Mask

At The Little Mother's Ball, one of the other orcs, Redhand Gezzar, used a wig cap to keep their hair out of their eyes and out of the eye holes of their mask.

I ordered some wig caps to try out. The more robust wig cap is a bit too tight, causing pressure headaches. The cheap (and fragile) hosiery style one was more comfortable and didn't cause pressure headaches.

I've tried balaclava style covers, and they slide off, because my skull has to go into the mask forehead-first, not crown-first, as my crown seems to be enormous and won't fit through the neckhole (or it might, but I also feel as if I'd end up tearing my mask, and I want to avoid that).

Imagine those illustrations of babies coming through the vagina and vulva, their foreheads are leading the way... yeah, I have to do that with the mask.

The one upside of the wig caps is that it fits over my ears, so I don't have to paint my ears.

The downside of the caps is that they make it a bit more challenging to get glasses on and in place. Though the hold on my glasses appears to be quite firm, once they are in place.

More kit in progress...

As promised, here's the related post to the previous.

First, those trousers that I mentioned; they're the Folkwear Saroulles and pantaloons pattern, I shortened the leg length. Truth is, I really ought to decrease the pelvic depth of the pattern to raise the crotch by several centimetres so it's not down near my knees. Perhaps with the next pair.

The four pieces of the crotch gusset.

The stripes really do help.

Pinning the crotch gusset to the legs before stitching.

Pinning before pressing the folds for the waistline's drawstring channel.

The crotch gusset and the bottom leg hem that I've turned up. It shows how much I shortened the leg on this pair of pantaloons.

This is where I paused in the sewing; again, before I can finish the waistline or hem the legs, I need to hand-sew buttonholes for the drawstrings. My machine is supposed to be able to do buttonholes automatically, but all it does is pucker the fabric before tearing it. Hand-sewn buttonholes it is.

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Tat

Some of the items that I wore for the Bakers' Ball in November are pictured below.

Tat, it makes the costume into something more.

As you can see, I have restrung some of the necklaces from the pictures taken of them months ago, to make them Seppa's and not Ieri's tat. Some bits I ended up not wearing or bringing to the event.

I did pierce Seppa's ears, to personalise the mask; I might add another earring or two. I will need to do more trimming around the inner eyes and the top lip, I found that both of those areas became problematic the longer I wore the mask. I managed almost four hours on my first wearing before I needed 'face-time' ie to get out of the mask and just be.

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Other items that're 'in progress' is a leather belt that's actually made for Seppa; it's longer to accommodate my fat gain and the bulk of the many garment layers to make me look stouter than I am. I don't yet have a photograph of the belt, but I will see about some progress pictures at some point. Galla's Emporium is cooperating with me to build the belt and the tat pictured next.

The inspiration for this particular bit of tat is a black leather strip that had the smooth buttons that I'm re-purposing onto a brown strip of leather. In the picture, is the same strip of leather, but with the buttons and conchos differently placed before deciding which one we'll go with. I'm in consultation with Galla to maybe craft two more strips to go with this one. It does remind me, and others who have seen it, to some Ancient Roman legion groin armour/decoration.

The "vintage" bronze ring is about twenty years, maybe thirty years, in age. I've had the black strap and its buttons for nearly thirty years too, it was a gift from Daedalus Anteros Fortune of Leatherhead Regalia. Anything that I can recycle or salvage from rotting in a box into something that I can wear as part of a character's ensemble, is good.

The straps will hang from the waist belt that I mentioned above. The ring represents the item-of-worth as an ancestral artefact, which is why I've attached it to the longer strap so that it's presented as important and doesn't get lost amongst the gewgaws hanging directly from my belt.

I will soon need to decide which one to make.

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Last item of Seppa's tat for the moment; I need to add the bit of felted wool for the needles to rest in, in order for this antler and leather needle case that Amber Wolf Workshop crafted to be functional. I asked them to make it, inspired by some of the antler and bone needle cases of similar design found on Pinterest. But using the soothing circles-and-dots patterning that AWW often implements on their creations.

Antler, leather, and wire, needle case.

Another item that isn't yet made, but AWW is playing with, and that I'm eager to acquire is a bone whistle-flute; again, inspired by Pinterest and European Ice Age artefacts. If I needed some animal bones for the shaman's costume and character, I might as well make them functional. Imperial Orcs' music tends to be heavy with drums, but I can easily see a bone whistle-flute making a bit extra to the pounding rhythm of percussion instruments.

Seppa kit test and preparations

Ah, it's a dozen-hundred little things that all add up to looking good on the field...

Early kit preparations

Some of the preparation is small stuff, such as removing irritating labels or labels that are in awkward places where they'll show up and break immersion with their glaringly plastic presence. The Burgschneider scapular is one with multiple labelling sins, awkwardly located and destructive-to-garment-integrity labels; don't do what they did with their scapular. Yes, I did put this complaint in my product review of their scapular on their site; whether they accepted or permitted it on their page, I haven't checked.

Burgschneider's scapular with its (left) awkwardly-placed label and if I break the stitches to remove the labels, I might damage the garment. Annoying!

Sometimes, removing the label is easy, other times, it's impossible to do without breaking the integrity of the garment. Returning to Burgschneider, their leg wraps, aka winingas, have one easy-to-remove label, unlike the scapular.

Burgschneider winingas have an easy-to-remove label.

Other times, it's selectively removing portions of a garment that doesn't fit and can be glaring in its modernity, such as a chest pocket.

Chest pocket and scratchy shirt label, begone!

 

Then there's the latex mask and its makeup. I don't have Snazaroo, which is the go-to for many people, I do have Grimas water makeup, so that's what I'll use to fill in those areas where my naked skin shows on my face. I will also see about decorating the mask with personalisations such as ear and facial piercings, and possibly some facial markings on the upper left side of the face.

Orc mask by Mandala Studios

Another is getting the group emblem. I failed in this first attempt because I slapped on the paint and didn't replicate the style the others of the group bear on their warskirts. Lesson learned, scrutinise the group's kit more before the painting.

Second attempt, after having another look at some of the emblems, and I managed this in chalk. I'll commit to the paint once I've had another good scrutiny at several of the emblems and sketched up some extra notes. Left wing... LEFT WING...

To-do list (atop everything else of the previous to-do list):

• Jewellery and tat
• Decorate and secure the fabric layers of the warskirt