Whats-mac-making - What's MAC Making?

Here is a tiktok I did :33

Help me break my art block, please!! 😭

"Knowing that the reward for saving the world yet again will be going back to school and having another year of working just this hard forever."

- Dimension 20, Fantasy High: Junior Year, Episode 2

[Image Description:

The Bad Kids are hunkered around a small table in Krom's Diner, digging into their plates of cottage cheese and ice cream, completely exhausted. Kristen Applebees, with her tracksuit unzipped and tied around her waist to show her sports bra and shirt, toys with her fork and watched the cheese fall from its prongs. Her phone rests on the table, face up, and glows purple as Cassandra continues to message her sole follower.

Gorgug Thistlespring is sat next to her, not bothering with his mostly-cleared plate, and is instead staring down at his phone. His headphones rest around his neck, his goggles up on his hair with a slight mark from where he's been wearing them on his face, and he's wearing his grey hoodie. Riz Gukgak is peeking over his arm at the screen, curious, and is sandwiched between him and Fabian. He appears to be the most awake, always too wired in to properly show his exhaustion until he is overwhelmed and already searching for the next mystery to solve.

Fabian Seacaster is fully zoned out, staring off into space, and is sat with both his arms on the back of the seating behind his friends. There is a small bandage on his jaw and various bruises are littered over his skin from his tumbles under the wheels of the van. Adaine Abernant, on the level of tired where she looks slightly manic, is floating her utensils over his head in a blue glow to amuse herself. She's hunched over with poor posture, also ignoring her food, and entirely focused on her spellcasting as if it's the only thing keeping her both awake and sane.

Fig Faeth is chewing a large mouthful of her cottage cheese and ice cream, leaving splatters on the table and her shirt, but the tiredness is catching up on her. There is a large bandage over the back of her right hand, soaked with blood, from where she'd let a hit land from a balista.

The sun is rising and the sky is warm colours as Elmville wakes up, ready to start another day and herald the new year of school. The Bad Kids, with no fanfare or greeting party for saving the world yet again, are well aware they will not have time to sleep before their first day of school.]

The singer of the opening theme of Delicious in Dungeon/ Dungeon Meshi sounds so familiar, its driving me nuts 😩

Rise and Fall of Empires

Thoughts on symbolism, a short history lesson and Details under the cut!

Based on the Gladiateur Mourant by Pierre Julien (1779), I wanted to pick up the Theme of Impera, but, kind of before Impera. The neoclassical theme of the statue sparked the historian energy in me:

Using the antique laurel wreath - but inspired by the one Napoleon, as one of the biggest symbols for Imperialism, wears in paintings, a golden one, instead of one made from the plant - in a homage to both Roman Emperors and later ones, like Napoleon, referencing them, to depict Copia as the ruling figure, the one who built the empire.

The dagger, a roman pugio, too, is a nod to the Antiquity, but the late Republic: It's Brutus' (we know the shape from coins; i just satanised the cross a bit) that he used to stab Caesar, who is so iconic that his name even became the word for emperor in many languages.

I put Copia here in the roles of some famous ruling figures, who, yes, brought their respective empires to new heights, reached a god-like status, but also, ultimately, failed.

But, it's not necessarily an end, a failure, here - the dagger, glowing brightly, as it stabs him through his mark of the beast tattoo. The thought was to maybe make this the end of the Cardinal, who had just ascended to Papacy (old face, old paints) and now fully grows into Papa Emeritus IV, achieving even more. Or something. Maybe it just looks rad. (I put quite a bit of thought into this for once and I actually really like how it turned out; Caravaggio & co are some of my faves; I love Ghost and the roman antiquity and hopefully didn't bore y'all to death with nerd ramblings)

Proof that it sparkles which can't be seen in the edited scan:

Beautiful. Majestic. BAM!

their first glimmer of hope in the nightmare forest

Magical girl staffs/sceptres for the papas!

My etsy store

I've been wanting to do this post for a while now so here is EVERYTHING I CAN TELL YOU ABOUT THE GHOULS' IMPERA COSTUMES.

Buckle up because I have a LOT to say about those, this is gonna be a very long one.

The costumes were designed by B Åkerlund, a Swedish costume designer who's worked with Ghost since at least Meliora (that's as far back as I was willing to scroll on her Instagram page lol). B Åkerlund has also worked for many other musical artists such as Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Ozzy Osborne, Blink 182 and Hollywood Undead (information from her own website)

The masks were made by Bob Basset, a visual artists who works a lot with leather. I find his work fascinating, you can look him up on Instagram (nsfw warning, there's a few naked ladies).

Fun fact! The horns are real cow horns. That's the reason some of them have gold tips, to hide the imperfections that come with working with actual horns.

He does have a shop where he sells his items, there's a mask there very similar to the Impera ones. You can also buy Papa's batwings if you happen to have 2500$ lying around!

The jackets are made on the same model as one of Papa's. The back is decorated with a spine-like design made from leather and cording. It's adorned with a few of our classic Impera buttons. Some of the hems were left raw and some deliberate weathering was done to make it look old and worn.

Fun fact! The shoulder pieces are not sewn into the garment, I would assume for easier cleaning. I don't know if they're held by strong magnets or snap buttons.

The vest (my beloved 😩) is made from flocked velvet in a paisley pattern, the front hems embellished with satin piping. It closes in the front with custom metal clasps that are riveted into the garment. The D parts are attached with what seems to me like wide elastic, which would lessen the pression on the clasps when moving around a lot. The back is made from two different types of fabric, I'd have to touch it to be able to tell you what they are. I assume the panels closer to the sides have some mild stretch to them. The top of the shoulders are decorated with Impera grucifix patches.

The shirts were not custom made for the ghouls, altho they were altered. The original shirt in the vintage painter linen shirt from Punk Rave and it is still being sold. Some of the cuffs were altered, removing the ruffles for some of the ghouls, but not all. They were removed for Dew, Mountain and Phantom, Aether's didn't have them either. As far as I can tell, all the ghoulettes still have them.

An unfinished piece of linen serves as an ascot, that piece is decorated with a metal devil skull. The colour of the skull doesn't appear to be consistent between each ghoul, Dew's looks gold almost bronze while Phantom's is a silver-like colour.

Another modification is the buttons, a small portion of them were removed in favor of our Impera buttons. Some of the ghouls have more buttons replaced than others, which is still a mystery to me.

The pants are called Jodhpurs, they were invented in the 1800s as horse riding pants. The wide part at the hips and thighs allowing for better movement. The ones the ghouls wear don't reach all the way to their ankles, they stop a bit past the calf muscle, hidden by the boots. (Yes, the ghouls are effectively wearing capri pants)

The boots are motorcycle riding boots, decorated by a grucifix. Like the shirt, they can still be bought online through the All American Boots website, altho the price tag is... Headache inducing to say the least.

The cape is a piece of costume that was only briefly worn on stage by the ghouls, Aurora being the only one who still wears one. I would assume it gets in the way of playing very easily. The cape itself is made of two fabrics, a light blue satin and a dark grey suede. The two pieces are not sewn together at the bottom, they move freely from each other. The cape is attached on the left shoulder with a harness piece that has one strap across the chest, decorated with a metal buckle, and one under the armpit.

Aight that's it for me, have a nice day byyyyye!!