Secondly, if you’re here looking for the BOUNTY HUNT winner announcement, you’re in the wrong place! The winner will be announced around 9pm CST on Monday over at my Facebook page. The prize MUST be claimed on Facebook! This is mostly to maintain some legitimacy of identity. I will announce the winner randomly from the collection of bounty hunt answer forms and he or she will have seven days to claim the prize of one $25 iTunes gift card & $50 commission credit. If they do not claim the prize within the week claiming period, they forfeit their prize and I will draw a new winner.

Thirdly: WOW! Great convention. I scribbled away happily on Friday and Saturday and met lots of new people and saw plenty of familiar faces. Check out KyraShangea and SkeeveKAM, two very talented persons who kindly helped watch my table when I was absent/produced many a fine and wonderful works. Although I would not be able to walk much/fly in chainmail, I find it so interesting.

Fourthly: If you commissioned me at AD11 and own a scanner, I’d love links to scans of the pieces I did! I was unfortunately unable to scan every piece and I’d love to add your commission to my digital hoard if you’re able to.

Fifthly: On Sunday I hurt my finger in my button machine and was unable to complete any more commissions. If you placed an order for a commission, do not fear! You will receive it in your email soon.

I will put up a gallery later on with photos of this great event. Hope to see you join in on Facebook, where I do regular contests and give-aways. If not — see you at AD12!

Joey

Rules:

1. Must be a fan on Facebook so I can see your banner – “Like” here!

2. Make your own banner here!

3. Make it your Facebook profile at least until 10PM CST, Sunday January 30

4. Stay tuned to Facebook for the winner announcement!

I got the official letter from the Anime Detour 2010 Artist’s Alley people: I’m in. Woohoo! It was juried this year, for variety and probably various legal things. I actually have no idea why. Probably because “first come first serve” is ridiculous when hundreds of people may be applying. Either way, I don’t think there is table assignment (as with previous years) so you will just have to use your eyeballs and the optical processing portions of your brain to locate me.

This year I will have a full table, which means less spilling coffee on the people tabling next to me. I will definitely be doing commissions, but I hope to be a bit more con-going this year, just because I think I sat at my table the entire weekend last time. I will be offering a cut on commission prices for commissions placed at the convention.

Aside from commissions I will be selling prints, buttons, badge-cards and super special Derelict Heaven fleece hats: Pirate Wolf, Anarchist Cat, and Gypsy Bunny. Photos forthcoming.

I may also have 1 or 2 special guests. Yay.

And, of course, I will be giving away free stuff. I will have various Derelict Heaven things for free. I will also be giving away a Wolfpack Pirates Coat of Arms t-shirt as the prize for the Noctorious Bunny Coloring Contest part 2.

All this and more! Stay tuned!

J

Color/draw/modify/edit the Noctorious bunny and post it on the J. M. Lee Facebook Wall by 5pm CST, December 4. We’ll allow the fans to vote on their favorite bunny to decide the winner! Entry with the most “likes” wins!

You may color him digitally, print him and color him and scan him, photo-manip him, fold him into origami – whatever your heart desires. The only rule is that you have to post the image by the deadline.

You may enter as many times as you like.

Winner receives a polar fleece Noctorious Drake hat (photos forthcoming) and a $10 commission! Go go go!

First of all, WOW. I think everyone was really impressed by the quality and variety of this year’s costumes. I am genuinely impressed and commend each and every one of you. I loved seeing both old and new, with some Final Waltz and Derelict Heaven. It was great to see returning contestants as well as a lot of new faces. You all did fantastic jobs and I will, accordingly, be extending the Joeyverse Costume Contest tradition to 2011. I look forward to seeing you all there!

Second: I’m also, of course, completely flattered at the turnout. As a writer who has not yet even acquired a secret literary agent to fight with me against crime, it’s truly an invaluable encouragement for me to see this type of investment in my work. It makes me want to keep on trucking, which can be really difficult some times when I let logistics get me down. So, first, I wanted to call out a personal THANK YOU to you all for doing such a great job and making me feel like what I do is just as important and entertaining as all (or at least, some) of the other things that make you want to cosplay :)

Third: As thanks, I will be extending last year’s offer of a thank-you sketch to all participants. I know it’s not much but until I get that popcorn factory it’ll have to do. Email me with your sketch request and I shall deliver.

Okay, okay. Enough stalling. Let’s talk about the winners. I’m going to avoid using people’s full, real names because I worry about stalkers and internet ninja. You just can’t see them. I’m going to use your initials. But you know who you are!

As a reminder, entries were judged based on the following criteria:

• The skill with which your costume was constructed or put together
• The way in which you portray the character you are in costume as
• How well your photo captures you, your costume, and your environment
• Perceived amount of effort

All of the entrants this year scored really well and it was tough deciding. But we had to, since that’s the rules.

Third Place: Bronzy Bronze Medal, or,
Winner of a Full Color Commission and My Esteem:
Entry #2: Mrell Snowdancer

This goes to show you that simple is effective. Mrell’s outfit is simple and JL has the same initials as me. She also looks like Mrell – Point #1 of effective portrayal. She also paid attention to detail and the bodice was very well made. Parts of the costume which were not made from scratch were superbly selected. As far as photography went, the location was ideal and we absolutely loved the shot on the fallen tree! The entire costume and entry were spot-on, and it was a huge hit with the fans as well. Plus, who can’t get enough of Mrell? Nobody can’t. Seriously fierce job, congratulations!

Second Place: The Silver, or,
Winner of Commission Goodness and a Signed Print
Entry #7: Kiletti Mystagic

On the other end of the spectrum we have ambition and amazing results. Deionæra Mystagic is famous for her color-changing hair and eyes, complicated personality and deep-running emotion — this is not a character who can be cosplayed easily. When I first heard that AR was going to be tackling magic hair, I had my doubts. But this hand-dyed, multi-colored wig finished up with great results. We were also all impressed with the character portrayal here — AR shows all of Deionæra’s sides with such care that it’s very clear she understands the character. The choice of photo shoot was great; in retrospect I wonder if the Walker Sculpture Garden has been secretly influencing my vision of Mrey for years. Aside from the massive amount of work that went into coloring the wig, the rest of the costume came together nicely and naturally. I recognized it instantly. Amazing job, congratulations!

And finally, First Place Winner of the
2011 Joeyverse Costume Contest
Entry #1: Aroshi Yamabiko

Needless to say, I think everyone was blown away by this entry. CN’s Aroshi also placed 2nd in the Fan’s Favorite rankings, so I know that you’ll all agree when I say that this entry was a show stopper.

Aside from the amount of time, resources, care and effort that clearly went into the making of this costume, the skill level is phenomenal. The Maji jacket is impeccable and the attention to details (bachi and holster, shoes, hair) were dead-on.  However, I am most impressed by the interpretation of one of my all time favorite characters. This take of Aroshi is accurate and believable and it was captured on film in a bountiful collection of top-notch photos ranging from detail shots to dramatic panoramas reminiscent of the corpus of Aroshi artwork. We appreciated the range of location and variety of photos showing off both the costume as well as the portrayal.

I am absolutely thrilled to award this entry with most due respect and hope everyone will join me in congratulating a job well done.

Once again, thanks to everyone who participated! You all looked fab. Hope to see you next year!

Stay tuned for the announcement of the Fan’s Favorite Award later this evening!

So please extend a warm round of applause to the Rachel, Gillie and Abbie, who entered this year with their three-person group! The contest would not have been the same without you. You guys rocked and we hope to see you return next year!

it all started in november of last year. trapped in the harsh, frigid mountains of north carolina, I sat with my beloved sisters, wondering what we could cosplay together. we had a totally awesome idea, but it was a little iffy because at the time we were four people who had never sewed anything in their lives, weren’t rock stars, and didn’t know anything about Joe (we still don’t).

then in the spring, we had to seriously reevaluate our plan, since one of us has a real job and life and couldn’t find an argyle sweater-vest. making the best of a sad situation, I vacated my research lab for the last week my sisters were home in the summer so we could work on stuff, and work we did. I wish there were some kind of cookie points for orchestrating costume contest-ing across four states, one of which is the void known as connecticut not even attached to the other three.

in the end, it was my twin sisters Gillie and Rachel, and me! we settled on being Noct, Busty Justin, and Aroshi! after some preliminary planning that involved a lot of lists, we went materials-hunting. armed with our scrap of paper, our determination, and a whole lot of hope, we started by looking at wal-mart. ^-^; but that didn’t go very well at all, and after searching wal-mart, target, and michael’s, we were able to cross off exactly one item from our list. finally realizing that our hometown just didn’t have what we needed, Gillie and I went every jo-ann fabric store within a 50-mile radius, and managed to find our various necessary crap. except we had to go to different stores to get the same stuff, due to some slight logistical difficulties and me wanting to spend only two hours in the car instead of three. so, I’ll just talk about the two main trips in order:

first: washington, pa. this particular store was located in the absolute sketchiest mall I have ever seen in my life. it was sort of run-down from the outside, but we don’t judge on looks. except, we walked in and everything was eerily quiet and dark except for the fabric store, and it was only 5:30 in the evening. there was a long, wide hallway with a solitary carousel at the end, just in case the creepy factor wasn’t high enough. but so, in we went! the store had a lot of fabric in it, including two perfect colors for maji coats. and they were on sale, so I didn’t even balk that much. anyway, there was a lot of waffling, but after about an hour we finally had everything we needed, or everything we could modify into being usable. jo-ann fabrics has a serious lack of a fabulous-pink-feather section, but we worked it out. also, they carry every possible shade and size of silver ribbon except matte, normal, plain ass-silver. but so, we finally left and we thought we were mostly done.

the second store was in clarksburg, wv. we had to go there because we ran out of the grey batting tape we finagled into ribbon and it turns out that there’s more fabric in a maji jacket than you’d think. except we couldn’t find the shade of fabric we needed and the salespeople kept telling us it was there except it definitely, definitely wasn’t. there was more waffling, and a teeny tiny bit of crying that resulted in people staring and also thinking that I’m probably an abusive mother to my helpless ten-year-old daughter. but that was okay! cause finally I figured out what we were going to do, and it involved shiny things! so, I sniped that problem and we went home to continue construction.

construction was a disaster, which I guess is to be expected when only one person in the group has the first clue of how to design clothing. but we eventually figured most of it out and also, while hunting around in our basement, we found the most fabulous, FABULOUS and flaming pink fabric ever, so at least there was that. but so, for the first three days of the week, Gillie and I plodded along and hand-sewed almost all of the Justin jacket, before our dear father introduced us to Bernina.

Bernina, our friend and dear companion in time of trouble, was a state-of-the-art masterpiece of sewing machinery from 1985. so then Gillie sewed with Bernina while I continued to plod along stitch by stich. Rachel helped me for a while but it turned out that she’s even worse at sewing in a straight line than I am, so she got stuck on button duty and other things not involving seams.

that meant that Rachel got to do fun stuff, like making her wand out of a hockey stick. she had her hacksaw and was quite killer-loli. I mean, except for the giant chemistry lab goggles and rainboots, because safety first.

then, once we had our respective wand-bases, it was time to color them beautifully! Rachel spray-painted hers black and wrote a lot of artistic-looking stuff on it with purple bubble paint in chinese, like “arr, I’m a wolf pirate! woof woof!” and the like, and she has extremely lovely handwriting. I had a much less graceful experience. we didn’t really have a wood stain on hand that wasn’t either extremely dark or extremely light, and it would have been silly to do something like “buy a proper shade” when macguyvering was an option! so, I took some dark stain and some primer and mixed them together with a twig to make an okay color. but I couldn’t really find a suitable bucket for mixing any significant volume. I tried the lacquer can lid and then I tried a rock, but neither of those were very practical, so we made a tray out of a chinese takeout menu instead.

anyway, as the end of the week was looming, we started to get worried. for the past few days, our schedule had been like this: wake up, eat, sew, swear profusely, sew, eat, sew, fret, sleep. of course, I had to take breaks to do things like cart Rachel 150 miles to pittsburgh and back spend quality time with my beloved car. but aside from that, we really had done nothing else. the problem was, Bernina can’t sew that much before getting tired, and it looked like we weren’t going to finish on time! and so it was time for srs bzns mode, or, going to sleep at three and waking up at nine, because we are just that hardcore. oh yes.

finally, with three hours to spare before my sisters had to go back home, we started pictures! we went down to the docks, which was just great, except for it was the middle of the summer and we lined aroshi’s maji coat with velvet. but we all survived somehow, and lots of pictures were taken, and fun was had except also shame because my father nominated himself to take said pictures. but it got done and was excellent, and my sisters went home having not flaked out on a project we’d been planning all year. also that way we didn’t have to beg Joey to let us photoshop ourselves into a picture together.

at that point, I was still sort of lacking in the “individual pictures” department, but I had to pack up to go back to school and also be depressed and lonely with no one around, and so the pictures didn’t get taken. fortunately, there was still my fall break! I came home, got dressed up, and puzzled over how I was going to do pictures all by myself and without any hairspray or makeup to speak of. but, again with the macguyvering! I made a camera tripod out of a table leg, a box of hanukkah candy from 2006, and some martini glasses. then I fixed myself up to the best of my ability and started taking pictures, but I had a big problem. my aroshi-bangs weren’t really sticking together on wishes alone, and so I looked like I had a forehead-combover, which I did.

I was wishing that I had some bobby pins or inconspicuous hair clips of some sort, and then I realized! the noct makeover OTP picture totally counts! I checked all of our bedrooms, and found the most ridiculous, sparkly, and fabulous hair ornaments I could get my hands on! I stuck them on my head and defied my bangs to dare an escape from their glittery prison. then, it was totally picture time again, but even more fabulous!

after that, Gillie submitted our things and we all lived happily ever after!

Check out the entry here! Interested in sharing your Costume Contest adventure story? Let the JV staff (it’s one person. Joey.) know and we’ll set you up!

KcD likes science and puppies

I’m pleased to announce that Kaycie D (shorthand: KcD, if you hate typing vowels and dipthongs — it’s why I go by “J”) will be this year’s guest judge for the Costume Contest! She will be choosing her favorites subjectively and without mercy alongside myself and Claire, so pander to her likings wisely.

Kaycie is a senior at MIAD this year focusing in animation, illustration and being a badass. She entered the confusing realm of the Joeyverse via Echoes of Thunder about five years ago, and Final Waltz remains her favorite work, namely for Sparklers and Sallas.

She has done lots of fanart and also received an honorable mention in last year’s contest for her Kaet costume.

You can visit her on the web at her main blog or at the blog for her project Elements.

Let the games begin!

Anyway, my latest acquisition is a Munny. And I was going to make an Aroshi Munny but then the secret accessory was a fedora, and it was basically fate reminding me that when Noctorious strikes, there’s really no say anyone has in the matter except Noctorious.

Here’s the works so far. I used Crayola Model Magic for the 3D parts and smoothed them out with some gloss acrylic gel. Will post updates as they arrive.

UPDATE: He’s done! Better pictures to come, but here’s snapshots from tonight: