Hooray for Etho!

The commission, that is.

So, that list from last week?  Boo-yah!  Cross the first one off, baby!

(It's going to be a long, working weekend here for me...)

But not to delay; it's time to put his listing up on Etsy for his patient (I hope!) buyer.  She's already purchased and received her own VintageBeef and PauseUnpause, so she's sorta committed at this point.  ^_^

Here's a quick photo I took of Etho playing the Wii:

There's rumors the game might be Just Dance...

...but he's not telling.

Onward we go!  I still have some time to get work in on those beanies and beards!

Dungeons & Dragons - Crocheted!

So I faced a trying decision this year of what to do for the Panda (my husband) for his birthday.  My plans to buy him a new board game fell through when I found out we didn't have enough money for a trip to Boardwalk.

No seriously, that's the name of the game store.

...okay then.

So I checked my Paypal balance from the sales of my Minecraft crochet pattern, and I had just enough to afford the only decent dice patterns I could find, courtesy of Planet June.

Now, when I buy crochet patterns, I look for basically two things:

1.  Simple readability -- i.e. is this written in terms I can understand??

2.  Finished product sell-ability

Because really, if I'm paying you more than $2 for your original pattern, I'd better have permission to sell what I make.  

There was one other D20 pattern (but it was only the D20, not an entire dice set like Planet June offered in her original pattern plus the expansion) that I thought looked better than this one, but I couldn't sell what I made.  

And for somebody like me, who wants to provide a wonderful union of crochet and nerdiness, that was just inexcusable.

All that to say, however, that I grabbed the Panda's favorite yarn colors (previously from making PauseUnpause plushies) and made 20 teeny triangles, which I then crocheted together.  A few dashes of fabric paint, and I hung it up to dry!

The Panda was evicted from his man cave for 4 hours while the die dried (his office had the only ideal drying spot that would be out of the way).  

That evening, he was able to use his new, plushie D20 to aid in the recovery of four magic amulets, in order to free the Shardmind in our party who is currently being used as a battery to power an underground city.  (Long story.)

Everybody knows you shouldn't place your die with the 20 up.

Ah, mementos of our ongoing campaign (we have been playing since February 2014 and currently have two members participating via Google Hangouts).  That's my character sheet in the upper left corner, and those are two different maps I've created for the campaign.

(I will make the first person to identify the original source of the maps a plushie of their choice for free.)  ^_^

Have a great Tuesday!

Cross another one off the list!

I am so excited--tonight I was able to photo, pack and list on Etsy the trio of Team Canada plushies I've been working on since April!

A huge, HUGE thank you to Zdenka K. from Manchester, U.K. who placed the order and has been supremely patient with me!

Here's one of the photos I snapped before bagging up the boys:

Yes, the sign says U.K. or Bust!

(Yes, I did have to look up the flag before scribbling it down.)

And now, for those of you keeping score at home, we have:

- Etho

- Beards & Beanies Kickstarter

- Nebris

- Enderman

- Custom Wig

...still on the crochet docket for the month.  (Yes, I know what day it is.  Don't make me cry thinking about it.)

In a few days, I'll share the photo of the gift I made for the dear Panda's birthday (very last minute, but also very low-budget, so I couldn't argue with that!).

Cheers!

Random Generator of the Day: What's Your Superhero Name?

I share this for no other reason than the fact that it amused me to assume that if I were a superhero, I would at least have some kind of arctic animal form that I could change into at will.

You know, an arctic fox or hare, for example.

So the bad guys/villains/scumbags are duking it out with one of the single superheroes in my (hypothetical) alliance, and the first ally on the scene is a white bunny.

The villain smirks.  "You called Thumper as your backup?"

And then blue-white arcs of lightning begin to dance around 'Thumper,' who performs a Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog jump and goes right for the enemy's jugular.

Yeah.  'Snowfall' the weather-controlling bunny trained by Wolverine?  Of course there's a Monty Python reference in there.

Anyway, the generator is from Zimbio!  Enjoi!

GennyB, Hermit of Rabbits

That was the title I gave my DeviantArt photoshoot result:

Original idea credited to TerasHD on Reddit.

Apparently in one of his videos, GenerikB built a rabbit sanctuary/shrine on the new MindCrack server.  And then proceeded to call himself the 'Mother of Rabbits' much in the style and fashion of Game of Thrones.

Little did Generik know that there is one animal I have been collecting in stuffed format since I was a wee young thing...

What you see pictured here is approximately one-third of my entire rabbit collection.

Of course, once I had my photo modified to hide the Wii remotes in one corner, and already posted to DeviantArt, I sent that extra step and put it up on the MindCrack subreddit.

And, of course, I made a Tweet:

@generikb The Mother of Rabbits should be careful what he brings upon himself! (You, sir, have been plushie-fied.) pic.twitter.com/4jq0PT12Ri
— Katie (@Velvet_Key) July 28, 2014

Now, it was late, and I knew that most of the sensible people in Europe would already be asleep.

So I spent some time with my girlies April, Deevius, and DSCA on Wynncraft (I swear that I'm going to murderize Yahya the mushroom hippie) and then went to bed.

And I woke up this morning with a couple of alerts:

And then this:

@Velvet_Key that...is A-may-may :D
— Generikb (@generikb) July 29, 2014

Whaaaaaat?

FANGIRL FIESTA!

Of course I replied with something about them being cuddly and thank you very much for the compliment.

I also got a great comment from Axl_Rosie (she was the first!) and one of her followers that I also replied to.  "Puddles of cute" was definitely in the conversation.  ^_^

Ah, well.  Enough basking in the limelight (can I lobby to have it changed to a fruit I enjoy?)...I have Ethos to do!

A Happy Hermit!

Well, as you've probably guessed, I've been swamped with projects.  I still have an Etho, a Nebris, an enderman, and a wig to crochet for this month.

(Here's a hint: it's not going to happen.)

At least the Etho has half of his panels made and sewn together.

And Nebris has enough panels for a leg...sort of...

Anyway!  That's not why I brought you here!

Today we're celebrating what I have finished!

And that's this fun little fellow:

GenerikB is the sixth plushie in the Mindcrack Plushie Series.

He's a birthday gift to April (yes, the one who started it all this time last year).

I have yet to actually do his photo shoot (I was trying to find a way to demonstrate 'flim-flam' in a photo) but thanks to a Reddit post from TerasHD, I have another idea that my stuffed animal collection is uniquely suited to fulfill.

(Yes, I have a stuffed animal collection.  Don't judge me.)

Once I get that photo done, we'll see if I can snag the attention of the real Genny B on Twitter!  :D

Stay tuned!

May Commissions Finished! ...in July.

So I finally (FINALLY!) finished the hand-stitched headdresses for the two PauseUnpause plushies that were supposed to be finished by the end of June.  (I'm thinking I should charge an extra $15 for pieces that have additional headgear!)

I had 2 Ethos I was supposed to make in June...I got some quality work done on one of them, but I discovered that two of the colors I used are unobtainable in brick-and-mortar stores near me, and I don't want to have to order them over the Interwebz when I have no need to order them in bulk.  Plus, one of the colors has been discontinued, so...I'm going to have to find something else.

That being said...

I'll have to rework the Etho pattern color palette.

So I'll be selling the first Etho I made and his copycat that is currently in production as the June commissions.

(Haha, copycat!  Because Etho uses Kakashi's skin from Naruto, who's known as the copycat ninja...)

Never mind.

(It was funny to me.)

But anyway!  I already sold and shipped one of the Pauses over the holiday weekend (Yay 4th of July!), but not before messing around with the Panda's old N64:

@PauseUnpauses Hmm...I wonder what they're playing? What is a Pause's favorite N64 game? pic.twitter.com/p4BsLvcUDC
— Katie (@Velvet_Key) July 5, 2014

The little one in the middle is my personal PauseUnpause, without a hand-stitched headdress.  (He looks so tiny and wee!)

No reply, favorite, or retweet from the real PauseUnpause, but some day I am determined to break his silence!

(Not to mention I had a dream last night of meeting his fiancee, Andrea, and she had heard of me...it was pretty trippy.)

I think the time has come to put that picture up in my DeviantArt profile and then cross-post it to Reddit.  The world must know!  (Okay, well, a small corner of the internet, anyway.)

Later gater!