Shoes: Painted and Dyed

Because my colorful Japanese Fruits fashion phase is far behind me, I felt a strong need to throw black on top of one of my last remaining "kawaii" items, my Onmyodo shoes. I've never wanted to part with these because of their awesome comfort, leather interior/exterior and rounded-toe shape but now they finally have a permanent place in my closet. 

The (really old and terrible) photo below shows the shoes bright coloring and obnoxious cat print while the above shows the, nearly complete, stealth mod.  Black leather dye was applied to the suede sections while a matte black enamel paint was used to cover the smooth leather panels. One more top coat of paint will be needed to cover the kittens entirely but soon I will have these paired with my newly-polished gaiters. 

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Vintage Leather Gaiters

Got my shipment in from www.steampunkcouture.com today!  Inside this wonderfully old-timey wrapped package were a pair of vintage leather gaiters (shoe covers) stamped with the date 1957 on the inside flap. The outer buckle is made of pleather so its a bit too easy to distinguish against the distressed leather. A bit of shoe polish should fix up the color inconsistencies just fine, though.

 

Sadly, the back of one is a bit torn and catches on my shoe but should be easily fixable.  They wont be worn until the dying of the coordinating shoes is complete which should be sometime within the next week or so. ^_^

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Leading the Busy Life. Part 2

Projects
Photography - Since the beginning of 2012 my number of photo projects has dropped to below half of what last year heralded in. This is one thing I am changing rather immediately with a shoot tentatively scheduled for this afternoon as well as at least 2 more in the coming week. I want to build up a portfolio  of almost completely new material before years end which will no doubt take some time, research and effort.

Music - I've wanted to start creating music for some time now but that time may be well off into the future still. What I have been doing is practicing basic pieces at the piano so as to work at the rustyness i've acquired through years of laziness. Eventually once my skills are up to par, I want to start putting together my own breed of dark-electro/chip-tune/EBM awesomeness.

Video work - This is tied in with photography a bit but I want to start making dark short films with the feel of a Tool music video. 

Writing - This blog. Enough said.

(speaking of writing, I'm exhausted and am going to go back to watching Breaking Bad)

I will make a valiant effort to update with more photos and less ADD yammering from here on out.

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Leading the Busy Life. Part 1

So many things filling in the gaps of time between work and school, so much in fact, that its become a bit overwhelming to think about without some sort of written organizational schedule thing. So anyways, for my personal online reference, what is all in progress or soon to be happening?

Video Games
Just recently beat Arkham Asylum which I thought was quite fantastic and pulled me away from Assassins Creed for quite some time. As I have told many people, the fighting style of AA is how I wished Desmond would have laid it down within in the Animus in the first AC.

Speaking of which, I will be back and finishing up AC as well as Halo:Combat Evolved, Gears of War, and Half Life as well as putting in some time with Minecraft, BlazBlue and Skullgirls. I am looking forward to picking up Guild Wars II when the time rolls around and hopefully sneaking Diablo III away from a friend long enough to give it a play-through.

Art
My artistic endeavors have been horribly lacking in the last couple of years and I am very much hoping to make a real effort in the coming months to reverse that. The number one project on the list is the illustration and writing of a short ongoing graphic novel. Ive had a few ideas floating around my head, all of which are currently far too complex for any sort of audience but its all a work in progress. Besides the drawing I am also wanting to work more with fabric by creating simple things for everyday wear as well as going deeper down the cosplay road.

My first officially completed cosplay was done for A-kon 23 and was worn in conjunction with a friend of mine. The idea was pulled from the Uncharted games, 2 & 3 in particular, and our characters were Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer. The costumes were pulled together a month before the con but upon seeing many fantastic cosplays both online and inperson as well as having our photo creep up on Cosplay America, i'm convinced that my costume construction will not see an end.


Reading
Graphic novels have been my main reading materials besides school books and those have even been a bit shy in volume. Currently, I am reading the 1st omnibus of Hack/Slash which is a fantastic horror themed novel featuring a personal hero of mine; the gorgeous goth-girl badass, Cassie Hack. The graphic novel itinerary is as follows:
- Transmetropolitan
- The Nikopol Trilogy
- Y:The Last Man
- Sandman
- The Umbrella Academy

In terms of novels the books are also sadly stacking up:
- Neuromancer
- Speaker for the Dead
- The Time Machine
- War of the Worlds

Education
Besides the school-related focus on Algebra and technical writing, i've picked up a few books geared towards my future Computer Science focus.

I feel like most things are going over my head in the first chapter of "Learning Java" but i'm also feeling fairly confident that things will start falling into place once the jargon i'm tripping over gets defined. Just this evening I ordered a copy of "Unix in a Nutshell", something i'm rather excited to read into so that my Macs and I can become better friends :3

To be continued...

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Music: Pretty Lights

I have to say that, so far, i'm very much enjoying Pretty Lights. It also helps that their cover art resembles an 80's Sci-Fi novel (much like my copy of Alien Death Fleet)

"glitchy hip-hop beats, buzzing synth lines, and vintage funk and soul samples."

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Nothing Really

Well hello there you much-ignored writing space, you. As is customary, I will apologize to the 0 readers I have and continue on as if nothing has happened, which in terms of this site is true.

I will, however, be posting content that may be of interest (probably not) to various internet adventurers  over the next few months and beyond.

That is really all I have to say. I dont want to get you 0 people all excited about content that may or may  not be coming. Ill just need to prove so by doing.

D.... Out

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