Project Iceberg: My Life-Sized Mobile Regice Build

[higdog827]

Ok everyone, I'm sure that when you all saw the title of this thread, you either said to yourself, "man, this sounds really cool!", or "this is going to be the most idiotic thing ever." Now I'll be the first to admit that I was more on the side of the latter when the idea of a life-sized Regice costume that you could actually walk around in was pitched to me by a Pokemon enthusiast friend of mine. He's been begging me to try my hand at making a realistic Pokemon costume of some kind for a while now, starting with plans for a latex mewtwo suit, then a foam Deoxys, followed by a cleverly thought out idea for a Lucario furry suit. While I tried to politely decline each time, he kept insisting I try something. So I finally told him that if he could come up with a costume that would be easy to make, cheap, and (most importantly) still look really cool, then I'd make it. So the other day he pitched me this: A 6' 5" Regice suit made from a cardboard base then fiberglassed and painted to look like ice. It sounded like it would work, so I said whatthehell and accepted the challenge, I figured it would make a nice side project for when I'm not working on my ODST's.
Now for all of you Pokemon-illiterate folks out there, this is Regice:

That was yesterday, so tonight I drew up some plans on sketchup (All credit for the model itself goes to DILBERT on the Google 3D warehouse), got it scaled to the correct size, and everything looks to be in order! Here's my model I'm basing the build off of:

Now as you can see, the model is divided up into several components. Here's my plans for the construction of each one:
Main body: Triple-ply cardboard flats (I have a friend who works at giant eagle who's supplying me )
Arms: Triple-ply for the main hexagonal prism of the arm, then either double or single for the ends where it comes to a point, and single for the finger-things.
Legs: Triple for the hexagonal prism, and double for the point.
Back Crystals: Most likely single-ply.

Finally, there's the all-important issue that you've probably already been wondering about: How exactly would one walk in this pointy cardboard deathtrap? Well, I've been going over it in my head for a while, and at this point my plan is to actually have the bottom of the main body made of a flexible mesh of some sort and have the leg pieces attached to it, allowing for them to move the legs forward and backward. Basically, you're going to waddle around in the thing. The bottoms of the legs will flatten out instead of coming to a point, thus letting you keep it stable. There's still a few kinks to work out, but I'm looking into it.

Alright, I hope that about sums up the majority of my plans for this project. As I mentioned, I have a friend who works at giant eagle who is currently in the process of rustling me up enough cardboard flats to get this thing started. If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please feel free to voice them. Especially if you have suggestions for the walking issue and/or how the heck I'm going to pull off the paint job, because those are my two biggest obstacles at this point.
Thanks for checking it out!

 

[onmi shift]

go for it. i like regirock better but their all pretty cool.

 

[higdog827]

go for it. i like regirock better but their all pretty cool.

Yeah, see I wouldve rather done one of the others as well, but seeing as this is purely a whythehecknot spur of the moment sort of build, I figured itd be best to keep it as simple and cheap for me to do as possible. And since regice is entirely made up of simple polygons, it was a perfect fit for me to do.


Also, mini-update:
I got all the measurements I'll need for the project drawn up on sketchup:

 

[RadioactiveMicrobe]

And just how do you plan to walk on those "feet?"

 

[higdog827]

And just how do you plan to walk on those "feet?"

Ok just to give you a rough idea of what im planning to do with the feet, here's a quick
representation:

There will basically be a "boot" that you slip your foot into at the bottom where its supposed to come to a point, then you'll slide the main body down over yourself and it will sort of lock into the leg portion you're already on. Its tough to describe in words, if i get the chance tomorrow I'll draw up some plans for it, either on sketchup or just pen and paper. As for how youd actually walk, the bottom portion with the legs that you step into will be made up of a wood frame with a mesh or fabric of some sort stretched over it and the legs themselves will be attached to that mesh. This will allow for the legs to move back and forth, letting you move in what would probably be best described as a shuffle/waddle. Hopefully that clears most of it up, if not, the plans I'll be doing here soon should greatly simplify everything.