Bioshock Cosplay–2012 Edition

 

Wait?  What does that title mean?  2012 is this year.  I said earlier that I wouldn’t be doing a Bioshock costume this year.  I said that we had our list of costumes for Dragon*Con set:
--Chell
--Rattmann
--Twilight Sparkle
--Luna’s Royal Guard
--Our Dark Jedi for the group cosplay

I also said I try to make project plans and fail miserably at keeping them.

So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, I am pleased to announce that Subject Delta will be making a triumphant return to Dragon*Con 2012!

But why?  What changed my mind?

The short answer to that is Shelby and Sara.

Here’s the longer, more interesting version (or you can skip to the pictures of the helmet being built).

Everyone remember this picture from Dragon*Con at the Aquarium last year?

Well, that’s Shelby standing next to me.  Shelby has an older sister, Sara.  Both have a Big Sister, Emily.

Back in May, Emily contacted me asking if I was planning to bring Subject Delta back to Dragon*Con.  I told her that before she had contacted me, I had no plans on bringing Delta back, but, after reading her notes and learning about how much fun Shelby had just standing next to me in the costume (I was getting sick that night, remember), how much it meant to her to see me last year, AND that this year Sara was going to come in an Eleanor Lamb costume, really what choice did I have?  Disappoint and break the hearts of two little girls, or figure out a way to bring Delta back?  Seriously, Emily should have just asked me to go kick a puppy

Now Delta 1.0 had issues.  The scale got completely out of control.  I looked like you were playing Bioshock in Big Head Mode.  The drill was heavier than I wanted and too big.  I had wires running all over my and in the Atlanta heat, that was a hazard.  The jumpsuit was supposed to be a tall, but was a regular, so we had Delta in short pants at times.  I couldn’t just pack him back up and take him back.  I needed to rebuild him.  Make him lighter, more accurate, easier to manage by myself.  I have the technology.  Do I have the ability?  I hope so.

When I told Emily that I would not only bring Delta back, I would build a brand new just for Shelby and Sara, I got the following Thank You video

Dragon*Con is going to be in so much trouble with the three of us running around.  I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep up with them, though.

 

Subject Delta 2.0

For the new build of Delta, I decided I would try to follow a similar build method that “The other Delta at Dragon*Con” used.  2 Story Props was at D*C 2011 with an amazing Delta costume.  We never bumped into each other, and to be honest, I’m really glad.  I saw their build log just before Dragon*Con and I was so impressed with their build, I nearly decided not to take mine.  Obviously, I was talked out of that decision, and I’m glad now.

2 Story Props used a Pepakura file to make a papercraft version of the helmet.  I managed to get the file, and tried it myself.

Here you can see the assembled version resting on my dress form.  This is where I started to go wrong.  In hindsight, I should have covered the dress form in a couple of trash bags, and mounted the helmet onto it for stability.  It had been so long since I’ve worked with Pepakura, I had forgotten how unstable large pieces can be.

The next step was to seal the seams with fiberglass resin.  This I know how to do.  The reason is to help lock the seams in place for step 3, a process I have never done, and likely shouldn't have used this project as a learning experience, given my short timeline.

Seams all sealed

Step 3 – Fiberglass.  I have worked with fiberglass resin since I started this prop making thing, but never with the actual fiberglass material.  According to most Pepakura builders, the fiberglass is applied to the inside of the build so it doesn’t collapse in on itself.  So away we go.

                                    

This is where it all went wrong.  I didn’t have the helmet supported properly.  As I applied fiberglass, the helmet twisted and warped, and the fiberglass froze it that way.  I tried to cut it back apart and straighten it out, but I realized that I could either spend the next few days or weeks trying to fix it, or just scrap it and start fresh with a more comfortable, but slightly less accurate process.  Subject Delta 2.0 was scrapped.

Subject Delta 3.0

Alright, more complicated professional methods don’t work well for Redneck Geeks.  Time to go back to what I know: cardboard and hot glue!

To help me keep the scale, and for an easier time wearing it, I started with a hard hat for a base.  I never realized how cheap hard hats were.  $6 or less at Lowes or Home Depot and you’ve got a good base for any kind of helmet.

I made a quick pattern from heavy paper for the chest plate portion, then measured the distance from my shoulders to the rim of the hard hat, and began making a cardboard skeleton.

Delta’s Cardboard Frame

The next step, which you can see a piece of in the above picture, was to skin the frame with paper.  This would give me a nice consistent surface for future layers.

Delta Skinned and Ready for the Next Phase

From Delta 2.0, I really liked what I learned with the fiberglass.  It was rigid, solid and light.  Delta 3.0 would be getting a nice fiberglass shell applied to the outside of the paper and cardboard.

My Supplies

Not pictured above was my respirator.  If you are going to work with fiberglass, wear a respirator.  I’ve worked with the resin for some time and the smell doesn’t bother me now, but the amount of resin you use when working with the actual fiberglass material is much higher than normal.  I learned this from Delta 2.0.

     
Layers 1 and 2 of Fiberglass

After the fiberglass had cured overnight, it was sanded down and then ready for the Bondo.  For those wondering about weight, at this point, the whole thing weighed hardly anything.  I was actually looking forward to the Bondo adding some weight to it.

 

Bondo, Lotsa Bondo

The top can is the typical size can of Bondo you see everywhere.  The bottom can is the 3 pound can I got from Pepboys.  I killed both cans on this build.

 

Raw Bondo Coat 1

We had great weather up to the day I wanted to Bondo, then it started raining.  Applying Bondo in the basement worked, but the household was not happy with the smell.

Coat 1 Sanded

I applied a second light coat to get everything as even and smooth as I could and then applied the first primer coat of paint to help me see where more body work was needed.  Primer is really good for this.  As you can see, the sanded surface has a lot of different colors and shades to it.  By applying primer, you make everything one even color and then you can see just how bad or how many uneven areas you still have.

   
Delta 3.0 Primed

A little more body work, and some more fresh primer and he was done.

   
Final Primed Delta 3.0

There’s still a lot of work to be done.  Lights, glass, camera lens, rivets, dive weight, handles, tanks, and the drill, but for 9 days worth of work, I am really happy with this build.  It’s not perfect, but neither am I and perfect is not my goal.  This will be a great successor to Delta 1.0.

Oh, and for those that are still reading and curious about the weight, the helmet above is tipping the scale at around 8.5 pounds.  Not bad considering that Delta 1.0 was around 10+ pounds when done.

Star Wars Lightsaber Hilts

 

First things first.  According to my Blogger Dashboard, I now have two new followers!  Bringing my total up to a mind blowing three!

Still, I want to say thanks to my new followers and that I hope you enjoy this and future write ups.

Now on to what you came here for.

 

I try to make project plans and outlines.

I try to stick to them.

I fail miserably every time.

Oh, well.

Our friends, David and Lori, are going to Dragon*Con with us this year!  At last we’ll have friends there to hang out with and share in the fun and all things Dragon*Con (hopefully not the diseases, though).  Once they had their room booked and memberships bought, we started talking about cosplay ideas, and we decided that we had to do a group cosplay.  David mentioned Star Wars, and before Melinda and I even got home, I had ideas and plans in my head.  We’ve never done a Star Wars cosplay, which was very shocking and depressing.  So, now I get to check another item off the bucket list: Do a Star Wars cosplay.

I decided that step #1 should be creating lightsabers for everyone.  This was also a tricky decision.  If I make just a lightsaber hilt, then it will be easier and more convenient to carry around.  If I make lightsabers with blades, then we all have to walk around carrying a 32” long blade with us through the crowds of D*C.  I ended up going with just the hilts.  I am trying to figure out a way to make a removable blade that can be carried in our robes and then attached when needed.  I’m still working on that and if it works out, I’ll update accordingly.

Once I decided on just the hilts, it was time to design.  Melinda and I of course wanted to be Sith.  The bad guys just have so much more fun, and as David Prowse told us: “Everyone remembers the villain”.  Melinda decided to cosplay Asajj Ventress in her Nightwitch costume from the last season of Clone Wars.  I’ve created a character for myself to go as named Darth Equiness.  He is a more primitive Sith in a full face mask (that build is coming in a later blog).  David and Lori will be the Jedi to balance our team out.

Now, I have never built lightsabers before, but I know I should have started there.  I decided on the PVC pipe route.  Easy to find, easy to work with, and something I know all too well.  Melinda helped me decide that her and Lori’s hilts would be made from 1/2” PVC and mine and David’s would be from 3/4” PVC.  Why the different sizes?  Easier and more comfortable to hold, according to Melinda.  Now to fire up the Dremmel.

I started with Melinda and Lori’s sabers.  I decided that Lori’s should be a bent foil/fencing style, not as extreme as Ventress’s but similar.  Heat gun + PVC + time = bent into shape.

I took some blue PVC flexible conduit to make the grips.  Cutting it down the middle so it would slip over the PVC pipe.  A little heat gun blast made this a lot easier.

Here you can see where I got excited on the second Ventress saber and forgot that I had adjusted the size on the first one, cutting is slightly shorter.  Do over time.

The top and pummels are simply PVC fittings cut and sanded to shape with the Dremmel.

Here in the line up from left to right is Lori’s, Melinda’s dual sabers, and mine.  As you can see, I went back and fixed the length issue.

The grey bits is simply epoxy sculpt used to fill in the gap that the slide on grip left. 

Now you may be wondering, where’s David’s?  This was the most intimidating build I’ve ever done.  David is a designer and a creative person, too.  So, I’m trying to create something for a fellow artist.  It would be like an author you respect coming to you and asking you to write them a story.  What the heck do I do?  Well the first one that I tried simply ate itself.  So, I went back to the others and got them painted and ready.

They weren’t supposed to be that silver.

And that was supposed to be more bone like in color.

At least the hammered gold came out right.

Enough futzing around, time to build David’s.

I went with a classic saber design.  No reason not using what we know works.

For this one, I actually cut out a “window” in the PVC pipe, then cut a small section out of the conduit, heated the conduit, and slipped it up inside the PVC pipe.  The details at the bottom are simply sections of the piece that was removed to make the grip area, cut down and glued in place.  The transition bit at the top is simply a narrow cut of the conduit.

Now back to painting, painting and more painting, until we get :

The distressing and aging effect was done with multiple layers of paint and then removed with steal wool and then, in some cases, hand painted back in with a stiff dry brush.

Lastly my saber.  I created a character that I will be cosplaying.  A Sith Lord named Darth Equiness.  He is a rather primitive character and I needed a saber unlike any other.  This involved a lot of hand painting.  So much hand painting.

Initially the wood detail was going to be bone, but for some reason when I went to paint this, I picked up dark brown paint.  It started to look like wood and reminded me of a wand from Harry Potter.  PERFECT!  So I continued to create a wood like texture.  All the wood detail is made up of epoxy sculpt over PVC pipe.

The pummel was always to be a tooth/bone/claw detail.  Turns out, creating a bone color is really hard.  I like how it turned out so far.

The bend is just a 45 degree PVC elbow, a short bit of pipe and then a dowel sharpened to a point.  It has a physical texture that I created by covering it with a counter top caulking. 

There we have it.  5 Lightsaber hilts built in less than 2 weekends.  I’d say there is probably just over 12 hours in all 5.  I like quick props like these.

Wedding Dessert Stand

 

Quick announcement – I am no longer going to be doing monthly updates to this blog.  I’m tired of doing WIP posts and then having all my builds spread over numerous entries.  I will simply be doing project completion posts from now on.  This means that when I finish, say the ASHPDs, I will make one post detailing the complete build process.  I may even go back and consolidate several posts into one, especially the Destro build.  So, no more monthly updates; simply project completion posts from now on.

 

The Wedding Dessert Stand

Two of my very best friends recently got married and they asked me to build them a cake/cookie/tart/dessert stand thing.  They aren’t real big fans of cake, so a traditional wedding cake was right out, but they still needed something cake-ish looking that meshed with their overall vision of the wedding, to hold the actual wedding desserts on.  I was incredibly honored that they would ask me to build something this important.  I had plenty of time to build it, but due to my complete lack of focus and poor time management abilities, I actually got caught up in other projects, and ended up working on this one until midnight the day of the wedding.  I was still able to get it done and ready for use though, but just barely.  Lesson learned: When someone asks you to build something very important and you have a clear deadline, put other projects on hold and focus on this one.

After an afternoon of talking about what they wanted and a few quick sketches, I came up with this design.

The wedding was going to take place in the Bijou Theatre, here in Knoxville.  It is a beautiful and old theatre, so their entire wedding look was what some might call Steam Punk, but I thought it was just more vintage (not enough copper tubing and gears for true Steam Punk).  The over all design, as you can see was for three main tiers and a few floating tiers.  The very top was reserved for their “cake topping monsters”.  Now with a design, off to the hardware store.

 

A few sheets of 2’x4’ MDF, some dowel rods, and a case of liquid nail.  I had originally intended for the whole structure to be modular for quick break down and reassembly.  Intentions often change.

One half of the base with dowel rod pieces to join to the other half.

Umm…they didn’t line up exactly as I had planned, so a bigger hammer was needed, and the modular base flew out the window.

Both halves glued together and the support pieces glued in place.  The center bit is a section of PVC piping.  The central dowel rod fits in it perfectly and allowed me to secure it in place with screws.

If you’ve been viewing my blog for any time, you may notice the lack of kitties in the background of my workshop.  That is because they are all upstairs with us now.  We’ve still got Leo and Remus available for adoption is anyone is looking for a kitty.

This was the first rough assembly.  Nothing was leveled or balanced.  I just wanted to see if it would even work.  I got the clear acrylic rods from TAP Plastics online.  Great company with a good selection, reasonable prices and fast shipping.  I ordered a lot of material from them for other projects coming up.

Next came sanding, bondo, sanding, sanding and eventually painting.

Still some fine tuning to go, too, but we’re getting close.

I also wanted to add some filigree style details to the piece, but when I tried, I failed miserably.  The paint just didn’t work and ended up bleeding into the base coat.  This happened on Saturday.  The wedding was Sunday, as in the next day.  We had the reception dinner that Saturday night, too.  So, no time to fix that big of a screw up if I didn’t get on it and stop moaning about it.

Fast trip to the hardware store again for spray paint (thank god it was sunny, warm and dry that day), hopefully some stencils, and better paint for the details.

More sanding to remove my screw up and no, I don’t have pictures of what the screw up looked like.  Just trust me, it was bad.

Finally around midnight everything was done, and I was actually pleased with it.  Last thing was to move it to the Bijou Sunday morning.  Naturally two things happened Sunday morning.  It was raining and I made the whole structure one half inch too tall to fit in the back of my Santa Fe. 

Fortunately, I could take out the central column by unscrewing it from the PVC collar.  Throw the drill, extra screws, brushes, paint, and glue into what I dubbed the “OHSHIT” bag, and off we went.

All in all, I think it turned out great.  I was a nervous wreck until I heard my friends say they loved it.  That was all the approval that it really needed.  I am my own worst critic, after all.  The monster cake topper was made by another of their friends and fit in perfectly.