progress: hat, scythe, and Skeith head
Took a break from Endrance and my fabric-related woes to work on Atoli, Haseo's scythe, and Skeith.
Silly Toppa, everyone knows you're a Lord Partizan and not a Harvest Cleric [/Tengen Toppa joke]. The hat is a squat cylinder of 1" upholstery foam, covered with quilt batting to soften the curves. It's hollow on the inside, and I'm going to put some pockets in it for cellphone/wallet storage, since Atoli has nowhere else to carry things in her costume XD
I've decided to try and recycle the shiny semi-stretchy polyester I got for Ash to make Atoli. Going to use the crepey-textured wrong side for the hat, wings, and bootcovers/thigh-high spats/whatever, and the shiny side for the dress/sleeves. SO MUCH POLYESTER DYEING, ARRRRRRRGH BUDGET CONSTRAINTS.
The scythe is coming along pretty well, I've got the blade patterned and cut out. I couldn't find any clear, straight-on references to trace it off of, so I had to sit there and draw it off the game while Kevin played. Enlarged drawing to 44" long in Photohop, used PosteRazor to cut it apart into a multi-page PDF file, printed, assembled, and traced onto EVA foam.
Yeah, EVA foam, like foamies. If Kevin and I are going to be doing stage-combat, and one of the weapons is nothing but painful-looking spikes, I'm going to try really, REALLY hard to make sure I can't get punctured by it -___-; Here's what it looks like so far. The white stuff is Sintra, three 3mm layers laminated together with Super Glue: the black part is 2mm EVA foam from Canal St Foam Rubber. I drilled holes in the blade part of the core to help balanace it, but it's still going to need weights on the back spike and in the pommel. But yeah, see how the core is cut back from all those points, and how it doesn't extend to the striking edge? The idea is that there'll be layers of foam sandwiched on there, enough to be stiff without being brittle/stabbity. I'm gluing them together with contact cement, which is a pain-in-the-ass since it warps the foam as it dries.
ON Skeith, the major progress is that I sane'd up and decided to do its First Form instead of its Second Form. Second Form is more accurate to Haseo's class (3rd job extension = 2nd Avatar form), but I... can't. There's just too many extra pieces: stuff would definitely get broken or lost in transit. It'd also require more foamwork, which would bring the weight up, and I would be very sad if John got broken by cosplay.
So, First Form. Head, torso, and joints will be insulation foam surfaced with paper mache, limbs will be spandex over wireframe. Here's the head so far, after a skim coat of Celluclay and before any real sculpting/sanding. You can see where the horns were too short and had to be resected for more length. It currently weighs about 1.5 lbs; if I can keep it below 3, I can mount it on a helmet so it'll track head movements :3
I found this neat stuff at Canal St Plastics called edge-glow vinyl. It's translucent neon orange, and as the name implies, the cut edges glow for some reason. I'm going to be using it for the patterns on Skeith's skirt thing, and for the glowing outlines on the scythe. As for the scythe itself, I am weighing the various merits of solid acrylic sheet vs pieces of acrylic for colored sections + wire outline.
Today's adventure is math homework due tomorrow night grocery shopping folding laundry buying giant plastic easter eggs for assorted hemispherical moldmaking purposes.
Silly Toppa, everyone knows you're a Lord Partizan and not a Harvest Cleric [/Tengen Toppa joke]. The hat is a squat cylinder of 1" upholstery foam, covered with quilt batting to soften the curves. It's hollow on the inside, and I'm going to put some pockets in it for cellphone/wallet storage, since Atoli has nowhere else to carry things in her costume XD
I've decided to try and recycle the shiny semi-stretchy polyester I got for Ash to make Atoli. Going to use the crepey-textured wrong side for the hat, wings, and bootcovers/thigh-high spats/whatever, and the shiny side for the dress/sleeves. SO MUCH POLYESTER DYEING, ARRRRRRRGH BUDGET CONSTRAINTS.
The scythe is coming along pretty well, I've got the blade patterned and cut out. I couldn't find any clear, straight-on references to trace it off of, so I had to sit there and draw it off the game while Kevin played. Enlarged drawing to 44" long in Photohop, used PosteRazor to cut it apart into a multi-page PDF file, printed, assembled, and traced onto EVA foam.
Yeah, EVA foam, like foamies. If Kevin and I are going to be doing stage-combat, and one of the weapons is nothing but painful-looking spikes, I'm going to try really, REALLY hard to make sure I can't get punctured by it -___-; Here's what it looks like so far. The white stuff is Sintra, three 3mm layers laminated together with Super Glue: the black part is 2mm EVA foam from Canal St Foam Rubber. I drilled holes in the blade part of the core to help balanace it, but it's still going to need weights on the back spike and in the pommel. But yeah, see how the core is cut back from all those points, and how it doesn't extend to the striking edge? The idea is that there'll be layers of foam sandwiched on there, enough to be stiff without being brittle/stabbity. I'm gluing them together with contact cement, which is a pain-in-the-ass since it warps the foam as it dries.
ON Skeith, the major progress is that I sane'd up and decided to do its First Form instead of its Second Form. Second Form is more accurate to Haseo's class (3rd job extension = 2nd Avatar form), but I... can't. There's just too many extra pieces: stuff would definitely get broken or lost in transit. It'd also require more foamwork, which would bring the weight up, and I would be very sad if John got broken by cosplay.
So, First Form. Head, torso, and joints will be insulation foam surfaced with paper mache, limbs will be spandex over wireframe. Here's the head so far, after a skim coat of Celluclay and before any real sculpting/sanding. You can see where the horns were too short and had to be resected for more length. It currently weighs about 1.5 lbs; if I can keep it below 3, I can mount it on a helmet so it'll track head movements :3
I found this neat stuff at Canal St Plastics called edge-glow vinyl. It's translucent neon orange, and as the name implies, the cut edges glow for some reason. I'm going to be using it for the patterns on Skeith's skirt thing, and for the glowing outlines on the scythe. As for the scythe itself, I am weighing the various merits of solid acrylic sheet vs pieces of acrylic for colored sections + wire outline.
Today's adventure is math homework due tomorrow night grocery shopping folding laundry buying giant plastic easter eggs for assorted hemispherical moldmaking purposes.