Because sometimes, one set of suspenders isn't enough. Happy Birthday, Aiba!! Have a cookie or 15.
It's kind of amazing how Christmas Eve has become permanently linked in my mind to Aiba&hearts
So in honor of Aiba's birthday, I present what has been heretofore the most difficult of the cookie excursions:
A while back, I asked my flist for some cookie requests because I am an M (clearly). This works out rather well, since some members of my flist are clearly DoS in the extreme, and asked for Aiba's Friendship solo wear.
So let's look at this costume a bit to see what's involved (plus we get to see Aiba being utterly adorable, always a plus):
From the top:
I have to admit, as somewhat of a connoisseur of Aiba hair, the Time hair isn't my favorite--it's a bit long, and the perm hides his hair's general glossy splendor. It is however, whimsical and cute, and that's not a bad thing at all. Aiba's hair, even at its worst (which this isn't), is still pretty damn spiffy&hearts
>_>
Ahem.
So, fluffy wavy hair, check. Also, note the ridiculously complicated scarf:
Oh yes, my flist loves me. Really.
For some reason, the part of this costume that had always stuck out to me before was the black and white suspenders. When I had watched the concert before, I had always processed the suspenders as animals--animal cookie-like cut outs. I would have sworn that there were elephants on them.
Pictured: A distressing lack of elephants
Yes, instead of elephants, it turns out that there are cowboys with guns and donkeys. I'd have preferred the elephants and other critters, but there you go.
Did I mention my flist must love me? In that special way that Jun does when he wears his extra large rings when he goes to work.
Anyway. The third real challenge, after the scarf and suspenders, I thought, was going to be the patches on Aiba's pants:
Let's look at that a bit closer:
Captain America shield (which I ended up not putting on), stars, Comet cans (re-branded to say "Vomit" instead, I shit you not), and a big number one decked out like an American flag. ALSO, AN ADORABLE RAINBOW in reversed colors.
*stares at particular members of my flist*
You know who you are, and you know I love you, right?
Anyway, when I was watching the concert, something(s) kept getting in my way of seeing the patches, and finally, I realized with some amusement that Aiba needed not one, but two sets of suspenders to inadequately hold up his sagging jeans:
>_>
That boy has no ass to speak of. I swear that pants always seem to be trying to run away from his hips.
>_>
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I wouldn't want you to think that I don't appreciate their efforts.
Because I do.
Because one rainbow in this costume might not get the point across, the second set of suspenders incorporates rainbow stripes on a glittery gold background just to assure that there is a minimal amount of sparkle in the costume.
Finally, the shoes:
This was probably the best shot I got of the shoes. I ended up painting them a solid red on the cookies, because I couldn't for the life of me make out the pattern. There was red involved, as well as black and white, but damned if I could figure out the actual pattern. So I went with the punch of color because I wanted to.
So. My so-called "friends" had set me a challenge, and I had to decide how to go about it.
I decided that since I had seen images of this solo outfit involving three different t-shirts (orange, lime green, and a pale orchid-ish color, that I would do each. The tradeoff for this is that I didn't incorporate the various busy texts and patterns of each.
Because I'm on the road, and didn't bring my pictorial references for the colors that weren't on the concert dvd, you'll just have to trust me on that part.
So, as with the earlier cookies I'd made, I started with a reference sketch, which I have to admit, I kind of love:
CLICKY FOR DETAILS:
Then I baked the sugar cookies, drew in the outlines of the costume with my black food coloring pen and mixed up the various royal icing colors:
I started by filing in the colors of the shirts and jeans:
After this, I worked on the darker shade of Aiba's hair, outlining the contours and shading with a dark chocolate color:
The lighter shade followed, as one might expect:
Because there can never be too much Aiba in the world:
Red Shoes and rainbow suspenders came next:
To make these suspenders, I first colored in the suspender area with plain white frosting and then used the food coloring pens to make the rainbow stripes.
Using the same white frosting, I added blank versions of the patches on the pants, as well as the ragged fabric cuff on Aiba's right hand (touched up with food coloring markers and a pearly white glaze):
At this point, I felt that I couldn't put it off any longer, and I worked on recreating that horrifically complicated scarf:
The way I approached this was in pieces: I started with the white down the center of the dangling end of the scarf, then added the black zig-zag lines. Taking threads of the white frosting, I added bits of white with black zig zags to the draped part of the scarf under the neck. Then I made green, purple, pink and yellow frostings, which I added to the other partso f the scarf. Finally, I used a red food coloring marker to add the little red squares that popped up on the green stripes of the scarf. I think it looks reasonably close to the original:
After this, I tackled the dreaded ordeal by tiny detailed patches, as well as the gold glaze stripes on the lower suspenders:
Finally, the upper suspenders, or at least as close as I could render it in white piped frosting:
CLICK FOR MUCH BETTER DETAIL:
A finished cookie in each color:
I'll be honest: I wasn't thrilled with how the hair came out on the round head--I couldn't get the implied shaping to look anywhere near as good on the cookies as I could in the sketch, for obvious reasons. Oh well.
MANY AIBAS&hearts The world should be so lucky:
AIBAPOCALYPSE!!!!
I thought about making one cookie for every year of Aiba's sparkly bubbly existence, but my stamina wasn't up to it. I ended up making 5 cookies in each of the three colors.
Sadly, these came out . . . not brittle, exactly, because they were soft, but . . . breakable. I had 4 or 5 decapitations and one leg dismemberment out of the finished 15 cookies. I'm not exactly sure why that was. I hope some of them, at least, reach their new homes intact.
Hee!
In the end, I'm happy I did these, though they resulted in crazy shoulder aches and much swearing ^^; I don't think I could have done them, though, without the food coloring markers. The patches and suspenders were just too complicated.
Anyway, I hope the cookie requesters like them&hearts I don't really think I'll do this one again ^^; It was fun, but really exhausting ^^;
For those of you who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas (Eve) \o/
And to all of us, Happy Aiba Day!!!
&hearts
PS: I'm all out of cookies, so no more cookie posts for a while. Also, how excited am I that there will soon be new concert costume footage to picspam? *GLEES*
Am I alone in hoping that the unusually early dvd release date hints that there might be another concert dvd, perhaps of a dome? I love Kokuritsu, don't get me wrong, and I know what an awesome honor it is that they got that venue again, but I really love the indoor arenas--so much more opportunity for interaction.
At least they regained their costume crackdom with the latest concert ^_^v
Happy holidays, and for those of you traveling, be safe! I am about to embark on the unending food orgy of Christmas in an Italian family&hearts I may not fit in my car to make the rest of this road trip ^^;
*waves*
So in honor of Aiba's birthday, I present what has been heretofore the most difficult of the cookie excursions:
A while back, I asked my flist for some cookie requests because I am an M (clearly). This works out rather well, since some members of my flist are clearly DoS in the extreme, and asked for Aiba's Friendship solo wear.
So let's look at this costume a bit to see what's involved (plus we get to see Aiba being utterly adorable, always a plus):
From the top:
I have to admit, as somewhat of a connoisseur of Aiba hair, the Time hair isn't my favorite--it's a bit long, and the perm hides his hair's general glossy splendor. It is however, whimsical and cute, and that's not a bad thing at all. Aiba's hair, even at its worst (which this isn't), is still pretty damn spiffy&hearts
>_>
Ahem.
So, fluffy wavy hair, check. Also, note the ridiculously complicated scarf:
Oh yes, my flist loves me. Really.
For some reason, the part of this costume that had always stuck out to me before was the black and white suspenders. When I had watched the concert before, I had always processed the suspenders as animals--animal cookie-like cut outs. I would have sworn that there were elephants on them.
Pictured: A distressing lack of elephants
Yes, instead of elephants, it turns out that there are cowboys with guns and donkeys. I'd have preferred the elephants and other critters, but there you go.
Did I mention my flist must love me? In that special way that Jun does when he wears his extra large rings when he goes to work.
Anyway. The third real challenge, after the scarf and suspenders, I thought, was going to be the patches on Aiba's pants:
Let's look at that a bit closer:
Captain America shield (which I ended up not putting on), stars, Comet cans (re-branded to say "Vomit" instead, I shit you not), and a big number one decked out like an American flag. ALSO, AN ADORABLE RAINBOW in reversed colors.
*stares at particular members of my flist*
You know who you are, and you know I love you, right?
Anyway, when I was watching the concert, something(s) kept getting in my way of seeing the patches, and finally, I realized with some amusement that Aiba needed not one, but two sets of suspenders to inadequately hold up his sagging jeans:
>_>
That boy has no ass to speak of. I swear that pants always seem to be trying to run away from his hips.
>_>
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I wouldn't want you to think that I don't appreciate their efforts.
Because I do.
Because one rainbow in this costume might not get the point across, the second set of suspenders incorporates rainbow stripes on a glittery gold background just to assure that there is a minimal amount of sparkle in the costume.
Finally, the shoes:
This was probably the best shot I got of the shoes. I ended up painting them a solid red on the cookies, because I couldn't for the life of me make out the pattern. There was red involved, as well as black and white, but damned if I could figure out the actual pattern. So I went with the punch of color because I wanted to.
So. My so-called "friends" had set me a challenge, and I had to decide how to go about it.
I decided that since I had seen images of this solo outfit involving three different t-shirts (orange, lime green, and a pale orchid-ish color, that I would do each. The tradeoff for this is that I didn't incorporate the various busy texts and patterns of each.
Because I'm on the road, and didn't bring my pictorial references for the colors that weren't on the concert dvd, you'll just have to trust me on that part.
So, as with the earlier cookies I'd made, I started with a reference sketch, which I have to admit, I kind of love:
CLICKY FOR DETAILS:
Then I baked the sugar cookies, drew in the outlines of the costume with my black food coloring pen and mixed up the various royal icing colors:
I started by filing in the colors of the shirts and jeans:
After this, I worked on the darker shade of Aiba's hair, outlining the contours and shading with a dark chocolate color:
The lighter shade followed, as one might expect:
Because there can never be too much Aiba in the world:
Red Shoes and rainbow suspenders came next:
To make these suspenders, I first colored in the suspender area with plain white frosting and then used the food coloring pens to make the rainbow stripes.
Using the same white frosting, I added blank versions of the patches on the pants, as well as the ragged fabric cuff on Aiba's right hand (touched up with food coloring markers and a pearly white glaze):
At this point, I felt that I couldn't put it off any longer, and I worked on recreating that horrifically complicated scarf:
The way I approached this was in pieces: I started with the white down the center of the dangling end of the scarf, then added the black zig-zag lines. Taking threads of the white frosting, I added bits of white with black zig zags to the draped part of the scarf under the neck. Then I made green, purple, pink and yellow frostings, which I added to the other partso f the scarf. Finally, I used a red food coloring marker to add the little red squares that popped up on the green stripes of the scarf. I think it looks reasonably close to the original:
After this, I tackled the dreaded ordeal by tiny detailed patches, as well as the gold glaze stripes on the lower suspenders:
Finally, the upper suspenders, or at least as close as I could render it in white piped frosting:
CLICK FOR MUCH BETTER DETAIL:
A finished cookie in each color:
I'll be honest: I wasn't thrilled with how the hair came out on the round head--I couldn't get the implied shaping to look anywhere near as good on the cookies as I could in the sketch, for obvious reasons. Oh well.
MANY AIBAS&hearts The world should be so lucky:
AIBAPOCALYPSE!!!!
I thought about making one cookie for every year of Aiba's sparkly bubbly existence, but my stamina wasn't up to it. I ended up making 5 cookies in each of the three colors.
Sadly, these came out . . . not brittle, exactly, because they were soft, but . . . breakable. I had 4 or 5 decapitations and one leg dismemberment out of the finished 15 cookies. I'm not exactly sure why that was. I hope some of them, at least, reach their new homes intact.
Hee!
In the end, I'm happy I did these, though they resulted in crazy shoulder aches and much swearing ^^; I don't think I could have done them, though, without the food coloring markers. The patches and suspenders were just too complicated.
Anyway, I hope the cookie requesters like them&hearts I don't really think I'll do this one again ^^; It was fun, but really exhausting ^^;
For those of you who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas (Eve) \o/
And to all of us, Happy Aiba Day!!!
&hearts
PS: I'm all out of cookies, so no more cookie posts for a while. Also, how excited am I that there will soon be new concert costume footage to picspam? *GLEES*
Am I alone in hoping that the unusually early dvd release date hints that there might be another concert dvd, perhaps of a dome? I love Kokuritsu, don't get me wrong, and I know what an awesome honor it is that they got that venue again, but I really love the indoor arenas--so much more opportunity for interaction.
At least they regained their costume crackdom with the latest concert ^_^v
Happy holidays, and for those of you traveling, be safe! I am about to embark on the unending food orgy of Christmas in an Italian family&hearts I may not fit in my car to make the rest of this road trip ^^;
*waves*