2StoryProps

Little Sister Adam Syringe (Bioshock)

2011-11-09T22:49:00.002-06:00

When I started work on subject Delta, I really wanted to have someone dress up as a Little Sister to go along with the suit, but I did not find anyone willing or able to take the role before the convention. However for an upcoming photo-shoot with Delta and the RCGB at the sloss furnace a friend of ours has volunteered to make the dress and be the Little Sister, so I finally have an excuse to build the Adam Syringe.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, the syringe is used by the little sisters to remove Adam enriched blood from the corpses in Rapture where the game is set. The girls plunge the needle into a body, and then drink the blood so the sea slug that has been implanted in them can process the Adam into a pure compound. It’s the Adam in the Little Sisters that cause splicers to want to kill them, hence why the Big Daddies were created to guard them. In Bioshock 2 (Delta’s game) this becomes an important game mechanic as you have to protect your little sister while she is gathering Adam.

Little Sister Gathering Adam

The syringe started off as an antique gas pump handle I found on eBay. Based on some research of similar models, I am fairly confident that this handle is somewhere between 60 and 80 years old. In case you really need to know, the handle moves, but it no longer functions as a water tight valve.

Old Gas Pump Handle, almost as old as my grandparents.

I apologize for the lack of development pictures as my camera broke and I am waiting for it to come back from the manufacturer. I will try to explain the process as best I can in case you are looking to make one too.

To prepare the handle for modification, I took it to the local car wash and pressure washed it to remove the several decades of grime that formed on it. After it was cleaned it was coated with primmer to prevent future corrosion.

The handle end that would have attached to a hose was plugged using a piece assembled from a ¾” pipe clamp and short nipple. Since the piece could not fully thread into the handle, a PVC sleeve was made to cover the exposed threaded area.

Base of the Syringe with Cap and Jar

After searching high and low for a suitable jar, I found one that worked at the local grocery store. It is a 3.5 floz container of Mario Imported Cocktail Onions. The label was removed with mineral spirits. Many people who have made syringes typically use Gatorade for the Adam inside. I opted not to use a liquid as I did not want to worry about leaks. Instead, the inside of the jar is painted with red spray tint and several pieces of red film were crumpled and put inside. The cap of the jar was modified to accept a fitting from Home Depot, with the other end going into a hole drilled into the gas handle. The handle, fitting, and lid were epoxied in place. A single super bright LED was wired through the fitting and connects to a 3VDC battery in the handle.

The needle started off as a 3/8” dowel. The taper was created by chucking the dowel into a hand drill and then spinning it while holding a piece of sandpaper around it, basically making the drill a lathe. The dowel was centered in the nozzle with ¼” balsa and capped with a washer.

Dowel and Washer

The entire assembly was painted with Krylon Hammer paints and then weathered with acrylics using the same method we used on Delta. Before people start to point this out, I am fully aware it is still missing the baby bottle top. This was left off due to weather and time constraints.

Fresh Paint

Final Product

Like I mentioned earlier, this was made for a photo shoot with Dim Horizon Studio this weekend with Subject Delta as well as the Rocket City Ghostbusters. We are looking forward to getting some awesome pictures and will be sure to post them once they are available.

Deadmau5 - Black and Red heads

2011-10-24T21:32:00.002-05:00

Even if you are not familiar with his music, you have probably seen one of his iconic heads somewhere. Deadmau5, pronounced “dead mouse”, is a Canadian house musician famous for his elaborate stage shows and unique electronic music. Instead of just summarizing his Wikipedia bio, the best way I can describe him is that he is the polar opposite of Daft Punk; instead of the mysterious, formal, and secluded image of Daft Punk, Deadmau5 makes his personal life widely available to the public with web cast, and regularly updates his facebook and twitter accounts.

Besides completing our 2SP masked musician collection, one of the aspects I like about the helmet is that it is worn very casually. Most of our other projects require a specific ensemble and require a second person to get them on. Even Daft Punk with the tuxes requires a second person to button and unbutton the sleeves. Deadmau5, on the other hand, can be worn with a tee shirt and taking the head off isn’t out of character. In other words, it is an impressive costume to have when you want to turn heads without being too elaborate.

The project started off with research. A lot of people have attempted to make mau5 heads with various levels of success. One of the interesting things about the head is that there are pictures online showing how the original was made, and deadmau5 himself even put out some basic dimensions. I’ll warn you right now that some of the dimensions are not correct and I will point them out through the post. As of this post I have built 2 heads, a black one and a red one. The construction is almost identical so I will be going back and forth with construction pictures as needed.

One of the three dimensional drawings by deadmau5

Our build started by creating a cardboard template for the ears. Based on the dimensions I decided to make the ears a 13” x14” oval. Using the tread and pin method the oval was inscribed on the cardboard and cut out. A 14” circle, the outer diameter of the head, was cut out and used as a guide for the curve on the bottom of the ear template. Note that the center of the ear’s base to the ear tip is 13” as stated in the dimensions.

Drawing the oval for the ear

The ears were made using ½” thick pink insulation foam. This stuff is really light and does not leave particles like floral foam. Using the template, 4 pieces were cut out and grooves put on the inside for two ¼-20 threaded rods. Epoxy was laid in the grooves and then each half of ear was joined with spray adhesive. When the glue dried the outer edge was shaped with a rough sanding sponge.

Ear Halves and inner rods

The head is made from a 14” acrylic globe. Using string, measuring tape, and masking tape, the lines for the mouth, eyes, and ears were drawn onto the globe. While the dimensions say the ears are 15 degrees back from the top lip, most heads have them at 90, which is what I did with mine. The neck hole is recommended to be 8” x 7”, but I had to make mine 9” x 8” in order to get my head in and out of the globe. With everything marked the globe was trimmed with a dremmel to the correct shape. Reinforcement was added to the corners of the mouth to prevent cracking at the newly created stress point. I strongly recommend using the excess acrylic cut from the neck hole for reinforcement as this is the thickest part of the globe.

Drawing the cut pattern on the head

Trimmed Globe

To allow the globe to sit on my head (and other people as well) I installed a hardhat inside. The sides are cut to allow access to the wing nuts on the ears so they can be taken on and off. The hard hat is attached to the globe using two #8 bolts going through the top of the globe and threading into the hard hat.

Original Hardhat

Trimmed Hardhat

Hardhat installed. Notice the wing nuts for the ears.

The lip was created using 2 layers of 3mm foam about a 1” wide and attached with hot glue.

Covering the head is a bit tricky. The fabric used is called 4-way stretch velvet and you can find it (in limited colors at most fabric stores. For what it is worth, Hancock here in Huntsville had the best selection compared to the other local fabric stores. Even through the fabric stretches well, it is still a pain to work with to cover the head with the fewest seams and wrinkles. For the black head I sewed two 22” circles together halfway and stretched it over the head, cutting and stuffing fabric into the mouth until the cloth was smooth. Eventually I had to cut the fabric around the bottom jaw and add two seams. On the red one, with the help of a friend who knows how to sew, we used a 17” x 20” ellipse which wasted less fabric and gave better results, but still needed two seams. To hold the fabric in place I used a bunch of tiny clamps that you can pick up at home depot for a few cents apiece. The real mau5 head has only one seem, so I would recommend finding someone good with fabric to help you if you need total accuracy. The ears were covered by making “pillow cases” and slipping it over the foam.

Crystal putting skin on the red head

Black head with fabric clamped in place.

The visor is made with chicken wire from home depot. Basically, you cut an ellipse large enough to cover the foam lips and bend it to a spherical shape. The fabric for the visor is then glued to the wire and the whole assembly glued into the head. All adhesive on this project is hot glue.

Installation of the visor in the black head.

The eyes were made using 6” plastic globes and cutting a 4.5” circle from them. (Each globe will give you two eyes). For the black head, I used a clear globe and coated the back with VH nightshade. For the red head I used a white globe and then added the “X”s with electrical tape. The eyes were then hot glued to the head.

Cutting circles from the globe.

Final mau5 heads

Red

And Black

To complete the “Costume” I added temporary tattoos, a shirt with iron on letters, a ball chain necklace, and a Hurley cap when the head was off. Deadmau5 is also a huge Zelda fan, and we happened to have a master sword on hand for a few glamor shots with the black head. We will update when we have pictures from our Daft Punk/ Deadmau5 shoot using the red head.

This project is a really fun build and I am actually planning to make a few more of these. If you are trying to make your own I hope you found this thread somewhat helpful.

And no, I have no plans to make this version any time soon:

Black Head Flickr: CLick Here!
Red Head Flickr: CLick Here!

HOW2: Henchmen Mask!

2011-10-10T10:35:00.016-05:00

Warning: I like to type. Get your reading glasses out. This one's a doozy.

INTRODUCTION

So Dragon*Con 2011 has come and gone, Venturoos. Despite a year's worth of intense research and sculpting on my Daft Punk helmets, I was totally surprised (read: blown away) by the outrageously positive response my Monarch's Henchmen costumes received at the convention. I figured, you know, shiny shiny, Daft Punk, slick tuxedos. It's a sure bet, right? Nope! With near surgical precision and timing (and no small amount of devious...ness...), the Monarch stole the show, and it was his minions that did the dirty work.

Wait, wait. Really? Secondary characters from a show that's a few years old now... surely these costumes must be overdone! Ah, but not done the 2StoryProps way! Ok that was exceptionally cheesy. In particular, it was my vacuum-formed masks that really got all the attention. You see, most people are happy with trimmed cardboard or bent plastic, and it certainly achieves the cartoony look. However, I set out to make the highest quality mediocre costume I could, and I wanted it to have some real-world depth to it. I'd like to think that the costume as a whole caught everyone's attention, but the fact that everyone kept complimenting the vacuum-formed masks really speaks volumes about the methods used here.

This tutorial will take you through the process, methods, and tools used to create your own vacuum-formed Henchmen mask. The powers-that-be have informed me that this is to be an expert-level tutorial, so basic knowledge and skills on power tool usage and safety are required. Also note: You will be using sharp things, so don't stab yourself on my account.

SUPPLY LIST

Tools:
Dremel or other rotary tool with interchangeable cutting/sanding bits
Power sander with 120 grit sandpaper
120-320 grit sand paper (for hand sanding)
Steak knife or bread knife (Really? You betcha.)
Vacuum-forming machine or access to one

Supplies:
HARD green floral foam blocks (the really hard stuff, not the softer powdery stuff)
Toothpicks
Gorilla glue
Bondo or body filler of choice
Your choice of glazing putty (for small pits)
Primer spray paint of your choice

Misc.:
Respirator or dust mask
Safety goggles
Latex or vinyl gloves
Clothes you don't mind getting dirty

SCULPTING THE MASK

First thing's first - you have to know what you're sculpting. I drew out my design, which I based on several distinct views of the Henchmen mask from the show. I decided on a certain shapes and came up with a quick schematic in Adobe Illustrator. Nothing special about this part, you can just draw it out to scale on some printer paper if you'd like. The point here is that you have something to go by. Since you'll be drawing this directly onto the foam in a later step, go ahead and cut out your drawing (eye holes and everything).

Next you'll want to assemble your foam blocks. Decide how big of a block you need and then glue multiple blocks together with Gorilla Glue. It'd be a good idea to pin them together with toothpicks and bind the blocks up with some tape while the glue dries. Gorilla Glue expands while it cures, so anything you can do to keep those blocks together while the glue dries will be helpful. It'll take a few hours, so go watch some Venture Bros. while you wait. I don't have any photos of this part because it's gluing blocks of foam together. It's not rocket ~~surgery~~ science, people!

After that's done, go ahead and start tracing out your design on the block. Keep in mind, you'll be cutting away a lot of the foam, so keep your template handy so you can redraw it later as you remove material.

Remember how I wanted that real-world feel? I achieved that by sculpting in curves, giving it a 3D shape in addition to the curve around the face the mask would naturally have. Now this particular floral foam was chosen because it's rather rigid and I knew it would hold up enough under the pressure of a vacuum-forming machine. As such, it takes some elbow grease to sculpt it. So here's where the steak knife comes in handy. You don't have to use a steak knife, but as long as you have some kind of serrated blade that can slice into it you'll be fine. Do your sculpting by shaving off thin layers. Don't get overzealous and try to cut off large chunks. Your blade will only seize up in the foam. You can try power tools, but I've found that hand carving it produces far less debris and dust. At this point you're really only looking for basic shape. You can start to carve in some details (like the curve of the bridge of the nose or the goggle sockets, but if you carve a little too deep in an area, don't worry about that right now.

Next comes the smelly part. Be sure to wear your respirator here. To get the nice, smooth surface on the foam, cover it in Bondo (or any body filler of your choice). You'll want to be sure that it's really ground into the foam, so you'll do it in layers, gradually building up so that you don't see any foam left. While the Bondo cures, you can carve it with a box cutter to reduce any big peaks and smearing streaks. Doing so will help save the sandpaper on your power sander. Give the Bondo a few hours to get rock hard. Keep in mind, Bondo requires certain temperatures and cannot cure above a certain humidity, so be sure to read the package for ideal conditions.

Use your power sander and dremel to smooth the Bondo out into the final shape. When you start getting to the point where all that's left to fill is smaller holes, use the glazing putty to fill in the gaps, and then sand it all smooth. In the photo below, the whitish areas are Bondo, the pink and red areas are glazing putty.

Knowing how vacuum-forming works its critical to the design of your vacuum-forming buck, so you'll need to bore a hole through each eye socket all the way through the foam. The reason behind this is because as the heated plastic is pulled over the buck, it will essentially seal up around the eye sockets. If there is no way for the vacuum to pull the plastic down into the eye sockets, the plastic will remain flat in those areas. So you have to provide a channel for the air to be sucked out the back of the buck. For this particular project, it doesn't have to be pretty since this area will be cut out later, but just be sure that it's there.

Continue sculpting and smoothing with the Bondo until you have your desired shape. It may take you some time depending on your abilities, but be sure you get it nice and smooth. In previous projects we learned that even a bit of dust can cause unwanted peaks in vacuum-formed plastic, so spend some time here and get it really smooth. Spraying it with primer between each smoothing session allows you to see the form in a neutral color, and it helps point out problem areas. You should be wrapping up your sculpt by the end of this stage.

VACUUM-FORMING

While we did build our own vacuum-forming machine, it was not based on our own design. We followed the build of a friend and fellow prop builder, Volpin Props, to learn how to build our own machine. Since building the machine itself is not within the scope of this tutorial, I will instead refer you to Harrison's blog post on how he built his.

Provided that you have your own vacuum-forming machine (or at least access to one), the next step is to select your plastic. There are lots of vacuum-formable plastics out there, but our projects tend to involve clear PET plastic and white styrene. Either will work for this particular project. For the rest of this tutorial, I will be using white styrene to pull the mask. However, my initial pulls were made in some left-over clear PET plastic from a previous project, and that worked just as well. The eye pieces were also pulled in clear PET plastic, FYI. For your reference, here are some links to the plastics I typically use:

.60" High Impact Styrene Sheet

.60" PET-G Vivak Sheet

Please note: When selecting plastics, you should always read up on its characteristics. You should always practice safe vacuum-forming. The process involves heating plastic, which releases toxic fumes, so PLEASE be in a well ventilated area and wear your respirator. Also, ALWAYS have a fire extinguisher on hand - if you heat the plastic too rapidly IT WILL IGNITE and make for a very bad day.

Vacuum-forming works on the basic principle that you are heating a sheet of plastic so that it becomes temporarily elastic enough to be formed over the outside of a 3D shape (a "buck"), pulled into that shape by a vacuum, and allowed to cool in that shape. The buck is removed and then the plastic is trimmed and built into your final piece. Our particular machine has a heating element in the top section that we are able to clamp a sheet of plastic into place underneath it (the plastic itself is held in with a wooden frame), and a vacuum base on the table top that allows us to simply lower the heated plastic down onto.

The heating element.

A plastic sheet clamped into the frame.

The vacuum base with the buck in place.

Now because each individual vacuum-forming machine will operate uniquely to itself, I cannot provide any heating times or ideal temperatures for you. That's something you're going to have to play around with on your own. However, I will tell you that it's best to heat the plastic slowly! As I said before, if you heat it too quickly, it can ignite. Aside from that, the important thing is to let the plastic droop. You'll want to let it droop as much as it can, and that allows it to form easily to your buck, and it can prevent a problem I'll refer to later as "webbing."

I've prepared a video of what vacuum-forming looks like. Due to the cluttered background, I chose to focus only on the vacuum base itself. Understand that by the time the video started recording, the plastic had been heating for about 20 minutes or so and the plastic was allowed to reach it's "maximum droopage."

When the plastic is pulled down, it's best to let it sit there under the pressure of the vacuum for several minutes while the plastic cools. Otherwise it may try to spring back a little, and you could lose some definition in the pulled plastic. Generally the plastic cools rather quickly, so once our heating element is warmed up, we can run through several pulls in an hour.

Earlier I referred to a problem I call "webbing." I'm not sure if it's the correct term, but it's what I've been referring to it as. Basically it's what happens when the plastic is pulled over a sharp enough shape in the buck that two sides of the plastic are pulled into each other before they are pulled into the vacuum base. You can't really correct it on the fly, but sometimes you're able to ignore it completely if the webbing doesn't touch the usable portion of the plastic you just pulled. Below is an example of that. You can see where the plastic is forming a fold at the tips of the buck. However, since I'll be trimming the mask quite close to the front face, the webbing on this particular pull doesn't affect the final product.

Unfortunately, at the time I took these photos and shot the video, I didn't have any clear PET plastic with me to pull a set of eye pieces. However, the process is the same. The only difference is that I made a quick mold of my original eye piece model so that I could cast several copies up and pull a whole sheet of eye pieces at once (instead of one at a time).

How you choose to finish your project is up to you. Thinner plastics can be trimmed with shop shears or an X-acto knife, and you can use a Dremel as well. Since my personal masks were thinner PET plastic, I used an X-acto blade to trim the outer edge, and then I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to cut the eye holes out. Wear eye protection when using a Dremel since PET and ABS tend to throw out little chunks of melted plastic when you use a power tool on them. Also be sure to wear your respirator since both PET and ABS are plastics and the fumes from cutting them with power tools are harmful. Top finish up the edges hand-sanding on these kinds of things makes for a nice, smooth edge. I would recommend against using any sort of power sander on these materials because you can end up removing a lot more material than desire really quickly.

For final assembly, I chose to paint the mask and eye pieces, and then glue the eyes to the mask wit hot glue. The mask was painted with Krylon Fusion "Sunbeam Yellow" (which as close to the particular yellow of the masks in the show as I could find locally) and the lenses were painted with Krylon Stained Glass Red. A black elastic band was attached to the backside of the mask with some J B Weld, and then I lined the nose area with some thin black foam for comfort.

Well I hope this tutorial was informative and scientastic. I wrote it over the course of about 3 days, so I hope it's rather seamless.

Dragon*Con 2011 Part 1: Wayne's Story

2011-09-08T19:29:00.002-05:00

After a year straight of preparations, Dragon*Con 2011 is now just a memory. Just like last year the con did not disappoint and lived up to the hype we put on it. This year was particularly interesting as we entered our first Dragon*Con costume contest, met some of the celebrities in the prop and geek community, and learned that things don’t always turn out like you plan. Here is my take on the epicness of the weekend.

Thursday

This year we discovered that although the convention officially starts on Friday, the party is well underway starting Thursday night. People were already going around in costume and socializing on “day zero” and we know for next year to get to Atlanta early on Thursday rather than midafternoon. We did not suit up for the night due to other plans, specifically meeting up with Harrison Krix, better known as Volpin Props. Dave and I have talked to him online here and there throughout the year, but this was the first time we all met in person. We presented him with his “My First Fiberglass” certificate for successfully using our fiberglass technique on his Thomas helmet, so hopefully it shows up in his next drunken casting video…

Group Shot of 2Story and Volpin Props

After meeting Harrison we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep and prepare for Friday. Space is very limited in the hotel room so drastic measures needed to be taken to make sure we didn’t break anything.

Friday

Friday we managed to get up around 5 am to get our badges, mainly because we were so full of adrenalin and anticipation we couldn’t sleep. After several hours in line and almost reaching the point of beating the super nerds in front of us to a pulp, we finally got our passes and proceeded to put on our Daft Punk gear.

David having his glove attached

I don’t have any pictures of the suits on my camera as it is very hard to manipulate with the gloves on, plus I can only see blurs with the helmet on. Judging from the camera flashes we were a big hit, and I am pretty sure this is the only full pair of Daft Punk that was going around the con. David will have some good shots in his post, including what we believe will be the most confusing picture on the internet. This is one of my favorite shots, as a lot of people really wanted to see these three suits together.

Daft Punk and Deadmau5

Around lunch time some stomach pain that started Thursday evening began to get real bad. I won’t go into details but I was starting to worry about throwing up in the helmet or worse. Still we pushed on and made it back to the hotel for a photo shoot with David’s friend Chase, who took some great shots of our ODST last year. The pictures should be up this week. After the shoot we went back to the hotel to rest before the big completion.

Even after getting out of Daft Punk I was feeling terrible. My stomach was a mess, I was sweating, and I seriously thought I was not only going to miss the contest, but miss the rest of the convention. After trying some Hail Mary remedies of antacids, sprite, and Gatorade, I managed to improve a little, and knowing I had a really good crew with me made the decision that I was going to make it to that contest regardless if I was going to leave it under my own power or not. After preparing a cooler with drinks, ice, and medication, we suited me up in Delta and made our way to the Friday Night Costume Contest.

Go Team Delta!

Judging went very well and most of the other contestants complimented us greatly on our suit. After several hours of waiting for prejudging to end it was time to make it over to the main ball room to walk across the stage.

Walking on the Stage

When it came to my turn I walked on stage and noticed that there were A LOT more people in the audience than I though. Imagine filling two large movie theaters full of people, that is what I was looking at. The M.C. started to read my information and I strutted my stuff, and then pulled the trigger to start the drill…

The drill did not turn. The chuck came loose.

In a desperate attempt to get the drill to spin I held the trigger down and kept jerking my arm trying to get it to catch. Finally, it caught, the drill spun, and I raised the whole assembly over my head.

The crowd went wild!

After all the contestants went on they announced the winners. I was a little disappointed we did not win in the major categories, but we did receive one of the few honorable mentions. I still think the crowd cheered loudest when I walked back on the stage.

Let’s Hear it For Delta!

After the competition we headed back to the room. I wanted to pose for pictures but the cool packs were well melted and I would have passed out in less than 30 min. Originally I was planning to put Thomas back on and head to the masquerade ball, but I was exhausted so I put on an ODST shirt and hit the floor for a bit before crashing and heading back to bed.

Saturday

Apparently I was so tired the night before I forgot to hit save on my phone when setting the alarm clock, so we did not get up early enough to march in the parade. In retrospect this actually was a good thing as the sleeping in made me feel a lot better. As David, Jecca, and Ethan made their way to the parade to watch I stayed behind for a few min to get my Aperture Scientist (the Portal Gun) costume ready. When we were planning for the con I thought that I was going to be in Thomas for most of the con and the Portal Gun was only going to make an appearance on Sunday. I decided not to go that route due to the visibility in the helmet. If I stayed in Thomas, I wouldn’t be able to actually see any of the convention and my memories would literally be of blurs. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the Portal Gun since it is heavy and I was kind of cheating by wearing a lab coat and calling it a costume, but I hit the floor. To my surprise I was grabbed by more people wanting pictures than when I had the proton pack the year before! Portal was really big this year, and I found several people dressed as Chell, a bunch of scientist, and even a few personality cores.

Little Chell

In the afternoon I changed out and grabbed Delta’s helmet for the “Meet the Winners” costuming panel. Although they encouraged winners to bring the whole suit, I only brought the helmet to save some time and let the rest of the crew enjoy the con. I loved the reaction I got from the crowd when the helmet made a loud thud when I set it on the table. The panel was very informative and provided some excellent tips for next year. After the panel I took the helmet out for one last spin before dinner. Even without the suit, plenty of people stopped for a photo op.

Splicer, Delta, and Little Sister

After dinner I hit the floor again with the Portal Gun and ran into Jonathan Coulton. For those of who don’t know, he is the musician who composed “Still Alive” and “Want You Gone” for the two Portal games. He actually stopped me as I was walking by so he could check out the gun. After explaining how it was made I asked him to sign it. At first he didn’t want to mess up the gun, but I insisted and now like the proton pack the Portal Gun is a collectable instead of a prop.

Jonathan Coulton and Crew Examining the Portal Gun

Seal of Approval

Sunday

Most of Sunday was spent once again showing off the Portal Gun and taking pictures of other great costumes, which are all up on our Flickr account, so check them out. One I have to mention here is the unbelievable Wheatly puppet from Portal 2. In addition to being incredibly accurate, the eye moves AND BLINKS, plus it talks! I think this girl won best prop at the cosplay contest.

Wheatly Puppet

We also ran into Crystal with her Luka Megurine costume which features the headphones and arm display that we built. I think she did a pretty good job with the outfit and it was cool to see another one of our creations getting appreciated at the convention.

Luka Megurine at the convention.

Later in the evening I went and saw the masquerade costume contest. The first hour was pretty good and they had some really great skits. My favorite was a where a 6 year old dressed as a little sister was saved from splicers by the Kick Ass Big Daddy. Then there were about five skits in a row that were, painfully, painfully terrible, and I ended up walking out because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I did get some ideas though for possible acts for next year.

All in all the convention was a blast and defiantly worth the effort we put into preparing for it. As far as were we are going from here prop wise, it’s a bit of a mystery. There are a lot of projects we want to do, from the complex and huge to the simple but unique. There is also the question of how much time do we want to spend on a single suit again. Personally, in the immediate future I am planning to make a deadmau5 head for Halloween and casual wear and plan to take another look as the wiring for the Tron versions of Daft Punk. As far as the next big project or which contest if any we’ll compete in at Dragon*Con, I really don’t know, we are just going to have to wait and see.

Check out all the great costumes we saw on our Flickr page!

Finally, here is a preview of my next short term project which may lead to something considerably more complex for D*Con 2011.

Luka Megurine Props

2011-08-24T23:29:00.002-05:00

Before I get into the details about the what, why, and how of the build, I am going to break tradition and show the final product first so that when I post this link on facebook the correct preview image shows up. So with that in mind, here is the prop that this post will cover:

Now onto the details. Back in July when we were wrapping up Subject Delta and Daft Punk, I was chatting with a friend of ours who makes amazing sewn costumes about what she should be for Dragon*Con. At some point in the conversation, the character Luka Megurine came up. Luka is a Vocaloid; a digital pop start with digitally created voice and specific character design to accompany the software. During “live” concerts, the voice is played back accompanied by a live band while a holographic image is projected onto the stage. The program is huge in Japan, and recently made its North American debut at this year’s Anime Expo.

Luka Megurine Character Model

Live Performance

Since I had some time to spare with Delta and the Portal Gun wrapped up, I offered to make the headphones and arm display while she made the dress. The head phones started off using a piece of 2” PVC and balsa to create the proper shape of the ear piece. After a lot of sanding and putty work, the piece was molded in Rebound 25 and two castings were pulled to serve as basis for the working copies.

PVC and Balsa Rough Sculpt

Adding Window Details

Painted Buck Ready for Molding

The tab that connects the ear pieces to the headband was sculpted from balsa and added to each working ear piece copy. Additional putty work was done at this stage as it is easier to sand a surface smooth on resin than wood due to the grain. After putty work was complete, the pieces received a coat of gloss paint and another; final mold was made with Rebound 25.

Final Bucks Ready for Molding

Each ear piece was cast in fiberglass and then the windows were trimmed out for lighting. Windows were made with Lexan painted with solid maroon and transparent blue paint. The ear pieces were each painted gold and the windows attached with hot glue.

Ear Pieces Trimmed

Windows Attached

The lighting elements were created using four blue LEDs soldered on circuit board. The lights are powered by two N size batteries wired in series to provide 3 VDC, so no resistors were needed on this build. Three wires run along the head band to complete the circuit. The lights are turned on and off by removing one of the batteries.

Light Boards for Headphones

The headband is a regular headband from JCPenny that was wrapped in brown fabric to match the character’s. It is attached to the ear pieces with a combination of bolts and Goop. Gold trim was added based on one of the character’s earlier renderings. The mic was taken from a computer headset.

Wrapping the Headband in Fabric

Gold Trim and Mic Added

The arm display started as a layered block of balsa sanded to a curve to fit the wearer’s arm and allow room for the electronics. The piece was coated with putty and sanded to a 400 grit finish. The display window was made using pieces of plastic and the speaker port was shaped using a cap from a spray bottle. The keys were made by cutting the rubber buttons off a TV remote and gluing them to the buck with silicon.

Original Block

Final Buck with Keys Glued On

The piece was molded and then cast in fiberglass. After trimming the piece, it was painted by alternating between black and brown paint to achieve the proper dark brown. The keys were masked of and painted golden pearl.

Painted Panel

The display window was created by printing a sound wave pattern onto transparent decal sheet and applying it to a piece of lexan. This was then hot glued to the back of the panel with hot glue. The display is illuminated by two LEDs powered by a single disk battery. Unfortunately I did not get pictures of the electronics as I was in a rush to deliver the piece.

Here are the glamour shots of the final product:

We will try to post some pictures of the full costume when the dress is finished. David is in the process of finishing up our fifth and final project for this year’s Dragon*Con, and then we’ll be making our final preparations to travel down to Atlanta. We hope you all have enjoyed seeing us make cool stuff this year and hope to see a lot of you in person at D*Con! We will update our facebook page as much as possible to keep you updated on when the various projects are wandering around the convention.

See more pictures on our flickr page.

Daft Punk: FINAL

2011-08-15T12:37:00.003-05:00

So this project hasn't been covered very well on the blog, and that's mainly due to the fact that I've been focusing on completing it rather than blogging about it. So in what seems to be my new blogging style, I'll just hit on the highlights.

After both of the helmet castings and all of the hand pieces were cleaned up and prepared for chroming, they were shipped off to Creations N Chrome in California. Right off the bat, the Thomas helmet was damaged during shipping. Something had either fallen on the box, or the box fell, but either way, the helmet was not in any condition to be chromed. A spare casting was rushed out to replace it soon after and they were able to maintain my requested due date, despite the new helmet being shipped a week after the original requested arrival date. While my overall experience with CnC was pretty good, the quality of work they returned to me did not match the quality of work I've seen on their other projects. The main problem that occurred on both helmets was pitting in the chrome finish. Guy's helmet was also damaged in-house. While they did repair it, the results were less than desirable. I've done enough ranting about it on Facebook, so I won't do it here, but I will say that I am not convinced in the least that the pitting problem was a result of anything I did on my end. Despite their defects, I am happy with the finished helmets overall. However, I cannot endorse CnC right now. If you choose to use them for your own project, it should not be done so at my recommendation. Results may vary. ;)

Anyways, completing the overall look are tuxedos from Men's Warehouse. Specifically, our costumes are intended to be replicas of Daft Punk as they appeared at the TRON Legacy movie premier. This is definitely a project I'm proud of. Enjoy the photos, and please check out the flickr album for more! These costumes will be debuted at Dragon*Con 2011 throughout the weekend.

More photos in our flickr album!

Subject Delta Part 4: Complete Suit

2011-07-28T22:31:00.003-05:00

The last month has been a mad dash to get this thing finished. Luckily things started to come together pretty well and the final product came out better that I could imagine.

We’ll start with the glove armor. The back hand and knuckle guards were sculpted from balsa and molded so I could use fiberglass pieces. The Delta was made by layering tape and then applying bondo. When the tape was removed I had a perfect engraved symbol.

Master Positive for Glove Plates

The approach that worked for the finger tips was to stuff an identical glove with masking tape and apply resin directly to the glove, thus making the fabric part of the composite material. Bondo was then added to smooth the surface out and washers added to the tips. The fingers were cut off and tape removed, which gave me fingers that fit perfectly on my gloved hand!

The plasmid irises were made using layers of cardboard cut into small circle and arranged inside a PVC fitting. Again, molds were made so I am actually wearing resin copies.

Formation of the Iris

The boots were the piece I was dreading the most, as if they were crappily made I would have a hard time walking. I started by getting a pair of boots that actually fit and built up a foam structure around them. The boots are zip tied to a piece of plywood sandwiched between the foam to keep them on my feet. The foam was paper mached to help hold everything together. The outer cover was made using poster board and duck cloth as well as grommets for the shoe laces. Fiber glass caps were made for the toe guards. The soles of the shoes are cut up car floor mats glued to the bottom with goop.

Foam Build Up of Boots

Wrapping Fabric Around Boot

Full Boots

The belt weights were made by carving 3 blocks with different types of damage and making molds. 15 copies were cast and weathered, and attach to the main belt with zip ties.

Casted Weights

Painted Weights

Using lessons I learned building the portal gun, I made two boards for the Adam and Eve tanks with the appropriate super bright LEDs. The front lights on the helmet are actual bulbs to provide a soft yellow glow rather than the clean light from an LED. A 4” fan was installed in the right tank to blow air into the helmet. In total there are 20 AA batteries in the helmet allowing it to run for 8 hours.

Adam and Eve Tanks

Helmet Lights on

With construction complete, Dave and I began weathering everything with acrylic paints and mineral spirits. The jump suit also received an ample amount of spray paint.

Dive Suit

David Meating the Drill

After a week of weathering it was time to put the full suit on for the first time. This is the result of over 8 months of work:

Proof I am inside the suit

And some movies of walking and the drill in action:

I am very pleased the look of the suit. Personally I have never made shoes, or moving props, or anything like this before so it is a major accomplishment for me and defiantly a bit of a self-esteem boost. We ran into a major issue through which I down played for a long time, heat exhaustion. For this shoot I had the helmet fan on and the two front ice packs in the cold vest. At the time I was planning to make the gasket for under the helmet which would not have fit with the back two in. I was already sweating even before I put the suit on as the weather in Huntsville has regularly been over 90 degrees this week, and the shop is not air conditioned. The padding didn’t help anything either. After about 20 min the heat finally hit me like a brick, and we had to get me out of the suit. The air conditioning at the convention will help by actually putting cool, dry air into the helmet, but padding will be removed and much of the Rothco jumpsuit will be removed. Additionally, I will be wearing the full cold vest with all four packs as well as some cold bandanas. We are planning another photo-shoot on Saturday so we’ll see how much the improvements help then.

If you want to see the suit in person, you will need check out the Friday Night Costume Contest on September 2, at Dragon*Con and cheer us on. Due to the thermal issues and mobility restrictions I will not be walking around the convention in this suit as we did with the ODST or the RCGB. Those suits are much, much more comfortable than this thing.

Thank you everybody who has been following the build. This was a personal attempt to push the limit of my abilities and win or lose at D*Con this was a huge success. Your comments on facebook and the forums keep us working to impress you all.

And finally a big thanks to my partner in crime David. There is no way on earth this ever would have happened without his help. Last year when we finished the ODST he said that that project proved that we could build just about anything, and I think all our projects this year have demonstrated that point. Check back soon for updates on our Daft Punk Suits and we hope to see you all at D*Con!

Check out all the Delta Related Pictures Here

How2: Smooth-On's Mold Star 16 FAST Rubber

2011-07-25T09:40:00.000-05:00

So this next How2 video tutorial is a guide to using Smooth-On's new rubber, Mold Star 16 FAST, a quick-set version of their Mold Star 15 SLOW rubber. With a 6-minute pot life (that is, 6 minutes of ideal working time after mixing) and boasting a 30-minute cure time, I jumped at the chance to try this stuff out. We're finishing up our Dragon*Con projects right now, and there isn't really anything else that needs to be molded, so I bought some really just to play around with. However! When I originally molded up the belt buckle to my soon-to-be-posted Monarch's Henchman project, the Rebound 25 rubber didn't cure right over a majority of the surface area. I could produce usable castings, but I had to work them a little with some glazing putty. Not a big deal, but it's giving me a good opportunity to remold the part as an applicable demonstration piece.

I had a feeling that it was more of the model's fault than the Rebound's when it came to the curing issue, so I scrubbed down the part with some Simple Green (a degreasing cleanser) and did a small material test to see if the part would be usable for the How2 video tutorial I would later make. This served two purposes: 1) obviously it allowed me to see if the part would prevent the new rubber from curing, and 2) it would allow me to get some hands-on experience with the new rubber so I could learn about it prior to filming the video. I'll just go ahead and say that scrubbing the part down did clean it up and the rubber did cure. It's not as exciting as it is enabling. LOL. Anyways, below are my initial thoughts on the rubber, and I'll be directly comparing it to Smooth-On's Rebound 25 silicone rubber.

Both Mold Star 16 and Rebound 25 are platinum cure silicone rubbers. So if you're used to using Rebound 25, you'll find that it is compatible with nearly all the same casting materials. Note: If you want to use Thi-Vex thickener with it, don't bother - it is NOT compatible with Mold Star 16. The term "platinum cure" refers to it being an addition type of curing process as opposed to a "tin cure" process, which is a condensation curing process. Note: If you are familiar with Smooth-On's Oomoo product, that is a tin cure rubber. The first thing I noticed as I opened the bottles is that this rubber is a lot less viscous that Rebound 25. The viscosity is stamped right there on the material data sheet, but having endured the agonizingly slow process of scooping and mixing Rebound 25 for so long, the viscosity of the Mold Star 16 is surprising and relieving. You would be better off pouring each component into your mixing cups with MS16. I would compare it to the consistency of warmed chocolate syrup, where as the consistency of Rebound 25 would best be compared to cold honey. As such, it's also a lot quicker to mix up - it has to be, considering the 6-minute pot life. Another plus to the low viscosity is that any trapped air bubbles are released to the surface of the rubber a lot faster and with a lot less effort.

Regarding the 6-minute pot life, I have to say that, while the 30-minute curing time is very tempting for use on larger models like helmets and armor, such a short working time really does limit it to smaller items like detail pieces, or smaller, smooth items that wouldn't require extensive brushing over. As such, I would really only recommend this rubber for block molds, so don't bother asking about any other applications because we're not going to recommend any (we don't want you wasting time, money, or rubber on our account!). Regarding the 30-minute pot life, in my material test I found that short curing time to be more of an estimate than a calculated time stamp. My test cured in approximately 35-40 minutes, though I admit I lost track of time when I found I needed to make dinner. So don't undercut your time here. Go at least 30 minutes, but get in the habit of shooting for 45 minutes just to be safe. Despite the added 50% curing time, that's still hours shorter than Rebound 25.

Tear resistance-wise, it's comparable to Rebound 25. I'm sure there are minute differences and the numbers are sure to be different on the material data sheet, but it felt like it'd tear at about the same elongation that Rebound would. It's certainly a softer shore hardness than Rebound, though, and you can cut chunks of it out with your fingernails a lot easier than you can with Rebound. So be careful when demolding the stuff if your model is complex. As a whole block of rubber, it's respectfully durable, but if you try tearing off a small chunk on purpose, you'll work at it a lot less than you would on Rebound.

Our How2 video tutorial shows the mixing process and application of Mold Star 16 FAST in a simple block mold. As stated before, the part being molded is a Monarch's Henchman belt buckle (if you're unfamiliar with the Monarch and his Henchman, go watch The Venture Bros.). At the time I've written this, I have yet to film the thing, so fair warning: it may be scripted. EDIT: It was not.

Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (Portal Gun)

2011-07-02T12:04:00.002-05:00

For those of you unfamiliar with the games, Portal is a unique first-person puzzle game made by Valve, the same people who made Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, and Half Life. Rather than being a “murder simulator” like many other games out there, Portal requires the player to solve a series of puzzles using the Apature Science Handheld Portal Device which creates a worm hole connecting two surfaces while conserving velocity and momentum. It has been a huge cultural hit, inspiring several internet memes, Half-Life mods, and merchandise. It also has made one particular prop builder in Atlanta, Volpin Props, insanely famous in the prop building and video game community when he made a replica of the gun for his wife.

Volpin’s Portal Gun

Typically, I try not to work on projects that someone already set the standard for, but I am a big fan of the Portal games and decided I really wanted to have my own Portal gun to play around with. I started of making the center barrel using 3” and 4” PVC and some plastic left over from other projects. The rear section of the gun is made from two 4” PVC couplers.

Prototype barrel.

Barrel with coupler support.

Final barrel with Back Ring

For the shells, I started of making a rough skeleton with cardboard and hot glue, and then filled in the area with expanding foam filler. Using the cardboard as a guide I carved the foam into the desired shape. While working on Delta I learned that the resin will cause the expanding foam to sag and pit, so I covered the foam with a layer of paper mache before I glassed the shells. After fiberglass the shells were shaped with bondo and a lot of sanding. For the back shell I used a thread to draw the groove line and used a dremmel to carve it as well as the indicator light port. The nubs for the hoses were cast from a block mold and blended into the shell with bondo.

After Carving Foam

Fiber Glass Added. You can see the paper mache underneath.

Shaping with Bondo

Filling in Small Gaps

Adding the Indicator Slot and Grove

Front Shell

Originally I wanted to have someone lathe the nozzle piece but decided to make it myself. Starting with a piece of 2.5” diameter PVC, I made a center balsa ring similar to how I did the tanks of Delta. The angles sections were made by using MDF rings and then filling the angle with bondo. Not bad for not having a circle cutter either.

The center tube assembly was made using an acrylic rod and polycarbonate tube from McMaster with a custom made centering piece. The assembly is centered in the barrel with foam strip.

When it came time to make the claws, I had two options. I could either make them 100% accurate which would have put me closer to par with the actual gun but would have been somewhat fragile, or I could make them similar but more robust in case they were bumped during the convention. I decided to go with the later with the intent I can revise the claws after the convention. Plywood pivot points were added to the shell and barrel with hot glue, and then the base of the claw was shaped from plywood.

The front branch of each claw is made from two pieces of plastic connected to a resin tip. Everything is bolted together with #8 rod and lock nuts. The claws can unscrew from the pivot point for maintenance and transport. For the diffuser I used a casting from a mailing tube and a piece of Plexiglas sanded with 400 grit paper to fog the plastic and hide the electronics. Once the lights are on you really can’t look directly into the barrel anyway.

The decals were designed by David and printed on Testor’s clear decal paper. We like to hide our logo in plain sight on our work, so we decided to change the barcode wording from “Aperture 04” to “2StoryProps DC11” and integrated our logo into one of the Aperture Science logos. The gun is painted with Krylon Gloss White and Black spray paint and Clear coat, and then was buffed with Turtle Wax.

Lighting was accomplished with blue and amber LEDs. The gun has two switches in the back. One switch turns the gun on and off, and the other is a single pole dual throw (SPDT) switch that changes the gun between colors. Using this instead of a three way switch ensures I never have a long pause when switching between colors.

Bottom switch turns the gun on and off. The top one toggles between orange and blue

All 24 LEDS soldered to boards and ready to be installed.

After eight straight hours of soldering, I now have my very own Portal Gun!

I am extremely happy with this build. I am planning to carry it around for some of D*Con while wearing and Aperture Science Lab Coat. Now that it’s done, I can focus on finishing Subject Delta. Be sure to keep up with our new facebook page to get updates about Delta, Daft Punk, and David’s new project as we hit the home stretch to D*Con 2011!

Subject Delta: Part 3

2011-06-30T19:49:00.002-05:00

Progress on Subject Delta has been going very well, despite being sidetracked by another project I’ll post about later in the week. If everything goes well I probably have a few more weeks before the whole thing is complete, but we can defiantly see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Drill consist of three sections; the foam drill, the arm support, and the cosmetic sleeve. The arm support is made from 4” PVC with an epoxied handle and drill trigger integrated inside. This allows all the weight to be supported by the PVC rather than any of the cosmetic parts. Over the support fits an assembly made from foam, fiberglass and PVC. The side vents were sculpted and cast, and have screens hot glued inside. Everything was then painted with metallic paint and is currently awaiting weathering.

Drill Handle

Drill and outer sleeve.

The dive suit was a big challenge, mainly because I hate working with fabric. To make it I dyed some heavy weave cotton fabric a mixture of blue and brown, and then David and I used a Rothco jumpsuit as a patterns and support for the dive suit. I then started adding details with brown duck cloth to give it a reinforced canvas feel. The glove was made by creating a cuff and sewing it to a regular brown gardening glove.

Laying out the Pattern

Piecing Everything Together

Test Fit

In order to bulk out my figure I made a custom padded suit to wear underneath the dive suit. The pants are made from sweat pants and plush filling. The sleeves came off a muscle shirt and were sewn onto an old t-shirt I had. My torso is bulked out due to a cooling vest I will be wearing to keep me from overheating once I am sealed inside.

The Under suit

Muscle Shirt

Cold Vest

Glove

On to the details! What I call the Flavor Flav weight was shaped from MDF and is supported by custom dyed cotton rope from the helmet. The diving knife, or what I call the BFK, was made with PVC, fiberglass, and a hole saw was used as the handle. The knee plates were made from a Styrofoam sculpt that was molded and cast from fiberglass, and will attach using snaps.

Weight and Knife

Knee Plates

Lastly, I added a gold motorcycle visor to the helmet so people cannot see the wearer’s face. You can also see David’s unbelievable wreathing job in this shot.

During the week as I wait to finish another project I will be working on the last few gribblies for the suit as well as starting the boots. My hope is to finish the suits construction in mid-July so we can focus on weathering everything, but at this stage I think we have plenty of margin to have it done for DC’11.

Daft Punk: Part 5

2011-06-04T12:10:00.000-05:00

So a lot has happened with the Daft Punk project since I last posted anything about it. A lot involving the project itself, and a whole lot of stuff not involving it. My professional work has really been kicking my butt lately, so I haven't quite been motivated to keep up the documentation of the project. I've also had some camera difficulty since I last posted, so I've lost some photos, specifically those involving the molding of Guy's helmet (except the low-resolution photos from Facebook). Because of the huge gap in updates, I'm not going to bother going into significant detail. I'll just hit on the highlights.

First up, as previously mentioned, Guy's helmet was molded. It was a single piece slip-style mold with a three-part mothermold. The single piece rubber mold means that there are absolutely no seam lines. The only parts that need cutting are the neck hole and the visor. It's a super clean build, and I'm very pleased with the results.

A vacforming visor buck was made out of a throw-away casting and subsequently reinforced with expanding foam. We were surprised to find out that our little vacforming machine could pull such a relatively large piece, and so far we've only had one bad pull from it.

One major component that we didn't want to forget was the hands. I sculpted little MDF finger and palm plates (one for each size needed), then I molded and cast up enough pieces for one full hand. We pulled our hand plates out of styrene on our vacformer. Then they were trimmed and assembled on sprues to make the eventual chrome plating easier.

The final piece of the project was Thomas' helmet. I ended up starting over on the helmet entirely. There was too much I didn't like about the old helmet, and starting over meant I could address certain shape issues from the get-go. So another 3D model was built and processed through Pepakura. Typical building procedures took place. I decided to go with Volpin's style of build by leaving the ears off of the master copy so that they could be lathed later on. It really is the best way to go because it allows you to hide the mold's seam line in the ear cavities, making final prep super quick.

After much searching and hair pulling, a member of Makers Local 256 stepped up and offered to lathe the ear pieced for us. It was lathed out of a chunk of aircraft aluminum, and then I made a mold of it so that hollow fiberglass copies could be produced for the final helmet castings. The original aluminum piece is now a fancy paper weight on my desk at work.

Then a mold was made for Thomas's helmet. It's a two part (front and back) mold with a three part fiberglass mothermold. This has been the most recent step in the process, as just last weekend I finished the mold and pulled two helmet castings.

Currently I'm prepping the final pieces for chrome plating. I just sent all of Guy's components off to Creations n' Chrome in California, which is both scary and relieving. In the mean time I have to finish prepping Thomas' parts for Chrome, and I hope to have them shipped off to California by the end of next week.

On a final note for this post, we've once again altered the final outcome for our Daft Punk project, at least in terms of our appearance at Dragon*Con 2011. We did have a lead on a seamstress that could produce the TRON Legacy jackets and pants for us, but for availability reasons that fell through. So we decided to go ahead and get the helmets and gloves plated so we'd have some good, multi-functional helmets and gloves. To complete our D*Con ensembles, we will be sporting tuxedos similar to those worn by Daft Punk at the TRON Legacy blue carpet premier. Because the tuxedos just have to be bought and not made, we will be able to complete other projects with the attention they deserve.

To view the currently up-to-date Daft Punk photo album, please click here.

How2: All about Fiberglass

2011-06-03T14:52:00.000-05:00

So it's been a while since I've posted anything. Not to worry, though, it's not because I've forgotten about the blog. It's because I've been making props, and I tend to focus more on the making of, rather than the documenting of.

Anyways, this is the first tutorial in our How2 tutorial series. In this tutorial, we will be giving a general overview of our fiberglassing process. Please keep in mind, though, that this is not a "definitive" how-to, as there are other methods out there. This is just our method. Also, please keep in mind that this tutorial is not meant to give a complete newcomer the abilities he or she needs to become a skilled fiberglasser. It is encouraged that you read up and learn about fiberglassing on your own before taking our tutorials to heart. It is easy, but you can't just jump into it.

Right then, onto the tutorial. Below is a photo of the materials we use when we fiberglass. From left to right across the back row we have throw-away brushes acquired from Harbor Freight, throw-away plastic spoons, throw-away CLEAR plastic cups, fiberglass resin, and micro-bulb filler. In the front row we have pre-trimmed pieces of fiberglass cloth, latex gloves, and the fiberglass curing agent that is included with the resin.

So just a few notes on the materials themselves, and then we'll jump into the process. I'm just going to jump from material to material here without rhyme or reason, so try to keep up. We use all throw-away materials for fiberglassing because they're cheap and they allow you to work quickly. Sure, you generate a lot of trash, but there really isn't any sense in trying to clean brushes and cups. We use the clear cups so we can see how much resin we're using. Generally, for 30ml of resin, you use about 30 drops of hardener. Over the years, we've leared to identify rough estimates on the amount of resin we're using judging from how much we fill up the cups. Using clear cups makes that easy to do. Plus, if you're mixing the micro-bulb filler into it, you can see if it's mixed well enough. Try to get your throw-away brushes in bulk. If you don't have a Harbor Freight nearby, try a local paint store. Home Depot and Lowe's don't tend to sell brushes in bulk, so they're "throw-away" brushes end up being around $2 a pop.

We buy our fiberglass resin at Home Depot (and sometimes Wal-Mart). It's not the best stuff for small detail work, but for casting a simple helmet (like the Daft Punk stuff) or for bigger armor pieces, it's as good as you're going to get for locally-available materials. Wal-Mart tends to sell the gallon for a little over $20 (if you can find it!), and Home Depot sells it for $35/gallon. Prices DO fluctuate, though, as this stuff does depend on the price of oil. We buy our micro-bulb filler from taxidermy.com for about $25/shipped for the gallon container. Micro-bulb filler is basically silica particles (micoscopic glass beads) that are used to fill space in resin. They add to the volume of resin you use, and it also makes it so the resin is smoother and easier to sand.

For your viewing pleasure, I have recorded several videos for tutorial purposes. Fiberglassing is one of those processes that is best taught by showing the students in person. You can read and read and read all you want about it, but the best way to learn it is to watch it happen. I'm completely new to doing online videos, so bear with me as I learn this process. These videos are kind of beefy in terms of file size, but they are iTunes format so you can play them in iTunes or on your iPod. Please right-click and select "save as" on the following links:

How2: Gel Coat (53.1mb)
(click here to download the video)

How2: General Fiberglassing Practices (67.6mb)
(click here to download the video)

How2: Laying Fiberglass Cloth (99.6mb)
(click here to download the video)

To supplement the videos, I'd like to mention a few things. Here is the photo I referred to in the General Fiberglassing Practices video. It shows the rough size I tend to trim my fiberglass (both cloth and mat). I'm not terribly picky about how I do it, and I'm certainly not trying to be exact when I cut it. Basically I end up unfolding the package of fiberglass to the point where it's a thin roll, and then I just slice up the roll, and trim the folds so that I end up with stacks of usable sheets. Sometimes I make larger pieces, sometimes I make smaller pieces, but the roughly 4.5" by 3" panel is the typical size I use.

Furthermore, I failed to mention how I typically overlap the fiberglass panels when I'm laying it the mold. Because fiberglass cloth is the weaker of the two types of fiberglass, it tends to have some minor flexibility. We're not talking rubbery flexibility here, but if you had just a flat panel of hardened fiberglass cloth vs. a hardened panel of fiberglass mat, the cloth panel would have some very faint give to it that the mat panel wouldn't. To combat that, I alternate directions on the panels I lay in. See the following photo for a good guideline. Of course, if the mold warrants a different layout, you'll have to modify your layout accordingly. How you choose to layout your fiberglass will only come with experience, though.

Anyways, I apologize for the random array of information here. We've been wanting to do some tutorials for a while now, but never really had the opportunity (or the planning to incorporate it into our projects while we work!). This opportunity came about when a certain friend in Atlanta asked me my thoughts on fiberglassing, so I figured I'd take it as an opportunity to shoot some videos.

Subject Delta: Part 2

2011-03-20T21:59:00.002-05:00

Keeping post up-to-date with Subject Delta is becoming increasingly hard. It seems like every day the progress keeps moving forward so fast that any post I would make is already obsolete. I did hit a major milestone recently with the helmet and the drill so this looks like a good time to bring you all to speed. For daily updates you can follow my facebook photo album here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2954209&id=1921590&l=1a7c9427bb

Since the original post the master positive received A LOT of cosmetic work. A balsa camera was added, the face plate was shapped from ply wood and plastic, and chest lights were made by molding a mag light and making two resin castings which were attached to the helmet with hot glue and blended into the helmet with bondo.

The rivets were added by pounding finish nails into the helmet. After the nails and other small details were applied, I made a silicon rubber mold of the helmet to produce a lightweight resin casting for the final product. With the casting pulled, the handles, weight supports, rear guard, made from PVC, and other small details were added to the helmet, followed by several coats of Krylon Hammered Copper Paint.

The wing nuts are actually castings. I took a ½” wing nut and grinded it to the proper shape, and then made a silicon mold. I then casted resin copies with a #8 nut inside so the nuts could be bolted to the helmet. The nuts were painted silver to provide contrast with the helmet.

The two main tanks were made from cardboard tubes coated in resin and bondo. The top of the tanks were sculpted from great stuff expanding foam and then coated in fiberglass and bondo. The rings are made from balsa and the rivets are once again finish nails. The tanks are designed with a flat surface so they can be bolted to the helmet without wobbling. With the tanks and helmet painted they have now been handed off to David for weathering.

The drill is still a work in progress. I started with several foam disk glued together and sanded to form a cone. The foam was then covered in a layer of paper mache to prevent the resin from eating it. I then used poster board to form the threads and coated the whole thing in several coats of resin to provide strength. At the moment I am sanding it down and should be applying primmer soon.

The helmet will take a few weeks to months to weather as we research techniques and work on other projects. In the mean time I am working on the drill, which will spin via a heavily modified 12 drill. I will make a post when that reaches a good pause point.

Subject Delta: Part 1

2011-02-09T22:08:00.002-06:00

If you remember my Dragon Con 2010 post, I pointed out that there was a glaring lack of Big Daddies at the convention. After playing around with different ideas for how to pull off a Big Daddy, and particularly which one, I found a pep file one rainy afternoon and found a good basis to start with for building the Big Daddy protagonist from Bioshock 2, Subject Delta.

I was going to write up a summary of what Bioshock is for those unfamiliar with the game, but you can easily find that information on Wikipedia. For the purpose of this post, I’ll just mention that Subject Delta is the first successful Big Daddy prototype and the character you play as in Bioshock 2. The trailer should give you an idea what the general mood of the game is.

My suit started off with a pepakura file I stumbled upon on the 405th. The thread if you are interested can be found here:

http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/23746-Bioshock-2-W.i.p

After two fold attempts I managed to get the helmet to a scale where it fit over my head and touches my shoulders. The model is good, but I did have to do some cutting and taping to get the chest to close into my figure. To ensure the helmet maintained its shape during fiberglass I covered my ODST mannequin with plastic and taped the helmet on top of it.

Since the pepakura is only being used as a basis for sculpting, I broke the usual rule and put the glass on the outside of the helmet. Starting by painting a thin layer of resin onto the cardstock, I added several layers of glass cloth and mat to create a strong base for bondo work and prevent any bending.

Then of course came bondo, sanding, and glazing putty. When the base layer was smooth I took a sharpie and a ruler and laid out where the raised surfaces would be.

To raise the various layers, I used balsa wood cut into small pieces to follow the curve of the helmet. In the past I would have used epoxy for this step but thankfully Dave introduced me to the wonders of hot glue, so this process went from a full day to less than an hour. Once the wood was on, it was sanded and then filled with bondo and sanded to the appropriate shape.

After more putty and sanding, I reached a point where I wanted to hit the helmet with primer to see how the surface looked and how much smoothing was needed:

Overall I am very happy with how this is coming out so far. My next step will be to add the camera and face plate, followed by the relief valve, flashlights, and rivets. To keep the weight down on the final product I will be molding this helmet so I am wearing a casting rather than ½” thick bondo.
Stay tuned!

Tron Betrayal: Kevin Flynn, Part 1

2010-12-28T09:12:00.001-06:00

While Daft Punk continues to shape up, I'm taking on a side project during the lull periods (while I wait for rubber, or while it's too cold to fiberglass, stuff like that). Prior to the release of Tron Legacy, Marvel Comics released a two-part comic prequel to the movie, highlighting the evolution of the Grid and Flynn's early days of "new management" in the system. It also serves to add to CLU's story of how he got to where he was at the beginning of the movie (though it doesn't complete the story; the video game Tron Evolution fills in more of the gaps). Throughout both issues (and the video game, and even in some of the flashback sequences of the movie), Kevin Flynn's Grid outfit consists of "Trony" pants (with raised details and glowy bits), a dark gray shirt, and a black jacket that has a single lighted band down the front as it's primary detail.

In one particular panel, he is wearing a helmet while riding his light cycle, and this same helmet is seen being worn by anonymous grid game combatants. Certain details in the comics, as well as the fact that Sam's helmet in the movie was the same as the other gladiators, we can assume that there are generic style helmets in the new Tron world, and that this is one of them.

I started my work by producing a quick sketch of the helmet as I perceived it from the details in the comic, and then I produced a set of blueprints in Adobe Illustrator. I'll state right now that the shape of the side profile was changed in the 3D model stage from what you see in these blueprints, so my final product will not exactly match the blueprints.

From there I built a 3D model in Rhino 3D. When I built the 3D model, I originally built it according to the blueprints. However, I found that something was off about the overall shape of it, so I skewed it front to back to give it more of the look that the helmet in the side view in the comic has. It didn't need to be skewed much, but just breaking the overall rectangular shape really helped out. You can't really see it from this image, though.

Continuing onward, I brought the 3D model into Pepakura and produced a foldable paper model. I didn't think about this by the time the model was ready to print, but I had to do a little math to scale the helmet because I have a molding rim modeled onto it that counts toward the overall height of the model (in Pepakura, you scale a model according to it's height). And that's where I'm at right now. I haven't printed it out yet, and what you see represents about 7 hours of work so far.

Please note: I will not be distributing this Pepakura model. As I've stated before, I consider the Pepakura model to be like a "clay model" stage, and thus is not intended to be a final product. Please do not ask for the Pepakura file, as you will not receive it.

Daft Punk, Part 4: Helmet Updates and Fabric Discussion

2010-11-22T13:03:00.000-06:00

There isn’t much to report as far as Thomas’ helmet goes since it’s already mostly sculpted, except for two minor things. The first thing is that I’m having the entire ear lathed by a friend in Tennessee. The entire ear is simply a profile revolved around an axis, so it can be lathed. I’d rather hand that detail off to an experienced lather than try to sculpt it freehand twice and expect above par results. The second thing is that I’ve recessed the visor area on the face. I wanted to have the visor sculpted into the helmet so that there would be no question as to where to cut for the visor hole. So I cut the visor out and replaced it with some “For Sale” sign plastic and smoothed it out.

Following in Volpin’s footsteps, I had a local trophy shop (Redstone Recognitions) laser engrave the details on Guy’s ear plates. It really is the best option for this if you want exact mirror images of the details. Not being able to find adequate visual references for that particular part of the helmet, I used Volpin’s ear plates as reference. I drew out the design in Adobe Illustrator and sent in the vector file. For $10 I had him laser engrave two copies of the file on a piece of MDF. The engraving is shallow, but super crisp – and more than enough depth for molding. However, some scaling issues arose between the file transfer. I was using Adobe Illustrator, and he was using Corel Draw. The file should have engraved at exact scale, but it ended up being about ¼” shorter, about 10% smaller overall. For $10, I could have him do another, larger copy of the file to compensate for the scaling issues, but I may be able to work with what I have. I won’t be able to tell until I cut out the existing detail-less ear panel and mock up the engraved pieces in place.

I started sculpting Guy Manuel’s helmet this weekend. Beginning early Saturday morning, I started layering on thin layers of Bondo. I haven’t ever really used the bondo spatulas before, so I figured I’d give it a try. For simple shapes like this, it works wonders. For trickier areas I still prefer applying bondo with my finger. But with the spatula, I was able to apply an even coat over all the surfaces, and I haven’t really found any major shape issues that need to be addressed. Because I had about 4 layers of bondo on the visor, I was able to spend about an hour shaping it with my palm sander, and it was pretty much ready for smoothing.

The rest went super quickly. By the end of Sunday, I had all the surfaces with bondo on them, and I’ve even begun smoothing them out with glazing putty. As of right now, the frame has one good pass with glazing putty on it, and it only needs minor touchups. During the week I hope to start smoothing out the visor and back recessed areas, as well as starting to apply the seam line detail above the ears. Guy’s Tron helmet also has a cap over the normally exposed wired area, so I have to sculpt that detail in as well.

In other Daft Punk project news, I recently picked up some fabric for the jackets and pants. I know I didn’t pick up enough to make both jackets and both pairs of pants, but I have enough for one full outfit and either another jacket or another pair of pants. Judging by the hi-res version of the Tron image in the previous post, I’ve determined that the best available material I can get locally is white fleece-backed vinyl. The fleece-backed stuff has more give to it than the marine-quality stuff (which is usually used for upholstery), and it folds just like the material in the photo. The material in the photo doesn’t appear to be very stiff leather at all, so I figure what I got is one of the best analogs I could find.

One problem I’ll have to face is the perforation in certain sections of the material. Certain panels on the jackets and pants have a fine grid of holes throughout. Those holes appear to be spaced by about a ¼”, so that means a LOT holes. I have two ideas of how to go about achieving the look. I intend to cut a 6” by 6” swatch of material and apply the grid of dots to it with a fine point sharpie. If the dots look like holes at close-enough of a distance, then I’ll have a feasible option. Another swatch will be cut and then I’ll probably apply the same grid with something that can punch the holes at that size. I haven’t figured this one out yet (as I don’t work with fabric often), so any ideas you can pitch will be considered. A third option that I might consider (and it would require outsourcing to someone with the equipment) would be to have the pattern screen printed onto the vinyl. It would have to pass the same test as the sharpie method, but it would go a LOT faster. I have several people in mind for this, so it definitely is a feasible option at this point.

No photos to show of the fabric part yet, as it's just a big lump of white vinyl right now. However, here are more photos of the helmets for your viewing pleasure:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2storyprops/sets/72157624728828103/

Starkiller Armor and Gauntlet

2010-11-14T18:16:00.003-06:00

While Dave has been making progress on the Daft Punk Helmets and Tainted Love Pack I have been on a bit of a hiatus due to work and the holidays coming. With the recent release of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II I figure I’d share an older project I have been working that may get a revisit soon.

For those unfamiliar with the game, The Force Unleashed was released in 2008 and follows the story of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, known as Starkiller, set between the events of episodes II and III. While there are several costume changes through the game as Starkiller hunts Jedi through different environments, the most recognizable costume for the character is the “Training Gear” seen in the promotional material and the first level of the game.

Starkiller’s Training Gear

I’ve seen a few people attempt this costume with various results, but almost everybody has trouble with the shoulder armor, making it from pieces of sintra or cardboard. I wanted to make my set as accurate as possible, and this was a unique project for me as this was my first time working with fiberglass. To get things started I had my roommate at the time make a duct tape mannequin, of my upper torso so that I would have a copy of my shoulders to form the armor around. I then made a template for the armor from poster board, made two copies, and then taped them to the mannequin.

The poster board was then layered with several layers of glass and resin to hold its shape. To form the collar, I built up a wall using balsa wood and epoxy. After reinforcing the wood with glass and resin, I used bondo shape the collar the appropriate slope. Then with some bondo, glazing putty, and lots of sanding, the armor started taking shape.

Wood Collar

Bondoed

For finishing, the armor was painted nickel and then weathered with engine black acrylic paint and 600 grit wet sandpaper. Before the restraining bolt was attached flat black spray paint was used to put the welding residue on.

Finished Armor and Gauntlet

The gauntlet was made in a similar fashion; I made a duck tape mannequin of my right arm, used poster board to make a cuff, and then used fiberglass and balsa to build up the shape. The display is made from Plexiglas with red brake light tape. In case you’re wondering, the text reads, “Order 67, Search, Destroy, Kota”

This technique worked very well and I am really happy with how the armor looks. The problem I found however was that the armor does not allow enough room for the connection straps or the tunic itself, which is due to an issue with the mannequin. If I attempt this again I will be using a freshly made mannequin as well as add padding to ensure the armor has room to breathe. Additionally, the armor will be hallow cast so it will be much lighter and allow some flexibility.

Daft Punk, Part 3: ReGuy and Disco Programs

2010-11-08T09:56:00.000-06:00

So something had been bothering me about my Guy Manuel helmet, and I couldn’t figure out what. Last week I found out what, and it resulted in a quick rebuild of the entire helmet from the ground up. More on that in a moment.

The Daft Punk project (overall) has taken a new turn in light of new material. In addition to doing the entire score of the movie, Daft Punk is making a cameo in the upcoming movie Tron Legacy. Recently some imagery of their Tron Legacy costumes was revealed on the internet, and it got me hyped about Daft Punk in an all new way. I was a huge fan before, but this just adds way more “cool” to an already over-the-top coolness factor. Since we hadn’t invested any time or money into the costumes below the neck, and since the overall look is just a change of color, the decision to alter the project’s outcome doesn’t really cause us to skip a beat.

Photo is Copyright Disney.

Back on topic. So I was looking at the new Daft Punk material from Tron Legacy, and I realized that my Generation 2 helmet (the fiberglassed Pepakura helmet from the previous posts) was way off proportion. The visor was too small, the ears were far too large, and the overall shape of the helmet was too rigid, too sharp. So I remodeled the helmet in Rhino with more emphasis on the visor, smaller ears, and a more organic shape to the metal parts; and I used references from the Daft Punk poster from Tron Legacy as reference since that is my new end goal.

There are some pretty major differences between Guy Manuel’s Tron Legacy and HAA-era helmet, which piqued my interest in it. First up, the major difference is that it is now silver (like Thomas’ helmet). The other major difference is that the exposed wiring on the back of the helmet is now capped off with a a dull gray plate (to contrast with the shiny chrome), and the open bottom part on the back of the helmet is also capped as well. The other difference is in the detailing in the ears – the LEDs and the switch are gone, and the ear blocks are now flush-mounted to the rest of the helmet instead of being slightly recessed with a bit of a gap showing. The overall changes are very appealing to me mainly because they are actually changes. The other very appealing aspect to the Tron Legacy helmet is the lighting scheme; rather, the fact that the lighting scheme goes against what you’d expect is very appealing to me. You’d expect the lighting to follow his Discovery-era lighting (following the shape of the rainbow patterns), but instead it just cuts right across the visor in a very unexpected way. Some people dislike it because they say it “copies Thomas’ helmet,” but I tend to be more open-minded and think it comes from a different motivation.

Anyways, enough talk. Let’s fight!

Click here to see the rest of the photos!

Appearances

2010-10-29T10:17:00.000-05:00

We have finally updated our appearances page. It is currently up-to-date with our past events and upcoming events. We'll be super busy this weekend with three events planned out, so be sure to check the appearances page for our locations and come check us out!

We tend to make appearances mostly as the Rocket City Ghostbusters due to the scientific nature of our city (Huntsville, AL) and the child-friendly nature of the Ghostbusters. However, our other projects warrant different types of appearances, and some appearances aren't based on certain projects (such as conventions). If you would like for us to appear in costume at your next event, please send us an email at 2storyprops@gmail.com.

Ghostbusters: Tainted Love Proton Pack, Part 2

2010-10-12T08:51:00.001-05:00

Well now! I didn't get much further on the Tainted Love proton pack before I chose to restart it entirely. Originally, I was basing it off a sketch I made of the pack after reading the comic. There were several details that I overlooked when making that sketch, and my lack of accuracy checking coupled with me thinking of how it should look made the build just wrong in all aspects.

I also ended up briefly chatting with the comic book's artist over Facebook, Salgood Sam, who referred me to his production sketches of the proton pack. The sketches provided details not seen in the comic, and were far more detailed in general. So I decided to start over completely, using only his production sketches to build the pack this time. I also felt like I was spiraling away from my roots as a prop builder with the previous build, so I got back to doing what I use to do in the beginning - sculpting out of MDF.

So far the builder has been extremely simple. Getting back to the basics is an important lesson to any artist, and especially so in this case. Using very simple materials, I have been able to build most of the pack in only a weekend while maintaining attention to detail and accuracy to Salgood Sam's original production sketches. No overthinking, no overdoing, just straightforward prop building.

Construction so far has been with MDF, sintra, PVC, and a few washers.

Right now I'm building this is two main sections: the cyclotron and the motherboard. My original plans were to mold it as two separate components, but I'm currently thinking that I can get them to be one single piece for a single mold. I have to reshape the top portion of the motherboard (the part that sits under the cyclotron), and in doing so I can probably make this into one single piece. If I can do it, it will make for a more simple molding process.

Here is where the proton pack is right now. I've added the little arms that hold on the ion arm. I was going to have the ion arm be a separate PVC piece that I add to the castings, but since I have a little recessed pocket for it to sit in, I might as well add it to the master copy to be molded in as well. The 1/2" PVC pipe brings the total length to 14.5" or so, which is a tad over my initial 14" estimate (Salgood Sam also estimates it to be 14"), but overall I don't think it will detract from the prop too much. I am considering chopping the motherboard in a certain spot to make it a bit shorter, but I haven't decided if it'd be worth it yet.

I'm currently in the hustle to move, so I don't expect to make much more progress on this for a few weeks. I may try to chop the motherboard and shorten it and try to reshape the top of the motherboard before I have to clean out my current work area, but I probably won't get much more than that done before the weekend.

Video Game Proton Pack: Can You Hear Me Now?

2010-09-26T20:08:00.002-05:00

While David is making a lightweight pack I went the complete opposite direction and put more weight on for a good cause; SOUND! With some tips from the Louisiana Ghostbusters I started the process of “turning my pack to 15” by installing sound. I’ll briefly explain the work involved in this post, but if you are a ghosthead looking to add sound to your equipment you need to check out this thread on GBFans.com:
http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=14730

Here you will find a break down and links for all the components you’ll need.
The first task for putting sound in my pack was adding a new battery and a speaker to the inside of the pack. Originally I had two 9.6 VDC batteries powering the lights, but the speaker required 12 VDC for proper activation. I purchased a rather large rechargeable battery and put it in the cyclotron area to minimize the loading effect on the pack. For the speaker I used a KFC-1662S Kenwood, which is about the largest speaker I can fit in my pack. The speaker was bolted on about an inch from the base of the motherboard. Two bolts were added as well to connect the motherboard to the frame to help support the extra weight.

Since I have extra room in my thrower compared to movie packs I decided to locate the amp, sound chip, and sound chip power supply in the thrower. The sound chip is connected to a bread board that allows me to connect various switches to the sound chip. The sound is controlled by the two trigger switches on the thrower’s trigger box. Flipping the toggle switch will turn on the gun lights and trigger the pack start sound. Turning it off will shut the lights off and emit the shut down hum. The momentary switch will activate the lights in the thrower tip as well as emit a firing sound.

The video below shows the current state of the pack. I still need to install a light kit in the thrower and a DPDT momentary switch for the thrower (this will allow the pack to make the power down noise after it fires). There is a bit more work to do but this clip should give you an idea how loud and impressive the sound kit can be.

Ghostbusters: Tainted Love Proton Pack, Part 1

2010-09-23T09:04:00.002-05:00

One thing that Wayne and I have discussed at length is the prospect of having all the main "movie style" proton packs in our RCGB arsenal. By that, we mean we want the movie packs, the video game pack, and the arm-mounted miniaturized proton pack from the Tainted Love comic book. So while Wayne built the game pack, I'm taking on the arm-mounted pack.

In the Tainted Love comic book, our hero Winston seeks to hit it off with a potential client, and offers their services pro bono in order to help woo her over. He also gets Egon to create these smaller proton packs in order to cause less collateral damage than is typical of their other jobs. These smaller packs are less powerful, so the plan is that they all have to work together to wrangle a ghost into the trap, as opposed to one or two of them.

A scan from the Tainted Love comic book.

What is appealing about the design, for one, is the significant weight reduction. The big proton packs are mounted to Alice frames, which are specifically designed to reduce the effects of weight on your body. Of course, the weight sets in anyways and we're all sore when the packs come off at the end of the day. The other appealing aspect of the design (at least for me) is that it is a new design but still highly based on the regular proton pack. Plus, because it's small, molding it will be pretty easy and the final build should be rather quick.

Others have built this pack before, so it's not something new to the costuming community. However, in pretty much all instances that I've seen it made, the prop is built way too big. Indeed they are all significantly smaller that the regular proton pack, but once you measure out the proportions from the comic book, the end product should actually be pretty puny compared to its big brother. Remember, the top portion starts above the elbow, covers the upper arm, and just barely peaks above the shoulder. So when you sit down and actually draw it out, it ends up being a lot smaller than you would think.

My notes taken from the illustrations in the comic.

For 2Story Props' version of the arm-mounted pack, I am starting with a 1-gallon Bondo can cap as the starting point. It's within tolerance of the specifications set in my original notes, being 6-3/4" in diameter as opposed to 7". It also has a slight bevel to it instead of straight sides (top diameter is 6-1/2"). But I think that will end up being a non-issue by the end of the project.

The miniaturized mother board, drawn to the specifications from my notes.

The "mother board" here is a sheet of sintra that is exactly 14" long (perfect for my notes' specs) that has been cut to the dimensions from my notes. I've also temporarily mounted the Bondo cap to it so I can build out the rest. The base of this top portion of the pack will mostly be sintra, probably with wood or other sintra details on top. The final prop will be a fiberglass casting, though, as all of this stuff will end up being molded.

The Bondo cap taped is taped in place while I flesh out the rest.

EDIT (8:50am, 09-24-10):

Last night I begun framing up the main body of the mini proton pack. Assembly so far has just been with sintra and hot glue. I've probably done about half of the major work right here. Aside from adding those missing panels and permanently fixing the Bondo cap in place, the rest of the work will just be clean up and detailing.

Blog Updates

2010-09-22T14:21:00.001-05:00

I'm building out some additional pages for the blog. Of the new pages, the big guns will be the Projects page and the Appearances page.

The Projects page is mostly complete. All I have left is to upload the teaser photos for one more project. The Projects page will be updated with each project we finish and each project we start. The works in progress will simply be listed instead of having a descriptive paragraph like the completed projects.

The Appearances page, much like the Projects page, will include past events and upcoming events. I should have our past events up shortly, and we are in the middle of hammering out details on some upcoming events, so those will be posted shortly.

Again, if there is anything you would like to see on the blog, please send us an email (2StoryProps@gmail.com) and we'll see what we can do.

Daft Punk, Part 2: Progress and Research

2010-09-12T17:57:00.002-05:00

I’ve been making baby steps with the Daft Punk helmets. Really the only significant progress I’ve made is on Thomas’ helmet. I’ve added an initial layer of Bondo to the fiberglassed paper helmet to start the sculpting progress, and I’ve begun smoothing the face portion of the helmet. I’ve also added the mouth and nose details, though I haven’t backed them with anything yet for the eventual molding process. I found that, when the fiberglass was curing, the helmet slightly warped (the only notable effect was on the right side right above the visor portion), so I have to thicken that area with more Bondo to even it back out. Aside from that minor setback, these helmets should go rather quickly. The smooth, simple shapes and the rather low amount of fine details should lend themselves to making these helmets relatively quick projects, though the really time-consuming part will be going nuts getting them smooth enough for the plating process.

Thomas’ helmet in initial sculpting stages.

Mouth and nose details added.

There are two distinct eras for the Daft Punk costumes (though there are several sub-eras in between): Discovery and Human After All (HAA). During the Discovery era, the only reoccurring costume elements were the helmets, gloves, and backpacks. The rest of the costume changed among an assortment of eccentric 70’s outfits. The Discovery helmets sported the LED displays in their visors as well. The HAA costumes swapped out the changing outfits for black leather jackets and pants, and they dropped the backpacks because of a lack of helmet electronics. Although I would like to do the Discovery-era costumes, we’re probably going to be building HAA-era costumes.

The HAA outfits aren’t just any old black leather jackets or pants, so we can’t just be lazy here (as if!). They were custom designed by Dior Homme for the duo and are not available in retail stores. Below is a photo of the duo sporting their HAA jackets. I don’t know the source of the photo, so I can’t say what all those red dots are, of if it’s even them in the suits (it could be the suits on mannequins on some display, hence the reflected red lights, maybe).

I haven’t scoured the local stores yet (though they aren’t likely to have anything remotely close to what we need), but an initial online search revealed several choices. I was searching for jackets with a correct-ish style collar and with a simple enough design. Price wasn’t a concern at the time, but it happened that this one was the cheapest of my findings ($119).

Potential jacket choice.

My main concern for the jackets include having a vertical collar with enough room for an added snap closure and having a very simple, detail-free sign that would allow for easy modification. I’m primarily looking to modify whatever jacket I choose with a correct quad-snap neck closure, a three-snap closure down the front zipper, and shoulder epaulets. I’m also concerned with the correct zipper locations, but that’s something I can add to the jackets later (the jacket doesn’t have to have them at the time I buy). I’m not as concerned about the ribbing along the side, the elbows, and the back because the focus of the costume will obviously be the helmets. However, if I can find enough of the right material to do the zipper closure and epaulets, I might as well add the ribbed sections. The ribbing is an important detail, but I’d rather spend time tackling the easier details that I CAN do rather than not making progress at all because of a detail I can’t do much about.

The trick is finding the right black leather jacket for this project. Thomas and Guy are both pretty slim guys, and their jackets are very form-fitting. The jackets aren’t skin-tight, but they do fit very close to their bodies. A lot of motorcycle jackets that you find are bulky and don’t sit very tight around the body. They are often designed to be bulky so they’ll trap your body heat on colder drives. We’ll definitely have to be extremely discriminating when it comes to jacket fit, of course, so our best potential choice (above) may not even work out if it’s a bulky fit. Of course, if any of you readers know of any good potential jackets, please send us any info you have to 2storyprops@gmail.com.

EDIT:

Well now, I found this, which looks to be as close to an exact replica as you're probably going to find. The ribbing is different, but it's pretty dang close. It's a steep price point, so we're likely not even to consider it. However, given the amount of money we put into our work anyways, we might just end up considering it. Haha! And it seems that a lot of DP fans are getting this one despite the price.

http://www.magnoliclothiers.com/punk-leather-jacket-custom-made-jackets-by-magnoli-clothiers-p-346.html

Dragon Con Part 2: David's Story

2010-09-09T17:16:00.002-05:00

This was the first year any of us here at 2Story Props had attended Dragon*Con. I personally have been intending to go for years (since about 2004), but never got the opportunity because it can be a pretty expensive trip even if you’re splitting a room with someone. Last year, shortly after Dragon*Con 2009 ended, we decided to go to D*C 2010 as a group. It was not long after that we started our ODST project.

Wayne arrived in Atlanta earlier in the day on Thursday to secure the hotel room and to scout around a bit. Jecca and I had arrived later that night (around midnight Eastern Time). The rest of the crew arrived throughout the day on Friday. Early Friday morning (around 5:30) we hopped in line to get our passes. The doors wouldn’t open until 8 or 8:30, but getting in line as soon as possible is always a good thing with big conventions (I myself had attended other large cons before, but never D*C). Fortunately the line was relatively short at that time – about a third of a block long. So we were pretty close to the front.

Around 6am Eastern Time.

After we got our passes (and after having endured the Pac Man labyrinth), we returned to the room for a short rest and then to suit up in ODST. Jecca suited up in her female version of the new Mad Hatter costume as well.

The pile.

We would end up hitting the con floors at around 9:15am. I have been watching D*C photo albums on the internet for years, following my friends’ ventures throughout the convention. I was well aware that if you had a good costume, you were going to get photographed a LOT, but oddly I wasn’t prepared for it. The moment we hit the main part of the Marriott 2nd floor lobby we were bombarded with camera flashes. At that time we didn’t have a game plan as far as seeing anything in particular, but we did want to walk around and get a feel for the convention. Our efforts were thwarted, however, because we couldn’t move 10 feet without being stopped for photos. And every time we stopped, 10-15 more people would get in on the photo op, so we would be standing there for some time. What an amazing experience.

Jecca's female Mad Hatter costume.

We soon realized the one negative aspect of being photographed so much – we had a photo shoot with a friend to get to at 4pm, but getting there was troublesome as we kept getting stopped for photos. It was certainly welcomed and we gladly stopped, but it just seems that Dragon*Con is no place to make plans of any sort (if you are wearing a costume, that is!). I had experienced only a very small fraction of this kind of attention back when I was with the 501st, but at D*C I definitely felt that the hard work we put into the ODST paid off.

Ryan Jones, me, Jecca, and Wayne.

At 4pm we had a small photo shoot with 2Story Props friend and professional photographer Chase Gustafson. We headed a few blocks away from the convention to a parking deck that had some neat backdrops. We don’t have the photos back from him yet, but they’ll end up in our Flickr album at some point. I’ll make an announcement regarding that when I get the photos.

We initially wanted to enter one of the bigger costume contests, but due to the amount of stuff happening just on Friday, we decided that the Hallway Costume Contest would be the best choice, as it would free up the rest of our night for dinner with friends.

Photos of all the entrees.

Saturday morning began by suiting up in our Rocket City Ghostbusters gear and heading to the parade gathering location. There we met up with the other franchises and joked around for a while before the parade began. The parade included 7 Ecto-mobiles, including the Denver guys’ awesome Lambo-doored Dodge Magnum Ecto-mobile. The parade was definitely one of the highlights of our first D*C experience, and we’re already gathering ideas for next year’s parade as far as our Daft Punk project goes.

During the parade, my POV.

GBFans.com post-parade group photo.

After the parade, I switched out into my Halo Reach live-action Marine gear. This was a quickie costume based on the live action “Patrol” commercial for Halo Reach, featuring three Marines in Legacy Effects-style ODST armor in a snowy field talking about a Spartan battle. I was excited about this costume because it was a simple variation of the gear we already had, so it would be a nice (and comfy!) third costume for D*C. And I’m excited to say that there is yet a third variation of the Legacy Effects ODST costume in the newest live-action Halo Reach commercial “Deliver Hope,” which will likely be worn at Dragon*Con 2011. While out on a patrol of my own, I happened upon Volpin in his amazing Mass Effect armor and had a short chat with him.

2Story Props meets Volpin Props.

Halo Reach "Patrol" version of the LE ODST armor.

Saturday afternoon, about half of our crew (including Jecca and I) went to the Star Trek: The Next Generation panel. I knew the crew of the USS Enterprise was way more laid back than their characters, but man, Family Guy had it spot on.

Saturday night we met up with the GBFans.com guys for dinner at the Mellow Mushroom in downtown ATL, a few blocks away from the convention hotels. Taking orders and serving such a large group all at once meant a long dinner, and then it took a while to gear up for the Crunch Bar Awards. But our wait was well worth it when 2Story Props co-founder Wayne was awarded with a golden PKE meter for “Best Representation of a Ghostbuster” among all the members of the GBFans forums. We here at 2Story Props are very proud of this accomplishment, and we’re all proud to say that the RCGB have added another award to their mantle.

By Sunday, I was hurting. A lot. Our ODST gear isn’t heavy when worn for a few hours, especially because the weight is distributed all over your body. But over 10 or so hours, the weight definitely starts causing soreness. The proton pack’s weight is helped by the alice frame that is specifically designed to diminish the effects of weight, but again, after so many hours in that, it definitely starts to get heavy. But you don’t feel it while you’re wearing it – you feel it once you take the costumes off. So on Sunday, Jecca and I went civilian, though Wayne suited up in his khaki RCGB jumpsuit and hit the floors again for more photo ops.

We ended up leaving Sunday evening. Back when we first started planning our Dragon*Con stay, we both assumed that it would be best to leave Sunday so we could get back to work the next day or so (at least on my part), so we booked the hotel through Saturday night. It probably ended up being the better choice, though we did miss the Masquerade on Monday, because we are all very, very tired. We feel it was a spectacular first D*C experience, though, and our hotel is already booked for next year (all four days this time).

Dragon Con Part 1: Wayne's Story

2010-09-06T14:55:00.004-05:00

After two had years of preparation we made our first ever appearance at Dragon*Con 2010 located in down town Atlanta Georgia. For three days we proudly showed off our creations and had some really interesting experiences. After getting back into Huntsville yesterday night we are all tired, but would like to share some of our experiences while the convention is still fresh in our heads, as well as mention some news about upcoming projects.

Friday:

ODST Suit Laid Out Before Suiting UP

After waiting in line two hours Friday morning to get our D*Con badges David and I suited up in our ODST Hell jumper suits and hit the convention. For about the next four hours as we tried to make our way around the hotels we could barley move as wave after wave of people stopped us to take our picture. The general scenario played out something like us.

Patron: [Exact second we take our helmets off for air] “Excuse me, can I get a picture?”

Us: “Sure” [Put helmet back on]

Then a mob forms and cameras are flashing for about 5 min. When the flashing stops we look around to see if anybody is still taking our picture. We don’t see anybody and begin to take our helmets off…

Patron: [Exact second we take our helmets off for air] “Excuse me, can I get a picture?”

And repeat that about 5000 times ;-)

While we were wearing our ODST gear Jecca (David’s girlfriend) was also a big camera draw as she showed off her female version of the Tim Burton Mad Hatter. Dave will put some pictures up in his post but I have to say that Jecca’s costume was the best Mad Hatter costume I have seen. Period. She nailed the make up perfectly and everything about the outfit was just awesome.

After trooping for a few hours David and I met up with a friend of his and we found a parking garage for a professional ODST photo shoot. I haven’t seen the final pictures yet but based on the other work he showed us on his iPad (after we washed off Dave’s drool) we are going to have some really nice pictures of our gear.

Saturday:

Saturday brought on the Dragon*Con parade for which we broke out the Rocket City Ghostbusters. David, Ethan, and I suited up in our gear while Jecca went all out and pulled off an amazing Janine costume. We made our way down Peachtree and met up with an army of Ghostbusters from franchises across the country including Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Palm Beach, and Denver just to name a few. Not only were there enough “unlicensed nuclear accelerator” to power a small country, but there were SEVEN Ecto mobiles! Seeing this many Ghostbusters in one place was defiantly a sight to see.

Who you gonna call?

The Rocket City Ghostbusters (I was taking the picture)

Marching in the parade was defiantly one of those moments in life you never forget. For four blocks thousands of people were lined up on the streets taking pictures of the parade, yelling, “Who you gonna call” and chanting “Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters!” like in the movie. I won’t lie, I was crying a little bit under my sunglasses. Going from being a little kid 20 years ago playing with the toys and pretending to be a Ghostbuster to having parents and kids alike point to us and say, “There ARE the Ghostbusters!”. It was a very emotional experience for me.

Me and David in the Parade

After the parade while the other guys were checking out some of the celebrities and panels I kept my gear on and made my way through the main three hotels stopping every few minutes to have my picture taken, and luckily get pictures of other people since I can wear a camera on the Ghostbuster gear. In addition to some really good costumes, I saw my first real life R2-D2! For a while I decided to hang out at the GBfans booth in the Hyatt to mingle with some of the other busters. I received a lot of complements about my game pack and Dan AKA was nice enough to make a video vouching that despite popular belief my proton pack is in fact wearable. Later that night the RCGB group headed out to the Ghostbusters awards dinner at the Mellow Mushroom for some excellent pizza and good conversation about busting.

Hungry Ghostbusters

After dinner the awards were presented, and I was given the Golden Crunch Bar Award for Best Representation of a Ghostbuster thanks to my work on the video game version of the pack! Unfortunalty the gentlemen making the awards had some issues and couldn’t make the convention, but my award will be mailed here when it’s done: A golden PKE meter!

Sunday:

By Sunday most of us were pretty worn out and decided to spend our last day in civilian close, but I decided to put my bruised feet and aching back aside and take the game pack out for one last spin, this time with a khaki uniform. I spent a few hours traveling around the hotels and was stopped many times for pictures, and even an interview with CNN Student News! I saw a lot of great costumes that I have posted in the flicker account, but one of my favorite shots defiantly has to one where we found Gozer the Gozerian!

Aim for the Flat Top!

All in all my first Dragon Con defiantly lived up to the hype I have been putting on it for the last 2 years (we did not have suits ready by D*Con 2009 and by the time David and I met all the hotels would have been booked anyway) and we have already booked our rooms for next year! As far as projects for D*Con 2011 go, David is working hard on the Daft Punk suits and we are going to see if we can maybe do something special in the parade with them like have a moving pyramid so we can “D.J.” the parade. The ODST and RCGB suits may make an appearance as well although they would not be worn for the full day again since we have to fit in the other suits as well. Personally, I had a secret project in mind that I was planning, but the abundance of Splicers and Little Sisters I saw and the total lack of Big Daddies is causing me to take another look at Subject Delta……

Dragon Con 2010 Pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2storyprops/sets/72157624893699774/

Daft Punk, Part 1: 3D modeling

2010-08-31T23:04:00.000-05:00

I've been a long time fan of Daft Punk. Of course, any fan knows that if you're a fan of Daft Punk, you're not just a fan of the music - you're a fan of the entire experience. The music, the shows, the videos, the costumes, the whole thing. Being a prop builder, my obvious interest is the costumes.

If you're in the prop building community and are also a Daft Punk fan, you're probably already aware of Volpin Props' awesome Guy-Manuel helmet. Volpin pulled out all the stops. It is no doubt that his phenomenal work has inspired me to build my own Daft Punk helmets. As one of 2Story Props' next group projects, I'll be working on both Guy's and Thomas' helmets simultaneously, with a goal of Halloween 2011 (hopefully). Of course, the entire ensemble with include the leather suits and the gloves (or, if we choose to go with electronics, totally pimpin' 70s outfits).

Prior to the start of my Daft Punk project, I had experimented with incorporating 3D modeling into my projects, and implementing it via Pepakura. Pepakura is a Japanese computer program that can import a variety of 3D model formats, and can "unfold" it into flat, segmented components. You would then scale it to however tall you need the model, and then arrange the parts on a grid and print it out. The paper would then be cut out, folded, and glued together. The fan-made prop community has utilized this method to a great extent. Seasoned prop builders often scoff at the idea since a good amount of pepped projects end up with (frankly) such low quality. But that's another rant. Knowing how to use it correctly and knowing your way around 3D modeling comes as great benefits to the method, and it can be used quite effectively. Most recently for me, the ODST project included several 3D models (designed by yours truly) and built via pepakura.

Back to Daft Punk. The Guy and Thomas helmets, with their simple shapes and smooth surfaces, are perfect candidates for pepakura. The trick, however, is finding the right references and finding the right scale. When choosing the right references, it was important to focus on silhouette rather than overall view - the chrome finish on these helmets can be tricky in certain lighting, and given the large, bulbous shapes on these helmets, the right angle can mean everything when designing the 3D model. As for the scale, since the original helmets are fit only to the two DJs and no other people (except for the instance in Electroma, which were secondary/background helmets), there is hardly enough reference to go by when determining the proper scaling of the helmets. And scaling is everything with these helmets - a half inch too tall, and it's WAY too big; a half inch too small, and its WAY too small.

The 3D modeling portion of the project went rather quickly, mostly due to the simplicity of the helmet designs. I had some modeling practice on more detailed Halo helmets, so when the Daft Punk project started up, the technical aspect of designing the 3D models was a breeze.

Also having done several Pepakura models prior to this project made the Pepakura designing stage rather easy too. However, knowing how you will build the paper model in advance always helps out when designing the Pepakura model. It's also critical to know how the paper will naturally bend, as well as knowing where your folds will be. With Pepakura, it's always best to not make any folds unless its absolutely necessary, or unless the model has a physical edge at a certain point where a fold makes sense. With the Daft Punk helmets, there aren't many folds to make except for glue tabs. The naturally-flexed paper (as opposed to folded) would later prove to hold stronger and more accurate shape in the paper stage.

Both models went through three versions of the paper model. The first two versions of each helmet were scaling tests. In each case, the first helmets were too small and the second helmets were too big. It's pretty funny when looking back at it.

In the next installment of the project, you will see the helmets after having received fiberglass reinforcement to the paper model, and the initial sculpting phases. That will definitely have to wait a while, though, as we still have two more ODST costumes to build, and I have to move to my new apartment! So expect to see more major updates to the Daft Punk project in November or so.

Proton Pack Mark V: The Video Game Version

2010-08-27T22:43:00.003-05:00

This project has a pretty interesting history, but to understand what it is exactly I’ll need to provide a brief history of general proton pack design.

The proton pack is the key piece of equipment used by the boys in grey in both Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters 2 (1989). The prop is essentially the same in both films with very minor differences such as the angle of the gun mount and the color of the crank knob. As a result of this similarity, pretty much everyone who has built a movie Ghostbusters proton pack has strived to make the model seen in the films, which more or less is identical to the ones seen in the 1984 film (Some people have made packs based on the cartoon but that is another story)

Ghostbusters 2 Proton Pack

After 25 years of being unmodified, Ghostbusters: The Video Game was released in 2009 and puts a new twist on the pack. The game is basically the third movie and takes place in 1991 where your character, only known as “Rookie”, is the new experimental equipment technician and must test the new equipment Egon and Ray have developed to increase the abilities of the pack. At the start of the game the proton pack is similar to the ones seen in the films except it has a few cosmetic differences and more lights; some of which serve as your health and pack overheat indicator.

Ghostbuster: The Video Game Pack Early Shot

As you progress through the game the pack receives add ons to help you deal with new ghost and solve some in game puzzles. Add ons include the Slime Blower MK II, Stasis Stream, and Meson Collider. By the latter half of the game your pack has a lot more lights, wires, and other features than ever seen in the movies.

Fully Upgraded Game Pack

So now back to the prop. Back when we were first planning on building proton packs in 2009 (before the game came out). We had a little dilemma whether to make the packs movie accurate or game accurate. After some thinking movie won out due to the time and material needed to make a game pack for 4 people, plus there were not many good shots of the pack back then and no description what all the add ons did.

Earlier this year a few things happened that prompted me to tackle the game pack. First, Dave and I spent a lot of time molding up ODST armor, and I learned the correct way to make molds (the original pack molds were my first molds ever). This made me want to go back and make a new mold for the packs that would last longer and remove some of the imperfection in the Mark IV packs. Second, on May 8th Dan Aykroyd, came to Huntsville to promote his line of Crystal Skull vodka and had a signing on the arsenal. Needless to say I headed to the signing in costume, and Dan signed my pack. While having a signed pack is awesome, it also made the pack unwearable. As Dave put it, “It’s no longer a prop, it’s a collectable.” Since I needed to make a new pack and did the movie version 4 times now (building 6 packs total), I decided to go all out and make the game version.

Meeting Dan Aykroyd

The first task was to modify the original positive we used to make the RCBG packs. The lower shell had a power cell block added while the gun mount on the upper shell had to be modified to have the various indicators seen on the game pack. With these upgrades the master positive was re-molded using much more rubber than the previous packs and multi-part mother molds (another first for me) the make shell removal easier.

New Shell with Modified Gun Mount and Game Power Cell

For the new gun I took an extra casting of the movie version and built up the slime blower box that gets added on later in the game from balsa. I molded these two pieces together so that I would have one single gun piece.

For the extra lights seen on the power cells and the crank box I used transparent resin with red and white pigment. This provided a piece I could glue on yet allow the light from an LED to show through. Various other add-ons were sculpted from balsa, molded, and cast in resin before being added to the pack. The most notable add on is the slime tank, which is a casting of a 24 oz paintball cylinder.

Molding the Slime Tank

The green hose for the slime blower is also another first. I started with clear vinyl hose and dyed it Kelly green in near boiling water. Other additions to the pack include more hoses, bungee cords, jumper cable clamps, and vacuum tubes.

Comparison of the Movie Pack (left) and the Game Pack (right)

For the gun, the round piece was made from plywood and bondo with resin details. The slime blower itself is PVC with a modified wooden light house I found at Michaels. One detail on the gun people get a kick out of is the pressure gauge. That is a normal tire pressure gauge found at Wal-Mart made by “Slime”. So inadvertently, my slime pressure gauge actually says slime on it.

Lighthouse Used on Slime Blower

Completed Gun

While I did most of the construction and painting, Dave took some time and weathered the pack up so it has the worn look. For the lights I took some notes from playing the game on how the lights behaved and sent those along with some measurements from my pack to Jupiter Electronics http://www.jupitere.com/ who made an unbelievable lighting kit for this pack. All the lights blink as they should in the game. Everything is powered by a 9.3 V rechargeable car battery. I cannot stress enough the quality of work Jupiter put into these lights.

For those scared of the weight, the whole pack weighs 30 pounds and is supported by an Alice pack frame. The first public appearance of the pack will be at Dragon*Con 2010 so keep an eye out for the pack as well as the full Rocket City Ghostbusters group!

Finished Pack

For more pictures and details about the development of this pack, please check out the production thread on gbfans .com located here:

http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12424

Flicker Photostream of Pack Development:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2storyprops/sets/72157624809079888/

Legacy Effects Style ODST

2010-08-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

As Wayne headed up the Ghostbuster's group costume project, I took the lead on the ODST group costume project. At the time - and even currently - everyone that was interested in building an ODST costume was really only building the video game version of the costume. There were a few builders out there building the Weta live-action costumes, but for the most part it was all video game versions. One of my personal interests in costuming is taking animated or CG characters and building realistic versions of them. Of course, if there is already a realistic version, that just saves me a step (though I do thoroughly enjoy reimagining an animated character in my own vision of a realistic version). The live action commercial "We Are ODST" inspired me to produce replicas of the costumes worn in their short film.

Screen Capture of the Legacy Effects ODST costumes.

We both knew that this project would be a crucible of moldmaking and casting, and every step of the way it did not disappoint. As I headed up the project, I took on the sculpting portion of the project. For a few parts, I used the Pepakura 3D files that are freely available on the Halo Costuming Wiki (knowing that they were inaccurate to the version we were reproducing, but it saved time). However, I did not rely on parts that other people have made. For this project, I ventured into making my own 3D models and producing Pepakura models from them. It was a huge learning experience on my part, and I've definitely grown as a prop builder from it. However, traditional methods were also used on several of the components.

One major different between our reproduction and the film-used costumes is that the armor components for our costumes are all fiberglass castings. The film-used suits used vacuum-formed plastic parts. While vacuum-forming would have been way faster, and likely cheaper in the long-run, we did not have that technology available to us for about 90% of the project. So we buckled down and molded every single component. Again, it was a learning experience for us both. I've been familiar with mold making for a few years prior to this project, but this project definitely made me hone my skills and add new techniques to my skillset.

As it is the case with most full-armored costuming projects, the helmet took center stage in our production. The helmet began as one of those Pepakura models, though about 60% of it was torn away and rebuilt to reflect the Legacy Effects helmet. The LE helmet and the game helmet vary greatly in proportion and details, so it took careful reconstructing on my part to get the right look. It still differents somewhat from the film-used helmet, but for the most part it's pretty accurate. One major aspect of the helmet was the complex shape of the visor. The ODST helmet doesn't just have a visor that can me made out of a motorcycle helmet visor. The project required that we build a vacuum-forming machine and vacform our own visors. We thought about outsourcing it, but we figured that if we're gonna aim for going the extra mile, we better walk each and every step. Initially we failed miserably, but we took another stab at it and got the process down.

Another major step for us would be solid casting. For most people that probably seems like some too easy for us to consider a major step. However, the complexity of our SMG model made us worry greatly about the process. With a pretty sizable and detailed prop, there are so many opportunities to screw up. But we came up with a method by which we approached the casting in two phases: detail and fill. Again, this probably isn't a big deal for a lot for people, but for two fledgling prop builders that haven't done that yet and are starting it with a rather complex model, it was a pretty big deal.

The entire project was probably inspired by the attention to detail on the film-used suits more than anything. For the most part, you only get a faded, hazy look at the costumes during the commercial, and only Tarkov's suit get's the spotlight. But Legacy Effects' efforts to intricately detail each and every suit blew me away. I mean, for like 90% of the short film you wouldn't even see any of the details, but it's one of those things where you would miss the details if they weren't there. It would lack reality. So that inspired me to finish off each suit with the same attention to detail. Each component of the costume ends up being its own little mini project by the time I get to the weathering stage, but the final result ends up being totally worth the all the headaches, the months and months of molding and casting, and the incredibly time consuming task of weathering each and every part for a complete composition.

As I said in the previous post, a recent shakey situation at work as forced me to pause the project. We were planning on building four ODST costumes by Dragon*Con, but this situation has caused me to start job hunting. I found a sub-contracting job as a graphic designer, and that's keeping me rather busy. So the current plan is to hold off until after Dragon*Con to complete the other two suits. We're gonna try to make the other two suits happen by Halloween, so that gives us under two months. Plus, I will be moving half-way through October, so that will definitely cause us to expediate the process. To help things go faster, we're going to give the two remaining costumes the "rookie treatment," by which they will only be weathered ever so slightly (as if they've only been in a battle or two). A lot of the work is already done, it's just a matter of finishing up a few parts and getting the pieces assembled. Look forward to Halloween time, when we should be able to post photos of the entire crew.

Click here to see photos of the building process of the suits.

Click here to see photos of the finished suits in action.

A Brief History of The Rocket City Ghostbusters

2010-08-25T23:05:00.004-05:00

As Dave mentioned in his introduction post, the first project that brought us all together was the construction of some Ghostbuster equipment. What started off as a Halloween group costume for three people has grown into a volunteer group currently with four members who have made appearances at various events around Huntsville and have been recognized all around Huntsville. I am of course referring to the Rocket City Ghostbusters.

It’s hard to say exactly when the RCGB got started. We could go all the way back to the late 80s when my brother Kyle and I use to get up every Saturday morning, put on our blue plastic packs, and watch The Real Ghostbusters cartoon show on TV. We had everything Ghostbusters growing up; action figures, the fire house, tee shirts. Everything. In fact, my very first costume was a Ghostbuster when I was four. My mom made my brother and I patches out of felt and got us jumpsuits to wear with our blue plastic Kenner packs. So if you trace it back I have always been a Ghostbuster at heart. Years later in college when I started getting into serious costuming, I was looking for a project that would top the Jango Fett I did my sophomore year of college (GO ILLINI!) when my mom recommended I try to build a Ghostbuster costume. After searching the web I discovered a prop building site, www.gbfans.com, that had forums and plans for how to build your own proton pack replica. Granted I had limited funds in college, so my materials were limited. My first attempt (Mark I) was made of craft foam and paper mache.

Mark I:

It came out okay but nothing to brag about. I sold this pack and then tried one out of bass wood (Mark II). It was a move in the right direction, but nowhere near accurate.

Mark II:

My junior and senior year I had a job, thus money, so I decided that I was going to get whatever I needed to make a good pack. I purchase a vacuum formed shell on eBay and spent 2 months making my first true proton pack (Mark III). At the time, I thought it was beautiful, and I won a $500 costume contest with it and it is still featured on wtfcostumes.com. Unfortunately, I needed money to pay my rent, so I had to sell it. That was the first prop I ever sold without wanting to, and I knew that I would make another one when I could afford it.

Mark III:

In 2009 I moved to Huntsville Alabama to start a job at Orion Propulsion (I is a Rokit Scientist) and started hanging out with Ethan whom I went to UIUC with. Early on we discussed making some Star Wars costumes for Halloween since I was originally intending to shave my head and make a kick ass Starkiller costume to join the 501st. Then one day while eating at Rosie’s we discovered that Ethan (25 at the time) never saw Ghostbusters. I put the DVD in and suddenly we forgot about Star Wars and thought about making a Ghostbusters group costume. I really liked the idea, but knew we really needed three people to pull it off. About 2 weeks later another class mate, Nick, moved down here and was in on the project as well. Thus the “Huntsville Ghostbusters” began! (We changed the name to Rocket City Ghostbusters in August 2009 since we thought it sounded cooler.)

When this project started I had a few goals. First, these were going to be movie accurate with no exceptions. Second, the packs (Mark IV) would all be identical. And third they had to be awesome! With that in mind I knew I was going to have to find a way to “mass produce” the packs. After doing some research online I decided to make a master positive from wood, and then create a rubber mold to allow me to pull fiberglass shells. It was during the casting process that I met Dave as I was laying some fiberglass while he was painting something. Not long after he became our fourth Ghostbuster. I won’t spend too much time on how the packs came together since that is documented very well on gbfans .com with this thread:

http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12424

Finish Mark IV:

Rather, I’d like to talk about some of the details that often get over looked. To start with, the uniforms. I am really surprised we have never been asked why our uniforms are not kaki. The reason is that we wanted people to have no doubt that these were not store bought, so we decided to use the charcoal grey suits briefly seen in Ghostbusters II. You actually can’t buy jump suits in this color. We started off with black suits, bleached them, and dyed them with navy blue to get the appropriate color. Jecca is wearing a Dickies work shirt that is close in color to our uniforms.

Our name patches were specially ordered from eBay since we wanted to be ourselves rather than the movie busters, so our patches read out names. Originally we dyed volleyball pads to reflect the movie elbow pads, but since those are not comfortable we decided to go with better looking military black elbow pads. After all, we are not the New York Ghostbusters, so we don’t have to look exactly like them.

The belt gismo was designed by Dave. It is a piece of layered sintra with a custom decal put over it to make it look like a circuit board. The wired and bulb were all laid by hand. Dave even made the holster from vinal and cardboard.

The traps were made the same way as the packs. A positive trap was made from plywood, molded, and then cast in resin. Each buster wears a trap on their belt via a custom made leather holster with a flush mount bracket. At this time the traps are just eye candy although we plan to make a smoking trap in the near future.

The PKE meter was hand made by Dave based on concept art for the Video Game. He sculpted this from a piece of MDF, molded it, and casted it. This is one of the most impressive pieces of the costume.

Additionally, we each wear a Motorola MT 500 radio (same model used in Ghostbusters one) and an angled flashlight as seen in Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

After 6 months of work, the suits made their debut on Halloween Day. We walked up and down Bridge Street and then hit the Madison Square Mall where we couldn’t go 5 feet without people taking pictures. At Nightmare on Clinton we took home Best Group Costume and Second for the entire event. It was one heck of a day for the RCGB. We had so much fun that we decided this was not going to be just a Halloween costume, but like the 501st we were going to use this costumes for various charity and volunteer events. Since Halloween 2009 we have made appearances at Yuri’s Night, Free Comic Book Day at The Deep, and the Good Day Kids Festival at Lowe Mill. At each event, we have a hard time moving since we are stopped every 30 seconds for pictues, but I think I speak for everyone when I say meeting a Ghostbuster in real life is an awesome experience.

Even more awesome? Earlier this year we decided that we wanted make our uniforms a little more distinctive so people would know we are specifically the Rocket City Ghostbusters. Thus Dave with his skills in graphic design created a new No Ghost patch where the cross bar is removed and in its place the red NASA swoosh goes across the patch (The Huston Ghostbusters have a similar patch where they also made the circle blue to look closer to the NASA patch). We had this made up and now we have our own franchise patches!

So that is the Rocket City Ghostbusters story in a nutshell (I could go on and on and on). We will be making appearances in the near future at Dragon*Con, and keep an eye out for us as October rolls around. Later on I’ll be adding a post about our newest RCGB prop, the Mark V Video Game Proton Pack!

If you are interesting in an appearce by the Rocket City Ghostbusters please email us at 2storyprops@gmail.com or rocketcitygb@gmail.com!

2Story Props

2010-08-25T21:49:00.000-05:00

So we've been working as a team for a little under a year now. We started off as two independent prop builders that - unbeknownst to each other - were neighbors (upstairs and downstairs). One day we were both out working on our projects, I believe I was working on some Star Wars helmet or something, and Wayne was working on Ghostbusters proton pack molds. I remember looking down and seeing that he was making molds, but I did not recognize the parts. I thought they were custom automotive parts (dash board parts, stuff like that), because people do make custom interiors and stuff. He looked up and we started talking. Immediately we took interest in each other's projects. Wayne was building a team of three movie-accurate Ghostbuster costumes for himself and two of his friends, Ethan and Nick. About a week later I would join the team as their fourth 'Buster.

2Story Prop's beginnings was Ghostbuster props and costumes, and Ghostbusters is still very much a prominent subject for our work. However, Halo 3: ODST was getting ready to come out, and we had recently seen the live action commercial for it. "We Are ODST" inspired our next project - ODST costumes styled after the Legacy Effects live action costumes.

Numerous side projects fell in between molding sessions and weeks of casting. After two ODST costumes and four Ghostbuster costumes, we are already gearing up for future projects. We still have two more ODST costumes to build for Halloween as well. It hasn't been until now that we've been able to set up a blog. A shakey job situation on my part has brough the ODST project to a hault, and with Dragon*Con closing in, we're both taking it easy until after the convention before we finish up the ODST project. During that time I've been working on setting up our blog and flickr account. As a result of all these projects over the past year, we're going to be dumping quite a bit of material onto this blog. As projects start up, we're definitely going to make an effort to keep an updated blog to discuss our progress.

We're both very inspired by Volpin Props, both in his props and in his efforts to keep an updated blog (something I've failed to do several times in the past). So please join us in our efforts to keep this thing updated. Post comments, ask questions! We both certainly hope that our blog will not only be a repository for our projects, but we both hope that it will become a community for open discussion on props, costumes, and the prop building industry.