I thought this was pretty cool. A very nice person bought one of my Luchador mask necklaces and asked if I could do a purple one.
I came across quite nice one, white with purple edging, belonging to Mil Mascara during the 1960s (he wore quite a variety of masks) and made the necklace as a a custom item.
I originally toyed with the idea of making them into magnets but I thought a single layer probably wasn’t strong enough to deal with the day to day realities of being on a fridge. I didn’t want to just get rid of them because they’re quite nicely done. What to do.
I can’t think why it took me so long to remember Lauren’s suggestion that I make necklaces with one single mask. Here they are! A single mask on a ball chain necklace. They’re very attractive and tough at the same time. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so because I sold Blue Demon last night! I’m sort of hoping Aztec Skull doesn’t sell because I want to keep that one, but etsy is all about clearing your toy collection so you can make more toys!
Since all of them besides Blue Demon and Santo are original designs, I had to make up names for them (hence “Aztec Skull”). I decided not to go Spanish with the names for two excellent reasons: I know roughly 10 words in Spanish (half of them involve counting to 5) and I figure the majority of the etsy audience is in the same boat. Maybe 20 years from now my little Aztec Skull will be repeatedly bootlegged and I’ll see a real one in the ring. Heck, they did it with UltraMan.
Up for
Read the Amazing True Story “NPR at Lucha Libre”
A Thundering Fevered Rollercoaster Ride of a Short Story Combining
ACTION!
DRAMA!
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO!
WRESTLING!
ANGST!
HEART BREAK!
GORDITAS!
Smile with quiet amusement as you read “NPR at Lucha Libre!!!!”
I’m making a luchador necklace for Eli (with big manly links. It’ll be tough!), but I lost the original sketch of the masks. No problem, I could recreate those, but I couldn’t remember how big the shrinky dinks were before I shrunk them in the oven. So I got out a ruler and applied my mathematic skills. It turns out I have no mathematic skills.
I now have five beautiful 3 inch long luchador masks. Okay, they will make very nice fridge magnets (although I think they should be backed with another layer of plastic for stability), but they're way too large for a necklace.
Clearly I needed some kind of tool.
I made one.
Now I don’t claim to be the only one to have thought of this, but it was an original idea for me. After all, bats and birds both developed flying abilities wholly separate from one another.
I took a scrap piece of Shrinkydink and laid a measuring tape next to it.
I then marked off all of the measurements on the plastic.
Then I baked it in the oven, shrinking it down. All shrinky dinks of the same brand should shrink to the same proportion.
Now I can tell how big a shrinkydink was before I baked it!
Most of my creative energy this week has gone into my Illustration Friday submission (although there was some glow bowling and gin and tonics in there too), but I did have time yesterday to make some Lucha Libre masks for a necklace for my friend Eli.I made them too big! Now I have Luchador fridge magnets. Crisitunity! Hopefully I'll have some tiem during the weekend to create some new things. My Etsy shop could use dome new items.
I’ve stumbled on the big secret when it come to this luchador necklace thing: Lucha Libre Fans Like Them. Shocking, I know. I guess I was thinking more about the Archie McPhee bacon shower curtain hipster crowd, instead of good honest fans. I do feel a little intimidated of those cute indie rock people with their square glasses who enjoy Labyrinth from an ironic perspective. I enjoy it because it’s awesome!
Since many people don’t have the chance to visit a Lucha Libre match, I think I should describe my experience. Photos are courtesy of Lauren and Eli. We pretty much had no idea what it was going to be like driving down. It was in a neighborhood we don’t go into much. It was at a little sports hall, staffed by what looked like family members. Everyone was nice. They sold good pizza by the slice and bags of popcorn for $1. The beer was $5 right out of the keg and the lady selling it filled them right up to the top. They sold masks for $10 or $20. And the woman selling the masks loved my luchador necklace! Yay! We bought a tiny mask keychain, a Blue Demon mask, and another that resembles Swamp Thing. I’m not sure whose mask it is, but it was too good to resist.
There were plenty of families with little kids. At some point before everything started, the ring was full of little kids in masks posing for photos.
The wrestling itself is all spectacle. Good guys, bad guys, colorful costumes, flying leaps, choreographed moves. It reminds me a lot of ballroom dancing or Cirque du Soliel. I imagine they work out some thing ahead of time since many leaps and flips require the participation of two or more parties, but a lot was hilarious posing. Besides the headliners brought up from
At the end, everyone posed for photos! Yeah!
Sorry! I meant to update more Saturday, but there were a few unforeseen problems followed by foreseenly awesome Lucha Libre! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
