Floral Headband: X
Arm band: X
Chest piece: X
Skirt Hike Belt: X
Leg plates: X
The Inspiration:
Welcome the first addition to the Zodiac Project to Armored Girl! Aries, the sign of war, the ram, the first of the Zodiac, and well my favorite sign since it's mine. This suit took well over a month to make, longer than expected. I tried to stray away from rivets and use mostly hand stitching to complete a more rugged/handmade look. I wanted this Zodiac project to be more of a video game influence to it, so I tried to make Aries, since it's my first suit in this long journey, to look as if it were a Level 1- 5 outfit of patchwork pieces you would find running around your favorite starter place in a video game. I also chose to stay within the brown/tan field of color, since that's the natural shades that the classical ram portrays, but I wanted black on the hands and feet to symbolize the hooves. I drew most of my inspiration from the Aries women in my life, who usually were a balance between masculinity and femininity. I feel like the pink flowers and soft flow of the skirt counteracted the rugged roughness of the leather.
The construction:
YOU GUYS. This was by far the most "Eyes bigger than your stomach" outfit I've ever done. It was the first time I worked with actual Veg-tanned leather (or most things I used to make this outfit) for the leg plates and arm band, which is a leather you must dye, cut, and wet form yourself, basically from scratch. Most of the time I work with remnant leather I find from scrap piles in renaissance faires, flea markets, internet, etc and although it's already treated/dyed for you, it's hard finding enough pieces large enough and the right color to construct what you have in mind. So this was a joy. I practiced many techniques for the very first time, like beveling, hole-punching, stitching, and edge slicking. I was like a kid in a candy store! It was a lot to take in over a span of just two months, but boy was it worth it! I made my very first large armor pieces, and I'm proud of the outcome. Sure there were things I would've done differently if I had more time, but what artist doesn't think that way?
Behind the scenes:
When taking these pictures we went to three locations. A duck pond, the side of a road, and Lake Skinner. The first location was a trip, keep in mind we did all of this on cinco de mayo and so I did not expect an entire mountain of people to be at the park this late (7:30 pm), but I was soooo wrong. The first location was great for headshots, but the heckles from nearby people pushed us to move to another location on a dime, which ended up working for the best because we got our greatest shots there.
We drove as fast as we could to Lake skinner because the sun was starting to disappear, shot a couple of things on the side of the road to get there, and then persuaded our way into the reserve itself, and we were only given 30 minutes to be there before they closed. When we got there and found a good spot, We used a large cheap door mirror to reflect some of the light onto my face (and to help me model ahaha) for the perfect lighting and backdrop of the sunset. This was also the FIRST time we shot with my new DSLR camera, and the difference is astound. Vartan, my photo taker, no longer had to fight with the camera to work properly like he had to do to the old one, and so his creativity really shined through with the new buttons he got to play with.
Overall it was a tough experience of an intense creative process, but it paid off with some gorgeous photos thanks to everyone involved.
See you later when I come back with Taurus!
