I also attempted making mochi for the first time! It turned out really well, and I'll add the link as soon as I have the tutorial and video up in a few days. Princess Mononoke Birthday Party Favors San’s wolf pelt! Take your white fur and fold it in half, right sides together. Using your marker, trace out the half-shape of her cape around the fold. To make this look more like a pelt and less like and amorphous blob of fur, I added some various movements in the lines. Doing it slowly makes it a lot easier and you'll be less likely to slip. Perhaps an electric drill might also work for this task, but I didn't have one on me, so I just plunged my tiny paper-cutting knife into the outline and used a sawing motion to work the holes away.

I wrapped some red suede-like cord around the stone tightly to hold it in place. I was a little scared of it falling, though (Labradorite isn't the hardest stone) so I um... cheated a little by affixing little bits of tape to the cord and stone. Crude, but I didn't want to risk my stone. Tunic: I got a cheap white tank top, cut off the bottom and slit the sides up to the arm seams, so it would fall open like San's tunic but wouldn't fall apart (pictures can explain this better than I can) Howl's Moving Castle: Sophie Hatter • Howl Jenkins • The Witch of the Waste • Madam Suliman • Prince Justin • Markl Along the way, Ashitaka discovers a world out of balance. The ironworks community of Tatara, run by the enigmatic Lady Eboshi, is ravaging the nearby forest for resources, provoking the wrath of ferocious wolf god Moro and her feral human daughter San (the titular Mononoke, which roughly translates to spectre or wraith). Caught in the middle is Ashitaka, who must figure out how to navigate this difficult world with "eyes unclouded". "I always loved that [phrase],” says Gaiman. "Unclouded by evil. Unclouded by fear, unclouded by hate. You just have to see what's actually there."Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world. To clean up any messy painting around the details and achieving a clean edge, you can put the template on the design and paint around it. The photos show how I did it. Get a white tank top, and cut off the bottom to the length that you like. I cut it to just above my navel, taking into account the length of my dress. Slit the sides, cutting off the seams to just below the hemmed sleeve. The tunic will be held together by this little bit of hemmed fabric. If you want, you can cut it all the way through and add cords to tie the tunic together exactly like San's, but I preferred this method. I started with a white base layer to make it easier to paint over layer. This mask had about eight to nine layers of paper-mache. Let dry every two layers. I was impatient so I used a hairdryer to speed things up.

Once the glue has dried, carefully slide your dowel into the bottom of the spearhead, about half-way through. Tie your red ribbon around the top of your dowel and the tab of your spearhead, tightly securing them together. Some years I do a LOT for the dessert table. This year, not so much. But there were still plenty of sweets for all the kids and all the parents. It is an echo of an enduring theme of Miyazaki's later work: a rallying call to children, and perhaps to himself, that no matter how bad the world gets, no matter how tempting it is to fall into fatalism or despair, you must keep on going. "Life is suffering," Ashitaka is told by a man with leprosy his face encased in bandages. "It is hard. The world is cursed, but still you find reasons to keep living." For the mask, I opted to use paper mache and cover it with a layer of paper clay, following this amazing tutorial here: http://www.otakucrafts.com/2012/10/princess-mononoke-san-mask-tutorial/ I'm so excited to share my daughter's 8th birthday party with you today. The theme was Princess Mononoke.The first layer of paint will look a little off. If you wanted a really worn-out looking mask, you can leave it like that and go straight to painting the yellow details. I wanted a more solid color, so I applied another layer and the color was much brightened. Do this to the ears as well. Ready to see a TON of this year's birthday party pictures, including costumes, desserts, games, and more? Princess Mononoke Birthday Party Costumes San and the wolves came to the camp, and she smells that the scent from the green fire stinks. A wolf brother came with a Crystal Dagger from Ashitaka that he's holding. After the battle, San is going to bring Okkoto to the Forest Spirit, and on their way, she heard a howl of a wolf brother that she realized it was Ashitaka. After Moro saved San, she asked Ashitaka to save her that he loved. Mix your paint colors for the base layer, the main color of San's mask. I mixed a 3 parts bright red, 1 part magenta, 1/2 part tan, 1/2 part yellow and a twinge of dark brown. The dark brown goes a long way, so I added a little at a time until I got the color I wanted. Of course, you can mix the colors any way you want, depending if you want a brightly colored mask or a slightly dull one like mine. Remember your paint proportions in case you need to mix some more later. I wish I'd given myself more time to work on the cake. It would have looked more like it looked in my mind. My daughter was happy, and that's what really matters in the end!

He used to be what he called leftist in sympathy, a believer in people power," explains Shiro Yoshioka, lecturer in Japanese Studies at Newcastle University. "But for obvious reasons [the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the escalation in ethnic conflicts across Europe], his political beliefs were totally shaken in the early 1990s."

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San is a young woman raised by the wolves and feels hatred for humans, but eventually comes to care for Ashitaka. She is stubborn and protective, her primary concern being to protect the forest and animals she lives with. She also rejects her own humanity and seems to be quite misanthropic, thinking of herself only as a wolf. Despite this, she eventually falls in love with Ashitaka, and by the end of the movie, like the others, she is convinced to cease open hostilities against the resident of Irontown. However, she still decides to live separated from humans since she's not yet ready to forgive Eboshi and some of the others for their previous actions against the forest and its inhabitants. San is a beautiful young woman of average build (around 16–17 years old) who wears ragged clothing and a cape made of wolf's fur and has what appears to be red war paint on her face. Her hair color is brown. She is also very agile, fast, fairly strong, and appears to be really good at using daggers and spears. She wears a mask which is her iconic feature. The mask is red with ears and red wavy lines and three yellow holes for a mouth and eyes. She later wears Kaya's Crystal Dagger after Ashitaka gives it to her as thanks for saving him.

Now to paint! First, make a template for the designs on San's knife. Fold a leftover piece of card in half, draw half of a boomerang-like shape on it, and cut out. Use the template to help you trace the designs on the knife. These are entirely up to you. You don't have to look absolutely like San, free free to take liberties with your costume. If you are on a budget, you may also be limited by what materials you're able to find/borrow/buy/make, so I suggest keeping your eyes peeled for anything around the house you can use.

Compared to Miyazaki's previous work, it is a dark and angry film, full of strange spectacle and scenes of startling violence. Hands are severed. Heads are cut off. Blood gushes from both human and animal alike. "I believe that violence and aggression are essential parts of us as human beings," Miyazaki once told journalist Roger Ebert. "The issue that we confront as human beings is how to control that impulse. I know that small children may watch this film, but I intentionally chose not to shield them from the violence that resides in human beings." Indeed, the cursed boar god, whose anger bursts out of him like a writhing nest of oily worms, was inspired by Miyazaki's own struggle to control his rage. Cut out a rough ear shape from card, cereal box card is fine. I used an old cake mix box. Leave a bit at the bottom for the base of the ear.