2 MONTHS!? I haven't updated for 2 MONTHS!?!?!?!
Well let's catch up!
Work has been very busy lately, and I haven't had all the time or energy I'd like to, to put into the suit. However, I have made some great progress none-the-less.
In August I was able to take the suit out to the Colorado Springs Comic Con for a test run! It's a smaller con, but it gave me an idea of what I need to work on still on the suit. We had a few failures, and a few successes that I'll touch on in a moment. But first, pics!
Wins!:
The suit looked pretty great for an initial 'test drive' and it got lots of awesome reactions from folks at the con! Overall I was very pleased with how it went.
The night before the con I was trying to figure out how I was going to keep my biceps in place and was considering velcro, but I did have a sneaky Idea up my sleeve. I'd bought a cheap leather chest harness off amazon that is not for cosplay purposes.... BUT it had perfect sections made for holding straps and other harness attachments on! O-Rings and leather straps with clips to add or remove sections as needed turned out to be a perfect tool!
I ended up drilling a few holes into the inside of the chest piece and riveted the straps into the shoulders of the chest piece which let a leather strap (Connected at an O-ring right on my shoulder) hang down my bicep perfectly! I drilled 2 more holes into the bicep and riveted the bicep to that hanging piece of leather and everything sit exactly how I wanted it to! The only thing one might see is a "V" of leather leading to the bicep, but being that it is black like my current undersuit, it's not even noticable.
I made the Thighs attach in a similar way, but left room for adjustment by adding extra length of nylon and buckles that attach to my belt! This lets the thighs hang right off the belt and I can pull them up or down depending on how I want it all to sit!
Failures (And those are important!):
Early on that day (Like as we were walking up to the front doors) The platforms in my boots started to give out. It was a concern I had from the beginning, but I thought it might survive if I ignored it..... yeah right. Anyways. The screws that I used to attach the shoe I wear to an MDF wedge inside the boot housing pulled out of the MDF wedge and quickly started to stab into my foot which wasn't as bad as it sounds, but needed some addressing as time went on.
The boot Coverings that sit on top of the boot and serve.......I dunno what purpose they really serve, but they look cool I guess?
I riveted them in place as well, 2 connection points that I thought might allow it to pivot back and forth as I walk. Sadly, they pulled out very early on in the convention and so I had to have a handler help me and carry them around for me after they popped out.
So what's next?:
Starting with the belt, I liked the little system I made for the thighs to attach to the belt, but as I walked around the con, I quickly realized that slowly they pulled my belt down which in turn made my thighs sit lower and lower. So I plan on getting some black Suspenders and attaching them to the belt just to help keep them up more reliably and prevent the awkward spartan adjust before pics.
The Boots, I'm going to rip these guys apart and come up with a new system. Angus314 and I have been talking and have come up with some good ideas that we can't wait to share with the community. We're hoping to produce a "one size fits most" solution and we'll give an update on its own thread in the future I'm sure.
Basically I plan on just making the wedge part of the shoe I wear within the boot which more or less will just act like big ol clonkin boots I just add the shell of the reach boot onto, and that's that.
The only true 'final' thing I still have to do for this suit is vacuum form a visor, I have wiring in the helmet that will let me connect a fan to it and blow fresh air over the visor I add in, but I'm waiting to finish that out once I have a few visors lying around.
Thanks for sticking with me through that whole booklet of info, and thanks for being an awesome community in general!
I'l pop another update in here when I make more progress again.
TLDR: COOL SUIT GO OKAY! FIX UP, BE BETTER! YEAH