Despicable Purple Minion in the Bakery Costume: The Faux Cupcakes

So the work continues on the Despicable Me Purple Minion costume for DragonCon 2013. My idea for the costume is to be a not-so-evil Purple Minion that works in the bakery. I'll have my big purple google-eyed minion head, an apron, and a cupcake bandolier (that was Quinn's idea).

I'll also have a Jam-gun that shoots the Jam-antidote (but not actually shoots jam - that would be messy). One of the cupcakes will go on the end of my Jam-gun. My dear hubby, Ken, is working on these wee little electronics that boggle my brain, but will make the Jam-gun light up and make noise. Crazy!

Let me preface this part with SAFETY FIRST! Work Outside if you can!!! Wear nitrile gloves. The components of this part of the project SMELL and emit FUMES. Don't get the stuff on your skin.

On to the Cupcakes!

I found this article on Instructables about making fake cupcakes. But I had my concerns about using spackle for the icing. The costume will probably get some knocking-aound, and I think of spackle as heavier, more fragile, and prone to crack.

The Wrappers

Serendipitously, I found these plastic gift-holder-cups being sold off at our local gaming shop in Burlington NC (:::waves "Hello" to HyperMind!:::). The "wrappers" are huge, but they so absolutely say "Cupcake wrapper!!!" The tags on the bottoms said they were from Michael's Craft Store.

The Cake

The first thing we did is filled the wrappers with "Great Stuff" foam. Basically, Great Stuff is foam in a can, you spray it thru the included tube, it expands, and then hardens. You use it to seal odd-shaped holes, or around plumbing.

We filled the cupcakes about 2/3 full, since from previous experience we knew there would be some expansion. We let them cure for a week or so - basically because I was too chicken to get to the "icing" without Ken helping me.

The Icing

We decided to use white silicone caulk for the icing. 
Our first attempt at icing was based on some mold-making info Ken had researched. Caulk has such a long dry-time, and we read that if you add cornstarch to the caulk, it would decrease dry-time. You can color the caulk with food coloring or acrylic paint. You can use paint thinner to thin the caulk.

Here is some more info for you on working with silicone from Make Magazine and from Instructables.

Ken carving the top of the cupcakes to reshape them a bit.

We gathered everything we thought we'd need to "ice" the foam cupcakes with silicone caulk outside on the back table. We had piping bags at the ready, with duct-tape-reinforced icing tips (NOT to be reused for food afterwards!!). We had cornstarch, acrylic paint for color, paint thinner for thinning the caulk, baggies to mix in, duct tape, a newspaper-covered cardboard surface. We wore nitrile gloves (two by two, hands of blue).

Cupcakes, ready to get iced!

Attempt #1, the FAIL

Working on the principle that less air = slower drying time, we were going to mix acrylic craft paint for color into the caulk in the baggie, then transfer it to the waiting icing bag with a star-tip already set up, and reinforced with duct tape.

We added some paint in with the caulk in the baggie. I started adding pink, but we bumped that up to red to get the right pink color.

And.... dang. The caulk started to harden and solidify IN the bag. We added some paint thinner to the baggie to try to thin the caulk some, and that did NOT work. We had a big pink squishy gob of bubblegum in a baggie, leaking paint thinner. There was NO WAY this stuff would go thru a piping tip. Fail.

Attempt #2: The Success

With the silicone caulk in the caulk-gun, we put a plastic star-tip on the nose of the caulk, and reinforced that with duct-tape. And just iced with white icing. It looks like whipped cream. DON'T lick it!

Take note: although the "drying time" with caulk is something like 12 hours, the "working time" is pretty quick!!! Ice one cupcake at a time, then decorate it, or the stuff will NOT stick.

The decorations on my cupcakes are plastic fruit I got off eBay. Some of the strawberries were cut in half. The "sprinkles"  are bits cut from some random craft foamie sheet.

One tube of caulk was enough for 3 giant cupcakes plus the fiasco-in-the-baggie. I need to hop out and get another tube of caulk for the rest of the cupcakes.

Wendy's "Heroes of Cosplay" Rant

With DragonCon 2013 looming close, and the final push to finish a new costume and brush up my old ones, I was looking forward to SyFy channel's new show called "Heroes of Cosplay."

Several days ago, my friend Todd B Lacey had asked on Facebook if we thought he could be a Hero of Cosplay. I read his question when he first wrote it, knowing he must be referencing the show, and I thought "He sure does a LOT of really good creative cosplay - Maybe so!"

Then I thought - gee, I sure know a LOT of Cosplayers who are really awesome at what they do.

Like Red Dragon Lord & Red Dragoness
http://red-dragon-lord.deviantart.com/
Like The Chainmail Chick.
http://thechainmailchick.deviantart.com/
Like Marzipan Cosplay
http://www.cosplay.com/member/105827/costumes/

There is a whole slew of others - mostly of the people I go to conventions with, and that is the only place I get to see them. I'm lucky that my job as a Henna Artist brings me to these places. I love it so much, I even go to DragonCon even when I'm not working there. My youngest has discovered cosplay, and recently won junior division 1st Place at ConTemporal 2013 as a Steampunk Minion, crossing the Minions from Despicable Me with the Steampunk genre.

We do it because it's FUN. We do it because we enjoy the creativity. And who doesn't get a buzz when you make someone smile? My biggest cosplay buzz is wearing my Faerie costumes, and that 3 year old little girl who is absolutely enchanted when I sprinkle her with Faerie Dust glitter.

I saw several posts, and one particular post by the The 501st Legion and others about the REAL Heroes of cosplay - the ones that wear costumes, portray characters, and use that power for GOOD - like cheering up the kids in children's hospitals.


Then I saw the show (finally) and came to my conclusion.


If the show was about actual construction, design, and resourcefulness, I would enjoy it. If it was about creating the character, about taking the time to understand the history of the character, about inventing the character, about learning new skills to create the things you need for the character's costume? It could be a good show.

But what I saw was pettiness and that typical TV "drama" crap that is everywhere it doesn't belong. It's on everything from landscaping shows to cooking shows to the freakin' Weather Channel. It's not necessary, it's not "Real Life", and it's certainly not MY reality. I hope it's not yours.

In the first show I saw more than one reference to how fitting to the female "model" of slenderness and BOOBS is the only way to do cosplay as a girl (WTF? Don't get me started.) Are you telling me that people above a certain size can't cosplay? Well, at least Totoro won a prize in the contest covered on the show. Ha.

One segment showed how they were going to created a full bust model of a girl in order to make horns that went on her forehead. Really? Overkill much?

Over and over I heard references to how much money people spent, and how you spend MONEY to do this, and how much MONEY you could win (like, wow, a $1000 grand prize!) Sure the money would be nice, but they made it sound like it was going to equal The Price Is Right of old.

Some of the funnest costumes I see at conventions are the least expensive - there is an entire group of costumes made from painted cardboard boxes.

Speaking of money spent (or in this case, not spent)... my cosplay focus is on Creativity. And Thrift. And Fun. My best Faerie dresses are made from clothing from the thrift store re-sewn and cobbled together. The teeth for my Purple Minion costume are made from a Mr. Clean sponge, glue, and paint.

I will admit to spending money on the Faerie Wings I wear. They are handmade by another artist who makes wings so skillfully I'd rather give her the money to encourage her wing-making behavior, because she is AWESOME at making wings. Allyson Barlow of Little Wing Faerie Art is amazing.


So overall? They sure have a lot to live up to for this show.
Hate it already? There's even a petition on Change.org entitled "Heroes of Cosplay: Either change the show to represent Cosplayers well or get rid of it entirely." I signed it.

The article on the SyFy network's page is a good read: http://www.syfy.com/heroesofcosplay/episodes

I hope it gets better. There is so much COOL stuff about cosplay that should be shared. 

Things I Learned From My Trip to the Beach

My unfiltered well water is better than your filtered tap water. Like, so much better, that I drank so much I had to pee all night my first night home.

There really is a fish called the Sarcastic Fringehead, and no, I don't think he just watches back episodes of Fringe and holds up a "Sarcasm" sign, but I'm not 100% on that.

Ancient tribal people did really mean things - just go to Ripley's Believe it or Not and see all the freaky ways people made scary tools to make bad juju for each other. I'm not sure if they are still doing mean things, or if Ripley put a stop to that by taking away all their mean tools.

When you walk through the Spinning Tunnel of Doom, keep your eyes on your kids - you'll be a whole lot less affected by the vertigo.

Why get a pedicure before you go to the beach? Walking in the sand sloughs off all that freaky dead skin off your feet for FREE. And any nail polish you happened to still have on.

Wet shells are heavier than dry shells. A bucket of shells is heavy. Several buckets of shells is very heavy. But hey, I'm going to make a really cool mosaic walkway for my chicken house out of the metric ton of big shell pieces I hauled home.

Don't ever assume that the condo you are renting comes with a blender. After drawing her a picture, I learned from the really sweet Housekeeping lady that this is called a "licuadora". (I guess because when you fill it with fruit and liquor you adore it.) And also that you can be pretty sure that taped-shut box with a blender in it at the Wal-Mart was only used once or twice. We did the noble thing and instead of returning ours to join the others abandoned, we proudly brought it home like a trophy.

If you don't do the thingies in order at MagiQuest, it doesn't count, and you have to go back and do them again. Some magical creature probably told me that, several times, but that place is so cacophonous it's hard to tell. It makes me feel like I'm in an interstellar bar in an episode of "Firefly" and people are shouting at me in Mandarin.

Always ask the dudes at the front desk where to eat. We did, and they both gave us the same name of a restaurant. It was an expensive buffet (a family of 2 adults and 2 children was right around $100), but everything we put in our mouths was divine.
http://www.originalbenjamins.com/

Freyr the Roo has an Insecure Morning

Freyr the grey Silkie-roo has learned to crow in the morning. When he first started doing this, he clearly didn't have his roo-voice yet. He sounded like a cross between a teenager with a voice-change happening, and goose playing a party-tooter, badly. Some mornings he gets through the whole rooster theme-song, sometimes not. Some days I don't think he gets the sheet music in time, so he just makes something up. Some days he likes to mix things up and transposes the middle notes. Today's performance sounded sad and insecure. It sounded like he was saying "I'm just not that suuuuuuuure" over and over. I hope he has a better day and all those girls are nice to him.

Freyr the Persian-Kittenosaur Rooster