Made By Kali » Photos

Metroid Wii Mod

Kali — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:57:27 +0000

From the same guy that brought you the Zelda Wii Mod, here’s the Metroid one.

The proceeds from the sale go to Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity. [ebay auction]

How to Make a Cell Phone Charm (or zipper pull)

Kali — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:34:03 +0000

I don’t quite understand the appeal of dangling things hanging from your cellphone, but who am I to argue with trends? This tutorial will explain, as simply as possible, how to make your own cellphone charm.

First, your supplies:

My three favorite tools, Round Nose Pliers, Chain Nose Pliers and Cutting Pliers. If you don’t have these, you can make do with a small pair of chain or needle nose pliers, a skewer and a really sharp pair of scissors. (Don’t borrow your mom’s/friend’s fabric scissors for this unless you wish for them to disown you.)

Head pins and Cell Phone Lariats. You will only need one of each, but you will not be able to purchase just one. I recommend buying both in bulk as it will save you tons of money and you can always repackage them in smaller lots for friends who want to make their own charms. Ebay is a good bet for a deal, but I’ve actually found smaller packages in my local Wal-Mart.

Crimp or decorative beads and your big bead for the charm. Here, I am using lampwork beads, because I find them to be unique and much more interesting that something that says “Juicy” or some such pop culture nonsense.

Onwards to putting this simple little charm together.

Start your charm by settling a small crimp or decorative bead on your head pin so the larger beads don’t go sliding off. This is an important step as nothing is more frustrating than hearing the clatter of your beads coming off of your project and then having to search the floor for them.

Continue placing your beads. I’ve chosen the froggy here because he’s cute, darn it. I like my charms to be symetrical, so I’ve ended with the same pattern of smaller, decorative beads that I started with. I recommend keeping your charm shorter than 3/4″ as well, because you will have to form the wire loop to hang it on your lariat, and you don’t want a charm that is larger than the cell phone it is attached to.

Take your cutting pliers (or scissors) and clip off the excess pin. You will want to leave around 1/2″ (more if you are unsure of your wire shaping skill) . It’s much easier to trim later if you have too much than it is to redo the entire charm on a new pin because you left too little.

Form the remaining pin into a 1/4″ loop on your round nose pliers. This may take a bit of practice, especially if you are are using a skewer and chain nose pliers rather than the round pliers. When you have formed the loop, apply a little force in the opposite direction to make the loop form a straight line with the head of the pin.

Getting the charm on the lariat is the same as threading anything onto a keyring. You will probably need the chain nose pliers to give you a hand unless you want to completely destroy your fingernails in the process.

The beading process for making a zipper pull is the same, you will just attach the charm to the lariat slightly differently. Start by stringing the loop of the charm onto the thread of the lariat.

Then slip the metal of the metal part of the lariat through the loop at the end.

Then simple pull the light taut. Attach the ring to your zipper and you’ve got a zipper pull.

Otakon 2007 Con Report and Pictures

Kali — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:47:34 +0000

This post will be seriously image heavy. You have been warned.

As always Maura and I were amazed that people line up for their badges early in the afternoon on Thursday. I took the 6pm MARC out of Union Station here in DC and Maura nabbed me at the BWI station on the way back from work. We waltzed in around 8, got our badges in 15 minutes and ran out again in order for me to finish my costume.

From past experience we learned that it’s not necessary to show up at the ass crack of dawn on Friday to set up our Artist Alley table. Maura and I managed to stagger in around 11:30 and Gerry got there at 1. They don’t let the monkeys in until 2, so we were happy not to have sat there for the full 5 hours Otakon recommends.

Business, as usually, was good so we were stuck at the table until 4:45, when Gerry came so I could wiggle into Frost to head for the Mortal Kombat shoot. We had a sweet turnout.

We hung around for a bit with the ninja trio before wandering back to the convention to save Gerry. By the time Maura and I escaped from the con, it was pretty late, but I demanded IHOP since I hadn’t actually eaten all day. We ended up driving all over hell’s half-acre looking for the damn thing, and it turned out it was in a ghetto-tastic part of Baltimore, so we kept driving to the next one. On the way back, a cop decided to give us a heart attack by pulling us over for a broken tail-light.

We had to be at the Phoenix Wright shoot at 10:30. It was a hell of a lot of fun, but we had to wander back to the table fairly quickly, but not before kidnapping a little time for a private photoshoot.

After I frantically sewed Princess Sailor Moon back together. We did pick up Mike, Curtis, and Kiera for dinner.

And afterwards Maura and I ran off to our table, but decided we were tired of sitting there. Instead we kidnapped a Minuki and a Phoenix and stood around looking pretty for more pictures.

It was also one of the few times I got to take pictures of other cosplayers.

Sunday, I had to be at the con at 8:30 for our panel, which Otakon forgot to @#$%ing put in the @#$%ing schedule. My laptop hard drive decided to fail right then and there, so unfortunately we couldn’t show our clips for PGSM. What a pain.

I think the panel went well enough anyway, but that’s just my opinion. We didn’t really stay on Sunday because we were kinda tired and cranky, but we did find time to make it to the Dealer’s Room (finally) and I picked myself up a signed copy of “The Art of ReBoot” because it is awesome and Mainframe announced that they are interested in producing more movies!

More of Edgeworth and Maya

Kali — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:42:26 +0000

GANT IS COMING!

And the companion shot.

Maya horrified … I guess Edgey got caught by Gant.

He’s finally lost it.

Put ‘em up!

I has a pole.

Long night out, I guess.

Edgey is ashamed.

Yea, this one is just kinda boring.

Anime Mid-Atlantic 2007

Kali — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 22:46:45 +0000

We just got back from Anime Mid-Atlantic. I’ll probably get some sort of con report up later, but here are some pictures of Maura and my costumes, and a small sampling of the entire gallery at Beware of Ninja.

Kali — Sun, 06 May 2007 00:32:18 +0000

Maura talked me into going on a scavenger hunt that her job was running in the National Mall this morning.

The Smithsonian Metro station is in a weird spot from where we live here at Pentagon City. Even though the Smithsonian is on the Blue Line like Pentagon City, the Blue Line does a ridiculous loop before it gets there. It’s much easier to hop on the Yellow Line heading for Chinatown and then switch to the Blue Line going back towards Pentagon City. Unfortunately the switch at L’Enfant has… unique signs, and I ended up accidentally exiting the station trying to find my way out.

Anyway, the Scavenger Hunt involved us running from monument to monument trying to find out bizarre facts about them. We had three hours to hit every monument from the Capitol Building to the Jefferson, and if you’ve ever been to the National Mall, that’s a hell of a lot of territory to cover. My legs hurt so badly it’s not even funny.

Oh Crap, Ninjas!

Phoenix Wright Parasol

Kali — Fri, 04 May 2007 19:28:21 +0000

Some of you may know that the main source of my income aside from my Efiction skins is my custom parasols.

With Anime Mid-Atlantic and my Edgeworth costume looming, it was only a matter of time until this happened.

Hey look, buttons!

Kali — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:40:20 +0000

And yet another set of buttons, this time from scanned kimono fabric patterns.

Still $1.50 a button.

MOAR BUTTONS!

Kali — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:50:25 +0000

Buttons #5-6
1 1/4″
Price $1.50 per button, incl. shipping

Buttons

Kali — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:24:18 +0000

I’m starting to get my buttons ready for Anime Mid-Atlantic. Here are the first four designs.

The picture doesn’t do the attorney badge justice. If you are not a convention go-er and want one of these buttons for some reason, it’s $1.50 incl. shipping.