Going #Cosplay Crazy #StarWars

If you follow me on social media at all, you might have caught a glimpse or two of the General Hux cosplay I'm making for my 11yo.

I'm not one of those absolutely-must-be-exact-to-the-very-last detail people, but I like to get the overall look right. I don't have a pattern for the Hux outfit, just a lot of photos and bookmarks to various cosplay threads such as this one at RebelScum Forums (where they're even suggesting fabrics, making their own metal insignias etc. I wish I had their skills!).
I've been fortunate in avoiding a huge amount of blood, sweat and tears over this one in creating it. I bought the First Order badges from eBay and etsy (although the hat one wasn't quite what I expected and not quite correct colour-wise), picked up a jacket and some satin trousers from my local charity shop that I've adapted. I've not yet got the belt (which is a fairly simple plain metal buckle) and I need to make the tunic and create a brim for the hat (I've been using this one on etsy as a guide, but you can actually buy it HERE if you don't want to try making it ).

My main worry was the boots. The costume is for my 11yo, and he has huge feet for his age. Riding boots (the closest equivalent) would cost a massive £80 and never be worn for anything else - too much. So, we picked up some ankle length riding boots for just £16 (which he can wear elsewhere) and a pair of leather trousers for £1. The plan: Use the leather trousers to make fake tops to fit to his short boots, thus creating the look.
If you want to see how that works out and more details on the whole process, I'll be posting it on my tumblr blog during my summer break.
This is not my first attempt at cosplay though possibly my biggest. I made a Blake's 7 hooded tunic with fabric teleport bracelet, and the trademark Liberator gun made from a lemonade bottle, the curly cable from an old set of headphones and painted ping pong balls for the handle for ArmadaCon when I was 19. I've made a Princess Leia dress for my husband (don't ask), and a Hobbit outfit for my 11yo. A couple of years ago I finally made myself a Jedi tunic and cloak: Not as a specific character but the general kind of Jedi uniform (which I plan to wear for the Star Wars Experience in July). The Hux outfit is for 11yo to wear to the event.

But yesterday my friend Stephanie McGee - a more serious cosplayer than I am and one who directed me to Rey and Hux cosplay threads - tweeted that McCalls had patterns for Kylo and Rey outfits that were '80% screen accurate'. Now, I can work without patterns, but a pattern takes a lot of the stress and guesswork out of costume making. I didn't think much of Kylo as a character, but I do like his outfit, and I promised eldest a Rey costume (I've already bought her the staff). So I looked. Here they are on the McCalls site (images only, no buy links. To buy you need to go to McCalls main site and type the pattern codes on the front cover into their search, otherwise you'll be hunting all day).

But a little bit expensy. So I turned to eBay, and there were the same patterns. Only a fraction cheaper for the actual patterns, but way cheaper on the shipping to the UK ($15 with McCalls, only $8.32 on ebay. No brainer).
So I succumbed and spent my latest royalties on patterns. Oops? The seller dispatched them just a couple of hours later AND refunded me a bit of shipping because I bought two items - bless! Goodness knows when I'll be able to afford the fabric but at least I won't be guessing over Rey's costume now.
The problem with writing and cosplay is they both take soooo much time and there just aren't enough hours in the day. >_<
If you're interested in cosplay or costume making, I generally post to my tumblr blog HERE. At the moment my step by step conversion of two Monster High dolls into two of my book characters are up, with more to follow...

Status Update
The June project is still in edits with me and I'm starting to wonder if I should rename it July or August, while Reunion and Revived still await my attention.
The Bones from the Sea is back up, edited, and (as far as I'm aware) free at all retailers.

A Scifi Short Story
Goodreads | Webpage
Available from... Amazon
Kobo | Omnilit | iTunes
Smashwords | B&N

Portals: Volume One is also free to download from multiple retailers. Volume Two is set to release on the 31st of May.

Available from...
Amazon | iTunes | B&N
Kobo | Google Play | ARe 
Smashwords

Keir and Keir's Fall are on sale until the end of May.

Keir (Book #1): 

Amazon | ARe | Kobo | iTunes | B&N

Keir's Fall (Book #2):

Amazon | ARe | B&N | Kobo | iTunes 

Happenings
Submission call! From Carina Press:
Alien Love: A Romance Anthology "We’re looking for romances featuring at least one main character from another world... Tone of the stories should be sexy, but can range from darker to campier, sensual to trashy....we want to see new races, new cultures and lots of sexual tension..."
For more details visit their site here: http://carinapress.com/blog/2016/05/carina-press-submission-call-for-five-2016-romance-anthologies/
Submission link: http://carinapress.submittable.com/submit/59131
Closing date: September 6, 2016 Decision made by: September 16 2016

Chook Update
I close with a rare photo of all six of our girls together, and the arrival of another new critter to our garden.

Left to right: Effie, Fizzgig, Pitch, Scoop, Kyru, and Chiana

Broad bodied chaser dragonfly (female)

Next week I'm off for half term holidays again (hubs is home and a heat wave is predicted - time to hit the beach!) so I'll be leaving a snippet from something for you to enjoy. Haven't decided what to share something from yet. Pippa Jay signing off...

Clone (Free Online Novel)

Today I'm interviewing Dawn Jackson, published author of four erotica shorts with Ravenous Romance but a SFR writer at heart, and one of my IPs (Indispensable Peers).

Dawn is posting her serialized free novel CLONE on our Take it the the Stars blog. The introduction, prologue, and chapter one (in two parts) is currently up. Here's a shortcut to the posts.

This dark Science Fiction/Futuristic is one of my favorites of Dawn's many projects. Here's a mini-interview with Dawn about why she decided to share CLONE with our blog readers.

Q: Being a big fan of the CLONE wip, I was very surprised when you began posting the story on the Take it to the Stars blog. Why did you decide to offer it as a free novel on the internet?

A: Clone is probably my darkest story. Finding a home for it, I think would have been nearly impossible. Still, I wanted to share it. It contains a lot of unrestrained feelings. It's me uncensored and raw. I'll make no apologies, ugly things happen. When I started it, I told myself no rules. I wasn’t going to worry about offending or making someone uneasy. I hope it will grab the readers emotionally the way it did me when I wrote it. Eva is an anti-heroine, who if I’m successful, the readers will both love and hate. Clone allowed me to say and write what I needed to, to be able to tell this story the way it should be. I let myself lose on the ugly side of human nature and I didn’t cover anything up. Because of that, it would be a hard, hard sell. It doesn’t have fuzzy bunnies and fluffy kittens and the ending is the only one I could justify. You'll have to follow along with me to find out what I mean.

Q: Can you explain a little about the characters, premise and/or world-building in CLONE?

A: There are two major players in Clone. Eva, who is a clone, escaped from her keeper and Dante, who befriends her when she reaches the UR. After a great war, the earth is divided into two sides. Europia and the United Regions. Throughout the story I hope the reader will question if Dante is as he appears. I wanted to get into Eva’s head so this story is in first person. I wanted to portray her with realism and that realism might include delusions, anger and paranoia. She’s never been loved or treated with kindness, had a family or belongings of her own. She’s been beaten as a child, raped multiple times as a young woman and her babies were aborted for their stem cells. Blood, tissue and organs have been harvested from her countless times. She’s suffered horrific abuse and it leads to who she becomes. As I wrote her I had to ask myself several questions. Is she capable of love? Could she trust after suffering abuse her entire life? I tried to put myself in her shoes, when I did, I realized her views of Dante would not always be sweet, and sometimes you might think this girl just isn’t sane. Would you be? So I wrote her as I felt she would be. At times she’s cold and unfeeling. Now take someone like this and give them power. That’s Eva.

World-building. Pretty simple. Post WWW III. In Europia they started cloning to save themselves from extinction, but soon realized that not only could the clones save their lives, they could be used for labor and to build a greater empire. Soldiers, workers, child-bearers and organ donors, the clones served multiple purposes and were nothing more than human livestock and were treated as such. Escaped clones would flee to the UR, a place that accepted them into society and didn’t condone the slavery. Eva escapes, only to be caught up in a plot to overthrow the Europian government and replace her keeper, the Europian First Lady, Anna. She ends up back in Europian and for the first time in her life she has power. A massive amount of power.

Q: What inspired the story idea? Does the story carry a message?

A: What happens when man plays god? Does it give him the right to the lives of those created through cloning? Are clones the property of the human whose DNA was donated? My story has parallels to Nazi Germany. You might have caught that in the prologue and with Eva's name. Also, I wanted to make readers think what if? What if, man started cloning for the sole purpose of creating humans for organs compatible to the host or host’s family? What laws would govern clones and their creation? Would they have rights? Could we harvest their organs if they did? Could they feasibly be used for other purposes?

Human cloning has been ethically questioned for a reason. Think about it. People have had babies to save another child from cancer. Would they, could they use clones for the same purpose? For what other purpose would man need to clone? To resurrect genius? I feel it is our environment and experiences that shapes us into who we become, and cloning a genius is not a guarantee you’ll get the same. If not for genius, what other reasons? If war corrupted our environment, caused cancers, disease, the inability to reproduce normally and mankind faced extinction, would we employ something like this to save ourselves? Our loved ones? Is it ethical?

Ethical or not, somewhere, sometime, someone is going to do it and you have to wonder the outcome of such a monumental choice.

Q: Do you consider CLONE a SFR? If not, how would you classify it in terms of genre/s?

A: This one is hard to classify. It is a love story, but it’s also a tragedy. The science isn’t about space ships or alien worlds, but a possible future we could feasibly face if we break the laws of nature. It’s a story of “what if.”

Q: How would you rate the heat factor for CLONE?

A: This is mild heat. I’m hitting the reader with plenty of other questionable things, so I felt I needed to keep something tame.

Thank you, Dawn, for taking the time to answer a few questions for those who are curious about CLONE. I hope readers will enjoy this dark, thought-provoking SF/Futuristic as much as I did.