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Crooked Crane Costuming & Garb, St. Louis, MO (2026)

08/21/2024

Birds and Turtles Tunic for Sir Lee

WELL WELL WELL it's me, finally back with photos of a finished project! I have lots more things to post (LOTS) and not enough time to edit photos but this was sort of a challenge to get these posted before Lee could post his own so here we are!

This tunic was so much fun to create and is packed with personal meaning! Lee is from the east coast of Canada originally, so we chose some eastern sea birds to represent him and his family- an osprey, a grey heron, and two puffins for his twin daughters. The sea turtle is his personal symbol and his personal heraldry, so they swim beneath the birds in flight.

I dyed the fabric for both the turtle shells and the water and used it for the trim to bring the colours around the tunic some more. The wave colour is actually a very light seafoam, but it's hard to pick it up on camera and it tends to look more white until you see it in person. It's also the stripe in the hem and sleeves to break the two dyed fabrics up a little so they don't clash.

Lee is an animator, so my decision to outline everything with a heavy black line instead of using colours to match the fabrics was made partially to give everything a slight cartoon/illustrated feel. It also helped to keep details popping in the water section and keep everything distinct.

I got this tunic finished right before leaving on my yearly trip to Canada and didn't get photos taken of it before my departure, so I apologise for the wrinkly state of this in these photos, as it had been in my car for 15+ hours and then in my tent for a couple days with no opportunity to iron it. 🤣 An extra thanks to the pals who helped me get these photos taken!

Hopefully I'll have some more stuff ready to post soon! I have finished a whole bunch of things in the past year and posted almost no photos and really need to get on the backlog of that. Thankfully, when my hard drive died earlier this year, I didn't lose any of the raw photos from my camera since they're on both the camera's memory card still currently and also stored on my secondary drive, but any that I had started editing were lost. There's just a lot to go through and never enough time! Soon tho.

ALSO GO FOLLOW LEE'S ART! Lee's Drawing and Cartoons is his page, he's an incredible artist 💖

🐢🐧🐢🐦🐢

04/04/2024

Hey hi hello everyone!

I should be getting my computer back soon so hopefully I'll be able to share some pictures of some finished projects before too long :)

Meanwhile, I'll be at Tal Dagore Legends this weekend at my sibling Tesstiment's booth helping sell delicious fresh baked goods, jams, jellies, and pickles so stop on by for some tasty treats and to say hello on Friday or Saturday!

I'm still not currently open for commissions, but if you'll be at Legends and want me to take your measurements so that I have them on hand for future work we can get that done!

Hope to see some of you this weekend! 🌟✨

02/02/2024

Hey hi hello everyone!

I know I've been real quiet on this page lately, there's been a lot of life stuff going on, plus my computer is currently down for the count which means I haven't been able to edit any photos of things I've finished in the past few months that I wanted to get posted, which has meant I just haven't posted anything here at all.

Hopefully my computer will be fixed and I'll have some stuff to post sometime soon. I hope everyone has been doing well out there! Take care of yourselves 💖🌟

11/24/2023

Everything besides the blue and green tunic is still available and still on sale!! You can also order one in custom colours for the same price this weekend only! 🌟

11/23/2023

Hey everyone! I have SO much stuff I need to be posting but I've gotten so far behind on photo editing and now I'm out of town until early next week for the holiday so this is what you get for now!

Not quite a huge exciting Black Friday sale event, but a small one since I only have a little on hand stock- for anyone interested in scooping one of the ready-made tunics I have ready to go, I'm offering free shipping through the weekend and discounts on the tunics! The hooded sleeveless tunics are $140 (from $150) including shipping, and I'm dropping the blue and green tunic to $200 (from $225) also with free shipping!

Hoods are $10 off and free shipping if you want both (so $40 each + shipping, or $80 for both with free shipping)

Pouches are $5 off and free shipping if you buy at least three! (so $20 each)

All prices are in USD and shipping offers are for shipping within the US only, tho I'll drop $10USD off the cost of shipping for anything international. If I'm going to see you at an event anytime soon, obviously no shipping costs are involved!

The green and black tunics are roughly size small/medium and xl, and the olive and gold and blue and green tunic are closer to medium size edging over into large. Measurements are on previous stock posts!

Anything that needs to ship will get sent out next Wednesday after I'm back in St Louis 💖🌟

09/15/2023

Hey all! Trying to scramble for an impending vet bill and some other bills so if anyone wants to drop money on a commission like right now please reach out, I just finished a couple things so I was going to be looking for the next couple things to get into design phase anyway.

Also if anyone wants any of this stuff or the other hooded sleeveless tunics I have on hand (green and black) lemme know, I still have all of this available!

08/23/2023

Jin Kazama pants for Jubei

I don't make pants often, especially not more fitted pants like these, but Jubei brought me a fun project to recreate the pants that Jin Kazama from Tekken wears but as appliqued garb pants, and I couldn't say no.

The right flamey leg is actually structured so that each layer of linen is cut away on the inside so that the reds, orange, and yellow are basically staggered down the leg, instead of everything being appliqued on top of a solid black piece of fabric. It gets hot in the summer in the midwest, and I wanted Jubei to be able to wear these pants without having multiple layers of linen built up around one leg, and adding the detail stitching on the top of the levels of flames allowed me to help secure the edges of the fabric inside and also keep them from getting folded or bunched up when worn.

There was a mishap with the measurements on my part for the top section and the waist, which led to some interesting problem solving to make the pants fit and be wearable for Jubei, but he was patient with me getting it right and I'm really happy with the results.

08/21/2023

Flame Knight Belt for Sir Montag Tangoth, 2018

It's been a while since I've done a throwback post! This one comes from 2018 but the pictures are brand new- I actually was never able to get this photographed when it was finished because of a comedy of errors and bad scheduling on my part, but I had the wonderful surprise of seeing Montag this summer for the first time in YEARS and he was kind enough to let me take nice photos of the now nicely worn belt.

The black gears are the symbol of Montag's fighting company, No Quarter, and the company colours are coincidentally red, white, and black so it was an easy fit for a flame belt; the lions on the back panel represent him being a Master Lion. The spears are from his personal heraldry, and the head of the phoenix is the head of the Crystal Groves kingdom heraldry phoenix.

I've definitely come a long way in my colour blending techniques since I made this belt, tho I do still love how bright the lions and phoenix are on this. I don't remember where exactly I drew these particular lions from, and searching "lion passant heraldry" isn't finding me the right results, but I loved how stylized they are and how well their very pointy fur floofs leant to being painted as fire.

Thanks again to Montag for letting me get these photos, I really love this belt and I'm glad to finally have proper photos! (and you're pretty great too, obviously.)

08/14/2023

Jinbaori for Ohrn

I'm back from two weekends in a row of events and travel and not planning on going anywhere else for a while so hopefully this is the first of a bunch of posts from me! Let's get going with this jinbaori I finally finished for the SAINT OF PATIENCE Ohrn, who kindly modeled it for me after I got it to him at Battle of the Dens 🌟

Ohrn commissioned this a VERY LONG TIME AGO and has been waiting for it and dealing with my time blindness and bad project planning for multiple years at this point but I finally pushed through getting it mostly finished right before the event and finishing it AT the event after having to restart it when I discovered my first attempt at getting going had been damaged by the flood waters from last Christmas's burst pipe.

The mon (clan symbol) on the back is Ohrn's personal mon and was designed by his sister and is some of the wildest applique I've managed to pull off so far. It was interesting doing applique with other fabrics than linen or cotton since those are the main two I've done applique in so far, but it came out so crisp and I'm incredibly pleased with it.

The designs around the hem are a combo of shapes taken from some sets of bogu (training armour used mainly for kendo) that Ohrn showed me forever ago, and the heart shapes are actually inome, boar's eyes, which are a symbol that refers to the bravery and determination with which a provoked wild boar would attack his attacker.

The main body of the jinbaori is twill, as I wanted something nice and sturdy, and it's fully lined with the same black crepe satin that I made Hiimori's deel out of last year, and is the black I used for the mon on the back. The white fabric for the lapels and collar was used on Hiimori's deel as well and is some kind of polyester blend I've had kicking around for around 15 years and been slowly using on things, and the white for the applique pieces is a polyester sample that I had in a stash of upholstery fabric samples and was exactly the right amount for all the bits I needed for this project.

It was a great feeling to get something I've needed to finish for so long completed and hopefully I'll be able to carry that momentum to some other old projects I've had kicking around as well as all the other recent ones I've taken on to get more stuff done! 🌟

07/03/2023

Serpent Knight Belt for Tesstiment Kinstugi

When your sibling gets knighted, you go a little hard.

Something Tesstiment and I have always shared is a lifelong love of Sailor Moon. Tess is the baby of our family, and enough years younger than my friend group growing up that it was natural to pin her as the Chibi Usa to my Mars and various other friends being different Scouts. So when Sailor Moon and Chibi Usa specifically were the themes for her knighting, it was the natural direction to take with the belt.

Tess is a pastry chef in real life after a long journey through culinary school and different restaurant positions, and ALL of her dragons and her Masterhood were food related. Not just for baking nice things or cooking great food, either- the dragon I put on her belt is from a dead dough sculpture she made (for which she received her 6th dragon) and she's done other creative things like used food based natural paints to paint knighting scrolls, etc. The front panel being baked goods was a natural inclusion, and it allowed me to use some of the bright colours that Tess is known for loving that contrast nicely with the pastels on the rest of the belt. The pink ribbons are a reference to the pink ribbons in Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon's transformation sequences in the Sailor Moon anime. This panel is a combination of dyed and acrylic paint elements, tho the rest of the belt is all done with acrylic paints.

The wand on the belt tip is the Moon Kaleido Scope from the Sailor Moon manga and Sailor Moon Crystal anime; the version of the wand from the original 90s anime is what she was knighted with in place of a traditional sword. On the back is the Crisis Moon Compact, which was actually Sailor Moon's and not Chibi Moon's, but it fit the design so well that I used it anyway. The crystal on the Kaleido Scope and the larger gem on the Compact are both layered with a SUPER glittery acrylic paint I have that has large pieces of reflective, shiny acrylic in them that makes them both incredibly sparkly.

Butterflies are Tesstiment's personal symbol, and fittingly, also present throughout the story of Sailor Moon and common in the art. All of the butterflies on the back piece of the belt were traced directly from manga panels or from anime stills from both series, and done in various shades of green both as a nod to the Serpent path and also to Tess's personal colours.

The bubbles in the background and strings of pearls were inspired by some of the animation stills from transformation sequences in the anime that I was looking through while finding reference images for working on different pieces of the belt and looking for inspiration; the bubbles and the pearl strands were all done with iridescent and metallic paints, so that everything has a nice shimmer to it when the light hits it at different angles.

The ring for tieing the belt is a bracelet I took from my own jewelry collection.

Getting to present this belt to Tesstiment and see her reaction as she saw each part of it was incredible and so so satisfying. This belt was an absolute labour of love, and I'm so thrilled and proud of her and her journey and path that I don't even have the words for it so I put it and all my love all into this belt instead. 💖🌟💫🌙

06/25/2023

June 2023 Stock update!

So besides the two sleeveless hooded tunics I posted yesterday, these are the other ready to go items I have on hand. I know there's not much, but I try to balance getting stock things made in between custom work and I've been pretty busy with custom work so I haven't had much time for stock!

The blue and green tunic is $225, the hooded sleeveless tunics are $150, hoods are $50 and belt favor pouches are $25.

Blue and green Fen tunic: Chest 22" across, 44" around / Shoulder 18 1/2" / Length 40"
Olive and gold sleeveless hooded tunic: Chest 24" across, 48" around / Shoulder 21" / Length 32 1/2"

Shipping for tunics and hoods within the US is $10 and belt favors are $5. I'll be at Tal Dagore's Goblin Games next weekend, and Nine Blade's Battle of the Dens in August for pick up or hand off!

06/25/2023

In addition to the custom stuff I've been working on behind the scenes that's been keeping me busy lately, I put together a couple more hooded sleeveless tunics that are currently available!

These are both in emerald green and black linen, and are very different in size. The one pictured on the white mannequin is in the much larger range, measuring at 30" across the chest (so 60" around) with a length of 38", and the one pictured on the black mannequin is smaller at 21" across the chest (42" around) with a length of around 35 1/2".

With pre-made tunics, I'm working with materials I have on hand and trying to figure out some good sizes for making things for various body types and shapes, so they'll continue to be scattered sizes as I build up a stock of different things. If you want something custom made to fit your measurements or specific colours, I don't charge anything extra.

My hooded sleeveless tunics are made with a generously sized deep hood, are split from roughly the hip down, and are perfect for layering with other garb or wearing alone in warmer weather, and cost $150. Shipping in the US is $10, shipping outside of the US we can discuss, or hand-off at an event is free! Currently, I'll be at Tal Dagore's Goblin Games next weekend, and Nine Blade's Battle of the Dens in August.

Curious about what else I have in stock right now? It's not much, but I'll be posting tomorrow with a stock update on what I have currently on hand so keep your eyes peeled for that and finally some pictures of some recently finished projects! ☺️🌟

Crooked Crane Costuming & Garb

08/21/2024

04/04/2024

02/02/2024

11/24/2023

11/23/2023

09/15/2023

08/23/2023

08/21/2023

08/14/2023

07/03/2023

06/25/2023

06/25/2023

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