At this point in my prop making career, I was running very low on available time to work on things. My wife got a full time job, and our son was now a year and a half old - and already showing signs of terrible twos. Because of this, I started looking into things I could either 3D print or laser cut (elsewhere, since I don't have nearly enough cash to have either machine personally owned). That's when I found Ponoko, an online laser cutter similar to Shapeways, where you upload your designs to them and they cut them for you, and ship them to your home, at a reasonable cost. So, to test them out, I decided to try out a bookend design I had been pushing around for a while: N7 bookends made from clear acrylic. I worked out sizing, each inner piece being the same distance shorter than the piece it sat on by the width of the perpendicular piece it attached to, giving a nice step-style indent the whole way around. Then I designed the laser file accordingly, sent it to them, and a few weeks later the coolest thing ever showed up at my doorstep! Being my first experience with laser cutting of any kind, you can imagine how giddy I was upon seeing this awesomeness. After I calmed down a bit, I took all the parts out and checked them. Discovered I did my maths wrong: a couple of the base pieces were a tad shorter than intended, and the letters and symbol thing were slightly different sizes. My own dumb fault, not double checking it before I sent it off. Still looked awesome though, so I pulled out my new fancy Acrylic Weld and started gluing! Acrylic Weld is a really cool thing. Normal glues add a layer between the glued part, bonding them together. Acrylic Weld actually softens the acrylic a bit, then when the two parts are held together for a few minutes the softened areas combine and fuse, literally becoming a single piece. It's really cool, and makes a nice, strong bond! Up until I actually had the thing assembled, I was throwing around the idea of lighting the bookends, as you see in the above pic. Ended up scrapping that though, since the design didn't really account for a spot for a light, let alone batteries or a plug. Future ones, maybe! Unfortunately, I don't have any shots of the gluing process, since it flew together extremely quickly. I do, however, have the finished product shots! Now, since that one worked so well, I decided it was time to try something a little more official: a datapad from Mass Effect 2. I had to do a lot of searching to get the proper patterns for the buttons and things, but eventually finished the file and sent it off. I opted to cut the main body out of MDF, and the screen from acrylic. The body is 3 layers thick, all the exact same shape and design, apart from the etched details. The acrylic is ever so slightly thinner, which worked out perfectly when attaching everything. I also made sure to make it bigger than the upper and lower cutout, so that I didn't have to worry about gluing it in directly at all. For this first one I did things in kind of a strange order, and have since figured out a better process. I glued the middle and bottom pieces together, by clamping down a board over top and enlisting the help of my band saw for some weight in the middle. I wrapped that portion up in wax paper, so that it didn't get glued to the bench or the board. While those set, I taped over the back of the top layer, so that the paint didn't get onto it and screw up gluing it all together later. I went with a black primer to start, three coats in total. The glue finished drying when I went for the last coat on the top, so I started its first coat at the same time after taping up the gluing side on these. When that coat had dried, I pulled out a metallic silver and started the top, while finishing up the black on the other. Again, three full coats, and catching the other side up as I went. Let that set overnight, so that when I taped off the areas for the darker gunmetal the tape wouldn't pull it off. The great thing too, since the laser etched in the details, it made a great line to follow so that I could cut the tape off the areas I needed to paint! Once that was all done, I grabbed a paint brush and some white acrylic paint and started on the buttons. I didn't want to cut out each and every button there (that would have taken a day or two on its own), so I ended up hand painting them. Of course, it didn't turn up very well, so I've opted to not even bother painting any of the future ones. After all that, a few clear coats to seal it all in, then I enlisted my belt sander this time and glued everything down - making sure to put in the acrylic screen too! And with that, the first datapad was done! The edges didn't line up evenly upon gluing, so future ones I will have alignment holes I can insert a dowel into. I've also opted to leave the protective sheet on the acrylic screen, gluing everything together, painting, then cutting off the protective sheet after it's all done. Saves time and looks cleaner, since even having uneven edges everything still gets painted up. Hope you guys enjoyed this nice laser-cut two-fer! I can totally make these at any time, since most of the work is done via Ponoko - so if you want one (or even a few) of your own, hit up the Store!
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Time for something new and exciting! I wanted to make a dragon style helmet a la Prince Armory, though my skills with foam are nowhere near their skills with leather. Still though, there was time for it, and I needed one more helmet to put up on display at Anime Banzai, so I did what I could. Here's the start of the helmets again! Having already used all three of the other helmets, I needed to make something new to add to this one. So, I started with a pattern for the back, and grabbed my craft foam. I started with a gothic-style pattern, then copied it in various sizes. These I layered onto the back, giving it a nice flare effect. It also conveniently covered the seams so I didn't have to! ;) I also cut out and attached two straps to the back, which would later attach to those craft foam panels you see. More on that later, while those are being painted! I also added several layers of v-shaped pieces on top, bending them in the middle to look like the ear fringes. Then I drew up the pattern for the face mask, cut them out, and used a dremel to bevel the points and give depth to the cheeks. By now I had also finished painting the back panels, but again it isn't quite time for them! Still some work to do on the rest of the helmet. Debated back and forth with my wife for a while, trying to figure out what kind of slits to add to the front of the facemask, and we opted with long, vertical slits. Of course, this is about when people started asking me if I was doing Sauron, or that one guy from League of Legends, so I guess I'm doing something right? lol Anyway.... Got that all done, so off to paint! Started with Plasti Dip to seal it, then used an automotive gunmetal spray paint to cover everything. Now, finally, it was time to add the back panels. I attached them onto the straps from before, staggering them like plate mail, so that it could move freely and look more like a piece of armor. Decided against weathering this just like the Anime style helmet, but I still wanted to give it some sheen. So, I took a silver spray and lightly highlighted some edges, and the cheek bits, to give it some more depth. Then I finished it all with a few coats of clear. This one was a ton of fun to make. I do have it up for sale in the store, though I may end up holding on to it and making a full set of custom armor to go with it. We'll see!
Before I moved back to Utah, I got a hankering to make my own helmet design. Lo and behold, the amazing Evil Ted Smith came out with a video series on how to make foam armor and costumes, and the first series he put out focused on helmets! You guys may remember the end results of that. Well, a good friend of mine invited me to help her out at her booth at Anime Banzai, and in return offered to display a few of my things for sale. I didn't have anything made at the time, having just moved back here, but I figured why not make a few more helmets? So, it being an anime themed convention, I decided to go generic space anime helmet! Nice, simple, same-old same-old foam floor mats. I used the same pattern I made in the previous build (which is up for sale in the Store if you want to make your own), and prepped the base to 4 helmets. I grabbed the first, and put the other three aside for later! Now, just so you don't get confused, this one is extremely simple and doesn't really have a lot of photos. I also did a lot of the next helmet - the Cyberpunk one - at the same time, so a lot of the pics will overlap. On with the show! I opted for a super basic helmet, keeping it recognizable as an anime style, but not as any one specific series. The ears and horn were completely freehanded, and I beveled the ears inward with my dremel. Once that was done, I grabbed the next helmet, then ended up grabbing the third helmet and chopping it to pieces. Kind of hard to tell, but I cut the third helmet in half horizontally, turned it backwards, and attached it to the front. Then I took the bottom half, turned it backwards AND upside down, then stuck it on top of that. The goal here was to make a sort of visor screen thing that covered the eyes entirely. Also made some tubes and stuck them to the back for the wires and tubes and things. Tried something new with the caulk from before. Was suggested to me to thin it with water and paint a few coats onto the foam - told it would fill the seams and work about as well as the Plasti Dip. I wasn't as successful with that method, so from now on I'll just be doing it the same way I used to. Anyway, on to paint! The anime one was simple: paint the upper horn yellow, tape it off, then paint the ears red and tape those off. Once that was done, I also painted the front of the helmet blue (don't worry, it'll make sense in a minute). The Cyberpunk helmet I painted a metallic black, then the upper visor and wire tube things silver. After that I taped off the front of the anime style one, then painted everything else silver. Tape came off, and I got to see firsthand how terribly the new sealing method worked. Can you see all the bubbles on the yellow horn? Not terrible, but not up to par. You can also see all the seams, though I wasn't too worried as it kind of accented the look of the Cyberpunk one. Anyway, sprayed a little, light bit of orange on the horns and a darker red on the ears, to give it a bit of a gradient look. I wasn't weathering it at all, so that added a bit more depth to it and made it look a bit better. Anime helmet done! (Final shot pre-gradient) To finish off the Cyberpunk helmet, I used a method of stenciling I learned from Punished Props: print a stencil, lay it on some painter's tape, cut it out with a hobby knife, lay it in place, then paint it on! This was a lot of fun to add, though definitely time consuming. I will absolutely admit to some of those splotches being on purpose! Fit the look anyway, even on the accidents, so I was happy with it. Test fit: Hooray for craptacular selfies when you can't see! Time for some tubes and random wires. A good friend of mine, Keelah Monster Cosplay, sent me a ton of random computer parts and wires, so I put them all to good use! Also snagged a random plumbing tube from Walmart, then arranged them all and hot glued them in place. Tied 'em all up with a zip tie so they weren't bouncing around loosely and bashing the wearer painfully, called it good, and took another silly selfie! After that I had a ton of fun messing around with acrylic washes, drybrushing, and actual painting. I messed around with a bunch of different colors of paint, giving it a really nice, rusted, dirty grungy look. Hope you had as much fun reading about these two helmets as I did making them. They were a big hit at the convention, and even though neither of them sold, I got a lot of compliments on them! Here's some finished fancy shots to send you off with. If anyone is interested, the Anime style helmet has been purchased already but the Cyberpunk helmet is still available! You can find it here.
These gloves were a lot of fun to make, and a neat experiment with some new super cool electronics stuff! The Tensor gloves are a creation of author Brandon Sanderson, from his young adult novel Steelheart (which is awesome, go read it - actually go read everything he's written!). They are described as "thin glove[s]...[with] lines of metal along the front of each finger. The lines joined in a pattern at the palm and all glowed softly green." This commission was for my brother, who had made a set before but wasn't too happy with it. We collaborated on the plans, and he bought and shipped me the materials he wanted me to use. What you see here was the fruits of our discussions! We opted for: Adafruit Green Sequin LEDs Adafruit Conductive Thread and a 2-pack 2032 battery pack to power it all. Once it all arrived, I got to work! These suckers are bright! The thread sews really well, though if it frays it's hard to get it into the needle (can't wet it and twirl it like normal thread). And yes, that's totally done by hand. Took forever! I highly recommend both of these products, since they're so easy to use and work so well. The thread doesn't shock you, and only has issues if you try to ball your fist, since the wires cross at that point. Luckily the battery packs have on/off switches, so you can turn them off and eat, buy things, you know - the important things. :D Did some readjusting with the threads after some wires ended up not working well, and finally got all the fingers attached! Dabbed a tiny speck of superglue to where the thread connected to the LEDs just to make sure they didn't come untied - no soldering here, didn't want to burn the gloves! Once the fingers were done, I threw on the next five lights, this time in the palm. That one light gave me grief until the very end, when I finally gave up and added some solder to get the connection going. I also wrapped the wires to the battery with electrical tape to keep them from touching and shorting out. Left the wires hanging out though, to give it the hodgepodge wires 'n' metal look they're supposed to have. The wrist part of the glove was secure enough as well to hold the battery pack underneath and out of the way. One glove down, on to the other! The great thing about this build is it can totally be adapted to other genres. People were suggesting magic effects from various games and movies, and even my Mass Effect peeps were saying they were perfect for biotics! Future ideas..... ;) Anyway, my brother loved them, and most importantly the author himself loved them! My brother showed them to him, cosplaying as one of the main characters, Prof. All in all, a fun, simple build!
Normally I start my write-up posts with a preview picture of the prop or armor I made, or an example of something similar I'm basing my build on. This time, however, other than the base helmet everything I did to make this custom build was by the seat of my pants, going off an idea I had in my head. I got started with the helmet base, which I give 100% credit to Evil Ted Smith and his foam fabrication videos. If you haven't already, go check them out and learn some neat tricks of the trade! Really helpful video series. Anyway, I started by grabbing my new Ed head, from Monster Makers. It's the right circumference, though the rest of the head is pretty skinny. We'll work on that, though! Great head for the cost, and they leave a hole at the bottom so you can fill it with something more solid to sculpt on it. Really is a quality head! Anyway, I covered the head in aluminum foil. Then, I covered that in duct tape, making sure to keep the facial details there as best I could. Once that was all done, I traced two patterns: one on one side, and a different one on the other, then cut both off with a razor blade. Since I was making a pattern that would be flipped and repeated on the other side, I figured making a second, different pattern on the other side would save time and materials. It also got me two patterns in one go, which sure was nice! Both varieties give me several styles of helmets I can make, so it works out well. Also, those cuts you see, the small darts? That's another trick I learned from Evil Ted's videos: alignment marks! Helps to make sure everything fits pack together the way it should. Literally a godsend. :D So I flattened out the pieces, then transferred them on to paper and enlarged them a bit, to account for the 1/2" thick foam (and the slightly small head). Once that was done, it was on to the foam! After that it was the usual heat gun to shape it, and I grabbed the contact cement to glue it all together. Love that stuff! From here on out you'll be seeing lots of angle sets, because I wanted to get as many shots of it as possible from as many angles as made sense. Being an original item, I really wanted to show it off right. So, bear with me as I share a bunch of photos at once of each step! Next came the face plate, which you can see the early sketches for in the above picture. I drew out one side, then traced it, flipped it, traced the other side, and gave the inner seam a slight angle in the middle. The result: Thanks to the middle seam it was easy to line it up straight to attach it, though it was interesting gluing the rest on evenly. I bent each side one at a time and marked off where it would end up sitting, put down the contact cement, then glue the two together. And, naturally, then repeat with the other side. Then I threw a neck guard thing on the back, which ended up sitting a bit high - but I went with it anyway since I was making it up as I went along. It was fun, it looked neat, and I was on a roll! After that came some filigree, to fill in a lot of this empty space and cover up some of the seams. First I threw on some craft foam doodads all over the face plate. To ensure I wasn't making them too large, I used the original face plate pattern, drew the designs on that, then cut them out and traced them onto the craft foam. The mouth bit I cut an angle, like the main section, just to keep things as even as possible. Really proud of myself here, since I don't normally do the curly stuff very well when freehanding it. Next, I threw on some more 1/2" foam on the back, as more filler in the huge empty space. After that, more craft foam to fill it in even more, plus an extra bit on the neck guard. And, finally, I decided to add a conning tower to the top at a slight angle, because I decided it needed a plume. Once again, this was all a freehand, flying by the seat of my pants, no idea what I'm coming up with next kind of build. I had no idea what I was going to next when I hit each step, but by this point I was finally happy with it. It looked awesome! That meant it was Plasti Dip time. Put it up as a giveaway on my Facebook page, and took some better pics of this stage then while I waited for some bites. Never panned out, but was fun all the same. Here's the better shots: Since the giveaway didn't end up happening, that meant I got to choose the color scheme and final look. I decided on gold and red, with a red plume. Started off with the gold as the base: ...taped off areas for a deeper, darker red: ...and hand painted the lighter red on the rest: After that came the usual weathering. I did the acrylic wash all over it, no dry brushing this time, and I did it pretty heavy at first because I knew that the clear coat would take some of it away again. Then I took it outside, did the clear coats, and took some nice pictures of it with some good old natural light. Had to put the next part on hold for a bit, since I needed to get to a craft store but didn't have a way to get there for another week. Was originally going to go with a red wig, but couldn't find one that would work like I wanted so I decided on another tip from a good friend of mine: yarn. I'd have to brush out all the twists and whatnot, but it would work pretty well for what I wanted. A week passed, finally got the yarn, gathered a bunch of strands and cut the ends apart, then tied one end and secured the knot in the hole on the conning tower. Then I brushed the strands as best I could to separate them. Left: before, right: after. Turned out pretty nice! Not perfect, but hey it was still that seat-of-pants build. :)
Here's the final product! Hope you enjoyed that one as much as I did. |
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