Day 23-25

Day 23: Labyrinth of Jareth Goblin Clockwork/Steampunk Night

So after much work on Thursday, I completed my costume for Friday's masquerade. It didn't turn out as I expected, but it worked out well. I'm definetly going to attempt to create some more steampunk attire at some point. Donny and Joseph picked me up around 5 so we could go shoot the Clockwork Faerie before the event actually began. The shoot went well, although we never actually go to shoot with the large clock that they had constructed on the stage because they were busy rehearsing. He did take some shots in the garden where they had constructed a gear driven sculpture. It was really cool.

I helped with lighting and took some behind the scenes shots just in case they needed them for something. The shoot was over just as the doors opened for the event. I decided to not keep my camera with me because it was cumbersome and did not match my outfit at all (hehe). Here's a picture of Maxwell, Joseph and I that Donny took.

I got quite a few complements on my outfit which pleased me. The other costumes were crazy. Some were very steam punk, although not all of them were. They were all pretty amazing and made me really wish that I had a small point and shoot digital camera. Maybe next time.
The music was pretty good; nothing too amazing. However what was really awesome were the little skits that they had throughout the evening. There were stilt walkers who were “night puppeteers” who were controlling these “marionettes.” There were also these people dressed up as goblins and one character who was wearing a Napoleon-esque outfit. It was really neat, although I honestly did not quite understand the whole story; mostly because we didn't see all of the skits. But it was an awesome element that really made the event that much more exciting. In addition, they had several bands and some people who could do ribbon dancing like in Cirque du Soliel. It was so cool.

That night we didn't stay til the masquerade ended, since we had been there for 2-3 hours before it even began. But we went home tired and happy.

Day 24—Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade night

I got picked up much later for Day 2 of LOJ, which was nice because I was still very tired from the day before. We went over to Maxwell's place to see her new apartment and to help her get ready. She decided to wear the outfit I had designed for her photo shoot. While she was getting ready, we ordered Chinese food and I obsessed over Maxwell's cat who was an adorable tiger cat. We arrived to the masquerade around 10. This time I opted to keep my camera, partly because I really wanted to shoot some of the costumes, and partly because the camera wouldn't look that bad with my outfit. Here's another group photo, this time of Maxwell, Donny and I.

And here are some of the pictures I took. The first one is of this couple who were dressed in Alice in Wonderland-themed outfits. The woman's dress has these cards sewen down the side, it was awesome. There were some other alice-themed costumes, but I think these were the best.

Next, there was this couple who was dressed as Kermit and Miss Piggy as Jareth and Sarah; it was kind of creepy, but cool.

The last photo is of this guy who had one of the simplest costumes of the men in attendance. There were actually a lot of men who went just as far out with their outfits as the women; it was pretty awesome. However, this guy's costume just struck me for some reason. Very simple, yet iconic somehow.

I found lots of costumes that I liked, although I had to agree with Donny; a lot of them seemed to be fairly basic corset and big skirt deals. But it was fun anyway. I got to watch one of the performances from the balcony which was nice because I could better see everything that was happening. It was a little ballet about a marionette who was in love with a prince and wanted to be free of her puppeteer. It was quite beautiful.

I only lasted about an hour in those sandals that I bought before I couldn't handle them anymore. But I'm glad I bought them anyway; they'll make great shoes for some photo shoot some day and besides, Alicia said she would wear them.

We actually stayed the whole night on Saturday and were pleased by the ending band, West Indian Girl. Later in the evening, Joseph actually ended up talking to one of the guys from the band and he might do their album art at some point in the future. It was a good night and I definetly look forward to going back some day, hopefully with some friends and better costumes.

Day 25

Unfortunately for all of us, Sunday could not be a day off. Our goal was to organize the wardrobe department, which we began by ppicking up some new plastic containers On the same trip, they took me to Michaels so I could buy some paint and glass. I was excited because I also found a bigger pack of Crayola Slick Stix that had 5 more colors than the set I had before, including silver and gold. I'm very excited about them. Still not sure if I will do more drawings like last semester in my drawing class or if I'll do something in connection with my cliché verres, but it's good to have the options.

I spent a good hour if not more going through all their jewelry and bagging every piece individually. I went through at least 110 bags and there were many pieces that were already bagged. I liked the experience of getting to see all their jewelry (some of them were really nice and I was tempted to steal them, hehe), but it was also terribly monotonous and by the end I so wanted to do something else. Which I did in fact, get to do. Next we sorted through all the clothing pieces and made various piles. Then, Donny and I rolled up each piece, put them in the bins, and labeled them. I was truly glad that they decided to wait on making the lists of items with reference numbers of which drawer each piece was in because I really don't think I could have handled that.

I was amazed that we managed to get everything to fit in the small space that we had to work with. Likewise, I was shocked by how clean the area was. It was definetly worth the time we spent on it to have it look that nice. Whether it will stay that neat is debatable, but for now it looks awesome. I kind of wish we had taken before and after pictures so I could show you all how bad it really was. I guess you'll just have to trust me.

After we were finally done, we went out to eat with one of Joseph and Donny's friends who had just come back from visiting her boyfriend's family. It was a good dinner, but I was definetly glad to get home afterward. I was really tired from all the weekend's excitement. Thankfully, Joseph declared the next two days a work-free time period, so I have some time to recuperate. However, I also need to get working on my own images if I really want to show any at FaerieWorlds. And that is precisely what I'm going to start on now.

Day 19-Day 22

Day 19

On Monday I had probably the most normal work day that I will have on this internship. I got to help Donny work on their webstore. Unfortunately we had some issues, so we weren't able to work as long as we had hoped. However, I was able to help Donny make the banner, logo, and color swatch for the page. We settled on puce and brown for the colors...it sounds kind of terrible, but it's actually not that bad. She's been working on it over the week and it's getting there. I learned a lot that day about webhosting; Donny even offered to help me set up my own website this summer if time allows.

Day 20

Tuesday was the day of my shoot with Maxwell. I was a little nervous about, partly because I had never really worked with a model who I didn't know really well and also because i was rather concerned about how it play out with Joseph and Donny there. My methods of shooting are still kind of all over the place; I don't always have an idea of what I want when I start, and usually I just have my models do "whatever" and then I get ideas. I was concerned about trying to work that way since what i gathered from ModelFest was that most times the photographers are expected to give the model more of a mood/direction to go in. It worked out alright though, because I actually had sort of formulated a character to go with the blue, white and gold mask that I bought from the store in Hollywood. It's still not completely worked out for me, but it was definetly a good starting place. My idea was that there was this wealthy girl whose family lost everything/died/something happened so that she ended up living on the street and working for a magician.

We started off shooting by taking Maxwell to the Good Will to look for a dress. I was a little concerned that i wasn't going to find anything that would work with my idea, but eventually Donny found the perfect dress. it was black with a blue lace over-dress. It was form-fitting until about the knee, where it flared out and had a slit up the right leg. It was definetly a good dress for a Magician's Assitant. Unfortunately, the dress was a little two small for maxwell, but it was so perfect that I decided to add a corset lacing up the zipper side so that we could still use it.

Simulatneously, Donny, Joseph and Maxwell were also shopping for possible Labyrinth of Jareth costumes. I found out that apparently Friday night is "steampunk" themed. I had often heard that term tossed around but I never really understood what it meant. For fear of seeming uneducated, I just listened and observed their sorting through various outfits and planned to go home and research it more later. They definetly acquired some good pieces (for LOJ as well as TOTF) and I even found a cool shirt for myself.

After we got back, I fixed the dress so it actually fit Maxwell while she did her makeup and hair. In addition to fixing the dress, I added some bits of fabric together to make a tattered shawl for her to use as a prop. Once I added some jewelry pieces were finally ready to go shoot. We started outside just using the alley behind their condo building. There were some good locations, although I wish we had been shooting in the morning since some of the areas that I wanted to shoot were too shaded for my taste. I shot only one set in the shade which was with this awesome red couch that happened to be outside. My favorite location was probably the corner of this awesome spiked fence. It cast a great shadow and Maxwell did a great job playing off of it. (I'll only post one of these for now, since I want to manipulate them before revealing the rest)

After shooting outside, we quickly went inside to the set with candles. I wish we had had more time; I would have spent a lot more time with these. However, I know I got at least 3 really good shots, so I'm excited to work with them. I have to buy some paint so I can try doing the cliche verre thing but without the darkroom. I'm not sure how well that is going to work, but I definetly am excited to try it. But anyway, the set with the candles went really well. Maxwell was awesome. She did really well staying still and came up with some awesome poses that I'm really excited about. (Again, only the one shot for now. these ones in particular will be a lot better when I work on them).

Shooting with Maxwell was an awesome learning experience. I learned a lot about working with a model (even if she's not a professional one, per se). Also, after the photo shoot, Donny and Joseph gave me this whole lecture about model release forms. So now I know all about that. Also, as "homework" Donny gave me these two marketing books to look over. At this point in the day I was totally overloaded so the idea of looking at them made my head hurt, but I tried to absorb as much as I could from what she was saying.

I'm excited because I've learned a lot about my camera recently, too. For instance, I now know how to set the self-timer (I actually did a whole little shoot of self portraits one night because I was really bored), the white balance, and the ISO. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually opened up a lot of options for me.

After I got home and had relaxed for a while, I decided to do some research into steampunk fashion. Apparently it was something that I've always kind of liked, but I didn't realize how big/complicated it was. I've always really liked jewelry that utilized clocks, gears, keys, etc. This is just one tiny aspect of steampunk, which is inspired by fantasy/sci-fi that takes place in the Victorian era when everything is powered by steam. Thus the characters dress in Victorian style clothes but use weird inventions that didn't actually exist in that era. As someone online put it, it's almost as if the future happens in the past. Here are a couple pictures of some really fancy (and I'm sure really expensive) steampunk-esque pieces that I found. Unfortunately, I can't remember what website I found them on...

I spent a good 2 hours pouring over images from a google search and also a livejournal group called steamfashion. It really inspired me and made me sad that I didn't have time to make myself a more steampunk outfit for Friday night.

Day 21

Wednesday I spent a good 2-3 hours reading the thinner of the two books that Donny gave me about marketing. It gave a lot of great information for people looking into commercial photography which was not entirely relevant to my goals right now, but I was still able to pick up quite a lot of info from it. In particular, I was intrigued by the methods of sending postcard sized marketing cards to agencies. I can tell that the second book is probably going to have more of the niche that I think I'm heading for, but we'll see how that plays out.

We were supposed to go to Donna Ricci's home to begin styling her for the Clockwork Fairy shoot that we are doing before Labyrinth of Jareth. However, Donny and Joseph ended up deciding to do it on Thursday instead, since they were attempting to get the 2010 calendar finished. So I decided to use my day off to go shoe shopping. Unfortunately the only store within walking distance was TJMaxx, but i decided to try my luck at finding something there any way.

Their selection was a little slim, but I did find a few that I liked. One was just a simple black pump, another was a square-toed red shoe which I liked, although it was a bit middle-aged looking, and the last was a pair of buckling stiletto sandals in black. i sent pictures to Alicia and of course she voted with the stilettos. I liked them a lot, but was concerned about walking in them all night. however, they appeared to my best bet and since I didn't think I'd get a chance to go any where else to go shoe shopping, I decided to buy them. They were, of course, also the most expensive pairs of shoes at 49.99. What we do to look good....

I'm a little (ok a lot) concerned about walking in them all night long. Ho. wever, I hope that I'll at least be able to last a good chunk of the night. And worst come to worst, I'll just go barefoot. That's the only way to dance anyway.

While at TJMaxx, I also found an awesome belt which I'm going to wear with the Harlequin dress. Joseph and Donny have totally turned me into a belt person. Curse them! (Also there's a picture of the mask I bought for it)

Also, I found these great (and cheap) boxes with clocks in them. I wanted to purchase the clock so that I could turn it into something steampunk-esque to go with my gold and black lace costume for Friday. However, I expected them to be too expensive for me to purchase. Lucky for me, however, they were only 10 bucks. I picked out two, one for a necklace that I am still currently working on and another to turn into a purse.

Day 22

So today we went to Donna Ricci's house. I found out that she actually owns the site Clockwork Couture, which has some amazing pieces. Some of them aren't too expensive. Maybe when I get some extra money, I'll buy something from there. The styling went well; we settled on two outfits and then choose between the two. The one we picked is all black and white with red accents (it uses her new corset). I think they'll turn out pretty well, it'll be exciting to see the final product.

After we were done styling, we spent a good hour in traffic. I now understand everyone's rants about LA traffic and I think I could have gone without understanding them. When we finally got home, we ate and then Donny took me to the Good Will again so I could find a belt to use for the strap of my purse (see above picture). On the way we also dropped off some mail and Donny gave me some advice about mailing prints. Afterward, she brought me home since I had some work to do with my costume and I was tired.

My plan for the remainder of the day is to finish working on my costume. Other than that, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll watch Memento or work on the TOTF store some more. We'll see how long it takes me to finish up my costume.

Day 15-Day 18

Day 15

Thursday was yet another shooting day. I helped Donny work on Erin's street faerie costume (I made arm warmers out of a torn up shirt and just generally assisted). Donny had some issues with the styling of this shoot; nothing seemed to be working for her the way she expected and they were not feeling thie outfit as a whole. But after they added a few things and took away this piece of blue lace that wasn't working, they liked it better.

Along with Erin was her boyfriend who they styled as a classical male faerie (which they had never done before, so the shoot was kind of experimental). He had a great smirk which really made the shoot.

Unfortunately, I missed the end half of this shoot in which the guy was outfited as another skater boy faerie and Erin was turned into a modern. In between these two shoots, I was feeling sickly (my throat had hurt all day and i then began to have a headache and feel fever-y, so they took me home so I could feel better for Friday, which was the day we were planning to go to AnimeExpo.

So I went home to rest. I slept for a while, woke up, ate some dinner and watched some Charmed (I finished the 5th season in one week; I'm on a roll). Then I tried to go back to sleep, but even though I felt icky I couldn't get my brain to shut up enough to sleep. So I decided to give up. I spent the following two hours researching circuses, freakshows, and magicians online. I really want to find someone who can juggle...maybe someday.

Day 16--AnimeExpo!

So, thankfully, I actually felt much better Friday afternoon, despite the trouble I had sleeping. When Joseph texted me to see if I wanted to go to AnimeExpo, I wasn't entirely sure if I felt up to it, but I really wanted to go, so I dragged myself out of bed, took a shower, and got dressed. Since they had mentioned going in a costume of sorts, I decided to throw something fun together to wear. I ended picking out the red petticoat that I got at FaerieCon (with white shorts underneath), the white and black stripped tube top, and the red lace shirt that I got from the Salvation Army. It looked pretty cool, although it would have been better if I had brought my combat boots with me, but it worked any way.

The convention was in "downtown" LA, so as Joseph says I finally got to see the "city" part of Los Angeles--all 16 skyscrapers, hehe. (Well, there might be more now; Joseph counted 16 a while ago). It was nice to get to see some more typical urban parts of this flat, sprawling city. It was kind of sad because where we found parking was actually in an old abandoned building that used to have some store fronts in it. There was a gorgeous staircase and some nice floor tiles. It was weird.

As for the convention itself, I was immediately struck by the number of people that were there. Having only ever been to FaerieCon, I was a little dazed by the sheer number of people. These pictures are just from the lobby. Think this times 15 at least.

What was perhaps even more impressive was how many people were in costume. Some were relatively simple; others had full body pieces and masks. There were--at last count--18 pikachus, at least 10 Chis, countless Naruto characters, and thousands of characters I did not reckognize at all.


It made me truly sad that I have not kept up with my Anime/Manga as much as I used to. I miss Inuyasha and other Anime madness. I just never seem to have enough time for any of that any more. le sigh.

Joseph was mostly there to scope out the costumes for ideas, so we went around and took pictures of people in cosutme. I took a few, but not as many as I could have. One of the things I'm working on over this internship is becoming less shy. I didn't take some photos to begin with because I was nervous about asking people if I could take their picture even though I know it's silly. I do think I've made progress on this front, but I still have a ways to go.

Other than that, we went around the dealers room and artist alley. There were some cool things for sale, from goggles and funky wings of foam, to hats with ears and tails and kimonos. There were awesome lolita dresses that I could have poured over for hours.

There were some great artists as well. This section of the convention really made me want to draw people again. If I don't end up doing some cliche verre thing in Mixed Media and Drawing next semester maybe I'll try some more illustrative stuff again. We'll see.

After taking a break to eat over-priced convention food, we took more photos. Joseph hunted down this group of steam punk kids and took some shots of them outside the convention center. They did have really awesome styling.

There were these three girls who were dressed in neon (80s and very cobra starship-esque) colors that for some reason I really liked. This is an instance where I really wish I had more courage when talking to people, because I really wish I had gotten some more photos of them. I thought I had one of all of them, but apparently I didn't take one. The other girl had my black and white piano skirt. It was odd seeing it on someone else. I really have a love hate relationship with neon colors. I think they look kick ass in some cases, but then I'm reminded of how 80s they are and it makes me dislike them.

We decided to end the trek to the convention with watching an anime. Donny was all insistent that we watch an anime since we were at AnimeExpo and it only seemed fitting to do so. Of course the theatre we ended up choosing was actually showing a live action film, so we actually didn't see any Anime at AnimeExpo, but it worked out alright. i actually don't know the name of the film we saw...it was basically about a girl who was so powerful that she was encouraged not to fight because fighting would cause destruction. It was good, although the end was a little cheesy.

Before we left downtown, Joseph and i took some more photos of the scenery. I mostly took light painting ones since I didn't have a tripod. I got some cool ones though. And then we headed home.

Day 17--July 4th

Day 17 was a day off for me. I had a list of things that I was trying to get done, including uploading images to my new DeviantArt account and updating my blog...the latter of which clearly didn't happen. However, this was partly because my roommate, Tanja, asked if I wanted to go with her down to the beach for a little while. I jumped at the chance to finally visit the ocean. We had a hard time finding parking, but eventually we found a place and walked the rest of the way there. On the walk, I saw all these little houses and assumed we must have to walk down a hill to get to the ocean. As we got closer, however, I realized that what I thought were houses actually was the ocean.

I was greatly impressed by it. I was again struck by how different things are in person than how they look in photographs. I took quite a few pictures, but none of them can really convey what it was like to stand there and smell the salt and fish and feel the wet sand. Unless, maybe, if you've been to the place before; then I think you could recall the sensations.

We unfortunately did not stay at the beach very long (only about a half hour) so I didn't get a chance to go swimming or really spend as much time as I would like. I really wish that it was within walking distance. I'd probably go there every other day.

Other than that, my Independence Day was kind of dull. I didn't see any fireworks; although there were people setting of illegal ones in our back ally. I had a nice, relaxing day, and although I didn't get to update this blog, I did actually do some of the other things on my list. (For instance, you can now see my art at kendra-matott.deviantart.com) I'm slowly dwindling the list down...although as I take things off there always seem to be new things that need to go on it. Such is life, I suppose.

Day 18

So if on Friday I got to see the "city city" part of LA, and Saturday I saw the ocean, it was only natural that I would get to see some other, exciting part of town on Sunday so that my weekend was complete. And this is, in fact, true. I had to get up and be ready by 9:15 this morning to go with Joseph back Downtown so we could shoot with Yaya. Yaya is a model and costume designer that they have worked with before and has worked with several other artists in the fantasy industry (check out her website here). It was awesome to see her model and the shoot in general made me want to get working on my own photoshoot. Which was, actually, the next thing on our agenda.

After the shoot with Yaya, Joseph drove me to Hollywood Blvd to a Halloween/Costume store so I could pick out some masks to use in my shoot that is scheduled for Tuesday. I wasn't really expecting much of Hollywood, so I wasn't really disappointed or blown away. I was just another street. It is cool that I can say that I've been there now though.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised with their selections of masks. I easily could have spent a couple hundred dollars there (and each mask was only like $20). They were fairly good quality too, surprisingly. I ended up buying 3--one feather one, and two that are the same shape but different styles. One is grey, blue, white and gold with a feather and gem accent. The other is cream, red and black which I think works quite nicely with my Harlequin dress. Sadly, there weren't actually any masks like the one I was planning on bringing to go with that dress, but that's ok. This one matches nicely and is much more comfortable than the other one. There was this really neat bauta mask that had a sculptural hand on it as well. It was very cool, and a little cheaper than the other masks, but it was really uncomfortable and I knew I didn't want it for my shoot with Maxwell, so I passed on it. Maybe I'll find a similar one that is better some where else.

After the Hollywood store, Joseph took me the long way home so I could see more of the city. I was particularly excited because we drove on Sunset Blvd and La Brea. Sunset made me want to listen to Eve 6 (which I did while I was writing this lengthy entry) and La BreaIt made want to reread the Daughter of the Moon books. The whole drive gave me severe flashbacks to high school in general. We clearly had a thing for LA. I had kind of forgotten about it...it's kind of weird that I'm here now, after all that time.

One of these days, I need to run, barefoot through LA just to complete that dream.