Crafting for Sebastian

Ok, so I tend to get carried away with making stuff for other people and sometimes forget to make stuff for my own kids. While I was making the Yo Gabba Gabba shirts for Dorian, Sebastian came up to me and said "Mom, how come you never make me anything? Like any shirts or anything?". Needless to say, that was a knife to the heart of a crafting mom. And a situation that had to be remedied with a quickness. So, Justin, Sebastian, and I are big Death Note fans. If you haven't heard of/seen Death Note, it's an anime series. It's kind of hard to explain so here's a synopsis courtesy of Wikipedia:

Death Note is a Japanese manga series created by writer Tsugumi Ohba and illustrator Takeshi Obata. The series centers on Light Yagami, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the titular "Death Note", dropped on Earth by a shinigami (death god) named Ryuk. The Death Note grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose face they have seen, by writing the victim's name in the notebook. The story follows Light's attempt to create and rule a world cleansed of evil using the notebook, and the complex conflict between him and his opponents.

Soon, the number of inexplicable deaths of reported criminals catches the attention of the International Police Organization and a mysterious detective known only as "L". L quickly learns that the serial killer, dubbed by the public as "Kira", derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the word "killer", is located in Japan. L also concludes that Kira can kill people without laying a finger on them. Light realizes that L will be his greatest nemesis, and a game of psychological cat and mouse between the two begins.

Here's more about L:

L, who also uses the aliases Hideki Ryuga, Ryuzaki, Eraldo Coil, and Deneuve, the latter two for which he has developed reputations as the second- and third-best detectives in the world, is quite secretive and only communicates with the world through his assistant Watari. He never shows his face to the world, instead representing himself with a capital L in Cloister Black font. After meeting the Kira investigation team, he requests that the task force refer to him as Ryuzaki for discretion. The Kira investigation team never learns his true name.

L's disheveled and languid appearance masks his great powers of deduction and insight. He tends to second-guess everything he is presented with, and is extremely meticulous and analytical. He has several quirks such as preferring to crouch rather than sit, eating only sweet foods like desserts and fruits, and holding items very delicately.

And of course L is our favorite character. Here's what I came up with! First, I found a good image of L. It came from one of the posters from Death Note. See? L is the one on the left.



Then, since he pretty much blended into the background, I had to do all kinds of Photoshop business to separate him from the background so I could trace him. I traced most of him onto an old shirt of Sebastian's (after ironing some interfacing to the wrong side of the shirt) that happened to be the perfect color for L's skin, and then painted him with acrylic mixed with textile medium. I freehanded most of the line detail in his shirt, pants, and face with pencil and then went over that with black paint. After that, I cut him out, leaving a smallish border, which I painted a dark red so that L's hair wouldn't blend into the black shirt I was planning on sewing him to. I fused L to some Heat n' Bond, ironed him to the shirt I wanted to use and then sewed him down. Here he is:



And here you can see Sebastian wearing the shirt!



Next, I traced, cut, fused, and appliqued the "L" logo to the back of the shirt.



Man, it took me a freaking long time to paint L and get all the details of him right. I think I did a pretty good job of capturing him! Here he is while I was painting him.



And here he is after I finished painting, but before I cut him out and painted the red border.



So, Sebastian really liked it!!! And I didn't feel like a horribly neglectful crafting mom anymore. In other news, this past Saturday, the 21st, was mine and Justin's 6th anniversary. We actually went out on a dinner date WITHOUT OUR KIDS. Woah. For the first time since September of 06, we went out to dinner all by ourselves! It was pretty great!!! We had some excellent Italian food at a locally owned restaurant and we browsed through Hobby Lobby, Books A Million, and Wal-Mart with no kiddies in tow. It's like a different universe going to those places with no kids. It was actually kind of weird and hard to get used to. But, enjoyable nonetheless. Anyway, I'm trying to break my "no pictures ever" habit. It's part of my whole mental rebirth with this weight loss thing. So, here are a couple of pictures of me and Justin before we went out.





Check out my new specs! I got those a few weeks ago and I really like them. Justin's boss and his wife watched the kiddos and we got them to snap a couple pictures before we left. That's Justin's version of a smile, in case you're wondering, haha! Anyhow, we had a great time and so did the kids and hopefully we won't wait another 2 1/2 years before we do that again:) Till next time, everyone!