- Member DIN
- S111
Well, for the purposes of my costume, it's going to be Andy from Red Vs Blue, but technically, it is just an Assault Bomb.
So, for a while now I've been thinking about what kind of accessories/extras to add to my Caboose costume. I wasn't sure what to make. Then I was killing some time in a Party City, looking for some things for Dragon*Con when I saw these:
http://www.partycity.com/product/gr...tby=ourPicks&size=all&from=Search&navSet=ball
They're like over sized (6 inch diameter) gumball machine balls. Even better, the two sides screw together. Even better? They're only like $1 a piece.
So it hit me. Andy the Bomb! And even better, since the top and bottom screw together, I suddnely had a place to put my keys, wallet, phone, flask, et cetera! I mean, sure there's pouches on my Mark V, but they don't really larger items very easily. Now, in addition to a cool accessory, I have a place to put my stuff.
If you look at the assault bomb, the top and bottom...poles I guess, for lack of a better term, feature four screw posts. I masked off the area, to help prevent scratches from a skipped drill bit, and drilled out the holes:
The poles also appear to be a definitive section than the rest of the bomb, to help achieve this look, I cut the circular sections out of the extra sections of the balls, and glued them to the top/bottom respectively. I also chose to use foamies for the raised ridges on the side of the assault bomb, as the foamies would bend and fit the contours of the ball better than trying to heat and shape plastic pieces. Also of note here is how much of a life saver magnets are when clamping down items for gluing. I picked up this trip last year, and now I can't honestly imagine working on props/costuems without the aid of magnets for clamping parts now.
Now, the plastic in these balls is that slightly bendable plastic you can find in kitchen trashcans and the like, it's not PEG, that's a different polymer, but I thin it's something like that. Either way, what it mostly means is that paint does not like to stick to this type of plastic. In order to help promote paint and glue adhesion, the entire surface of the orbs was wet sanded with a finer grit sand paper. The entire thing was then given a nice coat of "Adhesion Promoter" clean primer.
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/ac...er-primer/_/N-259g?itemIdentifier=460112_0_0_
I didn't use this stuff on my first go around, and the paint just seemed to never set up, it was tacky and "Slide" when you pressed on it. I went out and got two new orbs, sanded them down, used the adhesion promoter, exact same paints, and bam, paint adhered perfectly, no problems at all.
Here's where we stand now, red for masking for the red ring around the screw post area:
So, for a while now I've been thinking about what kind of accessories/extras to add to my Caboose costume. I wasn't sure what to make. Then I was killing some time in a Party City, looking for some things for Dragon*Con when I saw these:
http://www.partycity.com/product/gr...tby=ourPicks&size=all&from=Search&navSet=ball
They're like over sized (6 inch diameter) gumball machine balls. Even better, the two sides screw together. Even better? They're only like $1 a piece.
So it hit me. Andy the Bomb! And even better, since the top and bottom screw together, I suddnely had a place to put my keys, wallet, phone, flask, et cetera! I mean, sure there's pouches on my Mark V, but they don't really larger items very easily. Now, in addition to a cool accessory, I have a place to put my stuff.
If you look at the assault bomb, the top and bottom...poles I guess, for lack of a better term, feature four screw posts. I masked off the area, to help prevent scratches from a skipped drill bit, and drilled out the holes:
The poles also appear to be a definitive section than the rest of the bomb, to help achieve this look, I cut the circular sections out of the extra sections of the balls, and glued them to the top/bottom respectively. I also chose to use foamies for the raised ridges on the side of the assault bomb, as the foamies would bend and fit the contours of the ball better than trying to heat and shape plastic pieces. Also of note here is how much of a life saver magnets are when clamping down items for gluing. I picked up this trip last year, and now I can't honestly imagine working on props/costuems without the aid of magnets for clamping parts now.
Now, the plastic in these balls is that slightly bendable plastic you can find in kitchen trashcans and the like, it's not PEG, that's a different polymer, but I thin it's something like that. Either way, what it mostly means is that paint does not like to stick to this type of plastic. In order to help promote paint and glue adhesion, the entire surface of the orbs was wet sanded with a finer grit sand paper. The entire thing was then given a nice coat of "Adhesion Promoter" clean primer.
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/ac...er-primer/_/N-259g?itemIdentifier=460112_0_0_
I didn't use this stuff on my first go around, and the paint just seemed to never set up, it was tacky and "Slide" when you pressed on it. I went out and got two new orbs, sanded them down, used the adhesion promoter, exact same paints, and bam, paint adhered perfectly, no problems at all.
Here's where we stand now, red for masking for the red ring around the screw post area:
