I just realised I don't have my "fine print" written anywhere on my DA, so here it is.

*Quotes are free, simply send me some decent reference pictures of the garment you would like made and we can negotiate price. You can decline, you won't hurt my feelings, what is frustrating is when you won't respond to me at all, it's rude and I don't know whether I'm supposed to save a slot in my commissions list for you or not.
I should respond within 24 hours and I'm normally easy to reach all the time, if I'm not near my laptop, I've got my iPhone.

Generally speaking my starting price is $100, which covers roughly five hours of my time and then there's the cost of materials on top of that.
If it's a small thing, like an accessory, it probably won't be that expensive.

If it's something original or something from a cartoon I will usually send you a detailed sketch before starting so you can see exactly how I will execute the design into reality.

*Give me plenty of notice if you need the garment by a specific date. I work quickly, but depending on how many other jobs I have and how difficult materials are to find, it may delay the process. There is also postage time to consider.

*Postage is completely up to you in how it's done, generally I will ship it as cheaply as possible.

*Payment, I accept a down payment of half the total price or you may pay all at once. I prefer paypal (make sure to send it as "personal" or "gift"), but you may transfer the money directly to my bank account.

*Cancelling commission; Once I have agreed to take on the commission and you have payed me, there's no going back. Make your decision wisely.

*Alteration or repairs; Considering I never meet most of my clients in person to do fittings, I'm working entirely from measurements, make sure you do them properly, I will be happy to instruct you on this. Even so, it's impossible to get it right all the time, especially with more complicated costumes for which I have to draft a pattern from scratch. Should you be dissatisfied with your costume for any reason or it is damaged at any point in the future let me know and I'll see what I can do.
You can ship it back to me (you must cover the shipping costs) and I will alter it free of charge. Usually I keep a decent amount of scraps from each project, but if the alteration requires a lot of new material, the costs will be cover by you.

I've been getting a bit of interest in various pieces of my Loki costume, so I thought I'd put up an official pricing list (in AUD).

Helmet (Thor movie version):
$500
It's made out of 8 ounce leather, which is very strong and durable, painted with leather paint.

Coat (Avengers movie version):
$300 for vinyl
$500 for leather
I use the best quality materials, so the vinyl looks good, but if you want something that lasts and doesn't feel as sweaty to wear then I recommend leather. I use non-crushed velvet, I've seen a few cosplays that used crushed/panne velvet and it ruins the accuracy. I also dye the fabric myself to get the shade perfectly accurate.
The coat is completely lined and I use gold zippers for the trim, available for all sizes, men and women.
This coat includes everything you see here:
[link]
So that does not include gauntlets or shoulder strap, but I do make the shoulder guards.

The entire costume (coat, helmet, pants, shin guards and shoulder guards) out of leather would cost $2280
And out of vinyl is $1620

As these costumes are very work intensive I'll need considerable advanced notice (two months at least) if you plan on wearing this to a convention or a specific event.

My paypal is: sithchic@bigpond.net.au
You must pay a deposit of half the total payment upfront to cover the cost of materials.

In other Loki news, I am going to be drawing trade sketchs/reference sheets for Lady Loki and Thor movie Loki. If you'd like me to make any other part of Loki's wardrobe, send me a PM or leave a comment below and we can work something out.
Oh and please do join my LokiCosplay group, if you're having trouble joining, let me know. Been having a bit of trouble lately.

I'm going to be uploading a more refined tutorial and patterns for the helmet. And I shall be collecting as many reference pictures and drawing up detailed costruction plans/trade sketchs for those wanting to make movie costumes or the female comic version.
That's the plan anyway, I should be able to get around to doing that in two weeks. Presently free-time seems like a distant concept.

The current tutorial is still ok, but I've discovered resin is a bad idea, I'd suggest leather or just foam on its own.
The back of the helmet is a bit confusing and the triangle bit at the front needs better explaining.


Also, anyone interested in joining a Loki cosplay group on DA or FB?

When you're at WAAPA, especially studing costume design, you become removed from the rest of the world, there is nothing outside of it beyond catching up on sleep. But I've had two months break, plenty of time to remember what life is like beyond WAAPA, in that time I have:
Caught up on Doctor Who, Generator Rex, Misfits and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
I've learned how to knit
I've had commissions
I've finished a lot of my own costumes
I've actually been able to read a book all the way through
I got a bonsai tree that didn't die
I got a new pet, he's a weero/cockatiel named Pikachu, I found him when I was out walking the dogs, yay free shit: [link]
I bought more action figure than I should have
Learned more about mould-making, resin and sculpting
Taught someone else about costume making
Played video games which I hardly ever get to do, there was War for Cybertron, Arkham City, Uncharted 3 and both Mass Effects (which means I played on an Xbox 360 for the first time, it's alright but I've grown up with Playstations).

And in a few weeks I get back into working flat out, not only studying, but I have two theatre jobs this year. Hopefully I can finish my Quorra and Loki costumes somewhere in there.

Next year I hope to have a table at Wai-Con, so any Perthians can look for me there as Costume Couture, this is a list of what I'll be selling and if I have any left over I can sell them on here. Any suggestions for other things I could make are welcome:

Doctor Who- Bow ties and Fezs

My Little Pony-Blank customisable ponies, DJ Pon3 and Doctor Whooves custom toys.
Ears, tails, wings and horns for cosplay.

Masks, like my fabric Batman mask and domino masks for cosplays like Harley Quinn or the Spirit. Maybe Venom too.


Plushies- Astroboy, Ein from Cowboy Bebop, Ood, Cybermen, Transformers (the generic body types will be in white so you can paint them yourself, like Seekers)

Custom figures like the cast of Cowboy Bebop and a Catwoman doll

Original sneaker designs

Jackets inspired by X-men and Kick-Ass

Star Trek pins

And other things like Lego brick tissue box covers, superhero inspired Fukus, Sailor Moon tiaras, shoe wings, scarves, bags and skirts made out of kids bed sheets, hoodie scarves, capelets and I think that's all from the top of my head.

Until the end of January I will be taking commissions on a whole range of things from drawings, costumes, clothing and accessories to plushies.
And if you can draw, we can do an art trade, you draw one of my original characters and I'll draw anything you like (but keep it simple and in an area I'm good at, like I can draw characters and vehicles, not so good with anything involving backgrounds, perspective or buildings).


-Prices-
Drawings (and tattoo designs):
Pencil sketch, one character- $10
Additional characters- $10 each
Inks- $10
Colours (Photoshop)- $10

Costumes and clothing (including swim wear):
This is difficult to make a fixed price for, so just leave a comment below and we'll work something out.

Accessories and plushies:
Again, they range greatly in price because of materials and complexity.
So what accesories do I make? Hats, jewellery, masks, even custom clothing for toys, or anything along those lines.

Speaking of toys, I can also customise My Little Ponies because that's what all the cool kids are into

*I'll keep postage as cheap as possible
*Payment is half up front
*Paypal: sithchic@bigpond.net.au

Slots
1. art trade
2. costume commission
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I kind of want to move on to a new acount but it would just take too much effort to move all that work, I've gone through and deleted alot. Man I've drawn some shit over the years.

My rule 63 Doctor Who costume is almost finished, just have to make some minor alterations for it to fit better. I ended up making it more accurate to the real thing than my own design I uploaded awhile ago. Hopefully I can wear it for Halloween if it's not too hot.

Does anyone know a good book for reference on Asian costumes throughout history? I mostly want to focus on China and Japan but anything else would be interesting too.
The best costume book I have is Mode in Costume but that just covers western history like most things for some reason.

I've been on a nostalgia trip ever since I saw Transformers Dark of the Moon and now I'm inspired to do a series of fashion designs incorporating elements of the characters.
I'll be doing both Autobots and Decepticons, men's wear and women's wear.
The Autobots series will be urban, athletic and sportswear as they have very bright colours and I feel that suits their overall style.
The Decepticons will all be high-fashion, sleek, chic and severe, a limited, dark colour pallet with a lot of metallics.

So far these are the characters I have planned or have already drawn:
Decepticons-
Megatron: Working with themes of dominance and power, silver, black and red with hints of purple.

Starscream: Like the lines of a jet, everything about Starscream's appearance (especially in TF: Prime) are edgy, sharp lines.

Soundwave: He is the surveyor, the informant, I'll be working with themes like espionage, he's also quintessentially (Quintesson,lol) 80's, more so than any of the Transformers, so think film noire by way of 80's.


Autobots-
Optimus Prime: He is a leader, kind and charismatic, wise and powerful, an almost god-like presence. How do I translate that into a look? At first I almost went a bit western, because he strikes me as something of a cowboy and I wanted him to be the exact opposite of Megatron.
But then I focused more on the red, white and blue, it made me think of classic Americana, uniforms, football jackets, that kind of thing. So I'm going in a bit of a retro 50's direction for the women's wear and edging it up a bit with a motorcycle look for the men's wear but still keeping with the retro theme a bit.

Bumblebee: Yellow and black, it's energetic, it's electric, I'm thinking urban, I'm thinking street wear

Wheeljack: What a weird looking Transformer, that's a good thing, plenty to work with but I haven't defined his theme yet.

Anyone else I should do? I was having a lot of trouble picking the third Autobot because Jazz, like Soundwave is audio themed, Ironhide is mostly red like Optimus and Ratchet as much as I love you, the whole ambulance thing is kind of limiting.

Possibly adding Mirage and Knockout.

Transformers: The Motion Picture Transformers 2007: Transformers 2: Transformers 3:

Optimus Prime's voice:

Just got CS5, I used to have Illustrator which automatically makes the brush strokes neater. Can Photoshop do anything like that?

I find it odd that in the past week or so I've had alot of people (usually in their early teens) favouriting drawings and photos of mine that are about three or four years old. Really crappy old work that is either heavily referenced or the anatomy and colouring are just terrible.
My feeling is 'thanks for favouriting but you're missing out on all my better stuff'.

What's worse is when some people leave sexual comments on photos of me when I was fifteen or sixteen, super-creepy!

Everybody hates those members who join this site and treat it like Facebook, just uploading camera phone shots of themselves (clothing optional apparently), crappy MS Paint quality art/fan art of Naruto or whatever the kids are watching these days, art thieves and the list of offenders goes on.

Now the question of 'what is art?' is entirely subjective. But clearly these people don't have any interest in it or have any ability.
I want DeviantART to be a place that showcases quality art and provides a place for artists' to display their art and get work.

What about those who just want to favourite and comment on other people's work? They're welcome, I think my ideal version of this site would allow people to instantly join with a basic account that doesn't come with the feature to submit art.

But to get an artist's account you should have to submit some of your best work to the moderator's to get approval. The standards shouldn't be too high, anyone who shows basic ability in art, writing or photography can get an account. After all alot of people come here to learn and improve their skills.

I think this would instantly improve the quality of this site and I see no reason why it wasn't like this to begin with.

Update: OMG, THIS account right here is what I want to eliminate:
[link]