Thesis: Video and Graduation Remarks

My video of Blush Corp Performance.

This is the two minute piece I am showing on a continual loop at the Thesis Senior Exhibition at PNCA. I am very proud of it! Now it's not a perfectly edited masterpiece. Very choppy but I have to say with my limited video skills I am very proud of it!

I cannot tell you how happy I am with my overall thesis. I loved my mentors Sara and Martin. They were so amazing with helping me whenever I asked. Linda for getting me the room I needed. Sure it's only been a month since that performance but really it has gotten me looking forward to the future! I love the team I have back home they are amazing both as actors and collaborators!

I have learned and grown so much from this thesis. Blush Corp has given me territory to grow confident in myself as a person and as an artist. I use to think that I was the one that always helped everyone else bring their visions to life but Blush Corp is my baby and I brought it through its step one. I even got this video up on YouTube! Yeah YouTube! Never bothered trying that before.

I really am ready and think I earned that degree I get tomorrow but also am not clinging to being outside of school. With that drive to collaborate I know you'll hear from me soon. Hopefully also from these eevil villains! Keep in touch those of you that part ways as we leave PNCA! It has been such a wonderful three years working alongside all of you. Your lives, your art inspires me and my dear classmates you drove me to become better both artistically and personally. We are an amazing class of Illustrators.

Thesis: Whiteboard Doodles

Another little note on my thesis....during rehearsals my minions kept drawing things on the whiteboards. Here is an assortment of some of the things drawn:
The large Corporal was drawn by dear Hannah and the rest...I think was Tobi maybe Chase for the little figures at the top...not sure.

Still I have to say my thesis weekend of set up and rehearsals was so much fun! I was in shock and not even worried about it being my final enjoying the process with my crew! I am taking a little break on Blush Corp for now but can't wait to get back into it later.

Thesis: Finally Over...time to rest

Yes Focus Week is over! My performance a splendid hit. My oral defense went beautifully well. I of course passed the project portion. For those of you that read my Facebook posts you'll know that I now also have my thesis paper turned in! I get the results on Monday if I pass but I am not too worried about it.

For now I am letting the Blush wig rest. I am going to take a break for a month before getting back to working on them. This is not the end of Blush Corp though, my thesis is just the beginning...

Thesis: The Test Run

Of course Spring Break lead up to the test run at end of that week. We did it at The Landing at my church back home in Washington, Family Life Center in Mukilteo.

This is the flier I made that my mom emailed out the the church and my friends and family. About 13 people showed up which was a good turn out for this first rough run of my thesis.

Here is Blush with her minions from left to right Retna Burn, Blush, Subtlety, and Corporal Conundrum.

Retna Burn is working on creating the perfect weapon for their evil schemes!

And here we have the minions getting ready to go on another eeevil raid! Though I think they've already forgotten the plan Blush has told them....

And here we have my Uncle David who didn't know anything about the thesis acting the part of the vault for the bank. Retna Burn is sweetly asking her question!

Thesis: Spring Break Distractions

Of course while rehearsing we had other distractions during the week or ways to take a refreshing break....

Olivia the original Retna Burn with Chase the current Retna Burn. Olivia is sorting her assorted jug of beads to make bead sprites. Of course Chase and I had a little too much fun obsessively sorting them with her.

Chase by the end of the week had a haircut as did I but we had to figure out what we might want. My dad bought a tablet (not iPad) that we could draw on with our fingers so here is Chase drawing an idea for her hair. We had too much fun drawing on this thing and it got worse when I found sudoku on it! I was obsessively playing that thing for half the week!

Of course as with all the times we are having fun Chase breaks down crying in laughter. None of us can remember why she had her bout of hysteria. She does it every time we play a board game getting waay too over excited and in the moment. Hehe it's one of the delights of when we all play together!

Thesis: Rehearsing at the House

Here is a little more about the rehearsal process at the house.

First here is Corporal Conundrum getting into character hamming up at the camera.

We needed a stand in weapon for the one Retna Burn creates so Subtlety has the blow dryer as a stand in. Funny thing is our poor little dog Wicket was terrified of the thing since he got groomed recently.

And of course I cannot stop talking about the rehearsal process without talking about Shawna and Wicket. Our dog was a funny little random distraction element. And Shawna was amazing! She was there to be our "randomly picked" member of the audience. She had to do the final skit soo many times it must have driven her insane!

Thesis: My Casual Minions

Over Spring Break we had rehersals at my house running through the play. So here they are my casual minions...

Tobi aka Subtlety is pointing out the bells on her ankles proudly. Chase aka Retna Burn is wearing her cute tutu's still not at the full poof they had by the end of the week being a little space cadet. Hannah aka Corporal Conundrum is wearing the boots we found along with the trench coat and shirt she already had.

Corporal is not happy with the happy Retna Burn and playful Subtlety behind him. He hates being the only guy of the group some times.

Thesis: Blush's Wig

It's been a long road to get to this final wig. Lots of stress and pain and trouble with not only building it but also not getting some of the wigs I wanted.
The Blush wig is constructed of two wigs. The top is a Farrah Fawcett wig and curls up nicely. The bottom was suppose to be a straight blonde wig of the same color. I had a problem though, Display and Costume didn't have anymore so I tried to order online a blonde straight one. It was a horrid more plasticky looking one with a yellowy honey color. So I had a dilemma.
I thought I would integrate my own long hair as the bottom but it wasn't working out. I finally remembered that I have a long white wig that I didn't use for an older cosplay I didn't finish. Blush is 200 years old so this worked perfectly.
I ended up cutting off some of the old Blush wig to lengthen the braid in the back and have the white and blonde in the wig mix more. There are also white strands that swirl up through the blonde wig some following the curls others going against it.

This time around making the wig I discovered I could use straighteners, curling irons, and hairspray on it. I of course still used copious amounts of hot glue.
In this picture the top blonde wig has bangs which I later had to take away. At this stage I thought I would be using my own hair for the bottom half so I made the bangs out of this wig.

This is my drawing of what the wig ended up looking like. It shows a little more the swirls on the side of the hair that I've added.

And of course a picture of what the wig looked like on me for the test run. I do need to get more pictures of this wig on the head with a better turn around view. I do like this new wig but it will take a bit longer to forget the stress and fall in love with it.

Thesis: Brainstorming

These are the whiteboard pictures when my crew weeks back worked on in coming up with the script. The one on the left was coming up with evil ideas. The right one is refining down broader categories of kidnapping, robbery, and mind control. This helped a ton testing out the script improvising elements.

Thesis: Corporal Conundrum's introduction

Corporal Conundrum I am still learning more about since it will now be played by Hannah. He is one whose bark is worse than his bite. He is a little feisty because he is so short. He considers himself the second in command.

His costume is still in a lot of transition because of the change in actor. Corporal will not be the old Corporal but the Hannah Corporal now. Corporal was a punk but now more emphasis on the military in his military punk look. He now has a fun body shape with that cute husky build! So fun to draw!

Thesis: Retna Burn's introduction

This is Retna Burn (misspelled on purpose). She is the scientist of the group but since she is so good at inventing her mind doesn't have room for much else. She is a little ditzy and easily forgets her tasks when they go out on their evil doing raids.

Her outfit has gone through quite a bit of changes from that first night Olivia became her. She will be played by my sister Chase though because of work obligations for my final. I have been working on simplifying her costume from the rainbow colors she'd worn before.

Thesis: Subtlety's introduction

Subtlety gave herself her villain name. She thinks she is subtle despite all the bells she has on her that announce her coming. Her outfit is much like how a little kid dresses themselves. The bottom right drawing was done when trying to come up with drastically different costume ideas for her.

She is the Magical Child archetype and an Innocent Prince since she is Blush's great...great...granddaughter and will inherit Blush Corp. She is not too interested in being the leader right now and is very happy being a minion.

Thesis: Lady Blush's introduction

This is my lovely thesis character Lady Blush. She is played by me and is the leader of Blush Corp. She is a very headstrong Queen character and has taught me a lot about confidence and play. And yes I have an awesome wig like that which I formed myself out of two cheap wigs.

The costumes on the end are where I am going for the final and in the middle is a special alternate costume I came up with for fun. Some of these drawings might make it to my final process presentation boards, but here on my blog you'll get to see a lot more of the Blush Corp progress drawings!

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2010 Day 1A: Blush Corp

Finally here on my blog are my Blush Corp characters that lead me to my thesis. Of course since Kumori Con there have been significant changes to who will be playing each of these characters during my actual thesis performance.

This is my character Lady Blush. She is the leader of the Blush Corp crew and is 200 years old. She is the Queen and Father archetypes. Of course the wig came from Lucrezia as a starting point.





Subtlety is Blush's heir her great-great-etc granddaughter. She wears bells on her ankles and still think she is subtle and stealthy. She is played by my sister Tobi and her archetypes are the Innocent Prince and the Magical Child.



Retna Burn (misspelled on purpose) is the scientist of the group despite being easily distracted. She is normally played by my friend Olivia but for my thesis because of job constraints will be played by my little sister Chase. Of course Olivia is still coaching Chase and workshopping the role with her. Her archetypes are the Wizard and the Dummbling.


Corporal Conundrum was originally played by Michaele. This character has changed the most. His archetypes were the Avenger and the Orphan Child. Now my friend Hannah will play him still as a male character. And now Corporal has more of a Napoleon complex and is a little less complicated.

Day-to-Day: Thesis Stress

I know I have not mentioned my thesis yet in this blog but it really is going on. Two Wednesdays ago I think it was I was hitting a wall with my thesis. Over thinking Blush Corp...I ended up cutting the wig I'd used for Blush. Don't worry I wasn't going to use it for my final since it already was quite disheveled. I felt a little rebellious empowered by the process but towards the end felt sad about what I had done. I think to me the characters of Blush Corp are precious but they are not what my thesis is about. The point I am trying to make with my play is play as discovery not escapism. The characters of Blush Corp are my medium with which I am going about it.