In case you missed it, I now have a bunch of BTB logo gear up in my shop! T-shirts, tank tops, and hats in tons of colors, sizes, and both unisex and women’s cuts!
If you’re a maker or cosplayer that also has swag, I’d love to swap with you! I like wearing shirts from other makers in photos and videos. Just leave a comment or email me or ping me on social media.
If you don’t have your own gear, I highly recommend checking out Printful. I found them through my friend Eric (at Coregeek Creations) and they are great! They make it easy to setup and while you don’t even have to have your own storefront, they integrate with a lot of existing storefronts, like StoreEnvy.
PAX West is only a couple of weeks away! I am still figuring out my exact cosplans for the weekend, but I did want to share some of the events I’ll be at that I know about so far!
First of all, Key Tech Labs is doing another Cosplay, Tech, & Beyond event that is ongoing all weekend! Not only will I be one of the Cosplay Heroes as part of the Instagram Scavenger Hunt, but there will also be all kinds of cool stuff going on around the convention center and at the Hello–a green screen for awesome cosplay photos, a cosplay repair station, live podcasts with local hosts, and workshops with some of the local Cosplay Heroes.
Secondly, GeekDad and GeekMom will be hosting our GeekDad and GeekMom: Raising Generation Geek 2.0 panel in the Sandworm Theater on Friday at 1:30pm. Come by and chat with us about gaming with your kids! We might just have a few prizes to give away as well!
I’ve also updated my appearances page with all of the events and panels I know of so far for my next three cons as well. Are you coming to PAX West, Rose City Comic Con, RenCon, or Geek Girl Con? Hope to see you there!
As you may have seen, my secret cosplay that I debuted at SDCC 2017 was none other than Sirius Black from Harry Potter!
I’ve been planning to do Sirius for several months but didn’t actually plan on being ready for SDCC. And then, two weeks ago, with my wife’s help and urging on sourcing some of the clothing, I decided to go for it!
For this first version of Sirius, none of the clothing is made. It’s either stuff I already had (the pants, shirt, pocket watch, and shoes) or stuff I bought (the vest and jacket). I figured that as long as it had the Sirius style and flavor, being an exact match for one of his movie costumes wasn’t critical for a first attempt (though I do plan on an updated version with more movie accurate clothing in the future).
Obviously, I had the hair and beard down already which only left two things to sell the look – a wand and tattoos.
Top row – Freehand Ink applied and developed. Bottom row – second coat a week later and developed.
For tattoos, I went with Freehand Ink from Inkbox. This stuff is amazing! It comes in a little bottle with a steel tip and the temporary tattoos last about a week or two (depending on how well you moisturize it and how much you wash it). I printed out a full-sized version of Sirius’ chest tattoo, taped it to my bathroom mirror and then freehanded it in the mirror. Once you let the Freehand Ink dry, you wash it off and there is no trace of your tattoo! It takes about a day for it to fully “develop.” I have to admit to being quite anxious while waiting to see how it came out, but thats also why I did a test a week ahead of time. I reapplied the tattoo the Tuesday before con to make sure it wasn’t too faded or coming off by the time I actually wore Sirius.
Sirius Wand made with Apoxie Sculpt.
As for the wand, I decided to do my second Apoxie Sculpt project (the first being the Sword Art Online laser sword I made recently). I used a length of armature wire, rolled it into some Apoxie Sculpt and then spent awhile molding it to the correct shape. I took a stab at carving the runes and details while it was still soft, but I kept deforming the overall wand shape so instead waited for it to fully cure and then carved them out using several files and carving tools. Once I had everything carved out, I did a wash of black to get down into all of the runes, followed by several dry brush coats of multiple shades of brown to give it a wood texture look. Not bad for a wand I made in 24 hours!
Sirius was a huge hit at SDCC, almost even bringing one girl to tears. Apparently not many people do Sirius cosplay and seeing one is fairly rare (though I did find two others). I even found a large Potter group based in SoCal that was in need of a Sirius. Too bad I don’t live closer! I’ll close out this post with a gallery of myself as Sirius with folks at con!
Here is my currently planned line-up for next week! As always, things happen and plans change, but for now this is it! Casual Voltron, Keith, my secret cosplay, Pirate Kanan, and Ashitaka!
I just revealed my secret cosplay to my Patreon backers earlier today. Want to find out early and get lots of behind the scene, work in progress, secret photos plus a ton more, head over to my Patreon!
Today I’m kicking off a brand new Billythebrick giveaway! Why? To celebrate! What am I celebrating? A whole bunch of things!
First up, I’m celebrating the launch of my awesome new BTB logo and BTB gear courtesy of the very talented Zillabean (seriously not only does she do awesome logo and branding work, but she’s also a kick butt Voltron artist! Check her out on Instagram, Twitter, or DeviantArt.)
July is also host to two special events–SDCC and my birthday! That’s right, I’m giving you something to celebrate MY birthday and to also celebrate the biggest convention I’m going to attend. (If you are going to SDCC, let me know. I love taking meeting people and taking photos at cons!)
Lastly, I’m both celebrating and trying to hit some really cool milestones. Fans, patrons, and customers are vitality important to me and being able to continue making cool things. I recently passed 500 followers on Facebook, and am almost to 800 on Instagram and 900 on Twitter!
So what am I giving away? Well this time, there isn’t a single winner, but three winners! The two runner-up winners will get their choice of a shirt or hat from my new BTB Gear! And the grand prize winner will get a hat and shirt of their choice along with their choice of either a Guardians of the Galaxy badge SET (both the Guardians and Ravager badges) OR a limited edition all-black Voltron bayard!
So what are you waiting for? The giveaway winner will be chosen on July 31st! Good luck!
Several months ago, a customer asked if I could make Ezra’s slingshot. I immediately jumped at the chance to add to my Star Wars: Rebels collection of goodies. (In case you’ve not heard me say it before, Rebels is my favorite Star Wars. See Kanan posts).
Last weekend I was at SFGE, and while I was there to be the Tabletop Gaming Coordinator, I’ve also made it my mission to bump up the cosplay and prop making presence. In addition to having four awesome cosplay guests, we also had a costume contest, and I got to be a judge for the first time! Immediately following the convention, I got hooked up with RenCon to be one of the pre-judging judges (channeling Eric Jones from Coregeek Creations who was a pre-judge last year when I was in the contest).
RenCon, as well as the rest of my con schedule for 2017, is now up on my site on it’s own page, so check it out if you want to know where to find me. I’ll be adding panels, photoshoots, appearances, etc. for each panel as we get closer, but if you want me to be on a panel, moderate a panel, or meetup for a photoshoot, let me know!
After seeing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and seeing this cool design for a promotional pin, I decided I needed to make both it and Yondu’s Ravager badge in real life.
I popped open Fusion 360 and modeled out the badges (including spending a good chunk of time searching for the perfect font). The 3D models can be purchased in my shop to print your own!
And here is the mold box and master for the Ravager Badge as well as the finished mold. I used Mold Star 16 FAST for the silicone molds. The mold box itself is just cut up foam core.
The finished products are made of Smooth Cast 325 resin, mixed with a tiny drop of black SO-Strong tint and brass Powder. The process is very similar to how I made my Voltron Challenge Coins (video below). Final cold cast versions are now also up in my shop! They come both with and without a pinback depending on how you intend on using them.
For more details, more videos, and more tutorials, you can keep an eye out here or even support me on Patreon. My patrons get early access to my videos and tutorials along with behind the scenes work-in-progress photos, polls to vote on what I’ll do next and, at some levels, special handmade goodies. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel to get notified whenever a new video goes up!
After seeing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and seeing this cool design for a promotional pin, I decided I needed to make this into a badge!
I popped open Fusion 360 and modeled out the badge (including spending a good chunk of time searching for the perfect font). The 3D model can be purchased in my shop to print your own!
I did my initial test print on my Dremel Idea Builder using Matterhackers PRO PLA. A 3D Kit can be purchased from my shop that’s just like this one. But I didn’t want to stop there, I also wanted a nicer, metallic version.
As a test, I threw a little Rub n Buff on the test print and thought it look great.
Because I wanted to make a mold, and I wanted to try to conserve time and effort, I paid for a 3D Resin print through 3D Hubs to save myself some sanding and filling time.
Into the mold box it goes! I used Mold Star 16 FAST for the silicone mold. The mold box itself is just cut up foam core.
So a friend of mine messaged me while I was at work yesterday and asked, “What do you think about me doing a pirate Hera, cosplay?”
My mind immediately started thinking of pirate Kanan because of course it did. As soon as I got home, I quickly made up Kanan eye patch version 1.0, did a quick make-up test, and voila!
Now we’re talking about doing a Star Wars: Rebels pirate group at Emerald City Comicon next year. Want to join us?
My son also wanted an eye patch so I had to make one for him too.
In case you missed it, I now have a bunch of BTB logo gear up in my shop! T-shirts, tank tops, and hats in tons of colors, sizes, and both unisex and women’s cuts!
Today I’m kicking off a brand new Billythebrick giveaway! Why? To celebrate! What am I celebrating? A whole bunch of things!
So what am I giving away? Well this time, there isn’t a single winner, but three winners! The two runner-up winners will get their choice of a shirt or hat from my 
After seeing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and seeing this cool design for a promotional pin, I decided I needed to make both it and Yondu’s Ravager badge in real life.
My mind immediately started thinking of pirate Kanan because of course it did. As soon as I got home, I quickly made up Kanan eye patch version 1.0, did a quick make-up test, and voila!
Now we’re talking about doing a Star Wars: Rebels pirate group at Emerald City Comicon next year. Want to join us?
My son also wanted an eye patch so I had to make one for him too.