Tuesday, October 31, 2023

[DIY] How I Made Demon Slayer Emnu's Hand Prosthetic with Latex

 

 

Happy Halloween! I'm not a professional SFX makeup artist, but I could not find any tutorials on how to make Enmu's hand mouth- there are several makeup/paint tutorials or prop tutorials, but nothing with a prosthetic you can wear. So I followed these tutorials on how to make scars with liquid latex and just made it look more like Enmu's hand. You can make your's color accurate to Enmu with white or gray body paint/makeup/alcohol activated paint, but my version is aiming to look like my natural skin color, so I'm using foundation instead. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baXjKHL_Odw 
 
Materials needed:

-Liquid latex (patch test first to make sure you are not allergic! If you are allergic, there are other options)
-Toilet paper or cotton balls
-Adhesives of your choice
-Pressed/loose powder
-Your foundation color
-Paints/makeup of your choice 
-Plastic nails (or clay, basically something for teeth)
-Disposable sponges
-A smooth plastic surface
-Some paper & pencil

Steps:

1. First I traced my hand, put that sketch underneath the plastic surface.

2. Lay down a couple thin layers of liquid latex over the area of my sketch. 

3. Split the dual ply toilet paper and roll it up, place them in a mouth formation. 

4. Lay down more toilet paper over the edges to blend.

5. Apply another thin layer of liquid latex and mold this into the shape of protruding lips. Add more tissue paper, liquid latex, and blend and mold as needed to your desired shape. 

6. Wait until it fully dries.

7. Use some kind of powder all over the prosthetic, then carefully peel it up from the edges, powdering as you go. 

8. Trim the prosthetic to fit your hand. Cover the prosthetic with a foundation that matches your skin.

9. Paint the inside of the mouth black because you won't be able to access it once the teeth are there.

10. Teeth: Many tutorials would recommend some kind of clay. Unfortunately I didn't have any but I do have a lot of fake nails, so I cut them up and painted them white. 

11. Carefully glue the teeth to the inside of your mouth.

12. If you are going to make Enmu's canon skin color, then at this point, you'd paint it. I would recommend alcohol activated paints, body paint, or water-based paint. Also, if you plan on wearing this at a con, photoshoot, or extended period of time, I would recommend another layer of powder just to set everything, especially if you use cream-based products like foundation, body paint, or grease paint.

13. Time to stick it to your skin. Prosaide is the most commonly recommended adhesive. Spirit gum is also recommended for stronger wear. If you're desperate in a pinch and not worried about longevity (so less than 10-30minutes), Elmer's glue may also be passable. 

14. Blend it into your skin, with more liquid latex and toiler paper or cotton balls. I skipped this step because I was only doing it for a very quick hand photoshoot. 

15. If you painted the prosthetic another color than your natural skin, paint your hand to match whatever you painted the prosthetic. So this would cover up any blending. 

16. I also wrote the "dream" kanji with eyeliner, but you can use any kind of paint or liner for that as well. 

And your Enmu hand-mouth prosthetic is done! I think it's a beginner friendly prosthetic to make and I've had people complement this one. I hope you have fun cosplaying Enmu because he's a very fabulous and fun character. Good bye!



Thursday, June 1, 2023

Resa's New and Underrated Interesting BL Manga Recommendations


 Happy Pride month! While BL is very far from being good queer manga/anime, I thought this was as good a time to share this post. Some of you might know that I was part of YaoiCon staff and formerly a BL fan before dipping out. In the past 2 years, though, I started getting back into BL and I've found the landscape to have changed a LOT, from only being able to read from scanlated sites, to having hundreds more English licensed and legal ways to consume BL media. 

So although some of these were published before 2020, here are some recent favorites that are new to me personally. I'm also recommending what I consider underrated series because despite them being a few years old, I haven't seen any major articles/yabai lists/podcasts/etc recommending them.

WARNING: Please only proceed if you are a mature adult over 18+ years old who can distinguish fiction from reality.

Saturday, December 24, 2022

Resa's Top 10 Audio Drama Podcasts in 2022

Happy holidays everyone! It is the end of the 2022 and lots of people are making their wrap up posts. Although my current favorites are still shows that are on hiatus from before 2020, there were a LOT of new and ongoing shows in 2022. So here is my new annual personal list of favorites that I thought excelled or improved in 2022.

New or ongoing shows in 2022:

  • Trice Forgotten is my favorite new 2022 show. It's queer mostly Southeast Asian "pirates" dealing with historically researched shenanigans. It's got bilingual characters, intriguing plot stuff, a great sense of humor and very convincing world building. The music is epic, the sound design is so cool & very oceanic, and the voice actors kill it. As a major bonus, each episode is also followed up by a research episode explaining the historical research with actual historians and professionals. NO SHOW, TV or audio drama, is doing this today! Please check it out.
  • Desperado- They returned for a new season in 2022 and have really stepped up the quality!
  • Gay Pride & Prejudice- One of the better modern adaptations of Pride & Prejudice, and not just because it's gay.
  • Hi Nay- Currently, this is still the only horror audio drama featuring bilingual Asian main characters and this year they've also used their platform to raise important issues currently going on in the Philipines. One thing I'm finding very cool about the audio drama-sphere is that most western entertainment usually use Chinese/East Asian characters first for "Asian representation", but I'm finding that South Asians are appearing first in the bulk of indie audio dramas!
  • Human Error- We finally have a full-cast gay zombie show! Not as gory as I would like, but it's quality and throws you in for a loop with its take on the zombie storyline.
  • Malevolent- Every piece of praise you've seen for this one-person show is very much warranted.
  • Mission Rejected - This show has seriously stepped up in quality compared to it's origins and the episodes released this year have been their best work.
  • Quiet Part Loud - Jordan Peele managed to create a story that prioritizes audio storytelling and it does it very well. Admittedly, it's on the same level of other well-produced indie shows so you can't really tell the difference in budget, but if you are a loyal indie fan that is hesitant/worried,  I can vouch that this one is worth checking out.
  • Skillset Pod- Aster Podcasting Network's Under the Electric Stars is still great, but I'd like to highlight Skillset Pod too because it's got those creative sound monsters that you only get in weird audio horror, but with queer mostly Southeast Asians. APN is really filling the much-needed void of Asian creators telling Asian/Asian American stories.
  • WOE.BEGONE- Another one-man show that was amazing, but now he's got guest actors this season and the fandom has really grown to appreciate it! I'm so proud of how far this show has come.

Honorable mentions for 2022:

  • Hubris Podcast- I left this off the top 10 because I participated in 2 rounds of this show and plan to be in more and while it's a stressful experience, it's a rewarding experience. The episodes that come out are also really good considering time limit! 
  • Someone Dies in this Elevator- I also wrote a story for it and am a little biased, but it's an anthology worth checking out and also supports a TON of creatives. The new season being released right now have some PHENOMENAL writing. 
  • The Sheridan Tapes- This show had the BEST original music out of ANY podcast this year, absolutely HANDS DOWN. The music absolutely killed it. The sound design and voice acting is great as usual. However, I found the story a little lacking this season perhaps because I wasn't super convinced about the end-of-the-world plot.
     

5 rediscovered old shows in 2022 that you should definitely check out:

- Vacant Arcadia- a cyberpunk musical with actually cool themes, PHENOMENAL vocals, and also VERY gay.
- Shoebox podcast- part of the Shoebox fanfic universe that is a Marauder's prequel.
- Splintered Caravan- this is fast-paced heist after heist after heist and the production quality is amazing.
- 3D Escape Room Frequency- an "interactive" puzzle solving audio drama that slowly reveals the true story, this is the most UNIQUE concept I've heard any show do, and I definitely suggest giving it a try.
- Blood Crow Stories- They're finally on spotify! I've been listening to them on Soundcloud for the past couple years.

Sunday, December 4, 2022

My Audio Drama Tattoo

UPDATE: What my final upper arm sleeve looks like:

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, then you might know that this year I started getting a tattoo sleeve that features audio drama references/imagery. Well here is my story behind the upper arm half of the sleeve (aka what we've finished so far).



I've been a fan of audio dramas for about 2-3 years now and I felt so attached and connected to the stories, more than any fandom I've been prior to them, that I was like... I want a tattoo dedicated to audio dramas. (Yes, more than Kpop. I have an anime-themed leg sleeve that has been 5+ years in the waiting- I just need to find an artist for it). Then in 2020, I listened to The College Tapes, ep 19, and heard Adam Hayes say "You painted a fuckin' kaleidoscope in my heart" and I fell in love with that quote specifically. So much that, even if the rest of the episode (or the character) didn't mean all that much to me, that quote I wanted on my body so badly. The line sounds so cool, so badass, so meaningful (even without the context of the episode or the characters), and very fuckin' gay. 

I began going through my favorite audio dramas or shows with cool imagery and research which ones I could build a tattoo around that quote. I also began to research into the local tattoo artists near me. Whenever planning on getting a tattoo, do your research and take your time- this will be a very expensive piece of art permanently on your body. This was my second time getting a tattoo and I highly recommend this channel on preparing for a tattoo [link]. 

Anyways, fast forward to 2022. Technically what happened first was that the tattoo artist I wanted for my anime-themed leg tattoo had a rare flash party and one of the pieces included a cassette tape. And we all know how many creepy tape-themed shows there are in audio dramas, so I had to get that ASAP and hopefully connect with her for my eventual leg tattoo. Still on the waiting list for her though, but at least I got started on my audio drama tattoo! I ended up finding another artist that had the style I wanted and was available and he's been the one I've been going to since. 

How I picked the shows & which elements to incorporate? When it comes to "fandom" tattoos, I don't like making them "obvious"- I prefer to have them subtly blended in together as if it was a normal piece of art unless you look closely and realize "Heeey I recognize that show!"  So I looked at covers, official art, behind the scene art, and even merch for design ideas (and also asked the shows for permission where I could! And the ones that replied were positive!) I also quickly realized that because audio dramas usually don't have visuals, not all my favorite shows that I wanted tattooed could be tattooed. For example, Blood Crow Stories was 1 of the first shows I wanted tattooed, but at the time only their old art was available and I did not want their old art tattooed on me. 

How did my artist and I design the tattoo? I gave him several (bad) edits of different formations of the shows' artworks on photos of my arm. He gave suggestions including being realistic about sizing (after all, my arm is a round column that can only fit so many things), we cropped out shows, switched out show art that fit better. In the end, I wound up narrowed down to shows that I liked that had good art and, admittedly, a few shows that just had cool art, even if I wasn't super attached to it. I personally don't think it's totally necessary for every detail on a tattoo to have super deep meaning- at the end of the day, this'll be a piece of art I want to feel and look good for and about myself, no one else. When my artist transformed my rather ugly edit of the Starfall & Penumbra swords inside the Bright Sessions/College Tapes scroll, and blended it into the cassette tape, I was literally shook and in awe. When he figured out how to place the Valence lightning, the Mabel rabbit, and the Deep Vault art together, I was mindblown. So yeah, make sure to go to an artist that you trust and like. 

So, how did the tattoo sessions themselves go? The flash session with the cassette tape went by... in a flash, and I wish I could chat with her long enough to begin discussing my anime leg sleeve. One day! As for the rest of my arm- Ben Matthews was amazing. When it comes to tattoos, you're paying for an artist's experience, equipment, time, and make sure to go to a good one that vibes with you, especially when it gets painful. Having the right vibes can make or break the tattoo experience and I definitely recommend him. Now my neck tattoo surprisingly didn't feel like anything, the cassette tape tattoo was on a fatty/muscle-y enough spot that it wasn't too bad either, and I've never been scared of needles. So here I was thinking that I have a high pain tolerance. However, my shoulder joint and the inside of my elbow where the radial/ulna nerves meet, hurt like a major bitch! In fact, I ended up twitching involuntarily so bad. I ended up joking that the Valence lightning (the spot with all the nerves) actually felt like lightning going through my body.

You can see in the photos what the designs for my upper arm part of the sleeve looks like so far. To explain the specifics: 

Outer arm: the quote that started it all, got shortened down to "You painted a kaleidoscope in my heart" (no way I was going to include "fucking" on my arm) from The College Tapes, written on a blue-to-green-to-yellow gradient scroll (The Bright Sessions reference), that goes around a cassette tape with the word "Recording" on it. "Recording" references Archive81, The Sheridan Tapes, and How I Died, most specifically, but the concept of a recorder and a cassette tape are in a toooon of other audio dramas, including The Magnus Archives, The Black Tapes, Wolf359, Jar of Rebuke, Lake Clarity, and many many more. Inside the scroll, there is the swords from Starfall and The Penumbra Podcast's Second Citadel, and extended out from the of the bottom scroll is the necklace from Dreambound and part of the cover art from Omen Podcast. On my shoulder, is the swan from Strange Case of Starship Iris and the waves extend throughout the scroll and (in my next session) into my inner arm as well.

Inner arm: the front of my bicep is Jet from Under the Electric Stars, the back my tricep is the crow mask from Blood Crow Stories, and then from top to bottom- the Deep Vault logo, the Mabel rabbit, the Valence covert art lightning, and The Flame torch, with the Valence cover art cityscape below everything and going into my outer arm as well. 

What's next? Well definitely listen to your tattoo artist for instructions on the healing process and be wary of what life habit changes you'll need to make to accommodate the healing. As for me specifically, there's some final touches (including the SCOSI waves that will go onto my inner arm). It might be some time before starting on my lower arm (and potentially hand) because some of my favorite shows might get new art that I'll like enough to tattoo or I might discover a new show I really vibe with. But more importantly, I might make a show myself, and if I do, I absolutely will get a tattoo of my own show. I've already participated in a few anthologies and I know that if given the time and stability, yeah I think I would find some friends who'd be willing to help me make a show. 

I'm not going to tell you how much it cost me (a lot of money, time, and pain for sure). But I can tell you that after making sure I follow the aftercare healing process correctly, I can look in the mirror, flex my arms, and feel a very specific version of happy and cool and powerful. And I think that's a feeling only permanent body mods can do.

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Custom Nail Art

 Hello! I have an exciting announcement! In the past few years, I got into amateur nail art. Here's a portfolio/gallery of my existing designs (and my instagram):

 For the past year, I've been planning and researching press-on nails. Starting this weekend, March 26 during InvictusCon, I will be opening up commissions for custom press-on gel nails! 

I'm still new to this, but read more info here: https://www.resachiic.com/p/nail-art.html

If anyone has questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Also if you received and liked the nails, please feel free to share photos so that I can like and reblog/retweet/share them! 

Friday, May 21, 2021

LGBT+ Podcasts, part 1: Recommendations List

NOTE: This post was last updated in May 2021. Since then, a lot of audio dramas have updated or debuted!

Hello all! It's been a while. I'm a few years late compared to when it was trendy, but lately I've been listening to some more fiction & audio drama podcasts. They're an amazing form of media you can consume while multitasking- at work, running an errand, doing homework, tuning out your zoom call, and so on. 
I specifically mention LGBT+ podcasts, though, because although mainstream media is increasing in queer content, fiction podcasts seem to have the largest diversity and quantity in terms of good queer content. For the purposes of my blog, I'm interested in fictional narrative or serial audio dramas with established LGBTQIA+ main characters/couples.
This will be a two-part blog post and this first one is dedicated to an overall best-of ranking list of my personal favorites & some popular recommendations. See part two for reviews on my top 5 audio drama podcasts.

Monday, May 20, 2019

What to Pack for Cons & Travel

Hello everyone! I know it's been a while since you've heard from me, hasn't it?
Now that the summer convention season is coming up, I felt like sharing my useful list of things to pack when going to a convention of any type (or traveling in general). Based off of 10+ years of going to different cons, I feel like this is a system that works for me and may be useful for others as well. So here we go!

Most important:
- Wallet/ID/passport/money
- Tickets/other travel cards/documents
- Prescription medicines/items if you have any
- Jacket/coat with a hood
- Sturdy shoes
- Phone
- Bag/suitcase/luggage
- Toiletries*

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Top 10 Tips for Street Fundraising/Busking

There are some things you learn from first hand experience with street fundraising. Here are some tips that I found in the San Francisco Bay Area if you ever plan to do it yourself.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

REVIEW: GURU Energy Drink and Clover Organic Greek Yogurt - Social Nature

Social Nature is a review website for sampling various organic products. I have been doing a number of reviews for them and likely to do even more. Here are a few of the ones I have done thus far!

Clover Organic Greek Yogurt: 4/5 ★★★★☆
"I tried the peach, strawberry, & plain yogurts. They were light, creamy, smooth to the taste. The peach/strawberry had a tiny sourness, but it wasn't too intrusive in the strawberry one. I highly recommend putting some granola in the plain one because it gives an interesting crunch/texture. I definitely felt refreshed after eating them & definitely look forward to review more."

Guru Organic Energy Drink: 4/5 ★★★★☆
"I got the Lite version & kind of wish I got original instead. On the positive side: it certainly did not have the artificial sugary or metallic lingering taste like red bull or rock star or monster did. It also did keep me energized so thats a plus. However, this version had a light soda taste that was kind of fruity (which I am personally not fond of)."

This is a slight #spon, although I don't have any freebie codes, but feel free to sign up and join in yourself!

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Resa's Top 10 List of Odottemita Dances

Although I have a larger number of Kpop dances under my belt, my background with Internet dances actually stemmed from anime and Odottemita. Having recently gotten back into it, I wanted to share my (historically) favorite dances as well. Without further ado, here they are in alphabetical order: