Outfit of the Day

The company I work for sponsored a game developer's meeting, so that meant a couple of free drink tickets for me! A lot of people came to the event and everyone was so nice, congratulating us on the latest game and just generally having fun and being awesome, like games industry people are. I did a full workday before the event so I only had a little time to get ready. I chose a simple black dress (which had a hole but I fixed it with black electric tape so I could wear it one more night), my new ouija handbag and neutral make-up. I chose different shoes in the end, but wanted to see how these ones look in pictures! I got them from the gothic flea market event on Easter.

Dress - H&M

Handbag - Rogue by Tiina Ulkuniemi

Heels - Second hand

Working in the Games Industry

I've gotten some questions about my daily work, so here's a post on what I have learned about working in the games industry so far. The text is both in Finnish and English, because some of the terms are quite tricky to translate.

I'm a Bachelor of Media graduated from Tampere University of Applied Sciences. I'm applied to the University of Tampere to do a master's degree in media studies and I'm now working on my thesis and if all goes well, I'll be a Master of Science in a few months. For the Bachelor studies I was on a program concentrating in graphic design and media, including games, but mostly about how to produce high quality material for the internet, books and magazines. The students were encouraged to work on their own projects too, which included many games.

I've been playing games ever since I was a child, but wasn't a very dedicated player. My favourites when growing up included Willow The Great Adventure, Kirby, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment, Sierra's city builder series, Age of Empires and Grim Fandango. As an adult I've played countless hours of all Diablos, World of Warcraft, Farmville 1 & 2, Hay Day, Gabriel Knight, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, all Dragon Ages and Indigo Chronicles just to mention a few favourites. I take pride in playing many different genres, I think it helps me understand what games are generally about. The only genres that are not really my cup of tea are shooters, racing games and sports games, but I would gladly try out any of those genres too.

I'm not a super good player, my reflexes are not very quick and I get bored easily with tricky puzzles. I can understand easily what most games are about and what is the thing that appeals to players, even if I personally don't find them enjoyable. I think this is more important for my profession than being very good at playing games.

My main skills are in designing solid systems within given time frame and resources, good general knowledge of games of many types, being able to quickly switch from one task to another, and producing good English texts. And easily becoming interested in almost anything.

I started out in the industry by applying for a trainee position in a mobile games company. They needed people to test games and I needed to complete my studies, which required a period of training. I after my few months of training, the company asked me work for them full time. Testing is an important job, it may sound like just playing games all day long (yes, it's a part of it ;D) but I can assure you it's far from fun when you have ten people in the same room playing on mobile phones with sounds on, and you have to play the same game over and over again. Well, at least I'm pretty good at backgammon after testing the hell out of Sonic Backgammon and I my typing speed on mobile is superb after playing Star Wars games that needed you to repeat patterns with the number keys ;D

Testing is a great starting position, as you get to see many games in different stages of development. The best testing position you can find is an in-house one. Many companies use outsourced testing, which is not bad, but you can understand the development process better if you work directly with the development team. Any testing job is a good start.

After the testing job ended because the whole studio was shut down, many people founded smaller companies. I got on board one of these to work as a graphic designer. I also worked on my tabletop roleplaying projects at the same time on my free time and went to many game industry events to network. The company I worked for was very small, only four people, and because the CEO was also the game designer, he didn't have much time after the CEO duties to work on the game, so I helped out where I could. Design really felt like my kind of thing, because of my fascination with how things work.

Colossal Order, my current employer, was at the time looking for someone to work on the design of their first game, Cities in Motion. Previously two designers had been working on the project and I was leased from my them employer to be the third one trying to get everything done. Lucky for them and me, I have a passion to get things done and to use as much of the work already done as possible. Cities in Motion developed into a very nice public transportation simulation.

When Colossal Order offered a permanent job for me I immediately took it. I love how this company works, we have a great atmosphere, great, talented people and we eat lots of cake. Sometimes designing is all about just sitting and staring at your screen trying to come up with a solution for a problem, but other times it's hectic work trying to produce text or write down tables on how the game should work. We have a team of thirteen currently, which means people get to do many different things according to their skills. I've done everything from painting loading screen to presenting the game to journalists at convetions. I love variation and new challenges, so for me different tasks work perfectly!

This post is meant to be an overview into my education and work, I hope it helps to understand how working in the games business generally happens :) If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer, just comment!

Outfit of the Day

A super simple and comfy outfit! The top is from H&M and has a faux leather collar. It's longer in the back and flows beautifully, and the short front side keeps me from looking like a black tube. I wore black "jeans" with it, they are high-waisted ones from Bik Bok's Never Denim collection. I love them to bits, they are soft and stretchy, very nice to wear and look good with almost anything.

The boots are from Nilson, I got them from Stockholm in the autumn but apparently Nilson now has shops in Finland too. I had been looking for a long time for black, simple, sturdy boots that have a thick heels for easy walking when I came across these babies. They just had to be mine!

Demon Hunter Cosplay (part 2)

Part 1 can be found here! This post will look into the pauldrons, cloak, hood and crossbows in more detail.

Below is the original concept art by Blizzard that was my basis for the costume.

Small pauldron

The smaller pauldron is made of three layers. The two small parts at the bottom are attached more permanently together but hang off the larger part by leather straps to give the pauldrons some allowance for movement. The pauldron need some modification still, it likes to sit too low, but the hood and cloak hide the problem area well.

The pauldron attaches to the shoulder strap of the breast plate with a simple cotton ribbon. There's an elastic ribbon going under my arm to keep the pauldron in place.

Large pauldron

This one was the most important armor piece for the silhouette. It had to come high enough to look good with the hood and extend outwards to give it some weight and to let the spike-like ends really show.

There are five separate pieces in the pauldron. The top three and bottom two are attached but have a hinge between for movement. I'm really happy with how high the pauldron comes, I think it matches the concept art really well. I had to use some imagination when drawing the pattern for the top piece, but it came out really nice. It actually had four separate pieces that were put together to get the shape right.

There's a hidden small pauldron under the huge one that is what actually sits on my shoulder. It was really hard to get it positioned right so the underside is a mess, but no one gets to see it ;D For stability the pauldron is tied to the top D-ring on the breast plate and attached to the shoulder strap in the back, and there's an elastic ribbon going under my arm.

Fore arm armor

The fore arm pieces are not symmetric in the concept art. The one on the arm with the huge pauldron is very big and the other one considerably smaller. The small fore arm piece was the first piece of the armor I made. I chose it because fumbling with it would show the least, in my mind it was the least notable part in the whole armor. It came out okay still! The large fore arm piece was the last piece I made and the only one I had to re-do. I made it the wrong way at first, imagine how pissed off I was when at one in the night I noticed I had put the Worbla pieces together the wrong way!

The pattern was made by wrapping my arm with some bubblewrap to get the shape right, then adding cling film and coating it all in painters tape. I turned out to be an excellent way of getting just the right shape. The large piece comes up a little bit too high so I can't bend my arm all the way while wearing it, but it's good enough.

Cloak and scarf

It's hard to tell from the concept art if the Demon Hunter has a scarf or what the slip of fabric flying behind her is. I decided that it would be a cloak, like in the game, and wanted to add a scarf to help hide the edges of the hood.

The scarf is just a piece of an old bedsheet I had laying around. Simple plain black cotton that just wraps around my neck.

The cloak is pleated and sewn on a strap that goes under my arm and on top of my other shoulder. It's not optimal, I might need to come up with some other solution of attaching it. The cloak should rest on only one shoulder, like many of the cloaks in the game. Then bottom edge of the cloak was first cut with scissors to be ragged and then carefully frayed by hand to give it an authentic frayed look. I dabbed on some brown acrylic paint to make it look dusty and worn. The cloak hides the straps of the breast plate and pauldrons well.

Hood

The hood is my least favourite part of the outfit and the judges at the competition agreed. It's stiff and does not connect to the rest of the outfit well. I'm thinking of possible re-doing it with black or brown fabric or faux suede. Something less stiff.

To get the right shape for the hood and not have it fall on my face, I sewed a channel on the front edge and inserted a wire taken from a coat hanger. The wire lets me shape the hood freely and keep the opening in the shape I want. The edge is painted with black gesso to give it some character. For the competition my other half fixed the hood to fold the right way in the back with black electric tape. The hood makes it hard for me to hear and constantly pulls the hair on my face, which is annoying. It's also so stiff that I can't really turn my head. I think upgrading the hood will make the whole outfit much less tiring to wear.

The Crossbows

These are probably my favourite part of the outfit, they were so much fun to make! The crossbows were the last prop I made. I feel it was a good decision, because by then I had learned a lot about Worbla and could make the crossbows have really nice details.

The base for the bows are two toy musket guns I purchased off eBay. They cost something around four pounds each, so they were super cheap and very light. Originally they had a black base with cheap looking "metal" parts that were plastic painted golden. I painted the guns with black gesso and dry brushed some silver paint on the decorated parts, which made them look really nice.

The bow parts are made fully of Worbla strengthened with foam. I stuck some Worbla inside the barrel as far as it would go, then attached that to the bow and added a wide strip of Worbla on the outside of the barrel to make the connection more stable. There's also a narrow Worbla strip further along the barrel to make sure the barrel would not come off the stock. I took the guns apart to take out the mechanism they had inside and saw that the barrel was attached to the stock with only two tiny screws so some extra strength was required to make sure nothing fell apart! The end of the stocks also have cool leather ribbons tied around them, because one of the guns had a split screw slot in the stock and wouldn't stay in one piece. So the leathers straps nicely accent the guns and help them not to break apart.

The rivet details are made of Fimo clay, because Worbla is not very good with thick forms with sharp edges. The edges are decorated with Worbla strips. The string is regular cotton string and simply hotglued in place.

The arrows are simple pieces of wood with Worbla arrowheads and peacock feathers hotglued on the ends. I would have gone for some more suitable feathers but had peacock feather leftovers lying around and they looked nice enough.

Other parts

That covers all of the armor pieces and bows. In addition I have black leather gloves, a short black A-line wig, white contact lenses and a brown corset made of real leather. The corset is from Mystic City Corsets and I bought it off eBay. While it is not exactly like what the Demon Hunter wears in the concept art, it's close and the rivet details work really well with general style of the outfit. It is also a very comfortable corset to wear thanks to the real leather that molds to my body.

The contact lenses are white screen lenses from Pinky Paradise. They look super cool but make your vision cloudy, it looks like everything is covered in mist. It's not too hard to see, but reading is hard and small details escape you. They make me feel really tired after a few hours, I think it's because of not being able to focus my eyes well. There was an unexpected benefit, because the lenses go really cloudy if light shines straight to them, I could not see almost anything of the audience at the competition! So no nervousness when you can't make out if there 10 or a 100 people watching you on stage ;D

The wig needed no cutting, I found a perfect A-line with no bangs on eBay. It has tons on hairspray on it to try and keep the hair out of my face, but the stiff hood still makes the hair go every which way.

I put some thought into the make-up too, because I like playing around with make-up! In the game the Demon Hunter has a very natural look, so I went with a neutral smoky eye to just give the eyes some definition. I wore a lipstick that was quite close to my natural lip colour, so it just makes the lips pop a little better and makes sure that you can see them in bright stage lighting. I have a separate post on the make-up here.

So those are the components that make up this Demon Hunter outfit!

Demon Hunter Cosplay (part 1)

I'm super happy with how the Demon Hunter cosplay costume worked out! I have not done any cosplay before, but I've been sewing and doing lots of crafts so I had good base skills. I think it also helped a lot that I'm experienced in project work so I could keep the scope reasonable, I have some stage experience, being a goth has prepared me for high heels and tight corsets, and that my friends are absolutely awesome and help me out when needed :)

I won the Tampere Kuplii cosplay competition with this costume! I got a whopping 60% of all votes, that's amazing! I was proud of the costume but to be honest I did not think it was that good at the time ;D But my opinion was mostly based on low quality phone pictures taken in the yellow light of our living room, so the costume might not have looked its best then. I was really amazed when I looked at the pictures taken in decent lighting, it works really well now that I can actually look at it!

It is a cumbersome outfit and there's still some weird edge in the large pauldron that digs to my shoulder in certain angles, but maybe some padding would solve the problem. The smaller pauldron's lower part is a teeny bit too narrow and doesn't want to sit right on my upper arm but it's nice enough.

Things used for the outfit:

3 XL sheets of Worbla thermoplastic
A4 sheet of Wonderflex
About 20 A3 sheets of craft foam
Black gesso
Silver acrylic paint
Brown acrylic paint
White acrylic paint
Heat gun
Soldering iron
Peacock feathers
Wooden lath
50 x 150 cm piece of brown faux leather
Small piece of grey leather
Black cotton ribbon
Black elastic ribbon
Black Velcro
Hot glue
Two toy guns
Fimo clay
A fistful of D-rings
An old scarf
Piece of a black bedsheet
Black turtle neck shirt
Black leggings
Black leather gloves
Thigh high faux leather boots
Black, short wig
White contact lenses
Brown leather corset
A coat hanger

I'll go through the costume pieces one by one and explain how each one was made. I decided to divide things into a few posts because I have just too many picture of the armor parts!

This was the concept art piece I used as reference for the costume. It's not an actual armor set in the game, but rather a piece of art to set the tone of the character. The Demon Hunter character class is the most popular in Diablo 3. They come in male or female, but the female one was always my choice when playing the game and easier for me to cosplay.

Demon Hunter concept art by Blizzard.

Before starting to work on the costume, I chose which parts were the most important for me. I wanted the costume to have a silhouette like the concept art, focus on the impossible narrow waist, long legs and huge shoulder armor, and I wanted to have shoes with the soles painted red. The first time I ever tried Diablo 3 I immediately felt like it was a game for me when I saw that the kick-ass Demon Hunter lady had awesome high heels with red Louboutin-like soles. I've played all the Diablos and loved each one, but the Demon Hunter is my most favourite character so far!

The base of the costume is a simple pair of black pants and a turtle neck shirt. I bought the corset ready made, and it's made of soft leather so it's very comfortable to wear even when it gives quite a dramatic waistline. The wig is based on what the character's hair looks like in the game and the contact lenses are like in the concept piece.

Shin armor

In the concept art picture the DH looks to be wearing some sort of boots with metal pieces on top. The folded tops of the boots are the most visible part for the silhouette. I got a pair of brown faux leather thigh high stilettos to work as a base and attached pieces of faux leather to the shin armor pieces to replicate the folded top look. I took the fabric piece on top of the armor to be red and used an old scarf for that.

I painted small areas of the shoes to make it look like the armor continued on them. This was much easier than making Worbla cover pieces, the paint lets you keep the mobility and does not crack or fall off easily. The best way to get the silver paint to stick was to first prime the parts that I wanted silver with black gesso.

Worbla has enough flexibility that I can just stretch the shin pieces so that they go over my shins. I planned to tied them with leather strips in the back but they didn't need any extra security in the end. The faux leather flaps are glued down with hot glue so they stay nicely in place.

Thigh armor

For the thighs the concept art show a very long metal/leather piece. I wanted to stay mobile, so I made the pieces much shorter but kept the same general shape. The pieces attach with faux leather straps that have a piece of elastic band and velcro at the ends. There are D-rings attached to the underside of the armor pieces for the velcro pieces to tie around. The thigh pieces want to slip down if I sit, so I might need to come up with some system that attaches them to the belt.

Corset, boots, shin armor and thigh armor in place.

Belt

The belt opens in the back. I decided to do it in a simpler way than what the concept art shows, but to still have some straps on it to keep the detail level high. I really like how the straps came out and how well they match the corset. The pieces of "leather" on the belt are actually Worbla, but the texture and colour are really close to the corset. The belt is not attached to the corset but stays in place quite well.

The belts ties with leather straps in the back. There are four D-rings.

Chest armor

The chest piece was one of the most challenging pieces in the outfit. I collected a lot of pictures of other people cosplaying Demon Hunters with the same style of plate and it seemed to be really hard to get it right. Mine has a base of two cups simulating breasts (much larger than mine, I wanted to keep the silhouette balanced so a lot more oomph was needed on the top ;D) and two layers of armor on top of the cups. I had to cut the edges of the armor shorter after I got the whole thing together, but the decorative edges hide the cut edge. The beast plate has a pair of D-rings on each side and two on the top points. Each has a faux leather strap sewn on with velcro at the end for adjusting the plate.

The shoulder straps are loose and can be attached on the side straps or the the corset strings if I need the breast plate to sit higher.

In the next Demon Hunter post I'll show you the shoulder armor pieces more closely!

Lip Service Wicked Winter

This coat was a great find! Ever since Lip Service came out with the Wicked Winter coats a few years ago, I'd been dying to own one. The long coats retail for sums along the lines of 150 dollars, which was quite a steep price for a coat, so I held back and didn't buy one. Now they are all gone, a few can be found on eBay but the prices are still quite high. The short coats are easier to find but my mind was set on the long style.

So imagine my excitement when a long Wicked Winter coat popped up on the Finnish gothic fleamarket on Facebook! It was well worn but in okay condition and I managed to snatch it for a mere 35 euros.

Coat - Lip Service Wicked Winter Long Coat with Faux Fur

Boots - Nilson

The coat has a built-in high collar which is absolutely lovely. It means it can be worn with no scarf even when it's a bit cold outside. The cut is gorgeous with the coat being longer in the back. but there's a slit to keep it flowing nicely. The faux fur accents are a bit matted from use, but still pretty. I also like the buttons in the front, they have little rhinestones in them!

There's also lacing in the back to adjust the size a little bit and the lining is made of a beautiful black and purple striped fabric. The outer fabric is a wool mix so it keeps me warm on chilly days.

And here's the coat with my new purse! It's hand-made by Tiina Ulkuniemi. I needed a medium sized handbag that's not too flamboyant, so it can work with many outfits. This one is perfect! It has an ouija board print but is made of plain black cotton to keep the look toned down.

Machineries of Joy Look and Outfit

Yesterday was a very busy day! First there was the gothic fleamarket event, where people came to buy and sell all things gothic. It was great success, many sellers and buyers and everyone was having a good time! I'm so happy to have been able to make the event happen and hope to arrange many more in the future.

In the evening we had Club Bella Morte happening again, and this time with three bands as a Machineries of Joy special EBM/industrial event. Syncfactory, Cardinal Noire and Machine Park played to an excited audience, and DJs, including me, kept the crowd entertained between bands. It was so nice to see how people stayed on the dance floor until the very last song! It was a great evening, big thanks to everyone participating :)

So on to the outfit and look! I only had a few hours to eat, prepare my playlist and get ready, and I wanted to take a nap so I put everything together in a hurry. I'm still very pleased with the result!

Horns - Crimson Darkness (bought at WGT)

Necklace - Second hand

Earrings - Hand made by me

Dress - H&M

Corset top - Lip Service Katy-Did Corseted Harness

Boots - New Rock heelless boots

I bought the harness from the fleamarket the very same day. I love this collection from 2007 with the metallic purple and green faux leather. The top has been modified, the cups are removed and some rigilene bones have been sewn on the inside to give it a more structured look. It has some almost unnoticeable fake blood stains, the grommets in the back are coming loose and the metallic coating might come off some day, but it's just so pretty! I know the Insecticide collection pieces usually have problems with the coating flaking off, but it feels pretty solid in this one so I hope I can wear it on many events to come. As most Lip Service corsets, it doesn't really do anything to my waistline, so wearing it over a sturdy corset might be a good option.

I love how the metallic purple of the corset top matches the purple on my horns! The horns are kinda hard to combine with most outfits, because of their bright colour, but they go very well with the top. I also like how the green metallic fabric has the same shade as my tattoos, what a coincidence!

For make-up, I went for a simple neutral/coppery smoky eye and purple lips to match the horns and the top. I'm beginning to really like the pink brows opposed to the black ones I've often worn, I think it will be pink all the way for me in the future!