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People into astrology believe that people born under the sign of Gemini have two personalities. What those people forget is that each of those personalities is also a Gemini . . . The phrase "I am Legion" might have been written just for Geminis! [grin]
One of my loves is doing leatherwork, and you can find more about my efforts in leather here.
However, anyone who knows me knows that my first love is Science Fiction, and my second love is Star Trek, which is why I am not very fond of the various Next Generations of Star Trek: they have no science in their science fiction. The original series didn't always do well in that department, but it did hire some of the best science fiction writers of the era, and had a technical advisor to steer them away from most of the really bad mistakes.
My favorite race in the original Star Trek were those loveable "Klingons who simply chose the right side," the Andorians. Which is another reason to be displeased with the Next Generations, for it was early on decreed that "We don't do antennae," therefore there will never be an Andorian on the Next Generation shows.
Inspired by my love of Star Trek, I have done re-creations (makeup only; I'm still learning to sew) of several of the aliens of the original series, ranging from an Andorian to a Tellarite, to the Horta. It is an irony that none of these aliens have made a real appearance on the Next Generations of Star Trek, and yet I found myself playing them, and a Human, in Next Generation uniform.
That came about through the agency of a friend of mine, Susan Fox-Davis, who was helping make a fan-created movie, U.S.S. Angeles: The Price of Duty. She played a Tellarite engineer, and they needed more extras, human and other-wise. Not having done my Andorian character in several years, I had some new antennae made up, bought a new wig, and re-created my original makeup. I made gloves for myself to solve the old problem of leaving makeup everywhere I touched.
(The person who did the antennae, while competent at his craft, utterly failed to meet the first two deadlines given, and jacked me up for more money than had been originally agreed upon before he would finish them. It ultimately took the threat of legal action to get my antennae delivered, several months late. It was an unpleasant experience, one that I will never repeat.)
Ironically, the Andorian character could not appear aboard the ship, because all of our ship sets were created with the aid of a computer and a blue screen. With blue skin, nothing would have been seen of the Andorian except his hair, eyes, and his uniform! So he could only be seen in our live action location shots, where he was killed in the line of duty. Another redshirt bites the dust!
I've written three stories so far about the Andorian, Thalek Ka Redel. The most recent one takes place aboard the Enterprise and was an unsuccessful entrant for Pocket Books' Strange New Worlds IV contest. You can find them linked together here 1 , 2 , 3 .)
The Tellarite doctor, Dr. Henglaar, was created when the U.S.S. Angeles club decided to do a tv "series," and needed a Chief Medical Officer to tend the wounded aboard Deep Space 12. For this character, I grew out my hair and a beard, to look more like Ambassador Gav in the original Trek series. I still need to make some gloves to create the hoof-like appearance of Tellarite hands.
The Horta costume was the culmination of a twenty-five year old joke, and may be my best costuming achievement to date. Back in the 1970's, the Equicon conventions were held near Easter, and one year, they decided to have an Easter Horta-egg hunt. I decided that they needed an Easter Horta to lay the eggs.
Like many projects I wanted to do in my teens, nothing much happened. That is, until recently when I worked on two group costumes, where I learned how to use urethane foam for construction purposes. One of those group costumes involved a dancing rock (don't ask!), and it rekindled the desire to do the Horta costume. When I heard that a friend was doing a group costume, The Ladies of Star Trek, I knew I had to make the Horta a part of that.
Many months of lazing about and a few weeks of hair-tearing, frantic, running-around-in-circles-at-high-speed madness, I found myself telling friends at NASFiC that they had to see the Costume Masquerade because I was going to be one of the Ladies of Star Trek! It was great fun, watching their expressions after hearing this pronouncement, I must say.
I've been asked to include a picture of my old Tholian Web spacesuit from The Original Series here, and just for grins, I'm doing so.
The original Tholian Web spacesuit was designed by the late Mike Minor and was seen in two episodes: The Tholian Web and Whom Gods Destroy, both third season episodes. It also showed up without the helmet in a Mork and Mindy episode as a Halloween costume. [grin]
But Star Trek is not my only fascination. No, that would make me almost normal; can't have that, now, can we? Another of my interests, guaranteed to convince most adults that I never grew up, is comic books. Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, but most especially, Batman.
Batman is the story of an ordinary man made extraordinary through his own implacable will. Superman's powers are an accident of birthplace, the Flash's powers an accident during an electrical storm, and Green Lantern's powers a gift of aliens. Only Batman has no super powers; all of his achievements are by dint of his own hard work.
Unfortunately, I don't have the body-type to play Batman. I'd like to exercise, losing weight and building muscle to the point where I'd be believeable in the mantle of the bat, but don't hold your breath, people.
What I could achieve, however, was Jack Nicholson's version of the Joker, which I did for a Halloween party. And to be honest, that was entirely because my friend, Susan Fox-Davis, had some interesting clothes lying around, and has a deft hand with makeup. My contributions to the Joker were minimal in this case, having to do primarily with getting the white makeup on, and greening my hair and eyebrows. On the other hand, now I at least have an idea of how she did it, if I should ever want to do it again.
On a whim, I added a counter on stardate 200008.03.
The Joker® is a registered property of DC Comics/Warner, and all rights remain vested in DC Comics/Warner. No violation of Warner's copyright, trademark, or licensing is intended.
Revised -- Stardate 200109.24
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