Jump to content
Banner by ~ Ice Princess Silky

Early Sunsets

User
 View Profile  See their content

  • Posts

    1,979

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Early Sunsets

  1. Early Sunsets
    Hello, weary traveler. What's that? You're tired of your packages arriving smashed and destroyed? Yes, I do believe I can help with that. Sit down by the fire and grab a drink, and I'll tell you what I know.
    Tip 1 - Fragile Packages
    I'll be blunt; package handlers don't give a shit about fragile labels. We can't baby every adult vibrator that gets shipped across the country. It gets thrown, it gets dropped, and it will likely be hit to get it to fit snugly on the truck. I've rammed my shoulder into many a package that were sticking out from the wall too far. However, there are a few things we tend to handle more carefully, such as glass and liquids. We're not gonna toss those around, so slap a few of those stickers on your package (one on every side for best chances of survival). The more tech-savvy package handlers will also treat electronics with more care. You can bet your ass if I come across a GTX 3080 box, I'll treat it like a newborn kitten.
    There's also the less conventional methods. If a box says "Grandma's Ashes," most people will probably be careful with it. I once shipped a saxophone with "Urine Samples" written on every side in big red letters.
    Tip 2 - Large Boxes
    If you're shipping something large, it's imperative that you package it properly. Anything more than a couple cubic feet in volume should have double corrugated walls - anything above four should have triple walls (just my suggestion. You can certainly get away with thinner, but why risk it?). As well as this, don't leave a bunch of empty space, and don't use an abundance of soft packaging materials (i.e. packing peanuts). Use a dense foam, something like styrofoam or dedicated shipping foam, and pack that box full of the stuff. The more rigid the box, the better. If you wouldn't feel comfortable sitting on it, don't ship it. Large packages usually get put on the bottom of the truck, and heavy packages always get put on the bottom. Packages on the bottom are under a lot of stress from the other boxes on top of them. Flimsy boxes with lots of dead space on the inside, plus a lot of weight sitting on top for many hours or even days... Your package is going to arrive looking like a pancake. Hopefully you paid extra for insurance.
    Tip 3 - Heavy Packages
    Put a heavy label on every side of your package if it's over fifteen pounds. Also do this if it's a tiny box that weighs way more than you think it should just by looking at it (i.e. you're shipping a box 5 inches in each dimension and its full of nuts and bolts). This helps both you and the shipping company. If we see the heavy sticker (bonus points if the weight is written on the sticker), we can better prepare for lifting it, and in turn load the trucks quicker and not throw out our backs. That won't make it arrive sooner, but it means we get to get off from work sooner. It also means we're less likely to drop your package, so it's not entirely a waste of time for you.
  2. Early Sunsets
    So after overcoming a fairly serious thumb injury and making the life-changing decision to quit my last job, I finally finished Rarity's head (and by finally finished I mean the head's been finished for a week, I've just been dealing with her mane up until last night). Long synthetic hair is a nightmare to deal with. I spent way too long trying to get her mane the way it is in the show, and I just couldn't get it right. No matter what I tried I couldn't get the hair to make one large curl, so in the end I just took a regular curling iron and went at it. I'll have to brush and re-curl it before every use (you can see how messy it got after just one day), so that'll be mildly annoying, but not too bad since it only takes about half an hour. Even though I'm still disappointed I couldn't get it how I want, I still think it looks okay.
    Moving on from her mane, while the head does have some other problems, I'm just happy at how much I improved compared to my last head (which I will not show). I still have problems with mouths, but I did a hell of a lot better this time around. There are also visible gaps in the edges of the eyes where the plastic meets the foam, but I think I can find a way around that next time. And I also want to switch to 3D printing once I get enough money, which would eliminate that problem all together.
    And, of course, nearly everything is magnetic. Her swappable eyelids for different expressions, her mane (both front and rear sections), and even her horn are removable. I would have done her ears as well (for transportation purposes), but the strength of magnet needed to hold them on properly through the foam and fur would make the head way too heavy. Not to mention they're $40 a pair, and I'd need at least four magnets per ear for that.
    And they're not pictured, but I have a pair of removable 40x20mm fans hooked up to a 3000 mAh battery the size of a credit card and width of a smartphone (no, I'm not exaggerating. It's tiny and weighs next to nothing). Everything fits inside the head and the battery can last for almost ten hours, so I think that it's much preferable over my last setup that had the wires for all six fans in the suit running to one battery bank. Sure, that one may have enough capacity to run every fan for 24 hours, but that's overkill, and it's rather inconvenient to have wires running all over the inside of the suit.
    Here are some pictures.
    Since the eyes are so massive, vision is about as good as it gets in a fursuit. That also helps ventilation along, which is also really good, given that there's two 40mm fans in the head - one that draws fresh air in through the mouth, and another that exhausts hot hair out in front of the ear (the vent is hidden by her mane. It's very difficult to see, but it still draws a lot of the heat from inside the head).
    Overall I'm happy with the results, given my experience level. I've definitely improved a lot since my last head, and that's good enough for me. Now on to the body suit. I worked on that all day today, and let me tell you ponysuits are so much more complicated than fursuits, even digisuits. The legs aren't too difficult, but you have to pad the arms if you want the suit to look good, and that's a lot harder than it sounds. Me wanting to add dual 80mm fans to each arm doesn't make it any easier. But still, I think I've got some good progress going, so we'll see how it turns out in the end.
  3. Early Sunsets
    I finally finished, and I'm fairly proud of the final product. There are definitely a few things that I now see I could have done better, but I'm still happy with it.
    EDIT: Here's the new pictures. It's definitely a lot easier to make sure the camera is focused when there's actually a person behind it.
    So anyway, this was a lot more difficult to make than it should have been. There are next to no ponysuit tutorials online, and the ones I could find looked terrible, were extremely vague, or both. In most cases, both. A good chunk of this suit was made through a lot of experimentation because of that, and now I know what to do and what to change next time.
    Let's start with a list of features and stuff, cause I don't feel like writing a bunch right now.
    -two sets of magnetic eyelids
    -magnetic mane (separated into front and rear pieces)
    -magnetic horn
    -magnetic cutie mark
    -the tail is replaceable since it's just attached to a belt and pulled through a hole in the bodysuit
    -swappable indoor and outdoor hooves
    -hidden zipper down the front of the suit
    -hidden zippers for each hand
    -removable Poly-fil stuffing in both arms and legs
    -two 40mm fans in the head plugged into a 3,000mAh battery that can power them for close to eight hours
    So yeah, that's pretty much it. Since everything's removable I could easily use the bodysuit and head as a base for any white pony I want, provided they have blue eyes (like my ponysona). I feel like there's a bunch of other stuff I could say, but I just can't think of anything else I want to say (which is weird), so I think I'll just leave it here.
  4. Early Sunsets
    So.
    There are a lot of things I like about Rarity's body suit so far. The torso fits nice and snug, the legs are the perfect shape and size imo (though they're not done yet), and the zipper is pretty much invisible. Having the zipper in the front when the suit is so tight-fitting makes getting in and out a little difficult, but I needed to be able to wear it without a handler, so putting the zipper on the back would make putting it on by myself impossible.
    Where I'm running into problems is with the hand hooves. Being the perfectionist that I am I made the padding way too complicated, and it's not turning out so well. The design I had in mind was definitely too form over function, and to put it bluntly, it's a horrid mess that doesn't work in the slightest. It looked good, until I tried putting the fans in. Making air vents cooperate with removable padding is a nightmare, and I can't use the same foaming method that I'm doing with the legs because there need to be slots that my hands can fit through so I can put on the head, drink water, etc.
    The lack of tutorials online doesn't help, and the few I could find didn't have designs that I liked. Every other MLP fursuit I've seen had massive hooves with arms that are pencil-thin by comparison (because the arms aren't padded), and I don't want to make something like that. However, the previous design I had in mind doesn't work well with fans, and it would be waaay too hot without them. So I'll need to start back at square one. Luckily I kept the pattern, so all I have to do once I have a new plan is unstitch the arms, trace the pattern onto new fur (after a bit of modification, probably), and re-stitch.
    So what I think I'm gonna do is set Rarity aside for a while. I don't exactly have the money or time to waste on experimenting with getting her hooves just right. I need to start pumping out suits to sell, so until I'm financially stable she's gonna be on the backburner.
  6. Early Sunsets
    Now that I got my paycheck this past week and I had the money to order the last of the materials and such (including a sewing machine), now I can continue work. Today I filled in any gaps around the eyes and made two sets of eyelids to change Rarity's expression a little bit. Now I just have to do final shaping to smooth it all out, tape it up to get the fur pattern, then wait for the fur and fleece to get here in the mail. After that I can move on to her horn and mane, then she'll be done (well, the head will be, anyway).
    Ignore the foam stuck in her eyes, I'll take care of that during the final cleaning. And I know they're a bit rough in the corners and the left iris shape isn't perfect; it was my first time using plastic instead of foam for the eyes. It's difficult to cut smoothly, but it's so much sturdier than craft foam. 
  7. Early Sunsets
    So yeah, I wasn't happy with my progress. I cut quite a few corners thinking, "I'm not an experienced fursuit maker, it's fine if I don't put in all the effort I should." I'm just not satisfied with that line of thought, so I scrapped the head and I'm starting over. I want to do this as a profession one day, and that kind of thinking definitely won't be acceptable when I'm making stuff for other people. Luckily I had only put in around seven or eight hours of work, so it's not that much wasted time. The eyes especially were rushed and poorly made. This time around I took the extra few hours to make them properly (I even clear coated them), and they look so much better. Lesson learned; don't half-ass things. Maybe I'll actually learn from these lessons one day instead of forgetting about them a week later.
    Also, this time I'm going with dual 50mm fans in the head instead of the quad 30mm fans in the last one. The ones I ordered already have a USB plug attached, so that will make everything so much cleaner looking. It should improve airflow substantially, as well. This setup has 24 CFM compared to the  previous 8 CFM, and they're still quiet and easy enough to hide. I'm also thinking about putting four 80mm USB fans in the body suit (roughly 100 CFM, which is a lot of airflow for 5v fans this size) since I'll be padding it out with a bunch of foam, which is super hot. It's just a matter of where I'm gonna hide the ventilation. I've got a couple of ideas for that, but we'll see what works.
  8. Early Sunsets
    I was originally gonna make a punk Rarity suit (from that one episode of MLP), but I couldn't find a purple leather jacket that looked quite right and I don't really feel comfortable making it from scratch. So instead, I'm opting to go the route of dealing with her normal, incredibly difficult to make mane since I'm fairly confident I can make that look at least decent. Also, if I make the mane magnetic I can make the punk Rarity suit in the future just by making the mane, tail, and clothing, which is much easier and more space efficient than having two separate suits for one character.
    So anyway, I made the bucket head, attached the muzzle, and figured out where the ears will be so I could add the removable fans (the fans and the switch are Velcro'd in so I can remove everything to wash the head, and also to make air travel less of an annoyance since it's a good idea to take heads as your carry-on item). I just finished doing all the soldering and stuff. I have four 30mm fans wired in parallel (two inlet fans in the muzzle, two outlet fans in front of the ears) running off of a regular battery bank for a phone. It's 24k mAh and can supply 5V 2A, so depending on how much I wear the suit, it should be able to run the fans for an entire convention without needing to recharge (the fans are 5V and draw 0.18A). It's also got a switch wired in to the back of the head, so that makes things easier. Man, I think my two and a half years of physics class are actually paying off.
    Ignore the exposed wire in that spot where the shrink tubing slipped off, I'm going to fix that. Also the botched left eye. I cut it wrong the first time and I need to add in some foam to fix it. I'll probably wait until I put the eyes in to fill the gaps. Another thing, fan #2 doesn't really have anywhere to draw air from yet, but I'm waiting to do that until I get the eyes in so I know how much space I have to work with.
    Surprisingly the fans in the muzzle don't touch my face, and the fans in the ears don't cause a problem as long as I wear the balaclava. I tested out the temperature (even though it's not really an accurate gauge yet since neither the mouth nor eyes are in) and even though the fans don't move a whole lot of air, it still makes a world of difference. Even so, I might go with 40 or 50mm fans next time around just to make things a bit cooler. At least these fans are nearly silent.

    I'll probably wait until I'm patterning the fur for my next WIP since heads always look like crap until they're furred. It's just a fact of suit making. Even professional suits look bad until they're finished, at which point they suddenly look incredible. Unlike mine, which just look less bad once they're done.
  9. Early Sunsets
    This was by far my least spectacular year. Not only did I not make many memories, I just didn't enjoy marching band quite so much that year. But man, am I glad I stuck with it nonetheless.
    My best friend finally joined My childhood friend had planned to join marching band our freshman year, but for whatever reason (laziness, I think) he only showed up to the first practice. He actually stuck with it that year, and we had so much fun just messing around. We started a tradition at band camp where every year we would claim a bunk in a corner of the cabin. He'd get the top bunk, and I'd get the bottom. We did this junior and senior year, too.
    My interest in playing bari sax (the best sax) grows Me and my friend liked to mess around a bunch. One thing we liked to do was take our pep songs down an octave and blast low C's and Bb's. It was so stupid, but so much fun.
    More shenanigans with my friend We sat next to each other on every bus ride and just dicked around, basically. I remember one time we decided to listen to Falling in Reverse and My Chemical Romance really loud and head bang for a solid thirty minutes (I had long hair back then). I woke up the following morning with a splitting headache. It wasn't fun
    Praise Cthulhu I don't remember how his started, but it did. We invented a weird hand sign and would chant "Praise Cthulhu" on occasion. I think it started at the state football game (on a Christian college campus, to make things funnier) the previous year.
    Our football team winning state champs in triple overtime I'm not a huge football fan, but that was an exciting game. I remember watching the football sail through the goal posts, and there was about a second of stunned silence before the stadium suddenly erupted in noise.
    A bari sax apparently appears out of thin air near the end of the school year So there was an old bari sax sitting in the back of the instrument storage room that my friend and a couple other people just found one day. Nobody had known it was there (not even our band director). Nobody knew where it had come from. All I knew was I was finally going to get to play bari sax, but I guess that might technically be a memory for junior year.
    I get dumped (or more specifically, cheated on) Fun memory. It wasn't a great time, let's just leave it at that.
     
    So yeah, not a very exciting year. Junior year was much more exciting, and senior year was so full of memories I don't think I'll be able to fit it all in one blog post. Band camp alone from that year could probably fill one or two posts.
  10. Early Sunsets
    I have countless amazing memories from high school marching band, and I figured I'd put them here so that I can always remember them, and maybe a few people will also get a laugh out of some of them. I guess I'll start with freshman year.
    I'll have to omit a few memories. As much as I'd like to share everything, we have three traditions that only band members are supposed to know about. I know it's the internet and nobody cares, but it's important to me to keep them a secret.
    Bus traditions Whenever we were on a bus ride somewhere, for the first and last few minutes of the ride the highest leader on the bus (usually a fleet) would say "fall in, face forward," and we'd sit still in our seats facing forward, and we weren't supposed to make noise. We did this because most accidents occur within the first and last few minutes of trips, and this allowed the bus driver to focus on the road, rather than the fifty loud teenagers behind them.
    We'd also say "thank you" to the bus driver whenever we got off. This was a tradition stemming back all the way to 1969 when the band was formed, and it's something we never lost.
    The terrifying drive to Camp Greenbrier This was where we had our band camp. We took tour busses (three my freshman year, I think), and I'm almost certain the road there wasn't meant for vehicles that large. The roads were barely wide enough for two regular sized cars to scrape past each other, and there was a fairly sharp drop on one side of the road. Every time we passed another car heading in the opposite direction I'd be terrified we'd slip off the edge of the road.
    The banana peel During lunch one day, our bronze fleet (4th in command) turned around in his chair, stared right at me, and shoved a banana peel into his mouth. We became fairly close that year. He was a pretty chill guy.
    My first parent show (I cried) Every year on Friday evening we'd perform what we had done of the show for our parents. It was a pretty long drive and only a couple hundred people would normally show up at Greenbrier (more showed up my senior year when we switched camps), but it was still really cool, and it was my first real performance in marching band. Up until that point I had been considering quitting band after that year, but once the show was over, I realized just how incredible it was that so many people could come together to make something so amazing. Then all the seniors started crying because it was their last year. I guess it was contagious because I started crying, too. Though, in my defense, I had made quite a few close friends that were seniors, and my sister was also a senior that year.
    The start of a new tradition Every year on Saturday before we left camp, the seniors would all hold hands and walk down the practice field together. Normally non-seniors weren't allowed to watch, but they made exceptions for people taking pictures. My sister asked me to take some, so they allowed me to show up. This year, however, one of the percussion players (his name escapes my memory, but he was one of the last people I would have expected to do something like this) said something along the lines of "Guys, we're not close enough," and they all put their arms around each other's shoulders instead of just holding hands. More crying followed.
    Guard was terrible, but everything else was great At competitions, we'd consistently get 5th, 4th, or even 3rd place in every category except for color guard. They were always in the bottom 5 places. On the opposite end, we got within top 3 for drum majors that year at every competition.
    A bittersweet memory To this day I'm not sure if I regret this decision or not. Probably yes, but whatever.
    This was the year I asked my ex-girlfriend out. I remember specifically it was a Friday night after a football game, early on in the season. I was terrified, but I had more guts back then, so I managed to do it. We were friends for a couple of months, then we started officially dating. I can't deny I was happier then than I ever had been before, so maybe it was worth it. Maybe.
     
    That's everything interesting I can remember from freshman year. Maybe it wasn't all that interesting, or maybe I just can't remember much from that long ago. And there's always the possibility that Senior year was just so exciting that every other year seems dull by comparison. Who knows. More to come.
×
×
  • Create New...