Funny thing happened on the way to the internet

Ha ha, I was doing research for a custom object and I stumbled across this picture:
I couldn't stop laughing for a good 10 minutes. The dog's expression is priceless. I like how the cartoonist felt the need to show you that Cobra Commander was evil, so incredibly evil, by having him kick a puppy. The physics of this picture are a bit wacky, too, I can't tell if he has already kicked the dog, or is getting ready to--I just don't know.

NOTE: I realized after posting this that I may be seen as someone advocating animal abuse. I in no way condone animal abuse, or have any tolerance for people who hurt animals. I think they should be locked up forever, like Michael Vick or anyone else who hurts animals or forces them to fight for their own selfish amusement. Just in case you were wondering.

Grrr!

Grrr! I'm getting frustrated with the Firefly people. They are taking so long, and there are so many of them! And we have been getting lots of custom orders (which are really cool though, but they do take time away from Firefly) so it's been harder to squeeze in time. Oh yeah, and "Lost" was two hours last night, so that cut into time too. (How insanely crazy was that episode? I wanted to make some Lost amigurumi, but we decided it would just be a bunch of normal-looking people with dirty ripped clothes).

So anyway, I wanted to get some input from any Firefly fans out there (or anyone with an eye for clothes, at least). Which outfit would look better for River?
I think the little vest thing is interested, but then there's also this:
And I thought it would be really fun to crochet her vest. But the dress underneath might be hard to make, so now I'm not sure again. Boyfriend said no biker shorts, so any of her other outfits are kind of out.

Anyway, not much more to say right now, sorry it was such an uninformative post. Oh, what's that? You want a teaser picture for your trouble of reading through my ramblings? Okay, fine. Here.
Whoa that's blurry. I think I messed up my camera. Anyway, have a good weekend everybody!

My Computer

For my 21st birthday, I went down to New Orleans to visit my sister. Whoooo! What a party. Unfortunately I don't drink. HOWEVER, that's not the point of the story. When I returned from my birthday trip, which was about 5 days before Christmas, my apartment had been completely gutted of anything worth money (including my awesome Crown Royal lamp I found at the thrift store for $5, complete with a purple velvet shade I had made) and my brand new computer I had just bought. It was the first time I was really on my own, and I had bought that computer with my own money! I was so disappointed.

The cops basically blew me off, gave me a lecture about how this wasn't CSI (I don't even watch that show!) and since I didn't have any serial numbers, there was zero chance of me getting my stuff back. I said screw that! So now I keep track of all of my serial numbers for EVERYTHING (even my decrepit PS1--why do I still have that thing?) and keep them in a lockbox. And for further insurance (and the reason for this post! I swear there is a reason) I had my boyfriend paint my computer. He said there is basically no way to get this paint off without leaving permanent damage to the computer---not that it would stop someone from gutting it, but still. Let me have my false sense of security!

Okay! No more rambling--here are some pics of my computer.

Excuse the wires on the back. Both of these pictures are inspired by Ralph McQuarrie paintings (although I can't seem to find the originals they were based on, so maybe he did make them up), and this one is a picture of two AT-AT's walking through some ice fields on Hoth. I love blue, so I think this picture is just amazing. I think those icicles in the front of the pictures are really cool. That white spot is the moon, not a flash--although I know the pictures aren't that great. It looks so creepy and cold! I love it. I think this is my favorite side.

Here's the other side:

This one is a picture of a shuttle landing on Coruscant. I like all of the orangy and blue tones in it. If you want to see more Ralph McQuarrie pictures click here for a flickr group. I think they are all so amazing, they are really very beautiful and have a very specific atmosphere about them.

Anyway, we didn't get much done this weekend, but Kaylee is done! So we have Kaylee and Mal. I also figured out how to style Inara's hair, so now we just need to pick out which dress to put her in. Stay tuned!

Look! Up in the sky!

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...a plain looking amigurumi business man?

Huh. Well, that's kind of boring. But wait! He's taking his jacket off...
No wait, it's Superman! Ha ha. This little Superman is so cool! He can change into Clark Kent and everything. Okay, here's how it works.

The blue jacket (from the first picture) has the gray undershirt and tie all sewn together. It has working buttons to keep everything together. Yeah--they actually work. Then, when you want to change him into Superman, you unbutton the jacket, take the jacket and glasses off, spin the little jerry curl that's hidden under his hairline (I thought that part was especially hilarious) and attach his cape. The cape has little hooks sewn on, and I sewed the loops directly onto Superman's body. The way the cape is positioned, you can't even see the hooks!

We used Gorilla Glue to glue on his "S" so that there wouldn't be any holes, like there would have been if I had sewn it on. Let me just tell you--Gorilla Glue is AWESOME. That stuff is crazy strong. That "S" is not coming off anytime soon.


I am so pleased with how this turned out. I think he looks fantastic, and I absolutely love how he can change costumes. Let me know what you guys think! We're hoping to get lots done on this three-day weekend, so hopefully I'll have another post for you guys tomorrow.

Geeky find of the day

Okay, so I was on Etsy, looking around at some leather journals, and I thought "Wouldn't it be cool if someone made Bilbo's journal from Lord of the Rings"? Well, it turns out that no one did. But I did some searching on the internet, and check this out:
It's so pretty, right? Beautiful red leather, embossed with the star on the top and Bilbo Baggins' initials on the bottom. But wait, there's more!
There are a ton more pictures here and the pages are all beautifully written and have gorgeous pictures. The guy who made this replicated the entire Lord of the Rings story (including The Hobbit) and used a different style of handwriting for each person--Bilbo, Frodo, and then Sam. It's AMAZING, that's pretty much all I can say. He must have had a lot of patience to replicate the work like this. I can't believe how detailed it is. Unfortunately the pictures don't get much bigger than this, but I'll take what I can get.

If you like this sort of thing, the same person (I couldn't find much info about him) also made an awesome Holy Grail diary notebook with pages from the movie. Just like Bilbo's journal, it is meticulously detailed and beautifully drawn. He also has other props here if you guys want to check them out--everything from Indy's passports to Lord of the Rings maps (with invisible runes!) to Pirates of the Caribbean coins.

I promise I'm getting back to work now! We should have our latest character done by today. He's so cool! I can't wait to show him off.

Who ya gonna call?

We finished a custom order! (Finally, this one took almost a month to complete). It's a Ghostbuster! We were going to make Venkman, but we couldn't fit his name on the name tag so we just went with generic Ghostbuster dude.
Looks pretty plain from the front right? Well check this out!
He has so much gear on the back of him! The proton pack is the biggest backpack in the middle--it has bunches of wires and tons of little safety warnings on it. It connect with a hose to the proton gun (on the top right), which hooks on the backpack and can come off, so that the little guy can hold it.

And then on the bottom right we have the ghost trap, which connects on the left side to the little foot pedal, and the two on these both connect to the backpack.

Oh yeah, and the whole backpack shenanigans can all be removed. He's a little backwards heavy, but he can still stand up.
Look at the little detail patch! And the black thing are the elbow pads. He also has a walky-talky, but we didn't get a picture of it--it detaches from the belt too.

I'm so proud of him! It took a lot of work, but he ended up being really cute. I'm working on another custom order right now, and I won't tell you what it is but I think he's going to be SWEET! He's going to change costumes and everything...it's going to be really cool. I'll keep you guys updated!

Gandalf the White

Okay okay, we weren't working on the Firefly people this weekend. (Well, sort of, Vera is done now, as well as Zoe's gun and some other small accessories). But here's what we were working on instead!

It's Gandalf the White! Excuse the surprised look, I sewed his eyebrows on a little high. It's better than a little low though, otherwise he would look really angry. Anyway, we have had pieces of him done forever--the staff has been done for a couple of weeks, his clasp has been done for a month (which you can't even see because it's hidden by his beard!), and I quilted his front piece a couple of days ago. He actually came together pretty fast.

That diamond piece is quilted, and the white piece under it is painted. His cloak also has little painting designs around the edge too.
Uh oh...What's happening...
No! The two can't meet! Oh no!! Time paradox!
Aw man, the two Gandalfs broke the world. Good job guys.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Midna/Zelda drawing

I'm always talking about how my boyfriend paints sculpey and does all this intricate work for the little dudes, but he actually is an artist, as in draw and paint artist. So I thought I'd post a picture of his here, since it fits the requirements of the site by also being geeky! It's a picture he drew (with graphite pencil, colored pencil, charcoal) for his brother's birthday/Christmas present. It's a picture of Midna and Zelda from Twilight Princess.

It's a little dark, a little creepy, but I think it's very cool! Let me know what you guys think.

Woohoo Etsy!

I was featured in a treasury on etsy today! Woohoo! Here look, I'll prove it.
I'm so excited! Little Luke was picked to be in a treasury. And not just any treasury, a storque treasury article! The storque was featuring a bunch of geeky things. Apparently there was a piece about Etsy (as well as other websites like Make magazine) on a website called CurrentTV. You can see the video they are referring to here. I'm so happy. The views on Luke shot up to over 1000 in just a couple of minutes, it was crazy.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. I was excited. New little guys coming soon!

Captain Jack Amigurumi!

Alright everyone, we finally finished the character we've been working on for the past couple of days! I'm so excited about him. Here he is!
Captain Jack Sparrow! He is probably the most detail oriented amigurumi we've made so far, and we had to edit some of the stuff we were going to put on him. But he does have his compass, a bird's claw, two belts, a sword, his pistol, beads in his hair, bones in his hair, coins in his hair (and lots of other stuff I tied in there) and his hat and his jacket and his vest. Whew! That's a lot of stuff.


I kind of like him without his hat on. He has so many accessories going on here, I love how kind of crazy it makes him look. But he still turned out super cute. Can you believe those belt buckles are made out of sculpey? Boyfriend is getting really good at making belt buckles (and rum bottles!).
This is the first time we've done a fabric other than felt (for the fabric around his waist and his head scarf) and it wasn't too bad. I generally avoid felt because I hate to seam things, but these two weren't that bad. The jacket and vest are still felt though, and they both have all of the details painted on. I love the little buttons on the jacket, I think they turned out great.

Well, that's all I can say about it now. Check out my flickr page for more pictures, I uploaded a ton of them. This Jack is also for sale here if anyone is interested (the one we made for ourselves is safely tucked away, and not going anywhere!) I am so pleased with how he turned out, I hope you guys like him!

Craftster finds

I love Craftster. There are tons of nerdy people over there and everyone comes up with the most unusual things. Here are a couple of things that I found that I think are absolutely great.

1. Beware the Leopard
I LOVE that someone finally made a Hitchhikers Guide craft that wasn't a knitted character! This sign is the sign that Arthur Dent finds in the basement while trying to find paperwork to save his house. I love the little filigree at the top too, it makes it look so quaint. There is more info here

2. Another cross stitch from another show
Arrested Development! This is from a supplement that Dr. Fünke’s 100% Natural Good-Time Family-Band sang about. (Warning: Teamocil may cause numbness of the extremities, short term memory loss and may decrease your sex drive) More information.

3. Star Wars decoupage!

Oh come on, you know I had to put some Star Wars stuff in here.This frame is so cool. She also made a pencil holder cup. I actually bought a Star Wars comic book so that I could decoupage a dresser that I have, but I never got around to it. The comic book is still sitting on my shelf. Maybe now I'll get off my butt and do it, this one turned out so well! I also like when people make wallets out of comic book pages--maybe if I thought I could sew reasonably enough through contact paper I could try that.

Anyway, if you haven't ever been to craftster, check it out! It's a lot of fun and everyone is very supportive. It's where I learned how to crochet!

On the news front, the boy and I have been tinkering around with a new character instead of working on Firefly people (even though Mal is completely done now). But this new character is quite possible the cutest little dude EVER! I think I'll be able to post pictures of him tomorrow. Seriously. Cutest dude ever. Stay tuned!

News

Hello everyone! It's been kind of quiet around here lately, but we've been working really hard over here. Although the quietness may have had something to do with the Indiana Jones marathon day yesterday on USA (why did they show them in reverse order?) even though we JUST WATCHED THEM last week, but I swear we really were working.

We've been working on a couple of custom orders, as well as some requests for older stuff, and no one wants to see that here. I do have a present for you though--some teaser pics! These are WAY harder than the last one.

HA! I bet you can't guess this time! They're not even finished yet! (Don't tell the boy, he would probably be mad that I posted some of his unfinished work). And Captain Mal is ready! But I'm not sure I'm going to post him until the whole crew is done. You guys won't be mad, right? It is going to be such an awesome picture of them all together.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great mother's day. The weather down here turned really nice today (it was 90 yesterday--ick!) and stay tuned for more news!

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot! I wanted to say that later this week (hopefully) I am going to be introducing a new line into my etsy store called "Geeky Green Home Supplies". And no, I didn't just make that up off the top of my head. :::sweats:::: Anyway, I wanted to introduce some stuff that every home needs to have, with the added benefit of being green (as in save the world green, not Kermit green...although...). Oh yeah, and of course they are going to be totally geeky. Look out for them!

Another custom order

Okay guys, here's a custom order we finished a couple of days ago.
It's Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist! For those of you who don't watch anime, this character works for the military and is the on the "good guy" side of things. He is an alchemist and is known as the "Flame Alchemist" (I think, it's been a really long time since I've watched it). His outfit was actually pretty hard to figure out, it took a while to come together. His little flame on his hand also comes off.
He has his flame gloves on too,
see the little alchemy symbol? He has those on both sides, along with his shoulder patch and his rank insignia. We spent SO LONG looking for the right color felt for him, and even though it's not perfect I love the way it turned out. With the gold braid on, it looks like the perfect blue color. And the silver lines really make everything pop out, and make everything look very professional and crisp. I need to make Ed and Al now!

Boba Fett!

Alright guys, Boba Fett is finally done! He was super hard to make, but he turned out awesome. Just like Boushh and Darth Vader, his helmet comes off. The sculpey expert really outdid himself with this one (sometimes to the point of annoying me) but in the end I think it was all worth it.


His helmet turned out really well; it looks all battle scarred and distressed. Check out his shoulder armor things too--one side has the Mandalorian symbol on it. Also check out his breastplate--his little electronic display reads "1138" on it.

His little armbands have a dart thrower in it too--if you look really closely (or at this super close shot--whatever) you can see teeny tiny little darts in it.
Let me know what you think! I'm very proud of him. I know I said I was working on Firefly people, but I have a list of like a thousand people that I want to make. Sometimes we get carried away over here, but I promise we are still working on it! We bought all of the supplies for the crew, so it shouldn't be long now.

Portal Crafts!

I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, we have been working hard on new guys and we saw Iron Man yesterday. It was awesome, by the way. We don't really go to the movies very often (mainly because I hate being around so many people who are annoying) but I'm glad we saw it in theaters.

Anyway, I wanted to share with you guys some Portal themed stuff! If you haven't played Portal, you should, it's amazingly fun and it's sold separately from the Orange Box now, so it's only $20. You can download it here and you don't even have to get out of your pajamas to play it! Okay, yeah, crafts. Everyone has probably seen the plushy weighted companion cube, so I'm not going to post it, I'm just going to post some other stuff I found/made I thought was interesting. Here we go.

1. Of course, I'm putting mine first. Bleh.
Ignore the blue, it was still blocking while I took this picture. I knitted this! I suck at intarsia/fair isle, it's really hard. There are parts of this that are bumpy and stick out really funny, but overall I think it turned out all right. My plan was to make nine of these squares from the game and then make a blanket out of it, but this one square took so long to do that I kind of scrapped the idea. Maybe I'll pick it up again once I finish making dudes.

2.This is from an egg challenge over at Kotaku, and this guy was the winner. Okay, it's not so much a craft, but I still think it is really clever. There are more egg entries (including another Portal one that I really like, plus an Okami one) here if anyone is interested.

3. Okay, I know I said no companion cubes, but this one is a cake! A cake companion cube. I wonder if GlaDOS would approve. Probably not.
4. Okay, I thought this one was really cool. Unfortunately, it looks like it's half finished, or maybe I just can't find any more pictures. This is from Craftster user DinkyTiny who made a little hair clip for her cosplay, which from the tiny sketch posted looks pretty cool.
These are the little spheres that fall off of GlaDOS at the end of the game. This one is the anger sphere, but I can't find any pictures of any of the other ones. It looks like she's going to AKon though, so if anyone is going there make sure to take pictures! I'm not going this year, all I like to do is sit around and make fun of Naruto cosplayers and that's not really worth $30 to me.

5. This one isn't a craft per se, but it's a really interesting article written about GlaDOS and some insights into what the game developers might have been thinking when they made her.
The first picture is from the game, and the second picture is an artist's rendering of a personified GlaDOS. Anyway, I can't explain it very well, but it's a really interesting article and I'm not doing it justice talking jibberish about it. You can read it here.

Okay, that's all the Portal crafts for today! I think we might possibly finish up Boba Fett today, but no promises. He's taking a lot longer than I though, but he's going to be super awesome. Also Roy Mustang from FullMetal Alchemist is almost done, I'll post pictures of both of them once they are finished.