Pilot to Pilot Uplink Confirmed: Gypsy Danger and Cherno Alpha activated
- Thread starter captaincaliflour
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Great looking builds there! If that's 70% I'm excited to see the job completed.
Regarding the stilts - how did they fail? If it was just the nails pulling out, I'd suggest replacing them with some long screws through the "sole" of the stilt and into the main part. A couple of 3" screws pre-drilled into each sole would go along way towards stiffening that connection. You may also want to consider doubling up on each of those pieces that her foot actually rests on. Two pieces side-by-side would spread the load a bit and would probably make for a more comfortable walking experience. Using thinner foam to build out the boot, you'd probably be able to keep a very similar appearance too. Hope this bit of unsolicited advice helps a bit.
Again great work on the build so far, keep it up!
Regarding the stilts - how did they fail? If it was just the nails pulling out, I'd suggest replacing them with some long screws through the "sole" of the stilt and into the main part. A couple of 3" screws pre-drilled into each sole would go along way towards stiffening that connection. You may also want to consider doubling up on each of those pieces that her foot actually rests on. Two pieces side-by-side would spread the load a bit and would probably make for a more comfortable walking experience. Using thinner foam to build out the boot, you'd probably be able to keep a very similar appearance too. Hope this bit of unsolicited advice helps a bit.
Again great work on the build so far, keep it up!
captaincaliflour
Active Member
Gipsy is AWESOME!!
Cherno needs to be bulked up somehow, right now it's a bit more like Cherno Jr.
Cherno is worn by a girl who is 4' 11". Though we'll probably make her gloves bigger to make them look more like the beat sticks they are.
The foam portion of her foot print that was secured to the wood stilt via guerilla glue and attached to her foot via a strap to ensure solid footing pulled away from the wood. Turns out gorilla glue isn't enough to hold foam and pvc to wood, so we'll be re,aking her feet pads with wood.
Also, I found another pic, just to give you an idea how short Hailee is:
captaincaliflour
Active Member
So I realize it's been a while (school is fun and all that) since I posted but hey,
With school ramping up and dramaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa going on in my life atm (coupled with a lack of funds) I'm stuck to improving what I currently have rather than moving onto the next bits. To that end, I've begun the detailing pattern on gipsy. The first step is carving in all the panelling on the entire suit to give it the appearence of welded plates (like a "majestic tanker" as Guillmero described it) which is a time consuming, though oddly relaxing process.
This will then be weathered to make each panel look like it's corroding in a unique way (probably some dry brushing with a few rust washes, nothing to serious though I want to preserve the blue look at a distance)
The nice thing too is it's starting to fall more and more into how Adam Savage describes movie props (that is, they look great from back there but they're almost too detailed up close).
With school ramping up and dramaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa going on in my life atm (coupled with a lack of funds) I'm stuck to improving what I currently have rather than moving onto the next bits. To that end, I've begun the detailing pattern on gipsy. The first step is carving in all the panelling on the entire suit to give it the appearence of welded plates (like a "majestic tanker" as Guillmero described it) which is a time consuming, though oddly relaxing process.
This will then be weathered to make each panel look like it's corroding in a unique way (probably some dry brushing with a few rust washes, nothing to serious though I want to preserve the blue look at a distance)
The nice thing too is it's starting to fall more and more into how Adam Savage describes movie props (that is, they look great from back there but they're almost too detailed up close).
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captaincaliflour
Active Member
So the shins are looking good as a test run for the weathering process. Unfortunately I couldn't find good reference for the shields on gipsy's shins, so I improvised by including the parts I could see and the PPDC symbol on the other to give it some uniqueness...
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captaincaliflour
Active Member
Got some more weathering done, and added some superfluous details that are in a bunch of my reference pics...unfortunately I can't find good details for most of them so I had to improvise.
That's my badly written Kanji for "Kaiju" because it's on the heel of one of Gipsy's feet.
and the feet, covered in mud from walking on the ocean floor:
And I have one of the thighs done...though it seems like everytime I do a new part it's as much of a test run on weathering as the first shin since they're all so disparate...
I couldn't find good ref pics for why there were markings on Gipsy's thigh plate, so I decided based on my engineering expertise that it's a water level marking water level to determine stresses on the legs for assessing repairs post-battle.
Also I felt like recreating the creation of Romeo Blue's leg from the prologue of the movie:
That's my badly written Kanji for "Kaiju" because it's on the heel of one of Gipsy's feet.
and the feet, covered in mud from walking on the ocean floor:
And I have one of the thighs done...though it seems like everytime I do a new part it's as much of a test run on weathering as the first shin since they're all so disparate...
I couldn't find good ref pics for why there were markings on Gipsy's thigh plate, so I decided based on my engineering expertise that it's a water level marking water level to determine stresses on the legs for assessing repairs post-battle.
Also I felt like recreating the creation of Romeo Blue's leg from the prologue of the movie:
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captaincaliflour
Active Member
Work continues! Unfortunately the diaper is very prone to wear and tear, so I had to really heavily accentuate the weathering in layers to minimize the possibility of all the paint rubbing off after a day of wearing it...
Front
Side
And the ass, which is prone to scraping when, say, being flung across a city...
However to spice things I added some of the minor details, like warning labels, and slogans:
However the most exciting thing is what I received for christmas:
170mm Orange LED lit computer fan...now I just need to figure out how to wire it up. Which, hey, if you guys have any suggestions I'm all ears. I'd like it to rotate at probably about 30rpm...the few tutorials I've found online are pretty good but I like to collect the maximum body of knowledge I can before I start a project. So please, any help would be greatly appreciated
Front
Side
And the ass, which is prone to scraping when, say, being flung across a city...
However to spice things I added some of the minor details, like warning labels, and slogans:
However the most exciting thing is what I received for christmas:
170mm Orange LED lit computer fan...now I just need to figure out how to wire it up. Which, hey, if you guys have any suggestions I'm all ears. I'd like it to rotate at probably about 30rpm...the few tutorials I've found online are pretty good but I like to collect the maximum body of knowledge I can before I start a project. So please, any help would be greatly appreciated
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captaincaliflour
Active Member
Well. To the four of you on the planet (it seems) who don't know, I went to Taiyo Con yesterday in Mesa as a sort of beta test of the armor. Learned a lot of valuable info on the suit and how it moves and operates...definitely gonna need a second hand putting it on (but I should have that the next time I wear it) and it needs to be rerigged in places. The bicep snapped because of where I had it attached (attached it to the shoulder pad instead of to the chest plate, so it ended up sliding down my arm quite a lot and broke because it ended up over my elbow as I tried to bend) and the suspenders desperately need to be altered in length (I have welts from how tight they were on my shoulders). That said, I was an insanely big hit at the convention, and despite entering in the novice division (having never even placed in a masquerade before) I won "Best In Show"! Hopefully Hailee and I can keep the expectations going the next time we suit up.
Now it's time to put the finishing touches on Gipsy, print and assemble her hands, install the LEDs, and craft and install the sword. As for Cherno we have a whole mess of tweaking to do but thankfully that shouldn't be as major. Just a few big pieces to build and then a lot of little details to be done.
Anyways, that's enough blabbing! Here's all the pics that have been uploaded of me so far!
Big thanks to:
SriLanking
Zero Prime
Justin DC
Gabriel Lennard
Alicia Bozzuto
Anabel Martinez
Ben Stadler-Ammon
DTKid
Now it's time to put the finishing touches on Gipsy, print and assemble her hands, install the LEDs, and craft and install the sword. As for Cherno we have a whole mess of tweaking to do but thankfully that shouldn't be as major. Just a few big pieces to build and then a lot of little details to be done.
Anyways, that's enough blabbing! Here's all the pics that have been uploaded of me so far!
Big thanks to:
SriLanking
Zero Prime
Justin DC
Gabriel Lennard
Alicia Bozzuto
Anabel Martinez
Ben Stadler-Ammon
DTKid
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captaincaliflour
Active Member
Thanks! hopefully Amazing Arizona will up the ante by having Cherno finished!
Speaking of which, we're adding in all of the cherno bits we couldn't finish by halloween:
Stilts! so now Hailee is normal height!
And shin pistons so that they're screen accurate!
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captaincaliflour
Active Member
So with Aamzing Arizona fast approaching I managed to install the lighting. After 8 hours of soldering (it's been like 10 years since I had to solder something...) and with a lot of help and used up LEDs I managed to finish the prototype (that is, my) lighting:
Next step is doing the arms on mine. Currently have all the lights rigged to a 9 volt in pairs in parallel and have a switch to turn them on and off up by my helmet. I figure I'll turn them on at night or in Masquerades. I also tried to get every single light source I could, so even the twin lights that are on the underside of Gipsy's chest are there. The collar lights are 3 pairs of LEDs on perf board.
Also got Cherno's done:
That floodlight in the top of the head shorted out and burned out all the LEDs once so I had to make an entirely new one...and now I get to play the fun little game of trying to make all the wires sit where they're supposed to so that they don't stab Hailee in the face when she wears the smokestack. Unfortunately while I was doing that I managed to contact the battery pack to one of the solder nodes and shorted out the entire array, burning out all the LEDs...so now I get to redo all that...good news is though that I also now have Elbow Rockets:
Next step is doing the arms on mine. Currently have all the lights rigged to a 9 volt in pairs in parallel and have a switch to turn them on and off up by my helmet. I figure I'll turn them on at night or in Masquerades. I also tried to get every single light source I could, so even the twin lights that are on the underside of Gipsy's chest are there. The collar lights are 3 pairs of LEDs on perf board.
Also got Cherno's done:
That floodlight in the top of the head shorted out and burned out all the LEDs once so I had to make an entirely new one...and now I get to play the fun little game of trying to make all the wires sit where they're supposed to so that they don't stab Hailee in the face when she wears the smokestack. Unfortunately while I was doing that I managed to contact the battery pack to one of the solder nodes and shorted out the entire array, burning out all the LEDs...so now I get to redo all that...good news is though that I also now have Elbow Rockets:
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captaincaliflour
Active Member
Yea we keep having trouble keeping our arrays from burning out...I need someone with some better electrical expertise to give me a hand with that. I'll probably call on my EE roommate...
Now then, if you're underage or reading this to your underage kids, feel free to skip this bit and just go right to the next bit:
Motherfuck me jesus ******* christ I am sooooo ******* achy...Hailee too. We were up late for days before the Con and while my suit was rigged MUCH better this time round (with the exception of me getting my abs mixed up on attachment) I wore two suits so my shoulders are ******* killing me. Hailee on the other hand needs serious help with her stilts, since she's so small walking with those stilts all day wasn't just hard it was crippling, and her suit really took it out of her too...we'll be working on that. Some altered rigging to her stilts and her cone and such. Also her ******* lights failed again, so I'm looking into a better way to fix that...and a more dedicated/rechargable power source
Anyways, Saturday started off for serious suck. Hailee's stilts really weighed her down and she wasn't used to walking in them (pains of a rushed production schedule and my own fault for underestimating the toll they'd take on her) so she moved really slowly, but it was doable until we got inside the con. At that point we'd been taking tons of pictures (which was exhilarating to see so many people appreciated our hard work for sure!) when the suit got to Hailee and she nearly passed out. There was a guy (and our handler Charlie) who very kindly helped get her safely over to a wall where we could get her some water and food and make sure she was doing ok. I took that opportunity to go notify the masquerade judges that we were there for prejudging, since prejudging was supposed to end in 15 minutes, only to find out that there was a mix up and prejudging actually had ended 15 minutes prior and had actually gone over its intended time, contrary to what the website said. Needless to say at that point we were a little disappointed but we figured that we'd come that far we might as well enjoy the masquerade, plus the immense popularity of both myself and her was wonderful to experience. We also saw some seriously awesome costumes, including a tru-scale Space Wolf! Mercifully once we got inside the hall (which took the better part of an hour from so many people wanting pictures!) a woman came rushing up to us to tell us that if we showed up to the masquerade at 6:30 we could still participate...which at that point really cemented how well the day had turned around, to go from not being able to walk besides other great cosplayers and Cherno proving too hot to Hailee being able to wander the con by herself and being allowed to participate.
From there the day just got better, there were a lot of awesome people at the con, many of whom absolutely lost their minds at our costumes, or had awesome costumes themselves (there were a lot of truly excellent clones and storm troopers, particularly a Captain Rex that was very crisp and smooth with an excellent finish on all his armor components as well as a very friendly Desert Trooper who we chatted up while Hailee was eating, also a pretty cool Juggernaut and Magneto, both of whom had some great helmets). There was also a very enthusiastic woman who was so happy to see our costumes she gave us posters for free of Gipsy and Cherno!
Anyways, the masquerade finally came, and I spent the 15 minutes leading up to it rushing back and forth between Charlie (who had my phone with all our progress pics and ref pics) and the judges so that they could get in some "prejudging"...which was actually really cool. They asked a lot of really in depth questions about our design process and detail choices, it was really fun to geek out with them over it...once I saw who we were up against though I was super nervous, especially since the judges said that, while we had a chance at winning, it was a very slim one. There was a frankly spectacular Odin that was a mix of the Marvel and Old Norse designs of the character, riddled with details and armor and chainmail and bells and tons of little things that, coupled with the Valkyrie and Thor he had with him, made him just spectacular. There was also an awesome triplet of Witches from Hocus Pocus, a AC2 Era Ezio Auditoire da Firenze, a black-suited armored gun wielding Spiderman (whose series escapes me atm...), a 2004 animated Joker, the aformentioned 7 foot tall Space Wolf, a Rapunzel, a Batgirl, a "Dark Knight Returns" era Batman (the Superman defeating armor specifically), the awesome Captain Rex, and a truly epic Rocket Racoon (and a prime example to me of why furry costumes are really, really impressive), and a truly disgusting Slimer...definitely some stiff competition, especially when, as I would later find out, many of them were in the "novice" category that we had entered.
Which is why, when they read out the three winners for the novice section and none of them were us, I was sad, but totally understood. The people they picked did absolutely fantastic jobs, and Rocket Raccoon totally deserved her win (her mouth moved and you could see her natural eyes under the mask, letting her be really emotive). Plus I wasn't expecting us to even place, really, since the judges had mentioned how slim our chances were before the show.
Turns out though that some of our competiton wasn't actually our competition, as I found out when Rex won third and an elf (who hand sculpted and cast her ears even) won second...then they said, for the winners of expert, "these two" and my heart skipped a beat. You see, there were several groups in the masquerade...but they were all threes...we were the only pair. And I honestly couldn't believe it...until they said "these guys did such a good job, we had to bump them up" and that's when I got really excited.
Turns out the PPDF earned its second win on saturday, despite everything! Quite possibly the most awesome day of any con I'd been to, that it started off pretty rubbish and turned into such an awesome day with so many awesome people. Also, we ran into the woman who took video of me from Taiyou con, so that's also awesome since she does such awesome work and I felt so lucky not just to be featured twice, but also that Hailee got so much recognition after all her hard work too!
But enough rambling! Here's the pics I've found from the con so far!
Credit for these goes to Charlie Eberspacher and Deep Patel:
Credit for these goes to Gage Skidmore
Next step is to improve all the little flaws we found in Cherno, just like I did after Taiyou con for myself. We'll also be making both our new hands that will move and transform and stuff, making her telescoping hands, making my sword, and looking for a more dedicated/rechargable power source (if any of you know of a viable replacement for 9 volt batteries that is reasonably cheap, lightweight, portable, and long lasting it would be awesome, especially if it's rechargable) Fortunately our next planned event is PHXCC, so we have plenty of time to improve on our tech!
Also, wanted to say:
I ran into a Spartan III and IV on Sunday while I was wearing my Mark V [r] suit that were pretty awesome! Especially for how young they looked, they did a great job. And I ran into roxyroo again, this time without acting like a total creeper (I think...) but unfortunately she wasn't wearing her Mark V [G] armor She still looked pretty cool though, reminded me of a sort of Kamina-meets-Korra mix.
Now then, if you're underage or reading this to your underage kids, feel free to skip this bit and just go right to the next bit:
Motherfuck me jesus ******* christ I am sooooo ******* achy...Hailee too. We were up late for days before the Con and while my suit was rigged MUCH better this time round (with the exception of me getting my abs mixed up on attachment) I wore two suits so my shoulders are ******* killing me. Hailee on the other hand needs serious help with her stilts, since she's so small walking with those stilts all day wasn't just hard it was crippling, and her suit really took it out of her too...we'll be working on that. Some altered rigging to her stilts and her cone and such. Also her ******* lights failed again, so I'm looking into a better way to fix that...and a more dedicated/rechargable power source
Anyways, Saturday started off for serious suck. Hailee's stilts really weighed her down and she wasn't used to walking in them (pains of a rushed production schedule and my own fault for underestimating the toll they'd take on her) so she moved really slowly, but it was doable until we got inside the con. At that point we'd been taking tons of pictures (which was exhilarating to see so many people appreciated our hard work for sure!) when the suit got to Hailee and she nearly passed out. There was a guy (and our handler Charlie) who very kindly helped get her safely over to a wall where we could get her some water and food and make sure she was doing ok. I took that opportunity to go notify the masquerade judges that we were there for prejudging, since prejudging was supposed to end in 15 minutes, only to find out that there was a mix up and prejudging actually had ended 15 minutes prior and had actually gone over its intended time, contrary to what the website said. Needless to say at that point we were a little disappointed but we figured that we'd come that far we might as well enjoy the masquerade, plus the immense popularity of both myself and her was wonderful to experience. We also saw some seriously awesome costumes, including a tru-scale Space Wolf! Mercifully once we got inside the hall (which took the better part of an hour from so many people wanting pictures!) a woman came rushing up to us to tell us that if we showed up to the masquerade at 6:30 we could still participate...which at that point really cemented how well the day had turned around, to go from not being able to walk besides other great cosplayers and Cherno proving too hot to Hailee being able to wander the con by herself and being allowed to participate.
From there the day just got better, there were a lot of awesome people at the con, many of whom absolutely lost their minds at our costumes, or had awesome costumes themselves (there were a lot of truly excellent clones and storm troopers, particularly a Captain Rex that was very crisp and smooth with an excellent finish on all his armor components as well as a very friendly Desert Trooper who we chatted up while Hailee was eating, also a pretty cool Juggernaut and Magneto, both of whom had some great helmets). There was also a very enthusiastic woman who was so happy to see our costumes she gave us posters for free of Gipsy and Cherno!
Anyways, the masquerade finally came, and I spent the 15 minutes leading up to it rushing back and forth between Charlie (who had my phone with all our progress pics and ref pics) and the judges so that they could get in some "prejudging"...which was actually really cool. They asked a lot of really in depth questions about our design process and detail choices, it was really fun to geek out with them over it...once I saw who we were up against though I was super nervous, especially since the judges said that, while we had a chance at winning, it was a very slim one. There was a frankly spectacular Odin that was a mix of the Marvel and Old Norse designs of the character, riddled with details and armor and chainmail and bells and tons of little things that, coupled with the Valkyrie and Thor he had with him, made him just spectacular. There was also an awesome triplet of Witches from Hocus Pocus, a AC2 Era Ezio Auditoire da Firenze, a black-suited armored gun wielding Spiderman (whose series escapes me atm...), a 2004 animated Joker, the aformentioned 7 foot tall Space Wolf, a Rapunzel, a Batgirl, a "Dark Knight Returns" era Batman (the Superman defeating armor specifically), the awesome Captain Rex, and a truly epic Rocket Racoon (and a prime example to me of why furry costumes are really, really impressive), and a truly disgusting Slimer...definitely some stiff competition, especially when, as I would later find out, many of them were in the "novice" category that we had entered.
Which is why, when they read out the three winners for the novice section and none of them were us, I was sad, but totally understood. The people they picked did absolutely fantastic jobs, and Rocket Raccoon totally deserved her win (her mouth moved and you could see her natural eyes under the mask, letting her be really emotive). Plus I wasn't expecting us to even place, really, since the judges had mentioned how slim our chances were before the show.
Turns out though that some of our competiton wasn't actually our competition, as I found out when Rex won third and an elf (who hand sculpted and cast her ears even) won second...then they said, for the winners of expert, "these two" and my heart skipped a beat. You see, there were several groups in the masquerade...but they were all threes...we were the only pair. And I honestly couldn't believe it...until they said "these guys did such a good job, we had to bump them up" and that's when I got really excited.
Turns out the PPDF earned its second win on saturday, despite everything! Quite possibly the most awesome day of any con I'd been to, that it started off pretty rubbish and turned into such an awesome day with so many awesome people. Also, we ran into the woman who took video of me from Taiyou con, so that's also awesome since she does such awesome work and I felt so lucky not just to be featured twice, but also that Hailee got so much recognition after all her hard work too!
But enough rambling! Here's the pics I've found from the con so far!
Credit for these goes to Charlie Eberspacher and Deep Patel:
Credit for these goes to Gage Skidmore
Next step is to improve all the little flaws we found in Cherno, just like I did after Taiyou con for myself. We'll also be making both our new hands that will move and transform and stuff, making her telescoping hands, making my sword, and looking for a more dedicated/rechargable power source (if any of you know of a viable replacement for 9 volt batteries that is reasonably cheap, lightweight, portable, and long lasting it would be awesome, especially if it's rechargable) Fortunately our next planned event is PHXCC, so we have plenty of time to improve on our tech!
Also, wanted to say:
I ran into a Spartan III and IV on Sunday while I was wearing my Mark V [r] suit that were pretty awesome! Especially for how young they looked, they did a great job. And I ran into roxyroo again, this time without acting like a total creeper (I think...) but unfortunately she wasn't wearing her Mark V [G] armor
She still looked pretty cool though, reminded me of a sort of Kamina-meets-Korra mix.Attachments
Mstruvmgc
Sr Member
Pictures look great and glad to hear you had fun even though you guys are sore and stuff.
One thing though, even though you had a disclaimer before hand, you should refrain from using foul language on the forums. Its kinda looked down upon. I figured id give you a heads up before a Mod does. So if you could go back and change those words that would be great
No disrespect intended
One thing though, even though you had a disclaimer before hand, you should refrain from using foul language on the forums. Its kinda looked down upon. I figured id give you a heads up before a Mod does. So if you could go back and change those words that would be great
No disrespect intended
RTWHOCKEY
Active Member
That was me and my friend! I didn't see your Pacific Rim suit, but your spartan armor looked awesome!
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