Had quite a flurry of last minute Burning Man pieces to send off when we got back too. Hopefully they all reached their destinations in time and their new owners are enjoying the magic of Black Rock City’s Metropolis by now.

Paul is finishing up a custom tres gothique bra and belt for our lovely Allegra to wear at next weekend’s DragonCon. They will complete the set started earlier this summer with the headdress and cuffs below:

This is Violet Arcane, modeling. Photo by Alan Welch of Reverie Realm. Chainmail bra by Chained Elegance. Here’s another with Allegra as model. Makeup by Svio. Photography by Luna.

Starting tomorrow – 8/31, 2 scant months before HALLOWEEN, I will start posting a daily series of helpful resources and tutorials to aid in your preparation. Haven’t tried doing a series before but I have a folder stuffed with goodies that I’ve been saving for this. Stay tuned!

First is a trunk show at the Temple of Visions in Los Angeles. As part of the monthly Downtown Art Walk we will have a table set up there with tophats, chokers and other freshly minted armor to try on. 7:30 to midnight 8/12, 719 South Spring Street, LA.

Second is the final Prepare for the Playa show in San Francisco on Sunday 8/15.  Noon to 7 pm at Cafe Cocomo, 650 Indiana Street, San Francisco. You’ll find everything you need for a great Burn in a room full of BurnerPreneurs.  We’ll be part of the fashion show and are looking for models (email Jennifer if you are interested).

I just updated the galleries at last. New pics in the Events 2010, Custom 2010, and a new album, Shop Items. This will be the place for cool shotslike the one below, from our talented friends. They feature items you can buy in our online shop.

Allegra T modeled for and edited this photo by Dagaz Photography. The bra and belt are available in our Shop.

Here’s a newly completed custom order – a Heimdall helmet from the new Marvel comic’s  film Thor, due out next spring. This baby is going to ComicCon and will be used to help promote the film. Big thanks to Kashif for making it happen.

neighbor Dale models Heimdall helmet

It was a pleasure  to work with model Winter Kelly and her photographer husband, Wolf, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. We discovered each other on Model Mayhem.

The pictures are gorgeous. She reminds me of a Norse Goddess with those blue eyes and perfect pale skin, hiking through the snowy landscape.  See the whole set in the galleries.

She’s wearing the Karnaya Headdress and a custom bustier set, with matching upper armbands, cuffs, and a thigh band (something new for us). I really love the palette of the images – those cool silvery blues, grays and whites.

Blogger, Josh Carpenter discovered a picture from this event online somewhere and contacted us for an interview. He just posted it here.

Here’s a picture from that night, and another from a recent set of armor made for a beautiful husky in San Francisco for Halloween.

This winter seems to be the season of the photoshoot. We joined ModelMayhem in December at the suggestion of local Asheville photrographer Eloise Farr . It’s a professional network with many excellent models and photographers. We’ve connected with some lovely people since then and are doing various rentals and trades over the next few months. By March we should have several sets of new fabulous pics to share. One of the benefits for clothing designers is that the model and photographer that use your work will post it on their pages too, so all of their friends and connections get to see it. It expands our reach 100 fold.

Paul is creating a wild bra and belt for Winter Wolf Studios in Cincinnati,  based on the fantasy artist Boris Vallejo’s paintings (see above).

Another local photographer, Nick , is using several OA pieces for a shoot this weekend. He came to our refrigerated studio last week to see it in person. Very nice guy.

Model Kelly Eden, based in Denver, has a great look that will compliment the armor beautifully. We’re still figuring out what we’ll collaborate on, maybe an underwater scene!

We’ve also got a steampunk thing in the works and probably at least one more something, before the busy summer season hits.

The characters players choose to personify come from manga, anime, comic books, graphic novels, video games, books, TV, movies and anything else you can think of; but it is predominantly related to Japanese fiction and video games. The people that cosplay are some of the most creative and enthusiastic I’ve come across.

We’ve made a few cosplay costumes for customers and would love to do more. The first one was a Midna helmet. Midna is an impish character from the Legend of Zelda video game (good thing we had Connor to clue us into that when we got the first order). We’ve made a couple of Midna helmets now. Here’s Lauren J.’s full costume.

Last winter we had fun working with Mary H. on a Princess Garnet costume. She is an excellent seamstress and creative lady. We made the circlet, pendant and brooches for this Final Fantasy character.

This summer we made a couple of variations on a World of Warcraft Undead Warlock. The second one was for an inspired customer, Cathy W. She had the vision and sewed the costume. We made the bra, belt, headpiece and armbands. She wore it to BlizzCon, a con put on by the makers of World of Warcraft in Los Angeles. Here she is crossing the stage in one of the costume contests.

She said so many people wanted to take her picture, she could barely cross the street.

It’s a pleasure working with creative people like these. One of the best things about what we do!

Cosplay.com has loads of costume images to peruse. The photoshoots section is impressive – very skilled costumers and photographers sharing their work. I like the forums where players often help each other figure out how to make their costumes, and share sources for materials.

Check it out and if you join, friend us.