Subject Delta–Part 1a

Yeah, I know part 1a is kind of lame, but it is a continuation of part one in that it involves the final work of the tanks.

Background – The game of Bioshock is set in a submerged city called Rapture.  It is a ruined city and creates one of the best atmospheres in all of video games.  Part of that atmosphere is created by the soundtrack.  You’re trapped in this ruined decaying city and the background is all this creepy happy music from the 30’s and 40’s.  Add in the moans and groans of a Big Daddy and the twisted dialog of a Little Sister, and you’ve got a great recipe for just plain eerie.  This creepy feeling is something that I wanted to try to capture with this costume.  I knew I had to work in the soundtrack somehow.

There are two official soundtracks for the Bioshock games, one for each, so the music wasn’t hard to come by.  The sounds of the Little Sisters and Big Daddies was tougher.  Fortunately, one day at Target, I found a Bioshock 2 DVD for the PC.  A little time playing with the files and I had mp3s of both characters.  Now to mixing.

I picked out some of my favorite songs that should be easily recognizable if you’ve played the game and randomly threw in Big Daddy groans and Little Sister monologues.  Personally, I think it worked.  I ended up with a 20 minute mp3 that I could play to create my own soundtrack.  Now, on to playing it with the costume.

The player was easy, I have an iPod nano that I rarely use.  It was the speakers that were throwing me.  Until I remembered that because I am a packrat, I still had the first set of computer speakers I ever bought, and they happened to be battery powered.

I was hoping they would fit in the smaller tank since the bottom of it is a drain style plug, so the grid would allow the sound to escape.  Unfortunately, they didn’t.  They do fit great in the big tank, but when it is closed, you lose most the sound.  Open, it sounds even creepier, which is just awesome.  This left me with no choice but to cut a hole in the bottom of the big tank.

That one fixture protruding in the tank made a great support for the speakers, by the way.

I will be making a hole for the audio cord making sure it is completely hidden.  That will likely happen once I get the final back pack fixed for these monsters.