~~~

From work, I have the choice of walking along the train tracks from station to station or walking through nature trails and quiet neighbourhoods to a parallel train line. I do this for exercise. Today there was a risk of rain, about mid-way along the trails it started to rain so I jockeyed on down to the bus stop and sat in the shelter, waiting for the bus.

The bus came, I left the shelter and the bus slowed, then did not stop. I was mighty pissed and went back into the shelter and fumed. The rain let up and I started to walk up the steep hill portion of the route. I cursed every miserable pissass bus driver I'd ever had the misfortune to cross paths with.

Then I remembered what I'd said to another kid some 22 years ago when the bus did the same to him. "What's the matter, the buses rejectin' ya?"

Karma's a bitch, and I had to laugh at myself, quietly apologise to that kid wherever he may be now, and walk on with the liberation of having restored a bit of the balance.

I came to the stop near the top of the hill. I shoulder checked. The next bus was already stopping.

I'm on the train. The sun is shining through the clouds.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Super Flight AO

Heee! This was a hoot. Based on prior work with the Mermaid AOs I found it child's play to make a superhero flight override. Just wear and fly, it's that easy. See? Angular flying animations!


Ad run for the box:

Gown AO

This is my ad run for the Gown AO.

I was originally going to put it all together in the complete Lady, but it ended up with a gawdawful confusing pile of notecards, so it's a standalone and includes the Classical set.

This is a little different from a normal ZHAO-based AO, I added a button to switch on and off arm animations. With the sub-AO running it adds a wild amount of pose variety to the mix, also, it's the first roll-out of the Voice animation override. Use Voice? Gesture with your arms. :)

It's structured with three sizes of four 'twinned' standing poses, with four ready made notecards inside. They should work for 9/10 gown sizes regardless of avatar size.

Here's the rejected first try, just for the_lulz.


Friday, May 8, 2009

Getting Ready for SLCC 2009

Getting ready to rock the SLCC's costuming again this year!

I made this corset. :) It's Simplicity pattern 9769. I found a great company that made kits of everything I needed. Canadian too. Bonus. No getting held up sending several kilos of metal strips over the border. O_o They even had coutil, a very strong fabric for corsetry. I think I may have enough left for a second corset.

Several kilos of boning for one corset? Surely I must jest! Er, no. The majority of it was for this hoop skirt. Simplicity pattern 9764. Cotton/Poly broadcloth.
Casualties so far, two sewing machine needles, a seam ripper, and thankfully not much blood this time around.

Extra tools I needed, aviation snips to cut the hoop boning. And I've never before this skirt and corset ever used a power drill and a hammer to assemble a garment. I also rather than using hook and eyes for the clasp I broke apart an adjustable strap from the hardware store and used that instead. Not even remotely period, but if anyone looks up my skirt on such an inspection, they'll get a pointy boot up the left nostril.

I'll point out that none of that was difficult. But it took time, and it took an extra set of hands from time to time. Sewing that much casing tape into a skirt was bonkers and took a great deal of measuring and pinning and despite the mistakes I made (I fixed the horrid ones) it's very forgiving.

Last year's costume fit over it just fine, but with the corset needs to come in a little bit, also, the front dips and the back is a little high. I may pinch it in the back to take it in and force the draping backwards a bit and see how it works.



Adjustment here, adjustment there, perhaps another skirt layer under the main to mask the boning better, and I'll be set.

Next stop, Simplicity 2887 with a few modifications.