Have I taken Halloween too far?

November is over. Halloween gave way to National Novel Writing Month, and I completely forgot I had written this post. So here it is now. The rest of this post is written by Past Trevor of October 31-November 1, with a quick edit by Present Trevor. Future Trevor was unavailable at press time..  * Peak Halloween looks like this post I made on Facebook: I love Halloween. I love making costumes. But boy, am I feeling Halloweened out this year. It’s become something of a tradition that I take the…

Kids’ Sabine Wren costume, part 2: Blasters

Read Part One, in which we make most of the upper-body armour. One of my favourite techniques as a classroom teacher is project-based learning. As it turns out, it’s becoming one of my favourite things about being a parent, as well. Tonight, Little Fish and I began work on patterning Sabine’s blasters while NJ prototyped Whistler’s Jennifire makeup. Our main job was scaling the design to fit her tiny hands. We started by measuring Sabine’s hand in a screen capture. As it turned out, her hand, measured across the knuckles,…

Kids’ Sabine Wren costume, part 1

sabine wren armour pattern

My Little Fish announced her Halloween plans for this year with much the same gusto as last year’s Quorra costumes: she wanted to be Sabine Wren, one of the main characters in last year’s new Disney cartoon, Star Wars Rebels. The Mandalorian armour worn by Sabine means that I will need to learn at least two new skills for the build (foam fabrication, fibreglassing) and much better develop a third (sculpting) and a fourth (mold making). It’s a little daunting, but I’m all in on it. And we’re buckling and…

Make: Kids’ Tron Costumes, Part 4

Read Part 1 – Read Part 2 – Read Part 3 Well, after a pretty big push in the last post, I figured that it was time to do another. After all, at this point I’ve got five days left to get these assembled and finished. No pressure. The list of things that needs to be done is getting pretty short at this point. The kids’ Quorra costumes are moving along at a good clip, and as of recently, Natalie Joy has made headway on hair and makeup: But my…

Make: Kids’ Tron Costumes, Part 3

Whistler's chest piece, taped together and tacked to the foam backpiece.

Saturday afternoon is fast becoming my “make day.” By 2 PM on Saturday, the house is cleaned (somewhat), the kids are fed lunch, and materials are set up for making something. With Halloween fast approaching, it was time to finish the patterns for the kids’ Quorra costumes (see part 1 of this build here and part 2 over here) and actually get the chest pieces cut out of the gross-but-awesome vinyl I have kicking around. The nice thing about using this kind of vinyl is that I can be lazy about the…

Make: Kids’ Tron costumes, part 2

We continue our kids’ Tron costumes – this time, printing a pattern on fabric! Time to find out if making a mask for the girls’ Halloween costumes by hand will drive me insane or not. #make #mo365Follow Trevor on Instagram Now that we have the base layers for the girls’ Quorra costumes (simple black long-sleeved T-shirts and leggings), it’s time to start dressing them up. Black duds and EL wire alone do not a costume make. Next step: patterning the base layer. If you look at the super-suits from the…

Make: kids’ Tron costumes, part 1

Testing whether the length of the EL wire I ordered (3m each!) will work for the girls’ Quorra costumes. Other than losing the arms, it looks like it’ll work great. #make #Halloween #cosplay #lovemakeshareFollow Trevor on Instagram It’s an early(ish) start to the kids’ costumes this year. In my past couple of Halloweens, I’ve scratchbuilt Whistler a pink Batgirl costume (that same year, I did a Supergirl costume for NJ and an Arkham City Batman costume for myself) and subsequently watched my girls wear store-bought costumes with the grim realization that I…

Wrong Question

I imagine a number of savvy Ottawa-based party animals will quickly identify the party. It was an awesome party. I just didn’t get it that day. How things change. So very different from the early days of Bent, when Kev and Sandy and I were rocking out every couple of nights. But, you know what? I’m happier and healthier than I was then. Plus ça change. Paddle your own canoe, folks. – Trevor One-sheets are Trevor’s frequent series of illustrated prose-y poems. You can find plenty more in the category…