Meet The Family of the Undead

 As you’ve seen, I utilize a lot of bones and skulls and mannequins in my photography for my site. These for the most parts belong to either myself or my roomie. They weren’t acquired for the purpose of modeling jewelry and accessories either. Mostly they’re our quirky decorations!

First off, we have Mr. mannequin Man. He’s currently wearing the 6th Doctor’s coat so he can stay warm by the window. He belongs to the roomie.  Next the exploded head man atop the science shelf. Eventually I want to put some blood spatter paintings behind his head. He doesn’t tend to participate as he is high up there.
We also have a white female hanging form, I haven’t used her for modeling yet, but it’s only a matter of time, it is!

The heads of course must come into play here. The glass one, which is so very very creepy, the standard styrofoam one for pinning unfinished items, and then the actual wooden hat block which was given to me by my brother in law. <3 So much awesome there!

That brings us to the bones!
If you couldn’t tell, my roomie and I enjoy bones.We have some deer skulls and some groundhog skulls as well as a scapula and femur from deer. There is a dog/coyote skull and a raccoon skull as well.

So that’s the undead family. . .They’re pretty awesome once you get to know them. 

that’s it for now <3

~The Tatterpunk

MAD MAKEOVER - BEFORE - RED CRAYON ARISTOCRATS

Hello! Welcome to the BEFORE section of the first ever Tatterpunk Carnival’s Mad Makeover Feature! I’m sure your absolutely thrilled (or terrified) to be here. I guess it’s sort of cheating a little bit because I actually know you, but we’ve all got to start somewhere, no?



The shop:  Red Crayon Aristocrats

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TATTERPUNK: You create amazing and adorable nerdy accessories based on survival horror and various other popular video games. Of course you already know that, but I’m writing this for the benefit of our viewers (er. . . readers) at home. I especially love your Silent Hill items, and I of course bought the Halo of the Sun Wallet from you (I absolutely adore the thing!).
To start out, we’ll get the basics out of the way. What was your main inspiration for starting your shop, and How did you come up with the name?

RED: Well, my main inspiration came from my friends, to be perfectly honest. I often make them jewelry sets and other little trinkets based off of survival horror (among other games) for holidays or for their birthdays; I could never find cute, girly things based off of survival horror. Therefore, I decided to create them, myself.

My gal buddies always told me "You need to sell these!"  I never really listened because, hey, they're my friends and I thought they were just being nice. :)

A couple of years back - 2008 to be exact - I purchased an Artist Alley table at a local Michigan anime convention, Youmacon; a friend of mine is in charge of the alley and I wanted to support her and her department. I sold some artsy crafts that I created and people actually told me that they liked what I did, much to my surprise! Cute panties are a surprisingly huge hit at anime conventions. ;)

At this point, I still didn't have an Etsy shop and would not for another year or so. The idea to go to Etsy came from a friend on Deviant Art who told me that I should open a shop. I figured "why not?" and did so. It's been fun, I must say. :)

As for the name of my shop, it came from the hauntingly beautiful Playstation 2 game entitled Rule of Rose.

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TATTERPUNK: As we’d previously stated, you take a lot of inspiration from the games Silent Hill and Resident Evil.  How did you get into Survival Horror Games, and what is your favourite (and why)?

RED: The first survival horror game that I ever played was Resident Evil. My grandmother got it for me for Easter. (Ironic?)  It scared me way too much for my weak preteen heart to handle. I couldn't get past the first zombie. And the horrid Are You Afraid of the Dark-isk intro scared me. I hid the game under my bed.

I really got into survival horror just around the time that Resident Evil 2 was released, which was when I was about 13 or 14. My little brother and I would play it and scare ourselves stiff. (Then we would play Final Fantasy 7 to soften the blow.)

My adoration for RE2 grew, thus I went back to RE1. This time around, it seemed easier and I was in love.

It opened a door into the amazing world of Survival Horror.

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TATTERPUNK: Another question the readers are interested in knowing the answer to is: how did you choose the medium you chose? Do you get your supplies locally, from etsy, or from some other means (possibly a pact with a spirit?)?

RED: Well, when it comes to what I use... an honest (yet cliche) answer is "everything". I'm pretty poor, so I started by using things that I already owned from my artbox or from my old cosplay inventory. I use everything from paint to ink; from fabric to plastic. Sometimes I create things from scratch and other times I have an item that I just alter. 

I get my supplies from a multitude of different places. Michael's and Joanne Fabrics are two of my favorites. Often the items that I will create come from something that I saw and purchased on a whim.

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TATTERPUNK: You vend these items at conventions, yes? I, myself have never actually done this (except one ren faire). So that brings me to the following questions. . . Is this a hobby for you? Would you like it to be more? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? - and please don’t say dead in a ditch because that would be very distressing to me.

RED: No worries, no ditches for me. ;D That is not on the agenda.

This is a hobby for me - I love video games and I love creating. I love socializing, meeting new people and making others happy. I love sharing what I love with others. I love talking in cheezy cliches.

Seriously, though, I would be thrilled to be able to create more often. Sometimes it gets hard trying to balance my job, my social life, my video game life and my online life (along with many other factors!) so I wish there were more hours in the day that I could just create things!

In 5 years... Hmm, I'm not exactly sure. I don't know where I'll be next week, haha. I hope to be married by then and perhaps have a child. I imagine that I will still be creating things that I love. It would be nice to still sell them but, if not, I will still be happy making them. :) I've loved video games my whole life, and creating,  so I doubt I stop making girly trinkets any time soon.
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TATTERPUNK: Now that we’ve got all that out of the way, let’s move on to the Before section of the Shop Makeover questions!

I understand that it can be terribly difficult to get your photos up to snuff, so that’s going to be one of the BIG things we’ll be working on. What sort of camera are you using currently?

RED: JVC Everio Memory Camcorder. Wonderful for taking videos. Not so great for taking still shots. (As anyone can plainly see from the images that can be found at my shop.)
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TATTERPUNK: Lighting  and setting is very important, so we’ll be working on how to use natural light to your advantage as well as props/models. Do you have any other areas you specifically want to work on?

RED: Lighting, props and models are my weakest points, as of now. At least, I think. I would like to get those down, then move on to more advanced techniques. ;)
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TATTERPUNK: Your assignment for the next few weeks (minus dance hell week mind you) is to make as many new items as you can so we can photograph them with the new knowledge I shall bestow upon you. Volume is key here. . . we shall get you up to snuff, and it shall be GLORIOUS!

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TATTERPUNK: In conclusion, tell us a little about yourself.

RED: Well, there really isn't much...

I love people. I love survival horror. I love glitter. I love cute. I love macabre.

Umm...

...Here are some quotes that I think best  describe my philosophies on life:

"If you don't know where you are going, any path will take you there."

"Love the Life you live. Live the Life you love."

"Color outside the lines. It really pisses some people off."

In conclusion, I leave you with kitties:

kitties

Thank you again, Tatterpunk, I look forward to this makeover~! :D

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TATTERPUNK: We shall post the After Feature once the shop has been worked up from epic idea to EPIC SHOP! Thanks so much RedCrayonAristocrats for subjecting yourself to The Tatterpunk’s bizarre brand of torture. ^_~

Every day is Raturday!

Hi there gentle readers!!
It’s time for yet another bloggie post!

Today I shall tell you about my real-lifey-stuff. I was going to do a story for a blog thing, but I am not done with it yet, so here we go with realstuff.

I live in an old factory in Richmond, it’s apartments now, but the area is sort of run down and bohemian at the same time. I call it The Storylands. It seems like the very air in this place is full of stories which are just waiting to be told.

There was a fire in the area a good hundred and twenty years ago, and the effects seem to still be about.  I woke one morning to an entirely burned man at the foot of my bed (and this wasn’t my usual sleep paralysis). He looked over at me and then vanished. Weird. There is also a little girl I’ve spoken to and seen on a few occasions. Yes, I see dead people. This is a normal occurrence for me. And yes, I’m also a bit crazy. Such fun!

My roomie is a blue-haired rivet-head mad scientist. She’s really quite epic and super crazy-smart. It is amusing the two of us, we just call each other right and left brain. She and her cat will be properly here soon. Pollux is the cutest kitty EVER.

I, myself, have the cutest rat ever. Her name is Brown Jenkin. My other rat Mistah J recently passed, as did the young rat we got named Yersina pestis as seen in this photo (post mortem photo). It was very sad. So now it’s just BJ.. she is INSANE. AND SO EFFIN CUTE, as seen in the top photo from Halloween times!

Most of my friends are in either separate cities or states, it’s sort of annoying. I’ve met some really cool people through selling on Etsy. So that’s more friends in other states! WOO!

FeatherAhead - the shop of one of my very good friends, has recently bestowed two lovely, lovely hats upon me. I adore them ever so much!!! My hair looks dreadful otherwise I’d take pictures of them now. The proprietess has also given me a bunch of amazing supplies - feathers, fur, fabric.. all sorts of things beginning with the letter F! For this I am very thankful. So, all of you go to her shop and buy EVERYTHING. The quality is amazing, seriously!!

I think that’s about it right now. I will probably do some shop-features soon, so stay tuned!

The Anti-Valentines Day Challenge

Sooo, it’s blogging time once again! I’m trying to actually get a lot more done - plus I have sooo many things to blog about lately that I may as well just do it!

Today’s blog is about the Anti-Valentines Day Challenge I set for my lovely Etsy Team - The Carnival of Curiosities! I have included photos of all of the entries (you can also see them in this treasury here - You Can Keep Your Heart ). All of them are exceptionally lovely, and I am so glad that we had all the entries we did.  The winner of the challenge is EternalDreamer  for her item Broken Heart.

Other entries and links are listed here:
Wiley Coyote Neckeater by FeatherAhead
Circus Sideshow Performers Valentines by PilousPercilla
My Heart Bleeds for You by SteamTimeJewelry
Love is Colder than Death by holidaytart
Modern Screw by jalinde

Thank you all again!!

More blogging soon - I must tell my readers all about the cool hats I got from FeatherAhead!

The Angel of Pain Models for Tatterpunk

This weekend was a busy one for the Tatterpunk. My friend Shelby came to visit so that we could go to the 30 Seconds to Mars concert on Monday, and she also agreed to do a photoshoot where she would model my hats and ruffs and things. SO! After hanging out for like a couple years all the time and living across an alley from each other, we finally had our first ever sleepover lol.


So Tuesday morning we got Shelby ready for the photoshoot.

First off, Miss. Shelby Day is the proprietress of Itami Designs (Tenshinoitami) on Etsy. She makes rather epic everything, mostly scene kid things, and her original designs which are very original mind you. Her facebook fan-page is here (Itami Designs Facebook page) so go like her stuff. In the photos she’s wearing a skirt and top she made - she has listings for custom versions on her facebook page.

We went out to the sewer drain-y area of the canal.. which sounds WAY more disgusting than it is. It’s terribly cluttered with old shopping carts and refuse which is sad, but it works out very well for the pretty pretty photos I wanted to take. My concept was to mix modern with nature, so it was excellent.

Shelby modeled my hats as well as various other items. The photos are of course here. She is absolutely beautiful, is she not? Makeup was by me. 

Mostly otherwise amusing things happened over the weekend, like the comic in the last blog post, and then the concert.... which was EPIC. Jared Leto came on stage in an officer’s hat (the rest of his outfit was lame... but the HAT), which was absolutely lovely. There was a lot of jumping around, screaming, singing along, you know the usual concert stuff. It was lots of fun. I am so out of shape though >_<.