This is going to be in Phoenix now through July 6th.  It's the only city that's getting it west of the Mississippi.

I started working on our costumes for both the Dallas and Houston Comicons this weekend.  

For the Dallas comicon we'll be dressing up as Firefly cast members: Rob as Cpt. Mal, me as Kaylee, Seth as Dr. Simon Tam, and Sarah as River Tam.  It's actually pretty perfect if you know us.  We're ignoring the fact that Kaylee and Simon have a thing for each other and of course the kids haven't ever seen the show.  All we've told them is that Simon and River are brother and sister and they are happy with that.

Since we are staying at Comicpalooza for two days, Sylvan needed a Wash costume.  You can't see it, but there's a tiny dinosaur sticker on his Hawaiian shirt.

For the Houston comicon we'll be dressing up as Doctor Who cast members: Rob as Doctor 4 Tom Baker, me as Sarah Jane, and originally, Sylvan as K-9.  However, I decided that he really wouldn't be very happy running around all day in a box with suspenders, so I changed him to a Cyberman.  He still gets to be all in silver just with more freedom of movement.  Plus he likes the idea of getting to fight Rob.

Naturally we already had several items in our closets that would work for our various characters, but there were many things we still needed which required a shopping spree.  We went to all 4 Waco Goodwills and the Salvation Army in our quest for the perfect items and we had a lot of success.  So far I've spent about $70.00 on pieces for 6 of our 7 costumes. 

The two major items that we are still missing are Tom Baker's scarf and Kaylee's military OD mechanic overalls.   There were a ton of TB scarves in Hot Topic over Christmas but now there are none.  I found a source on Etsy where a crafty woman will custom knit you one in a week.  Waco has an Army/Navy surplus store so I may try there although I've already found a couple of different options on EBay.  I really hate to buy clothes online where I can't try the thing on first to make sure it's going to fit.  Plus I have no idea of the weight or hand of the garment and I have pretty sensitive skin and no desire to be hot all day while wearing it.

Sylvan's Cyberman costume is finished.  I've gotten him a different helmet already and all we have to do now is paint his face the day of the event.  He's very happy with it. 

I hadn't been able to find anything for Sarah Jane that both fit me, was 1970's enough and the right fall color palette, so I decided to go ahead and make a dress.  This would normally not be a big deal since I had the perfect fabrics in stock.  Unfortunately they are remnants so there's no room for error. Sarah Jane was not curvy and the jumper she's wearing is a straight band across the bust so I have to figure out what that's going to look like on my double D chest.  I found a great sundress pattern but wanted to make it up in some other fabric first just to make sure it was going to fit me. The pattern I found had both a straight band around the bust option as well as a halter top option.  All the pieces are the same except one, the bodice front.  I had plenty of this fabric which screams 70's and is slinkier than the remnants.  Here's what it looks like all cut out and pinned to the mannequin.  This afternoon I got the lining put in the bodice and did most of the understitching until I ran out of bobbin thread and it was time to pick up the kids anyway.  Assuming this version works out I will then go make the real one.  Check back for updates.

Here's the second and real version of my Sarah Jane dress.  All it needs now is a zipper and a hem.

I will be providing costumes for my very first ad campaign.  It is for Waco City Transit and their new late night bus schedule.  We are going to be shooting at the bus terminal on Friday May 9th with about 12 McLennan student actors, one McLennan makeup artist, and a creative team/crew of five actual adult professionals.  As long as the weather stays nice, it should be just fine.  The photos are going to go up on billboards all over Waco and after running a new photo each month for 6 months, then there will be a commercial on TV.  The actors get $50 or $25 for their time, plus snacks, a copy of the photos, and the resume credit of course.  I'll let you know how the day goes and post photos, of course.

It's almost been a week and I've gotten a ton of stuff up already.  This is a lot of fun, unfortunately my carpel tunnel is acting up and I have to now mouse and click left handed.  That's OK.  I've been leaving myself notes on what to fix whenever I see something that doesn't look good.  Please leave me comments if you have suggestions or ideas or see errors, bad formatting, or just plain old bad design.  I am realizing as I convert each season's powerpoint to jpegs so I can archive them all here, just how badly the old powerpoints are formatted or at least how much the formatting changed when I updated them to the newest version.  It took me almost 2 hours to completely redo one of them this afternoon.  Mostly that's what's killing my right hand/arm: all the double clicking.  So there's two more up that need to come down and be re-formatted right now and then there's still 6 or 7 more to go.  At some point I still have to do one for this season as well.  It's a good thing that our last production closed already.

In other news, Kelly helped me figure out what my next professional development project is going to be: making masks for his period styles acting class.  Check back in a couple of weeks for more news about that.

​I love going to Rennaissance festivals, Comicons, and other events designed around people who like to dress up and talk about things that don't exist or don't exist anymore.  I recently decided to costume my whole family like Robin and his Merry Men for the Sherwood Forest Faire.  I did this over Spring Break in March, but since this blog didn't exist until April, you are just now seeing it.  Enjoy!  Next time I do this, I will not make extra long sleeves for me or Sarah.  It's too much of a pain to deal with all day having to eat and go to the bathroom.  My problem is I am still thinking like a theatrical costume designer and not like a cosplayer.  You have to be able to live in these costumes all day or all weekend so things like extra long sleeves are just not convenient.

I just got up to rescue the shoes from the back patio before the thunderstorm hit us in the morning and somehow, 4 hours later, ended up making this website.  In design class the sophomores are beginning to work on their resumes and portfolios and our new scenic designer, Caleb Stroman, is encouraging them to make their own websites for that purpose.   I am still firmly stuck in the wonderful  invention called Powerpoint, so this is a whole new thing for me.  My former students,  Jason Sanchez and Shanna Tucker, both have their own websites, so I figured it was high time that I drug myself into the 21st century and got on with it.  I can already tell that although this drag and drop thing is simple, it's going to take a lot of time uploading all of the information I want to display.  Wish me luck and check back often to see what new things I've put up.