First of Many Finish Lines

Well, as you might guess from my previous post, I've been a little busy for the last month or so...

The LARP event I did makeup for & vended at was last weekend, and it was a lot of fun, although I didn't get to go out and enjoy it as much as I'd  hoped, since my minion/fiancee got press ganged into helping with food & beverage service... He had a fantastic time, and has volunteered to keep working the tavern at future events, so I guess I need a new minion (I suppose I'll keep him for the fiancee job, though ;) ).

Makeup went on quite well, especially when you take into account that larpers are even more difficult to herd than actors...  Sadly, though, our Medusa backed out, and the only people we could get to volunteer as a replacement were men with beards... plus, we were running low on time (see above re: difficulty of herding larpers), so we scrapped that design, covered the faces of the beardy menfolk, and let the snake hat do the talking.  Which sucks, because the design I had come up with would have been awesome - I was going to do basically two "layers," the first of which was white marble, and then over the marble look I had patches of green-on-green (OD over grass) scales... if my phone's SD card survived its swimming lesson on Wednesday (yeah, that happened - it spent a couple days in a bag of rice, and the phone will start up, but it's... not right anymore), I'll post pictures of the test-application I did on myself.

Anyways, that simplified my job down to an assembly line of Drow and one well-preserved undead guy.  Plus, I had minions to help, the chief of whom had an airbrush.  So all my dark elves looked very pretty, and I was able to make my one undead dude look rather subtly gruesome... although I really should have put the spot where his skin was sloughing off on his cheekbone rather than his forehead, 'cause it got covered up by his hood....

As for the vendor booth, I managed to build enough stuff over the month and a half to keep my booth from looking too empty, although it was still pretty sparse.  I had a selection of belt pouches, a few hoods, shirts sized small through XL (one of each size, plus a couple "factory seconds" as it were), a couple pairs of leg wraps, and a couple of dice bags up for sale, and I also made a display of some of my personal garb as examples of custom work.  Pictures of the booth are up on my Facebook page.

Sales weren't exactly great...  I sold one belt pouch, and am following up on one custom job I may have picked up at the event (a replica of the very first pattern I ever designed seven years ago, which I suppose is a good omen).  I'm trying hard not to be too discouraged... objectively, not only was it was my first show, but it wasn't the most sale-friendly environment - the light was really dim (because Underdark), and the "market" was positioned so that it didn't have any non-shopper through-traffic, which since this was a LARP event and not a trade show or other shopping-related event means I don't think any of the impulse-buy-only crowd actually even SAW the stuff I was selling.  Realistically, giving out a half-dozen business cards and doing any business at all under those conditions is a pretty great start, but I can't pretend I'm not bummed.  (And please don't interpret this as a comment on the event organizers - they ran a damn fine event, the very first at this venue, no less - it's just that "friendly retail environment" and "Drow city" are nearly mutually exclusive, and generating sales isn't a major priority for making a good LARP.)

Oh, well.  Onward and upward, and all that... at least I have a bunch of stuff to list on my Etsy store now!  Watch this space for a link once it's up and running. :)  And I learned a lot, so when I do this again I'll have a much better idea of how to create a good vending experience.  Like, it was really cold down there, so I bet I could have made some bank if I had a bunch of wooly cloaks for sale. :P

When it rains, it pours...

So, dear readers, I had a plan.  I thought it was a good plan.

My plan was to putter throughout January.  You know - work steadily, but at a very leisurely pace, and on a whole bunch of things at once.  I would make a company logo (which I'm partway through - take a look at my profile picture!), get plates on my car so I can actually drive it, finish getting all my social media profiles networked & polished, file for a sales tax ID & trade name, and perform an epic clean on the house (so when I start treating sewing/design/blogging as a job, it's easy to maintain a relatively slob-free standard of living).

Last week (I want to say Tuesday), a friend contacted me about the premiere event of his new LARP venue towards the end of February, and would I like to design the makeup for the NPCs?  Oh, and how about setting up a booth to sell your garb and stuff?

...So much for my plan.  Because, of course, I said yes (well, officially the booth is still at a "maybe").  Why wouldn't I?  Talk about starting things off with a bang!

I could maybe follow through with my plan if I was JUST doing makeup, but that would probably be pushing it.  And the booth?  I don't have any inventory.  So I'm also embarking on a marathon of building pouches, bags, shirts, chemises, and hoods.  Big stuff will have to wait - maybe I'll find time to do some sort of posterboard with pictures of some of my commissioned pieces (wood grain contact paper and a fauxtoshop "oil painting" filter should be enough that it won't look totally out of place in a medieval fantasy game), or perhaps I could ask some past clients to let me display the pieces I've done for them...

I'm all sorts of excited, albeit a bit overwhelmed.  But I can do this.  It's really not that different from the stacks of projects I did in college.  If I can calm down and focus on one task at a time, decisively choosing only one or two tasks per day, it may not even be hard.  Keyword being "if."

More likely, I will accidentally multitask, scramble away at everything at the last minute like Wile E. Coyote running on air, and just barely slide in under the action-movie-automated-door of a deadline as a manic, slightly narcoleptic, disheveled homunculous, but with all my projects complete.  Like I usually do.

Oh, and I picked up another gambeson commission yesterday.  ::headdesk::

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to stop internet-shopping for makeup supplies, and start sewing some stuff.  Tally-ho!

New Blog Host!

Finally moved the blog over to a Blogger account, as I've been threatening to do for ages.  And, as everybody who will read this when it's first posted will probably already know, I made an official Facebook page for Unpronounceable Designs.  Also I got a Pinterest, and started a Google+ account but then ran away because I thought it was awful... let the social media saturation begin, is what I'm saying.

Next thing I'm working on is just making sure everything links to everything else cleanly and obviously, and getting pictures uploaded.  The link-polishing should be done in a day or so, at which point I'll probably start a really lame scavenger hunt at my personal Facebook and/or Twitter to see if everyone can navigate from place to place easily.

Pictures may take a bit longer.  The ones on the Facebook page will probably go up pretty quickly, because it's a fairly informal venue and I can get away with posting a few less-than-magical photos just to add some color to the place, but the main website is going to involve a lot more picking and choosing and banging-head-on-keyboard-ing.

Then, I suppose the third task is going to be company logo design... I have a picture in my head (have for years, actually), and a few reference pictures, but I'm really not very good at drawing.  I can probably get an okay-ish sketch done as a placeholder, but really, I either need to take a lot of drawing lessons or hand it off to a professional if I ever want something that will make people say "hey, cool logo."

Which brings me to another thing that's been floating around in my head.  It occurred to me the other day that GoFundMe (or some other form of "donate" button) is a thing, and I'm wondering if it's a thing I should have.  There's a long and colorful history in the arts of relying on the kindness of strangers between lucrative projects, and there's a longish list of things that I could (or should) be doing to improve my odds of succeeding in this venture that I probably shouldn't try to afford on my own right now...  Things like the aforementioned logo design and drawing lessons (seriously, lack of drawing skill is my major weakness as a designer, it's a problem that needs to be fixed), contract a real web designer to do a CSS sheet for my site & the blog (I think Blogger supports CSS?), buy up the "unpronounceabledesigns.com" domain for future reference, R&D on speculative patterns, a proper photoshoot with models and everything...  These things are not necessarily cheap, nor are they necessarily one-time things.  I haven't actually looked into setting up said button/account, so I'm not at all certain of the practicalities involved - it may not actually be a thing I want to bother with - but in general, setting up a means to crowdfund what would function as a small business grant sounds like a good idea to me.

Opinions?  Questions, comments, condemnatory remarks?  Feedback is much appreciated!
--Cerys

The Promised List

(Originally posted 03/12/13)
Okay, so I have a very loose definition of "a couple days."  I'm still trying to decide on an external blog host, because the amount of web-design-fu Portfoliobox needs to make a pretty, organized blog takes more time than I should be spending on such things, but until then, I give you the promised list of current and recently finished projects:

• Epic Mystery Coat (custom commissioned piece)
• Atomic Riding Coat (personal project)
• My line of gambesons/arming coats (multiple, both personal and commission)
• Edwardian Light Strike shield & gun (personal prop/craft paint project)
• Victorian undergarments (long-running personal project, finally finished)
• LARP arrow quiver (personal crafts/prop project)

There are some other small projects floating around, as well, but those are the big ones.  Pictures & details later!

Big News & TeslaCon IV

(Originally posted 07/11/2013)
Hello, all!

I know, I promised to post about about the projects I've been working on, and this is not them, but there have been Reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that, because I find the internal blog client for Portfoliobox to be a little clunky still, I've been seriously contemplating switching over to an external client - either Tumblr for shareability (and some folks I used to follow at my personal blog have switched to Tumblr, so that's a factor, too), or Blogger for the relative legitimacy associated with the site - and migrating posts is a pain, so I've been a little hesitant to post a lot.  (Note: this is my second attempt at writing this post, because the website ate the first one, so the temptation to go external has become even greater.  Also, there doesn't appear to be any sort of spellcheck here, so forgive me if any typos creep through.)

The other Reason is that I've been busy!  With dealines, even!  Which, if I do things right, is a problem I'll never truly be free of, and I just need to learn to deal with.  This thing where blogging is kinda-sorta part of my job now is a bit of a curveball to throw at my already taxed time-management skills, but I'm not about to complain.

That brings me to the Big News:  Last week, I was trying to figure out how to estimate & quantify my income from garb commissions for my ACA insurance application, and after a great deal of time poking around on the internet, I decided Facebook might have better answer.  Somehow, this turned into a quick how-to lesson from a couple of my business-owning friends on how to start and run a business out of your house.  So, sometime at the beginning of 2014, I intend to file for sole proprietorship, get a state sales tax number, and make Unpronounceable Designs an official business, rather than just an occasionally lucrative hobby to bide my time before I get into theatre.

That's right, I'm going legit.  This will necessitate some changes to the website to reflect more of my commission work.  The theatre stuff is staying up, if for no better reason than the stage gives me warm fuzzies and I do still hope to work there again someday, it just needs some restructuring so the site appears to give equal time to my offstage work.  No hurry on these changes yet, though, because I still don't have many good pictures of my commissioned work (I may have to arrange some sort of photo shoot eventually), and also because my business cards only have my email address on them, not the website.

Oh, yeah... I have business cards now.  See, this past weekend, fresh off of my decision to become a real business, I attended TeslaCon, where I found - among the many very, very awesome vendors there - the lovely ladies at Raky Press, with their beautiful antique treadle-operated flywheel printing press, making Victorian-style calling cards while you wait.  I got 50 printed - call it a starter pack, I'll order more once I get more established (and develop a logo, if they can make custom dies) - and they are just oh-so-pretty:

People wasted no time asking for one.  It was pretty great, as was the rest of the convention.  I had a great time, enjoyed some very informative panels, ogled all the pretty costumes (because TeslaCon is an immersion convention, meaning EVERYBODY is dressed up), and had quite a few people asking for pictures of my coat... well, and of me, but mostly of the coat.  Which is very encouraging, considering above news...

The sudden appearance of Real Business Considerations also means I had to pass on a $300 underbust corset (it had a map on it!  It was so pretty!  I forgot to ask the price before I tried it on, then I was put under its spell!), because somewhere in the buying process, my fiancee, Erich, and I managed to calm down and realize that you could get a fairly decent sewing machine for that much... which is a very important consideration, when you realize that my home machine thus far has been my grandmother's Singer Featherweight.  A beautiful little Deco-patterned workhorse that can chew through projects that low-end modern machines would choke on, but there's only so much you should ask of a motor that's been working since the Eisenhower administration.  So, it's time for the old girl to retire - not permanently retire, mind you, more like move to Sewing Emeritus status, to be brought out for those projects where only she will do.  To that end, Sunday morning before garbing up and heading to the con, we looked through craigslist, and I did a quick comparison/price check on Amazon, where I discovered that this beauty (which I'd been ogling from afar for a while) was on mega-sale.  It arrived at my doorstep on Tuesday, and is currently perched majestically in all its hammered-steel-finish glory on the sewing cabinet with the craptastic old Kenmore in it.  Some low-tech engineering is going to be required to make that a good place for it, but it's still better than hauling it up onto the drafting/cutting table.

On a different note, and back to the convention, one of the great things about TeslaCon is that most of the panels & presentations are fan-sourced. Meaning anyone who has something (themeatically appropriate) to share can potentially do so.  And, it turns out, none of the presentations for 2014 have been booked yet - the event organizer won't even begin accepting submissions until January.  So, Erich and I have pretty much decided we're going to submit a presentation for next year.  The time between now and January should give us enough time to put together an outline and maybe a basic PowerPoint for what we want to do.  We're thinking that it will be something to the effect of Grownup Scissors: Demystifying the Scary Tools.  Basically, it would be an encouragement/basic shop safety seminar for people who already are or would like to be crafters, etc., but are afraid to up their game because they've heard too many horror stories about people running their hands into sewing machines and table saws and whatnot.  Specifics may be subject to complete revision, as we've only been talking about it for a day yet, but we're quite certain we want to do this, and it should be fun.

Well, this post has grown a bit long for its venue.  I promise I'll at least get a list of recent projects posted in the next couple days.  Until then,
Make more stuff & don't do anything I wouldn't do.
Cerys

Welcome!

(Originally posted 18/09/2013)
Hello, internet! Welcome to the first post of my blog.

My intention with this blog is primarily to document personal and freelance commission projects, although on that grand day when I get to work in theatre again I suspect that process will be posted here, as well. Most of my work as of this writing (18 Sep 2013) are single-piece or single-look garb designs for various Live Action Role Play (or LARP)-type settings, as well as the usual suspects of Halloween and RenFaire costumes, and the occasional historical reenactment or scifi/fantasy convention. I also occasionally cross the line from costume crafts into the realm of prop-building, so I may post some of those adventures here, as well.

One of my biggest motivations for starting the blog was to make a place on this website where I could share not just my finished work (as one does with a portfolio), but what and how I learn with each project. I'd been meaning to write more about costuming and related subjects on my personal blog for quite some time - this is a field I got into because I love it (as evidenced by my recent work, which is as much a byproduct of my hobbies as it is a professional pursuit), and as such I enjoy talking about it. (Please, feel free to comment and turn this into a conversation rather than a soliloquy, it would make my day.)

With that seed of "possibly-maybe I should blog about these things" in my mind, I had this site reviewed as a portfolio during the 2013 USITT conference in Milwaukee this spring. I was told that the one thing it truly lacked was that account of what I had learned. Or, more specifically, that at this stage of my career, what I learned on any given project was far more important than what projects I had worked on. I am slightly ashamed to say that it took me a couple weeks to connect the two ideas... and, once connected, there was the matter that this website did not support an internal blog at the time. Fortunately, that changed recently, turning my months of dithering over which blog platform to use into serendipity rather than procrastination.*
I recently completed a couple major projects, which I plan to write up in the next few weeks - sadly, pictures of them are limited. Once I catch up with recent projects, I hope to do more in-depth documentation as I go, as well as improve my photography setup (and habits).

Until next time,
Be brave. Play nice.
--Cerys

*EDIT 12/12/2013: It was procrastination.  Ended up not liking Portfoliobox's internal blog (it needed time and web design knowledge to really make it look good, and I'm not overly long on either of those).