- Member DIN
- S111
“What, you mean D00Nut?”
For this year’s Dragon*con it was decided that there should be a companion costume to my Caboose armor. As we all know, costumes just seem to look more impressive in a matching group than by individually. A full squad of ODSTs always commands more attention than one by himself, so, we’re banking on that two Red Vs Blue characters will look cooler than either of us by ourselves. My friend decided on Donut because Tex is sort of an obvious choice for a girl and she wanted to do something a little different to stand out, and well, she just likes pink. Sorry, I mean, “lightish-red.”
Making the costume wasn’t that daunting of a prospect for me either. I already had a good start on a set of vacuum form bucks from my Caboose project, and I still had my very first attempt at a pepakura Mark V bucket stashed away in the basement. So the first thing I did was to see about salvaging my old helmet.
When I had fiberglassed it originally, I did it without any support in the visor area, and as such, the “jaw” of the helmet sagged low, and made the visor opening almost comically large.
So, I took a hacksaw to the helmet and cut the lower half free. I repositioned it and then fiberglassed it back in the correct area.
Some of the distortion is definitely still present, and the fact that it was my first ever attempt at pepakura definitely shows, but, for Dragon*Con it will work, and she’s happy with it. Maybe afterwards I’ll make a new bucket, but, honestly, I’m still a little burned out on pepakura and fiberglassing, so if she’s happy with it, I might just leave it go.
As for the armor, I am currently in the process of making my vacuum form bucks much more workable. When I pulled my Caboose armor, it was almost a once off kind of thing. I just pulled the plastic right over my old fiberglass armor for several of the parts. I didn’t even bother to back fill the pieces. This lead to some severe undercuts and a major pain in demolding many of the pieces. So, this time, I am going back and back filling all the pieces with expanding foam, which will then be covered in bondo (Don’t worry, I already tested it and the bondo doesn’t eat away at the foam). Currently all the pieces have the expanding foam setting up in. Then it will be time to carve down the foam, bondo it, and hopefully pull some pieces next Wednesday.
For this year’s Dragon*con it was decided that there should be a companion costume to my Caboose armor. As we all know, costumes just seem to look more impressive in a matching group than by individually. A full squad of ODSTs always commands more attention than one by himself, so, we’re banking on that two Red Vs Blue characters will look cooler than either of us by ourselves. My friend decided on Donut because Tex is sort of an obvious choice for a girl and she wanted to do something a little different to stand out, and well, she just likes pink. Sorry, I mean, “lightish-red.”
Making the costume wasn’t that daunting of a prospect for me either. I already had a good start on a set of vacuum form bucks from my Caboose project, and I still had my very first attempt at a pepakura Mark V bucket stashed away in the basement. So the first thing I did was to see about salvaging my old helmet.
When I had fiberglassed it originally, I did it without any support in the visor area, and as such, the “jaw” of the helmet sagged low, and made the visor opening almost comically large.
So, I took a hacksaw to the helmet and cut the lower half free. I repositioned it and then fiberglassed it back in the correct area.
Some of the distortion is definitely still present, and the fact that it was my first ever attempt at pepakura definitely shows, but, for Dragon*Con it will work, and she’s happy with it. Maybe afterwards I’ll make a new bucket, but, honestly, I’m still a little burned out on pepakura and fiberglassing, so if she’s happy with it, I might just leave it go.
As for the armor, I am currently in the process of making my vacuum form bucks much more workable. When I pulled my Caboose armor, it was almost a once off kind of thing. I just pulled the plastic right over my old fiberglass armor for several of the parts. I didn’t even bother to back fill the pieces. This lead to some severe undercuts and a major pain in demolding many of the pieces. So, this time, I am going back and back filling all the pieces with expanding foam, which will then be covered in bondo (Don’t worry, I already tested it and the bondo doesn’t eat away at the foam). Currently all the pieces have the expanding foam setting up in. Then it will be time to carve down the foam, bondo it, and hopefully pull some pieces next Wednesday.
I love the pink hair too.
