Post DragonCon Update (Phantom Ganon Build)

I went to DragonCon!

We were going to be a Zelda Group, but everyone kinda got a case of the lazies, so it ended up being a Link, Dark Link, Navi (who's wings I did not spend enough time on and died shortly after we got to the con in costume) and I was Phantom Ganon from WindWaker. I think it came out pretty darn good considering I made it in about a week and a half. I was originally going to do Skull Kid, but I didn't think I could do it justice in such a short amount of time. Some of you might be asking, "Why didn't you start earlier Matrix?" Well I was devoting most of my free time to my Hiccup costume from How To Train Your Dragon 2. I realized that it wasn't going to be done so I switched gears.

Hiccup will come in a future post, this one is about my Phantom Ganon Build.

Here is a reference for those who have never seen him before.

I started with the mask, which all in all is a terrible idea. I always recommend to save the mask/helmet until later in the build.

I was wracking my brain as to how I was going to build this (remember at the time I had under two weeks to start and finish everything). I was playing around with some foam when my wife needed to run to target so I took this as an opportunity to procrastinate further. But alas, inspiration struck while I was trying to sip my Starbucks. I bought a $10 IronMan child's mask. I told my wife I was going to turn it into Ganon and she was like "Okay...."

I started by drawing the facial features that I was going to be adding.

Then I drilled holes all over the mask to help give the Apoxie Sculpt something to stick to.

That little bit of Apoxie Sculpt was to test and make sure it would still work. It had this thick skin on it, but it wasn't anything a little bit of elbow grease couldn't fix.

I stupidly didn't take a picture of this part, but in order to save on weight and Apoxie Sculpt I used pink insulation foam to make a little nose that I then covered in Apoxie Sculpt.

And more sculpting....

This part was really fun. I used EVA foam for the beard and hit the surface with my cutoff disk on my dremel to make it look like hair.

Now it's time to start working on the horns!

First thing's first, I need to make a template. I doodled one out and cut out a cardboard mockup.

Then I cut it out of foam. Unfortunately I didn't have any foam big enough to make it a single piece so there was a seam... :/

It's also two layers of EVA foam to help hold the shape.

I then trimmed the horns at an angle. Gave it a nice little effect...

And make sure it's the right size...

Now I attached both. Something went... I'm not gonna say wrong because I like that the horns are different, but they are obviously not the same...

I screwed them in through the inside and then added Apoxie Scuplt to the outside as a transition and to hold it in place. This is exactly how I attached my Professor Pyg ears to my mask

Some sanding.

Now for black paint.

Two bottles of glow in the dark paint later and EL wire attached around the horns and we're all done.

Next up we make a sword. The sword and mask took up the entire weekend. There are definitely refinements I want to make and things I would do differently if I had more time. The sword is made of pink insulation foam from Home Depot that I had laying around.

First I glued the two pieces of foam together to give it the right thickness. I did it wrong at first, but that's why there are two sides right?

The cut, cut, cut out the sword.

Hmmmm.... needs a cross guard....

That bit where the gap is is where the blade will fit in and there is a fourth piece that locks the blade in place. Think foam sandwich.

Now we add a hole for the handle and measure the length of pvc we need to put in.

Bam! now it has a handle. My wife told me not to do this and to go to sleep, but the stubborn man I am decided who needs sleep. This sword needs a bevel. Here I've marked off where the bevel will be cut.

 I used a file at first and let me tell you was that slow. Then I realized I had a coping saw. More tools is always the answer.

Like butter.

Bevel done, now just to sand and add the letters.

I drew out the letters and used this as a guide.

 Then, since these are rectangular I just poked a hole with a pen and used those marks to carve out the letters.

Now we add a lot of paint and boom sword is done.

Well almost... I don't like that handle so I added foam to give it a more tapered look. Then I covered it in duct tape (shhhhh, don't tell....)

I didn't think to photograph the rest of the process, but I made EVA foam shoulder pads and arm guard. I cut up an old scream costume for the cape and hood and used a bunch of glow in the dark paint on the suit for the glowy blue bits.

 I am fairly satisfied for this speed build. Here is a pretty bad picture of me with Fierce Deity Link. I have more that I will add to this post when my wife finishes uploading them from the camera.

Until Next Time,

-Matrix

Its'a me!

It was my friends birthday and he loves Mario so I made him a Mario pinata. If you follow these easy steps, so can you!

First find a picture of what you want your pinata to look like and print it to scale. This is about 20 inches tall.

Next, trace that bad  boy onto cardboard and cut it out.

Rinse and repeat so you have two similar pieces.

Paint it with a base coat of white (or whatever color you want really) and draw the details on.

Outline with black paint.

Paint colors that won't be filled with tissue paper.

Add tissue paper. You can layer in strips or as I quickly found out crumpling it and gluing it down has a similar effect with much less effort.

Repeat for the other half (make sure to do the opposite side so you don't end up with one side Mario, one side cardboard).

Prepair your candy container. I used a box. You could connect the two sides if you wanted but my shape was complex and time limited so I used an amazon box I had. 

Note: If you connect the two sides, do it before you paint.

Once you have your pinata connected to the candy container, decorate the candy container.

Fill with 5 lbs of candy and vioala! Pinata!

He loved it! These are easy to make and make great gifts (though make sure not to become the pinata guy/gal as no one wants to be "that guy").

Until next time,
-Matrix

N7 Buzz

This is a costume I thought might be cool for my wife's Yule ball. We were doing a Disney theme so I picked Buzz Lightyear. I decided to do an N7 Buzz (Mass Effect/Buzz crossover). Like usual, I waited too long to get started and didn't quite finished, though I got a lot done.  This is what I came up with using some patterns I got of the RPF.  I started construction on a Friday for the following Thursday, but it was the week of Christmas and I didn't get a lot done around then.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the costume. It didn't turn out as great as I would have liked, but it did what it needed to and didn't come out too bad.

Until next time,

-Matrix

WIP Wednesday/Pepakura tutorial

So I've been working on my Halloween costume. This year I'll be going as the Medieval Batman that I was planning for last year, but didn't finish. So far I've only made progress on the helmet. This post will also serve as a sort of Pepakura (Pep) tutorial.

For the base I am using the Skyrim model for the Ebony helmet.

Before you start Pepping, you need a few things. First and foremost, you need a model to Pep. You three options when it comes to a Pep model. First you can use a Pep model someone else has made. This is the easiest and fastest way to get what you need, though it may not be an option if no one has made a Pep file for what you need. The second option is to make a model yourself. This takes a while and you need to know how 3D model. Once you have a model you can export it to a .pdo (the file type used  by Pepakura). Your last option is to pull a 3D model from a game and import it into Pepakura.  I am using the Pep model from 405th user zombiegrimm (the model I used and others can be found here). I had to shrink the model down because it was way too big to start off. 

The next thing you'll need is the Pepakura Designer. If you are going with an option other than using a Pep file you find, you'll need the Pepakura Designer over the Pepakura Viewer. The Designer lets you edit and unfold a 3D model. The viewer will let you arrange the way the Pep pieces print out. 

Now you'll need some cardstock. You need to use cardstock over paper because it holds up better than regular paper. I would use at least 50lb, but not more than 75lb. I have some 100lb that I couldn't get through my printer without it jamming.

 Now that you the paper you will want to print out your Pep file. I like to turn the thickness of the lines up to 5 because it makes it easier to tell the difference. You'll want to make sure that all of the parts fit onto the pages and use as much free room as they can before you print.

Now that you have all your pieces printed out you'll want a ruler, two colors of pen (I suggest a dark color like blue or black and a bright color like red or pink), scissors, and tape or gluesticks.

It helps to keep your pages in order. That way you can look at your Pep model and find the piece you need instead of scanning all the pages for matching numbers. 

There are three kinds of lines on these pieces. Solid lines are the edges and are where you cut. Dashed lines are mountain folds and dash-dot lines are valley folds. Mountain folds fold down on the line to form a point, like a mountain and valley folds fold up to form a channel or valley. I always draw one of these on my  pages so I don't forget which is which.

Choose a color and stick with it. Make one valleys and one mountains. You'll probably have more mountains than valleys. I try to find a nice central piece and build from there. Cut it out, mark the lines and fold it accordingly.

Then you'll want to find a piece that attaches to this one, rinse and repeat. You'll want to line the numbers up and tape/glue the tab to the next piece. Eventually you'll have the finished paper product.

I added cardboard to the bottom to make sure the helmet didn't deform during the hardening process.

Next you should use resin to make the pep file hard so you can mold it or use the piece directly. You do this by coating the piece in resin. I use fiberglass resin from Home Depot that's used in auto repair and boating. Stuff smells terrible, but get's the job done. I like to use cheap chip brushes used for painting. I try not to buy the brushes if they are more than 50 cents each. 

I did three coats. After the resin base coats, you'll notice that it's still pretty flimsy. You'll want to reinforce this so it becomes rigid. You can use fiberglass matte, which is a pain in the butt, but will be extremely hard after a few layers. Another option, which I tried for the first time and found worked extremely well, is to use Rondo. This is a mixture of resin and Bondo. I added a layer on the inside and outside, and  now the helmet is pretty darn hard with very little effort. For this particular Rondo combo, I mixed equal parts resin and Bondo without the catalysts. Once they were mixed I added the appropriate amount of Bondo catalyst and double the liquid resin catalyst.  I slushed it on the inside and brushed it on the outside. 

After the Rondo has cured, I added some regular Bondo to fill in some spots. After a little bit of sanding and trimming, this is what I've got so far. 

At this point you have a regular Bondo'ed prop you can either cast or use as is. Since I don't have a lot of time, I plan on using this piece as my costume helmet.

And that is how you Pep. 

Next up, lots of sanding...

Until next time,

-Matrix

WIP W3desday (3 Wednesdays)

I've been keeping pretty busy and always seem to forget that I need to post on Wednesday. In working on it...

Anyways, ice finished this project but I didn't get many pictures. I think it came out really well, but I don't think I will custom mod computers for anyone but me in the future. My brother was really understanding that it took MUCH longer than I wanted it to. planning and billing PCs just isn't with the stress IMO.

I'll be starting my Halloween costume now. I am  really excited, but I really need to get it done. It's going to be a lot of work to get it done for rennfaire. This year I will actually go as Renn Batman!

Until next time,

-Matrix