Random Talent: Reverse Engineering What!?

Clothing. I know, that's random. Who does that anyway? I look at some piece of clothing and figure out how it was put together, how I can do it myself, that sort of thing. It doesn't seem like a big deal at first, but when you get a little bit more information, it all falls in place.

I used to attend Anime Central, the Rosemont, IL, anime convention, and did so for several years. Each year I designed and assembled my own outfit, sometimes assembling pieces of pre-made pieces of clothing and sometimes sewing together my own to make an anime-based outfit. I've done this on the order of at least five outfits, from Repo: The Genetic Opera to .hack//SIGN and Ragnarok Online. These outfits were completed with only character pictures and no other reference, and for the pieces of clothing I created, used no patterns. I unfortunately had to stop attending for financial reasons.

I also have a tendency to wear ear-hats, hats consisting usually of black fabric and colored decorations from faces to ears on them. Thus far, I have always bought them from others, usually independent artists who live off the sales, but (again, financial reasons) I haven't been able to add to my collection much as of late. I've figured out how to build these hats without a pattern. It's not that I want to put the people who make them for a living out of business, or steal sales from them, since I have no intention of selling them--only made for personal use and gifts--I just need to save the money.

Money is more of a problem for me right now than time, with my difficulty getting a good job with a lot of hours, I seem to have more than enugh time on my hands for a new project.

Unfortunately, the current outfit/character design on my mind is female, but I don't think that will hold me back much.