our first Reality show

My husband and I recently finished filming with our first Reality TV program this summer, and they've finally started airing episodes!

CAPTURE is kind of a Big Brother meets a game of tag with a little Hunger Games flair. All the episodes aired are available online, click the link! Lots of interesting personalities and neat tech!

A peek at base camp from the top of one of our temporary cell towers.

My husband and I were part of the tech crew that designed and built the gimmick of the show, the location devices and sonar vests. The gist of our job description was to build a temporary wifi/cellular network out in a very remote area of California.
We had to cover about 4 square miles of very mountainous, very forested terrain. Each contestant was given a location device, along with a vest that flashed LEDs, made noise, and allowed us to track exactly where they were at any given moment. We knew how fast they were running, how long they stood still, how close they were standing to their teammates, everything!

We were kept busy during the entire shoot, tweaking equipment locations day-to-day, fixing weather damage, changing the types of antennae or dishes used to bounce the internet from the town 7 miles away from the video camp location. We usually pulled 8am to 11pm shifts, so we were too tired to even really enjoy the good craft service meals. I have a hard time even remembering what happened on what day, just that it was nice to sit quietly in the command trailer for the hunt hours when we couldn't work lest we be caught on camera. As soon as the contestants returned to their base camp every day we would hop in the truck and drive around trying to improve the service and coverage for the next day.

Our crewmates were responsible for designing and writing the custom software that allowed the show to do all sorts of manipulations and punishments to the contestants in real time, it was really awesome to watch the teams live running from eachother or from the boobytraps set up by the producers. We also built the hardware that allowed each contestant to act as a walking siren and LED disco ball, which they fit into the vests custom built by the wardrobe department.

I have so many pictures, but most of them are of boring networking equipment and piles of CAT5 hidden in a huge forest. I'll get around to editing them eventually!

Of course on the last filming day we brought out one of our costumes and ran around the main stage area a little. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonsquared/9603147579/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonsquared/9603219027/

All in all, it was an interesting learning experience! I've never been at 7000ft altitude for such a long time, or worked in such a huge production crew before. We were put up in a nice cabin in the woods, and had a beautiful 30 minute drive through the mountains to get to work everyday.

I hope it gets renewed for a second season!

Furry Weekend Atlanta 2013 - dance competition

Annnnd, another angle!





Competed in the FWA2013 fursuit dance competition last weekend! It was incredible, so many talented amazing dancers, just blew me away!

I was floored I made it through trials into the competition itself, doubly stunned I won an Honorable Mention!! I'll definitely be back to FWA next year, hopefully with a new and even more swingin' routine. :)

Faux-Taxidermy Lion

 So back in August we were contacted to do a studio job... I hinted at what it was, but tried very hard to adhere to our shop NDA (non-disclosure agreement) which we stick to whenever we do studio jobs. Mostly my day-job consists of making pretty average stuff for studios. Lots of welding, soldering, machining and tailoring. But this one was special!

I'm so proud of this, I'm so excited that we've got studio ok to share pictures and details!

This was definitely one of my favorite costumes I've built, and we were fortunate enough to be working with some great people who let us kinda run away with the idea and make it excellent!

The producer gave us some images of what they wanted, and we immediately got to work brainstorming how we could bring together a taxidermy-like cowl and cloak. I whipped up a few concept sketches, we had some ideas bounced back and forth, and then as soon as we got the ok we began ordering parts from about a dozen online stores to get started!

I couldn't help myself, and posted some component photos in this blog entry. It's so hard to pour so much love and energy into secret Hollywood stuff! I have moments of weakness, hah.

Ok, on to the good stuff! Here's just my favorite pictures of the process... There are hundreds! Thanks to my wonderful partner who is so supportive of me that he jumps at every opportunity to take snapshots of the 'insides' of our projects! 

Without him, I also probably would have mucked up the ratios on at least half of the resin fiberglass and casting rubbers, so he's just the best.

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I used sculpting epoxy for details; fairly malleable and cures in about 4 hrs, can be sanded and dremeled!

Dremeling the fiberglass head for rough spots and to fit in the taxidermy replica lion eyes. 

The claws were made from a two part resin in a platinum silicone mold.

First good pull out of the pawpad mold; made out of tinted casting rubber compound onto a lycra sheet.

Painting the jawset (a heavily modified taxidermy jaw set) and then coating everything in UltraGlo.

First test to see if the 'skin' fits!

Looks pretty good for a test fit and some rough fur shaving!

We made the paws 'dimentional', in that they had a front and back, as though they were stuffed taxidermy rather than flat. This was SO difficult, but SO worth it. We inset the pawpads and sewed them into the paws from within (not appliqué via adhesive on the outside), as well as sewing in the claws from the inside and reinforcing with E6000. They had such a wonderful weight to them!

Cutting into the bolt of NFT we ordered for the project was terrifying! 

We "gently" adhered to a standard lion's size when doing the cape portion. He'd be a small lion, but he sure was a pile of fur on my sewing table! 

Husband for size reference. Two colours/lengths of NFT fibers for the mane, elbow poofs and tail, such wonderful stuff!

Hand basting the faux suede lining to the inside for that added realistic look and so-soft comfort!

Started airbrushing some 'value' to the facial fur. I got way more aggressive with the shading later on hehe.

Test fit... I wanted to keep it!

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I'm so glad I got a chance to make this fella! I love the opportunity to stretch my comfort zones and really make something out of the ordinary (for me at least). It was a whole bunch of sleepless nights, trashed patterns, mis-casted parts and paint spills, but the stress was worth it!

Oh yeah, and I added some horsehair whiskers and eye-whiskers too!

If you have questions about the construction, or where I sourced materials, feel free to ask! Thanks for reading. :)

A break from costumes

The studio has temporarily moved down to LA (again!) to work on a production that's just gearing up. Yay!

Our last costume piece, which we haven't added to the gallery yet, has unfortunately met a very common Hollywood fate in that the series was cancelled after the pilot, with no content aired online. We're very sad! But moving on to the next project... Should be a fun few months, and will be pretty cool if it makes the cut!

We had a chance to see the space shuttle drive through downtown LA on its way to the science centre. It was a good excuse to take the day off. We were fortunate enough to get access to the press area, where we had a great view. I don't think I expected it to be so big!

rush

 We were contacted recently by a studio needing a special rush project, and once we heard what was in the cards we had to jump on the opportunity.

The last few weeks have been a blur of sculpting, mold making, casting, ordering supplies, prepping patterns, and so much hand-sewing... I've gone to bed with numb fingertips so many nights. But no pain, no glory!

We've gotten to play around with some pretty fun materials, like speciality fabric from nftech.com (super customer service and amazing product!), lots of casting rubbers and silicones, and less enjoyably about 10lbs of plaster (which got everywhere) and fiberglass (which also got everywhere once it came time to dremel it).

Can't say what it's for or when it gets published, but I'll be sure to share a link to the production once it hits the airwaves!

Defcon, Las Vegas - rockin' it at the Ninja Party!

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/07/26/a-phone-network-just-for-hackers/

After a month of long nights, my studio partner (and now husband, hee!) partied hard @ the Ninja Networks party in Las Vegas. We were definitely the cutest ones there...

And yes, we costumed in +97F temperatures. Because we're hardcore like that, and because, well... why not?

Califur 2012 - Kitty costume

Califur 2012 - Kitty costume, a photo by DragonSquared Studio on Flickr.

Quick update, and some pics of our most recently completed suit!

Just a generic cat I built for myself in the week before the convention. She is made from some really lovely mottled faux fur I picked up in the Fashion District of LA. It's always a delight to use some of the great fabrics I have in my inventory for my own costuming shenanigans. :)

Behind the scenes with The Guild

A little behind the scenes of my partner & I! The Bui brothers did a great job with the impossible task of getting decent material out of us during our 4am screen time.
Do you know how hard it is to not look at the camera when doing an interview? It is! :)

Reindeer - Delux Plush Doll

Reindeer - Delux Plush Doll, a photo by DragonSquared Studio on Flickr.

As an artist who likes to MAKE things, I find documenting things really challenging!

It's not as fun to set up a photoshoot, take a pile of pictures, weed through all the shots to find some good ones, edit the colours and framing, jumble together a collage... it's just not my cup of tea!

But it is necessary. So here's some (way overdue) pictures of my Christmas present to a very sweet boy.

Love this doll, I think it turned out so well. The little velvety antlers are my favorite.

Further Confusion 2012

Had a blast at Further Confusion 2012!

We've been working on LED components lately, and finished a 300+ LED hula hoop to film a bit of my hula routine in costume! The hula hoop is full of RGB LEDs, which means when we modify the controller inside the hoop, I should be able to obtain a spectrum of over 16.4 million different shades of colour, controllable to preset sequences or even reactive to inputs such as sound or oscillation or acceleration. Fantastic!

Can't wait to put together another hula video now that I've got a bunch of LED hoops to play with!

Sometimes I'm a dog

Thanks to a dear friend and a very quality DSLR, the Puppy officially has some fantastic headshots.

Some specs about this costume:

 - The bodysuit is built to fit unisex, so it's rather baggy. I built it with the thought that both my studio partner and I would be able to wear it. It fits anyone between 5'8-6'2". The body comfortably fits between 145lbs-200lbs, though it starts to get tight around the tummy any larger than that.
 - The materials used were for the most part unidentifiable. I haven't found similar fur to the body since! It's made of locally sourced 2" two-tone brown, 2" tipped beige (the kind that came with a faux suede backing), and some Monterey Mill's brand fox white.
 - It has 2 sets of feet; one built on size 11 mens shoes & one pair on size 7.5 womens shoes. The feet are soled with an additional .75" rubber matting so the traction is great and they're very comfortable for long uses.
 - The tail is carved foam with 2 belt loops, so it has a great wag and will always hold it's shape.
 - The hands are 3 fingered, the paw pads are textured pleather and the pads are lightly stuffed with polyfill for a little extra squish.
 - The nose is cast rubber, tinted with commercial rubber tint and a foam core. Solid and squishy yet very light! Read how I made it here.
 - The head is hand-carved foam lined with a lycra balaclava, the ears are semi-rigid cold foam, and the eyes are CNC machine cut plastic with plastic mesh for vision. The irises are painted with high quality acrylics so they won't bleed or fade. The vision is great out of this head; even in low-light/night settings it's fantastic! This head is so light, it barely weighs 1lb!

Definitely a lot of fun to wear!

Comikaze Expo 2011

November 5-6 was the much anticipated Comikaze Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center. We were invited (along with the rest of the Video Game Reunion crew!) to speak at a panel about the series.

Me & Rainbow Dash!

The VGR panel was a rousing success; apparently fans of the show are quite die-hard, and eager for Season 2 & 3 to start! There was a fellow who flew all the way to LA from Australia just to hear the actors & crew speak! We're a pretty close-knit family of crew and fans, so everyone was excited to meet up at the Expo, and to party afterward. There was some excellent give-aways at the panel; namely custom artwork done by the Production Manager, a copy of the script signed by all the cast and key crew, as well as limited edition prints and other schwag.

We attended the Expo for one day, arriving Sunday afternoon. I can't speak for the rest of the Expo, or any other panels, for that matter, but I has a pretty good time! As a costumer, I definitely appreciated the air conditioning in the convention hall!

After the panel, I changed into my Dog costume (as seen on The Guild!), and went to make appearances & pose for pictures! Met up with folks like Team Unicorn, I <3 NerdGirls, some of the Guild of Extras personalities, someone dressed up as Kanye West as a teddy bear, and lots of other great costumers and cosplayers. They really packed the LA Convention Center full!

 

I'm certainly looking forward to the 2012 Comikaze Expo!

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Seeing as we were in Los Angeles anyway, we took a day to visit Disneyland and a day to visit the fashion district downtown. Exciting! Getting to see and touch all the new synthetic furs and fabrics is really a treat.

Filming of the new Batman Movie!

 Goodbye LA, thanks for an excellent little holiday.