Claudius's Foam, Fabric, and Acrylic

[Mob of Blondes]

By garden thing, do you mean the grey tray with handles?

[Yashia]

I really hope you get it done in time!
I hate working under time pressure! Things just don't end up as neat as they could have

[Claudius Sol]

By garden thing, do you mean the grey tray with handles?

I mean the whole surface that I'm working on. It's a beige cart/trolly type thing with a bunch of grey trays and baskets and grids. Turns out it does well for hobby stuff, if lacking a bit of leg room.

Can't find the type of thing I'm looking for right now, otherwise I'd link you a picture.

I really hope you get it done in time!
I hate working under time pressure! Things just don't end up as neat as they could have

I typically don't work well under pressure, but I usually manage to finish, at least. And just because GenCon passes, doesn't mean I won't keep improving this project, I'll probably revisit it later this year (as I haven't had any time to work on other hobbies) when I'm feeling less drained.

[Claudius Sol]

This is the home stretch!

Most everything is painted. I just need some finishing touches on the belt and sword. Are you excited? I'm excited.

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

(Yes, I know it looks sloppy, but it's too late to go back now! I'll have to come back to it later, unfortunately.)

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

Sorry for the yellow lighting. These pictures were taken late at night so no chance of natural sunlight.

All that remains is some touchups, minor detailing, and then applying a LOT of varnish.

I've put a lot of effort into this. Here's hoping it doesn't fall apart in the first handful of hours!

[Yashia]

It came out so well!
Single point of critique would be the lines of light. I know what you intended but that effect is pretty difficult and fails to convince, imho. The lightning front piece on the other hand looks cool!

You did really well! I love that back piece! Very convinig!

Now grab some safety pins and tape for quick repairs and go have fun on GenCon! ^_^

[Claudius Sol]

It came out so well!
Single point of critique would be the lines of light. I know what you intended but that effect is pretty difficult and fails to convince, imho. The lightning front piece on the other hand looks cool!

You did really well! I love that back piece! Very convinig!

Now grab some safety pins and tape for quick repairs and go have fun on GenCon! ^_^

Thanks! Yeah, I know it doesn't look great right now. I need to look into using EL wire...

Thank you very much!

[H1ghlander]

Looks cool. I'm assuming you'll use your old hakama, rather than try to make a new one?

[Yashia]

Ah damn! Forgot something important I wanted to write into the last sentence:
You can be really proud!

[Claudius Sol]

@H1ghlander

Yeah, I'll just be using my old hakama and some hair scrunchies to keep it from going all the way down.

@Yashia

YEAH! I'm pretty proud of it right now. We'll see how much that keeps up, lol.
Do you think it's OK to wear the same costume twice without washing? I won't have access to a washing machine or anything. I was planning on wearing the custume on both Thursday and Saturday, letting it air out on Friday.

[CoveredInFish]

Hi, maybe I can share advice.

Since the costume doesnt get dirty/stained the only problem is sweat.

My ex-SO is a costume and stage designer and in the opera/theatre they treat those costume that cant be washed after every performance with alcohol.

They spray alcohol (a cheap and strong wodka is actually used) on the costume, especially on the sweaty parts. I believe it should get wet, not soaked, but more than damp. The alcohol kills the bacteria in the sweat that are responsible for the odor. Once fully dried it doesnt smell, neither like alcohol nor like old sweat.

It works if you use it directly on the wet/damp sweaty costume, once its dried it doesnt help any longer (at least not as much).

First time I heard this is couldnt believe it (They spray the costumes with cheap wodka??? ) but after 10+ years living with a professional I know its a quite common trick.

[Claudius Sol]

After varnishing, I was gonna test using Isopropyl on it to see if that affects the varnish. If not, that's what I'll be using to sanitize the foam parts.

Of course, your advice is much appreciated!

[Neatpete]

Looks cool man. Have fun at the con and I look forward to seeing some pics in action!

[Mob of Blondes]

You need "special" varnish (as in now, probably 20 years ago it was the common kind, smelly and hard to clean). Acrylic has limited resistance to alcohols. I don't know about urethane ones.

The issue with the glow is that the deep zones are black, not light blue, or better white. Fluo if you can get such paint. Or they are so thin that the shadow makes them dark as black.

[Claudius Sol]

@Neatpeat
Thanks! I hope to have some fun. We'll see how many pictures we can get. I'll have some people take "professional" pictures of the costume for me.

@Mob of Blondes
Hmm... I'll look into it after GenCon. Right now, I just finished a test fit with the completed pieces.
As for the glow... Yeah, those are just shadowed areas. They're actually painted white, but no amount of paint is going to fix the fact that there is no light there.

Here's the test fit photos (special thanks to my younger brother for taking the time to take the pictures).

Well... It's not perfect, but it'll do.

Sorry for the missing leg armor there. I've been tossing the idea around back and forth, but I'm just not satisfied enough with the durability of the leg armor to wear it. I know it won't stand up to the conditions of the con, since one broke the glue I had used just while simply testing my range of motion.

On the plus side, the rest of the armor fits well and looks the part enough for me to be happy. As Yashia would put it: 90% satisfaction level.

Special thank you to Underground Lasers for producing the wakizashi and comm interface acrylic pieces.

Big thank you as well to CoveredInFish for supplying me with those fancy vinyl stickers you see with my ITS PIN and "Oniwaban" written out in kanji.


Without further ado: Here are the test fit photos. For more, you'll have to wait for my coverage of GenCon.

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

Untitled by Bryant Vichainarong, on Flickr

Hopefully, I'll be more aware of my posture while in character.

What do you all think?

[Mob of Blondes]

Excuses about leg armour but no mention of shoes? The distraction will not save you.

Wild idea: What about some white cotton in the cracks? Does it look too furry or could it pass as sparks? Maybe white tube (heatshrink is avaliable in white, and flexible to fill the spaces, don't apply heat and you will be able to reuse later) until proper EL wire?

[Claudius Sol]

Excuses about leg armour but no mention of shoes? The distraction will not save you.

Wild idea: What about some white cotton in the cracks? Does it look too furry or could it pass as sparks? Maybe white tube (heatshrink is avaliable in white, and flexible to fill the spaces, don't apply heat and you will be able to reuse later) until proper EL wire?

Hahaha, as mentioned earlier, I'll just be wearing darker colored Converse Chucks for shoes. Mostly because I ran out of time. Partly because they're just more comfortable for me. This is a convention, not a photoshoot, so I'm not overly concerned. Practicality wins out with regards to footwear, always.

As for fixing the cracks in the armor... meh. I'm not THAT motivated to do something about it at this stage. The armor is designed to flex and bend, as well, so I'd have to take that into consideration. It's a mess and problem for another day. This was my last available night to work on the project. I leave town directly after work tomorrow to drive up to my parents' house in Dallas so I can catch a 5 AM flight out of the airport there.

I'll eventually have it all hooked up to an EL system. But that's going to be fairly far in the future... I should probably get to planning my next costume.

[Mob of Blondes]

Heatshrink would be a 5 min job with scissors and push into the cracks, all you need is the luck of electronics shop in the path of your travel. Or maybe workplace has some around.

[Yashia]

@ Claudius:
Glad to hear about the shoes! I saw you writing about wearing black shoes but the missing in those pictures scared me a little
Great work! Have fun at the Con and enjoy being an Oni! ^_^

@ Mob: I know you wish simply the best with those comments, but somewhere in the process of making a cosplay there is the point where frustration and time and money invested are that high you only think: "That's good enough, maybe fix it another time."
It doesn't matter how easy or cheap a proposed solution is, you simply don't have the nerves anymore to go deeper on that thing.
I guess Claudius is at that point and I think his costume is that cool no one at the Con will bother those lines

[Errhile]

enjoy being an Oni!

Preferably not, if you ask me

I fully support Claudius being a gardener and enjoying that, but once he starts enjoying being a demon, not so much, I think

[Yashia]

[...]
@Yashia

YEAH! I'm pretty proud of it right now. We'll see how much that keeps up, lol.
Do you think it's OK to wear the same costume twice without washing? I won't have access to a washing machine or anything. I was planning on wearing the custume on both Thursday and Saturday, letting it air out on Friday.

Sorry, forgot answering to this one! >_<

My cosplays are often craftet that way I can't wash them even if I wanted. Then again I'm lucky to not sweat much at all, so this isn't that much of a problem to me.
Depending on the airconditions in your hotel room you can try to use one of those travelling laundry detergents and wash at least the morphsuit in the sink of your hotel. If the air is warm and dry the suit can be dry again after one day.
Otherwise the Isopropyl alcohol idea sounds good!

@ Errhil: But going demon-mode is the most fun!

[Errhile]

@ Errhil: But going demon-mode is the most fun!

I take your word on that!

[Claudius Sol]

Heatshrink would be a 5 min job with scissors and push into the cracks, all you need is the luck of electronics shop in the path of your travel. Or maybe workplace has some around.

As Yashia states, I'm simply at the point of done-ness for now. I've neglected a lot of things to get this cosplay to where it's at, so I'll be tending to those concerns 'ere long. When I have time and patience to come back at this project, I think I might go with the white rubber tubing instead of EL wire as a means of keeping the project self-sufficient. There might come a time far in the future where I update the whole outfit to have lighting and such, but that time is then, not now.

@ Claudius:
Glad to hear about the shoes! I saw you writing about wearing black shoes but the missing in those pictures scared me a little
Great work! Have fun at the Con and enjoy being an Oni! ^_^

Haha, yeah, it was just gonna be too much work putting on those shoes when I already had everything else on and fitted. On the plus side, I now know to put on my shoes before putting on the chest and arm armor. Hmm... I've just thought of a last minute change I could do to get my shoes looking somewhat more sci-fi. It'd also have the bonus of hiding my laces, most of the time. I'll look into it when I'm at the hotel on Wednesday night. I'll be bringing a "repair kit" of sorts, anyways.

Thanks for the kind words and empathy!

enjoy being an Oni!

Preferably not, if you ask me

I fully support Claudius being a gardener and enjoying that, but once he starts enjoying being a demon, not so much, I think

Everyone just thinks I'm kind. But being demonic is just too fun.

[...]
@Yashia

YEAH! I'm pretty proud of it right now. We'll see how much that keeps up, lol.
Do you think it's OK to wear the same costume twice without washing? I won't have access to a washing machine or anything. I was planning on wearing the custume on both Thursday and Saturday, letting it air out on Friday.

Sorry, forgot answering to this one! >_<

My cosplays are often craftet that way I can't wash them even if I wanted. Then again I'm lucky to not sweat much at all, so this isn't that much of a problem to me.
Depending on the airconditions in your hotel room you can try to use one of those travelling laundry detergents and wash at least the morphsuit in the sink of your hotel. If the air is warm and dry the suit can be dry again after one day.
Otherwise the Isopropyl alcohol idea sounds good!

@ Errhil: But going demon-mode is the most fun!

Yes, I will certainly be washing the zentai suit once I'm back on Thursday night and hang dry it on a towel rack or something. Unfortunately, I'm of the rather sweaty variety of person.

[Neatpete]

sweet! Looks great!

[Mob of Blondes]

@ Mob: I know you wish simply the best with those comments, but somewhere in the process of making a cosplay there is the point where frustration and time and money invested are that high you only think: "That's good enough, maybe fix it another time."
It doesn't matter how easy or cheap a proposed solution is, you simply don't have the nerves anymore to go deeper on that thing.
I guess Claudius is at that point and I think his costume is that cool no one at the Con will bother those lines

I just throw ideas around, sometimes they stick. No problem if they fall.

Anyway, good. It seems we all forgot about the helmet, but Claudius will be able to breath with that "cut corner".

[Claudius Sol]

I was purposefully ignoring the helmet. It's something I simply am not confident I am able to perform. Particularly in a short time-frame.

In the future, perhaps.

Right now, I'm going to decompress from the convention and relax a bit. There are photos of GenCon on my Flickr account, but I'm quite busy catching up on a lot of things and am unable to properly link them here at the moment.

[Claudius Sol]

So, I don't know if I'll go back to the Oniwaban project for a while. Here is what it needs for completion:
-Pistol + Holster
-More detail on the green areas
-Actual shoes...

In any case, I think I'd rather move onto my next ideal costume:
-Aragoto Spitfire

Dismounted, of course. I don't even have a motorcycle license.

This is a long project. I don't expect to have it completed before GenCon 2016. Just to get that clear.

Because it's a fun place to start: I think I'd like to make the Spitfire first. (partially because I can also change from my original Aragoto to many other Yu Jing projects)

Anyway, that's just the announcement, I suppose.

[Mob of Blondes]

In this case it could be a nightmare to carry around... but have you ever seen fake horse costumes? Well, then use imagination and think fake motorbike.

[Claudius Sol]

Hahahahaha!

While I think that'd be hilarious, I'm hoping for a more "realistic" costume. Mostly because I appreciate humor, but have a strong affinity with "coolness".

[Mob of Blondes]

I didn't mean it in small or silly style, just that it will be fake. 2-3 metre insulation foam bike (plus some internal pipes, or some rigid plastic sheet as core... to avoid the dumb guy breaking while "can I pose in your bike?") like some concept cars.


Or this Tron scooter. Minus the obvious silliness.

It would be some serious work, no doubt, as you would need to match the shapes and the finish to pull it.

[WookieeGunner]

I can only assume that she used a similar process (seemingly less layering and using different parts) as is shown in this nice tutorial. This guy has a bunch of cool tutorials. But there cannot be too many tutorials, so I'd too would be happy to see more insights in the Yashia method.

Different material. That pistol is flexible foam (EVA most probably) while Styrodur is XPS, what in other places goes as Pink or Blue Foam. And the guy is lucky enough to have a scroll saw... well, a full workshop. Not that carving with knife and minidrill is much different with XPS vs EVA, just that some glues and paints will eat it fast, and it will be rigid.

Oh yeah! I've seen that tutorial!

Hmm... I wonder how easy it'd be to make a Yu Jing Spitfire...

If it was me, I'd take a copy of the spitfire from this:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/wp-content/u ... ldiers.jpg

blow it up to full size. Use the rigid foam for the base layer and EVA foam for the detail layer. That would be easier to get the two flat surfaces than to try to carve down.

If I made a spitfire, it'd be a "build-up" process. The helical magazine would require a bit of more gumption, though.

Though having that template... Hmmm...

Damnit. I didn't want to make a cosplay this year. Perhaps that Aragoto Spitfire is closer than I had originally intended.

If I made a spitfire, it'd be a "build-up" process. The helical magazine would require a bit of more gumption, though.

Helical where? Just a chopped cone with some external blocks.

Damnit. I didn't want to make a cosplay this year. Perhaps that Aragoto Spitfire is closer than I had originally intended.

Got bike?

If I made a spitfire, it'd be a "build-up" process. The helical magazine would require a bit of more gumption, though.

Though having that template... Hmmm...

This pic http://chaosorc.com/images/280377.jpg makes it look like the magazine is basically boxes on a fez.

Just copying some comments over for Sol's reference.