Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin

SIND WIR DAS ESSEN? NEIN, WIR SIND DIE JÄGER!

(usual apologies for not updating more regularly, so on and so forth)

You may have heard of this anime. It has been HUGE on the internet. My friends told me for months I should watch it, and I eventually decided to give it a try.

My first impressions... THE OPENING. WOW.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMXgHfHxKVM

So I kept watching.

Background: humanity has been driven to near extinction by giant, man eating humanoids known as titans. They live behind three giant 50m high walls for safety, with only a brave few venturing out to explore (and almost certainly get massacred in) the world beyond. After 100 years of peace, a 60m tall titan appears, breaks down the walls and breaches humanity's safety. Many are killed and eaten. This includes the main protagonist Eren's mother, causing him to vow to wipe out the titans in revenge.

WARNING

After the first episode I spent around 10mins staring at my computer screen with my mind in shock. One scene in the first episode was so shocking and horrific it left me shaken up and deciding the anime wasn't at all for me.

I mean, I had heard it was gruesome, but I wasn't quite expecting that...

This resolve to not watch it again barely lasted any time at all, mainly due to the opening music, which I couldn't stop listening to.

So I became addicted. I love the complex plot. I love the characters (Hanji Zoe is basically me, but for titans instead of bats). I love the soundtrack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGjwsowDDhI). I love the amazing action scenes.

Yes, it IS gruesome. But I found it (mostly) bearable, and if you can deal with that kind of thing then I very highly recommend it. Be warned, however, in true George R R Martin style, nobody is safe and characters you love will sometimes be killed suddenly and without warning.

If you're not sure (fair enough), this trailer is reasonably safe to watch (and has music by Audiomachine, which is always a bonus)... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3LHE5U8iOw

I shall leave you with the comment of one youtube reviewer:
"who wouldn't want to see an army of medieval spider men flying around buildings slicing up giant man-eating zombies??"

Cosplay and things...

I think it says something about how crazy busy my workload is when blogging is only ever possible as procrastination.

As I shouldn't be procrastinating I'll keep it brief!

Last weekend we did a charity fundraising event where we got abandoned in a random part of the country (turned out to be near Nuneaton) and had to make our way back to Cambridge!

It was a great opportunity to wear my newly completed River Song cosplay, and to have some photos taken at the TARDIS at BBC Birmingham!

However...
It was FREEZING. I really regretted my decision to cosplay the Day of the Moon outfit (THIN KHAKI DRESS) rather than, say, the Pandorica Opens one (THICK WARM WHITE JACKET).

 

As you can see, I steadily accumulated more layers throughout the day, making me pretty much unrecognisable.




The day was really good fun, up until the point where we had to leave Birmingham... which proved to be a total nightmare! We ended up spending the night sleeping in the bus station with some other LOST Cambridge students before going back to Cambridge via London. But getting into Birmingham and the challenges there were so much fun, and we met some incredible people who offered us lifts (thank you all so much!).

We have so fair raised more than £300 for some incredible charities :D
https://www.raise2give.com/cambridge-rag-presents-lost/tom-and-becky If you want to help and donate more, we would be extremely grateful! (rest assured we earned every penny of those donations)

Speaking of cosplay, I tried to do Misa Amane for Halloween...

It ended up being more Misa Amane on a bad hair day, but I tried! It was based roughly on the cover art for volume 4, with a different T shirt to (potentially) make it more recognisable!
As it happens I didn't run into the one person I knew who liked Death Note all night, which was a shame. My boyfriend, however, described me as 'blonde punk' which I think counts as reasonably successful :)

Next post (hopefully): the adventures of the Knitting Society!

Moooths!

'Moths! They come out at niiiiiight!
Moths! They able to fliiiiight!
Moths! Theyre confused by liiiiight!
Moths! Theyre mothylicious!
Moths! Theyre not delicious!
Moths! Mooooooooths! Moooooooths!'

Several months ago I went on a field trip and did a project on moths. My boyfriend decided he wanted to help and composed the above song.

As I am currently snowed under with writing up the results of said project, I decided to write a post all about moths!

This will take the form of a 'top ten' of my favourite moths which we caught during the week, and why they are so awesome (because moths are awesome, and I never realised it before).

10. Burnished Brass

 

Yes, its wings really were that shiny!

 

9. Cinnabar

These moths liked to play dead, which made testing their behaviour very difficult. Then after a while they became extremely active, meaning I spent a lot of time chasing the escapees around the lab trying to catch them again.

Its bright colours are a warning signal to predators that the moth is unpalatable. The larvae absorb toxic and bitter compounds from the plants they eat, which are then incorporated into their own body.


8. Beautiful Golden Y

It really lives up to its name with the purple and gold colouration. The wings are also slightly reflective (although not as much as the Burnished Brass above).

7. Eyed Hawkmoth

 (my own photo)

This is the first of the hawkmoths to make the list, although all of the ones we caught were amazing in their own right. I loved this one because of the beautiful eye spots and the unusual wing posture (which was a characteristic shared by some other hawkmoths, such as the poplar which just missed out on this list).

6. Alder Kitten

The first morning I genuinely thought a bird had managed to poo inside the trap... but it was just a very well disguised moth!

5. Elephant Hawkmoth

 

Like many others on the field trip, I was surprised that moths this brightly coloured lived in the UK. There are two species, the Large E.H and the Small E.H, which can be told apart by their wing shape. The photo above is the L.E.H.

4. Pale Tussock

 (my own photo)

Nicknamed Yeti Moth by my friend, partially for its fluffy white appearance and partially for its habit of holding its wings up as seen in the photo above.

3. Buff Tip

The camouflage on this moth is incredible.

Is it a twig? Or is it a moth?

2. Privet Hawkmoth

I will never forget that moment on the first morning when, after finding lots of smaller moths, we turned over another part of the trap and saw... this.

 

The Privet hawkmoth is one of the largest moths to live in the UK, and when disturbed it flashes stripes of purple on its abdomen.

1. Buff Arches!

 

The swirly abstract patterning of the wings is very good camouflage for twigs and leaves, as well as being very beautiful.

I haven't gone into too much detail on the moths above as I should really be doing something other than procrastinating right now, but I hope you enjoyed that quick glimpse at the diversity of moths in the UK!

On a more general note...

As a China Mieville fan, I could really see where he got the inspiration for the slake moths in Perdido Street Station from - not just the insect facial features, but also the incredible wing patterns.

 (my own photo)

I also loved some of the crazy names naturalists have given moths over the years: Uncertain, Anomalous and Pebble Prominent were some of my favourites.

(disclaimer, all of the photos except those marked as my own were found on google. If you are the owner of one of these pictures and do not wish for me to use it, please contact me.)

Another jewellery dose

Well, the past few weeks have been hectic. To prove how busy I've been, I bought a skirt for my Aerith Gainsborough cosplay which came three weeks ago... I haven't even had the time to take it out of the packaging yet!

Heres a few more items of jewellery which I completed recently:

 

Oriental earrings. Sorry the camera flash caught the coin charms a bit. For sale, £5.99.

Elephant earrings with goldstone and adventurine. For sale, £5.99.

Commission for a charity auction, with all money raised going to the NSPCC: www.nspcc.org.uk. The pendant is amethyst with hematite beads, and the earrings are purple miracle beads and Swarovski hearts.

I never properly posted the hairpiece I made for the May Ball, so here it is:

 

I chose to pick up on the baby blue on some of the flowers on my dress and work with that. The dress was high necked so didn't need a necklace, but I made a pair of earrings as well.
The earrings were made using glass flowers and chain, with some sparkly rondelle beads.

 
The hair piece was made by attaching a carved blue agate flower to a hair clip with wire, from which a length of chain could hang. This was braided into my hair, with glass flowers and silver dragonflies hanging down at intervals.

 

I was very pleased with the way it turned out, as I'd never done anything like it (both with jewellery and with my hair) before!

Hope you like the new jewellery!

Becky x

Some new jewellery

I've been on a real jewellery making spree these past few days! Unfortunately, I've been hit by the curse of getting halfway through a piece and then realising you don't have the right beads or findings to finish it, so I cant share everything with you just yet :(

Here are the things I have completed:

These were done during term time because I needed a break from revision. I quite like the wire spiral spacers.

Made this morning, a gorgeous bracelet with triangular blue-centred glass beads and purple miracle beads.

 

 

 

I absolutely love this bracelet. I may keep it for myself :P The contrast of the colours against the silver wire works beautifully. I'm currently making more in different colour combinations.

One colour combination I tried was pink and black:

These will be for sale. Please let me know which colour combinations you think would work!

I found these silver sharks teeth earrings for a bargain at River Island! They reminded me of Megalodon teeth, so I had to buy them! I'm not sure whether to leave them as they are or replace the cream acrylic bead with something prettier...

 

Let me know what you think!

Finally, a few items have sold recently so I've updated the for sale page :)

Hope you like the new jewellery :) More to come!

Becky x

Still alive.

*bows to floor*

I am truly truly sorry for neglecting my blog for so long. I really am.

The reason? University work (yay) combined with some unforeseen medical issues.

I can only apologise and try again, although I cant promise anything.

So... things to update on! Theres quite a lot!

It has been a good year :D Cambridge is a lot of fun (despite being hard work) and I've made some amazing friends. I even managed to pass my exams!

Stuff I'm working on at the moment...

I have a commission for a charity auction which is currently in progress. The bidder wanted amethyst and hematite, which is a lovely colour combination, so I shall post pictures when its finished!

I'm also working on a tiger eye and hematite pendant, as well as some other stuff.

I made my own hair piece and earrings for the May Ball:

Me and the boyfriend, looking very smart in white tie.

I discovered a passion for baking! Which is awkward as we don't have ovens at uni... If you know any good no bake cake recipes please let me know!

 

This is my Sticky Mars Bar Calorie Cake Of Doom, described by my friend as the amazing chocolate heaven thing. Who needs ovens???

I haven't forgotten the steampunk stuff, I promise! Things got in the way!

There has been some good fancy dress however...

Pirate punting races on the Cam! I wish I'd got a better picture of my hair, it was epic :D

I'm currently working on River Song and Aerith Gainsborough cosplays. River Song is for a uni charity event I'm planning on doing next term (with my boyfriend as the Eleventh Doctor), and the Aerith one is for the off chance that I have enough money to go to a convention in August. Plus I have been told I look like both.

River Song cosplay, work in progress.

I hope you all have been well :D I look forward to reading all the blog posts I have to catch up on...

Becky x

Guide to steampunk: part 2 - ladies clothing

When putting together a costume (either steampunk or cosplay) I always find it really helpful to split it up into little bits to make it easier to make and organise.

I also make sure I find lots of photos from the internet to draw inspiration from and to use as references:

 

 

 

All credit to the photographers/models.

 

So, looking at the photos above, lets split the basic steampunk ladies outfit down into its different parts and deal with them separately.

 

Firstly, the skirt. As you can see above, there are lots of different varieties of vintage/steampunk skirts out there! A general ebay search for vintage or victorian clothing is a good place to start. There is a lot of custom made steampunk clothing out there (especially on ebay), however this is quite expensive and best avoided if on a budget.

 

Ebay searching generally requires a good amount of luck, and I was extremely lucky in finding this awesome skirt:

 

The skirt is about mid calf length and made of two layers - a satiny underskirt and black lace overskirt. The lace is shorter giving it a lovely Victorian look to it!

 

Obviously if you were wearing an aviator/pirate/engineer themed outfit you might prefer to wear trousers (as I did for my first steampunk outfit). Mine were dark brown leather (and remarkably cheap for their quality), but any sort of dark coloured trousers would do. Its important to go for materials and styles which fit the steampunk theme.

 

 

 

Next, the top! Normally this consists of two parts - a blouse or shirt and then a corset. The corset is the most difficult, in my opinion, as they can be quite expensive and its hard to find one on ebay that is suitably steampunky. Nevertheless, they can be found if you're lucky! Underbust corset/belt type things are usually the cheapest and easiest to find.

 

I didnt want to wear my corset for the ball as its a bit too gothic. This lead to a dilemma, as my white ruffle blouse really could do with something on top of it to get the layering right...

 

My current solution is to use a black studded waistcoat, which I bought a while ago at Matalan but have never really put into a steampunk outfit before. The only problem with this is I may get too warm at the ball and have to take it off, so I may need a belt or something as a back up plan.

 

 

The blouse is relatively simple, as they can be found quite cheaply and easily both on the internet and in shops. If you prefer, a normal white/black/brown shirt will do over one with ruffles.

 

Shoes! I'm wearing my long black heeled boots as they look suitably steampunky. Anything leather looking is good, especially with buckles.

 

Heres a picture of my finished costume!

 

 





So now I have all my clothing sorted... but what about accessories? (goggles, jewellery, gloves, etc) Well, I'll be blogging about that later on, after I've covered mens clothing.

 

Also, I feel I should point out that steampunk, as with all fashions, comes in many different forms and styles. The guide above is a basic outline for a sort of standard steampunk costume, but a simple google search will reveal so many different variations on the theme!

 

 

Sorry for the bad picture quality, but this was one of my favourite costumes from Goth Weekend last year - a dress with a clockwork key sticking out of the back. The only limit is really your imagination!  

 

I hope you found that helpful... feel free to ask me any questions!

Becky x