On the Passing of a Friend

I stopped crying halfway though the funeral service for a friend of mine. It occurred to me that he was gone and that was that...what was I crying for? I was crying for the rest of us who had him in our lives for too short of a time. I believe that to be self-pity and uncalled for for any real length of time. :) So instead I smile because I had him in my life at all.

I suppose really that the best thing for me to do is remember how to relax, laugh at myself instead of becoming angry, and how to handle difficult people with aplomb...things he tried to teach me. :)

Planning the Maleficent Costume for 2011

I'll put it here. Putting the info on fb, while good for interaction with others, isn't very smart...I can't search for it. :/

I'm thinking of making a naturalistic Mal. Kinda like a forest spirit. Think about it...there are some things in the forest in the darkness of the night that frightens people. Wouldn't that make sense for Mal.?

What gives me pause though is that, when you think about the movie, Mal. was the epitome of urbanity. She spoke smoothly. The good fairies were dumpy and named after nature. They spoke like country bumpkins. Marked contrast.

SO...how to make Mal a nature spirit?

Maybe I can't. LOL.

I thought about her long lines, the cloak, the dress. I thought of making a feathered collar similar to this.
I thought about making a black feathered cloak, but I think that will be too $$$. I have to price black feathers. I want horns. Here's a crafter that makes horns that might work. I'm not sure if I want natural looking horns or black ones.

I'm trying to figure out the dress. Mal wore robes. The long lines again. I have a silly knit long dress that I will try on again to check fit. Specifically around the bust area. I can't go with any busty outfit and I think for this character that's ok. Fortunately because I have such a small bust, I can expose more of my chest area, making another long line of contrast. Some style ideas: art nouveau (check this photo from last year's Vogue Germany where they did a photoshoot inspired by Mucha's prints), oriental, victorian/steampunk, victorian/cabaret, neo/future (with lights! :D), there are some other ideas but they escape me currently cause I'm damn sleepy.

ETA: You should see some of the art created for the character! Here's a few that caught my eye:

J. Scott Campbell
Stuntkid
Rumors of a Movie :(
Two from RPG.net (one is cute)
Did I say cute? Here's Kinkei's
From conceptart.org
J. Scott Campbell delivers again (with boobage of course)
6nailbomb's (there's the chest line I was thinking of)
I'll leave off with (another cute) NoFlutter's

There's lots more. You can look for yourself.

Mal somehow captured the love of everyone even though she's evil. Perhaps BECAUSE she's evil...and does it so well.

ETA: I knew there was an artist niggling at the back of my memory for this! Aubrey Beardsley! Perfect concept don't you think?

ETA (again): This is unfortunately a second life person but I'm liking the anatomical corset, bone crown, and bone skirt

Organization...

I really need to get my projects photographed (in progress) and organized online. If I'm going to have an online db and display of my crafts...then I should probably have something to show for all the hours I'm supposedly spending on these suckers. :)

But then too...my whole craft room needs to be reorganized. Or I need a pocket dimension to have room for everything. Yep...that'd be nice.

I still want to work on my tavern idea (The Merry Merlin. Blog is over at LiveJournal). I need to gather more resources. My thought is that even if the Merry Merlin never exists in real life, at least I will have a site of resources collated to help others. :)