[Question] What is the state of tech. in cosplay?

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I'm thinking if I got some side glow fiber optic cables, and wrapped them in rings around the armor, sticking them in crevices and etc and hooked them up to a custom LED controller, I could get them to either activate up-down in the same way shields charge in Halo: CE (obviously getting the shield noise to play too wouldn't be difficult). I could also try to wrap them around in random patterns and activate sections of them at a time to try an simulate halo 3 shields. This could be paired with led strips under the armor and showing through joints.

It's not fool proof, and I'm still working out details, but the UNSC isn't known for winning with overwhelming odds. It would be a big trick just finding the right/best cables, since they're inherently not great at sideglow and not quite as invisible as fishing line.
 
I'm thinking if I got some side glow fiber optic cables, and wrapped them in rings around the armor.

Going that route, I would be certain to include some kind of light defusing surface. Otherwise even with tightly wrapped rings you'll have localized sources of light. You might consider encasing them in a layer of quality clear coat, I would avoid using resin in this case primarily for the sake of maintaining thin, even thickness.
 
Going that route, I would be certain to include some kind of light defusing surface. Otherwise even with tightly wrapped rings you'll have localized sources of light. You might consider encasing them in a layer of quality clear coat, I would avoid using resin in this case primarily for the sake of maintaining thin, even thickness.
You may be right about that, and it's one of the technical issues I'm worried about. I can't have a diffusion layer detracting from the quality of the rest of the suit somes that takes priority. Do you know if such a coat exists? Ideally you wouldn't know it's there.
 
You may be right about that, and it's one of the technical issues I'm worried about. I can't have a diffusion layer detracting from the quality of the rest of the suit somes that takes priority. Do you know if such a coat exists? Ideally you wouldn't know it's there.

I don't know of a specific product, no. I would imagine however that something along the lines of a non-gloss, automotive clear coat would work.

For something like this, you need a coating which both refracts light, and is very hard (hardness is directly related to longevity).
Then it would just be a matter of finding the perfect grit of sandpaper to remove that last little bit of gloss without creating visible scratches.
(glossy paint jobs make the suits look like plastic)
 
I say build your whole suit out of lights with some sort of covering that let's the light shine through, so you can program certain designs and patterns. Or it would be cool to embrace the emo and go with %100 vantablack armor
 
If you went with an EL wire for the shield effect, get used to a high pitched squeal while trooping. Those inverters are noisy buggers.
I wasn't planning on EL wire, I was planning on optical fiber. Do you happen to know if EL is brighter though?
 
I actually just found a really informative video regarding optic vs el wire.

Optical wire actually appears better in every way, except cost.

Compared to EL wire, optical wire:
Is 4x brighter
Doesn't dim over time
Becomes transparent when turned off
Can have the color changed after installation
The driver can be replaced when damaged

 
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