Tron Legacy Costume

brightdreamer said:

Hey all! I've been reading through this entire thread and I have to say, it's all very helpful (and a little beyond me, honestly!) I'm hoping to make Clu's robe from the Disk Wars scenes, as I do not have the body structure or confidence to pull off a skin-tight bodysuit. I'll probably wear leggings and a tight shirt underneath, but won't bother with the whole outfit. What I will do is the boots, helmet, and gloves, and the epic glowy robe.

My issue is... I know I can sew that robe and make it look good. I've never ever worked with EL tape or lights in a costume before, though. Would you recommend sewing it and trying to commission the lights, or doing trial-and-error on my own?

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really thin velcro would do wonders for attaching the tape. And I suppose you can use black electrical tape to form the designs out of it

From those of you that have worked with El Wire, would there be any reason to not get the 5mm high bright over the 2.6mm wire aside from the price? Just seems like it would be more durable but not sure how moldable it would be.

I've read over the plethora of el wire knowledge contained in here but don't recall seeing anyone discussing if they have compared the two.

Also, Rinzler... that sound idea sounds pretty cool.

Chad

Cell, I think the thicker the wire is, the less flexibility. You need a certain degree of flexibility for corners and such.

Anyhow at ALA I wore Quorra. Used 2.33mm EL wire with the diffuser method. Really fun to wear at night. Photoshoots were lololool. I'm sorry I missed the tron gathering! My inverter stopped responding. I kept pressing the power button but IT WOULDNT TURN OFF. So I just let the batteries burn out.
I wish I could afford lights that were more flexible. Gluing them to a base makes joint functions a bit hard. Maybe I'm just scared to place stress on the wires since they were expensive.

Things I neeed to work on: LEDs for the middle thing. Printed hex lycra. Regluing the lights (taping them doesn't work as well). Getting a proper wig (I used a wig meant for a different costume). Rewiring the light disc. Adding the back hub and magnets. Thinning out the lights on the right.


I love my disc



Waiting on more photos from the shoot.

mdb said:

Liquid latex is pretty easy to get and apply by hand to lycra I have tested this a few times and there are a few things to think about:
To save time and fiddliness pattern the pieces first then cut your base lycra into panels- not the pattern shape but small enough to be able to handle. You can then cut the pieces out of the best spots and the latex will prevent the edges from curling
Do not soak the lycra and then drape over a form. The latex will start to cure on your hands and you will wind up with latex equivalent of pilling- tiny lumps.
You can thin liquid latex with water to the desired consistency.
You can drizzle and paint the latex on to a vertical or horizontal mold. If you mix the latex with water you can start with horizontal and turn vertical to let the excess drip off.
You can colour liquid latex with acrylic paint. Even metallic acrylic pant. It's easier to pre-colour the latex than paint after. You will need less than you think so mix then paint some to cure to test the colour.

Latex sticks really really well to lycra, and it winds up being much stronger than latex alone.

If you need to glue anything to the latex Shoe Goo is amazing. I just repaired a torn set of Asari tentacles with this and it's worked really well. No discolouration and it flexes well.

I have just decided to make this costume too after much internal debate But given I am having violent reactions to resin I think this is a more sensible costume

I am though using my stash as I have silver and white satin finish PVC already. That and I have just got the smell of balloon out of my workroom

I will probably go reflective tape for this as well. Looking at the BTS footage the EL is pale salmon coloured but the Siren costumes don't. They also seem to be on some roughly cut base:
IMG_4048 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


Funny thing is when I saw tron at Imax I really couldn't tell the lenses had hexagonal pupils! Saw that they were larger and there was a distinct ring around the iris. So I may wind up getting lenses that give that feel as opposed to proper ones.


Also I'm a tad up the proverbial creek. I have red hair. Admittedly it's more orange than primary red... I think I'll just use a hair spray to go lighter.

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I read about the ballon rubber process of rubberizing the Siren suits and I will be doing this to mine. I go for accuracy over comfort

and confirmed with a seller on Ebay that liquid latex can be used on lycra/spandex to rubberize the material. Do an Ebay search for Liquid Latex metallic Pearl and there you go. There is only one seller on there that has this and claims to be the only seller that has this product without ammonia. Be sure you get liquid latex WITHOUT ammonia, you don't want that stuff which is on your suit absorbing into your skin. I have yet to test if this metallic peral with give the light color in the Siren suit that irredecent look, but I this is a start. Will report back my findings later.

kingdomfiend said:

I had a quick question about EL Wire... does anyone know now long its batteries would last? I'm looking at using a 12v inverter with the 8AA battery setup, but I am looking at running about 30-35ft max of EL wire depending on how the wiring works out. Anyone have any guesstimates on the batterylife? wanna know before I commit to more of this and end up using like 100 batteries in the span of a weekend XD

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If you are going to use EL Wire. Just know the longer length of your wire connected to one inverter, one battery back, the dimmer your El Wire will get it. This is the exact problem I am having on my Quorra suit. I am only using one inverter and one battery pack. I only wanted the one inverter which is located in my project box on my back as the actual Quorra costume has but I should really seperate my wiring and put a 2nd inverter and battery pack in my disc hub. Though my lights do last for a good 4 hours continously with one inverter one battery pack (8AA) (12V).

TheLadyNerd said:

Yikes! I leave this thread for a couple days and the place explodes! :eek

After thumbing through page after page of reference photos of various Tron characters, I'm now getting torn between doing Quorra or a siren. While I love Quorra's character, I wonder if I could pull off a siren better. (I've attached a couple pictures of myself at the bottom. What do you guys think? The first picture is a few years old, but it's the closest cut to Quorra's that I've had. The last picture was taken just a few weeks ago, so it's what my face looks like currently.)

Speaking of siren, I found these interesting booties on ebay. The sirens don't actually wear boots per se. I thought these looked like a decent compromise (sans cutout and the heel's a little short). But it's a decent find for someone on a budget and wear's a size 6!

Azaleia Brazilian VEGAN Wedge Retro Platform Boots 6 - eBay (item 230514341498 end time Jan-18-11 07:29:56 PST)

Here's another pair of booties - size 9

Report leather & suede wedge ankle booties off white 9 - eBay (item 280601598435 end time Jan-08-11 10:07:34 PST)

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You're really pretty! You can totally pull both Quorra and Siren off vry well, as ppl have already said here, you do look like both characters. I am going to be making a Siren costume next. Going to make the suit as accurate as possible right down to using the liquid latex to rubberize the material. Not going to do Gem though. Don't have the blond/white hair, I have dark so, just going to do the dark haired Siren with the HEX contacts. I am sure those are going to cost a pretty penny.

cothran said:

I'll introduce myself quickly - I've been following this forum since I decided to attempt a New Captain America costume this past Halloween. I'll post pics of that once its totally complete. After Halloween my company decided that our holiday party would be a VIP showing of TRON, so I wanted to try to get a TRON costume together. I was going to do TRON (not Rinzler) but work got so busy that I wasn't going to be able to pull it off. So I thought I would try to do a young Flynn outfit (single stripe), but I don't have the hair for that and I was able to get 10 ft. of thin EL tape for the cost of 2 ft. of the thick stuff. So in the end I did something more like what the ISOs would wear.

I think it turned out great.....

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NICE work on your jacket cothran really like the simplicity. I am beginning to think that is the way to go with any of these Tron costumes. Cost and sanity wise the whole point is. It is RAD to have a light up costume anything and makes a total difference than reflective tape. Although the reflective tape is looking really brilliant light up wise in photos as oppossed to some of the actual light up costumes. It all depends on how you shoot the light up costumes and trying a bunch of different camera settings.

mdb said:

I have read the reports that the siren suits were difficult to move in and I call.. well "untrue" to be polite

Rubber coated nylon lycra is super soft and stretchy. Heck my Samara bodysuit (more complex with about 100 individual fabric pieces) is made from a heavy nylon fabric with a rubber coating (it smells of balloon!) and I could do the splits in that thing were I so inclined It is only uncomfortable because like all bodysuits you need to be rigidly upright and hold posture and stomach.
Looking at the siren suits and the wrinkles that form suggests the suits are really quite soft and not terribly constricting. However being so soft there is that whole issue of not making wrinkles- there is more need to change posture to avoid them. So I suspect that is the real issue. Also i spotted some underlayers going on while at the movie theatre- possibly some wiring- so that may also have been an issue.

I have made my on latex fabric and it is really stretchy and really stable. The problem is that it will be hard to make nice and consistent at home as opposed to with industrial equipment

I do have matte 4 way pvc in both off white and silver. These are kind of odd in that they are on some fabric that appears to not be specially knitted but could be sold as plain stretch nylonpolyester lycra. I think I'll use them for a few reasons:
I am sick of the smell of balloons in my workroom every time I work with latex. The ammonia of uncured latex is okay but the balloon smells stays with me
The fabric is already made so saves me a few weeks of work.
The fabric is more stable and will not degrade over the next decade like latex will.
It's nice and supportive and gives a good butt lift.

And just a nice find:
Polish Costume (Polski Ubior) 17th C
For anyone who though the shoes were fashion forward Try 400 years backward

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DANG!!! great find indeed on those boots. Old fashion making a comeback.

In regards to the comfort issues of the Siren costumes in the movie. I have worn latex full body suits and hoods to Comic Cons. I have suffered greatly where I was in tears almost. It all depends on how much you are willing to take to go all the way for accuracy VS. comfort in your costume build. I like going for accuracy so bring the Siren pain on I say but I agree, I really don't see how the Siren costume could have possibly been that uncomfortable? Maybe the actress and model just can't handle that much "pain". I can understand that it was hard for them to move and all. Then again I am sure Beau had to stand around waiting and waiting in her costume for her scene. Just standing in one place, camera ready for hours, yeah, that can get pretty painful. Same for the model at the premiere, just standing there in a tight fitting costume will take it's toll.

Cell34 said:

From those of you that have worked with El Wire, would there be any reason to not get the 5mm high bright over the 2.6mm wire aside from the price? Just seems like it would be more durable but not sure how moldable it would be.

I've read over the plethora of el wire knowledge contained in here but don't recall seeing anyone discussing if they have compared the two.

Also, Rinzler... that sound idea sounds pretty cool.

Chad

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Personally getting 5mm or 10mm (which doesn't exisit, just trying to make a point) won't make a difference on how durable El Wire will be.

Just go with the 2.6mm HIGH BRIGHT. Make sure it is HIGH BRIGHT you get. I used the Standard brightness on my Quorra arms and leg, I had some left over from years ago, and now regret it. It is way dimmer than the High Bright and you can hardly see it on my costume when the entire suit is on. I am also only using one inverter, one battery pack to power my entire suit but still, the Standard El Wire, way dimmer.

The thickness of the mm won't make a differene. Any bending like in your joint areas. Elbows, knee bending, the more you keep moving and bending that wire, it will just break eventually. It is way too delicate and exactly why I suggested pages ago for everyone to stay away from using it. Alot of work and effort all for it to break eventually.

I have had my Quorra costume break in several different places already. I have had to make numerous repairs and spend money on new El Wire.

I am making one more repair this week because I have a photoshoot next week and I have made the descision to pull all my wiring work off my costume and selling it to whomever is interested and really wants to light up their Quorra costume. I will include instructions how to either glue or velcro the strips onto your suit. As long as the person has their Quorra suit made, then my lights are the solution for them if they don't feel like dealing with figuring out how much lighting they need or the wiring of it and diffusing it. It was alot of work for me, but I am willing to part with it and I want to go with custom El Tape that is being worked out for me at the moment. It is going to cost me me hundreds of dollars but worth it to me in the long run of wearing this costume. I will be posting an interest thread if anyone is interested in purchasing my Quorra lighting and we can talk realistically about what you will need to do for my light strip work to fit into your costume.

YAY! was excited to see your post as I was posting mine.

Love it! Looks like both of us successfully achieved Eddie's method of diffusing El Wire. Now if you back up to my post and read my last part, are you having the same issues as I am? Where your lighting is shorting out anywhere on your suit? If not, then wear it a few more times and let me know. It is so disappointing when wires pull out and break, especially when you put your costume on for the 1st time. My left arm shorted out and I wanted to die at the movie premiere. I felt all that work I did for failure. I hope this didn't and doesn't happen to you. The only thing to do is pull out all the El Wire and rewire the entire area. If you didn't have any breaks, you must have not bent any part of your body the whole night right did you need help putting it on? Also, how many inverters and battery packs did you use? I think you used the Standard El Wire right? Looks pretty bright in your pics.


Now, what about your Quorra helmet??? did you finish it and get to wear it? It was looking awesome! I so want to make one too and might go the paper craft route for that.

Post more pics of your creation when you can. Were there any other Quorra cosplayers at ALA that you saw? Sorry you missed our movie night last friday we had a blast!

Sheepgirl said:

Cell, I think the thicker the wire is, the less flexibility. You need a certain degree of flexibility for corners and such.

Anyhow at ALA I wore Quorra. Used 2.33mm EL wire with the diffuser method. Really fun to wear at night. Photoshoots were lololool. I'm sorry I missed the tron gathering! My inverter stopped responding. I kept pressing the power button but IT WOULDNT TURN OFF. So I just let the batteries burn out.
I wish I could afford lights that were more flexible. Gluing them to a base makes joint functions a bit hard. Maybe I'm just scared to place stress on the wires since they were expensive.

Things I neeed to work on: LEDs for the middle thing. Printed hex lycra. Regluing the lights (taping them doesn't work as well). Getting a proper wig (I used a wig meant for a different costume). Rewiring the light disc. Adding the back hub and magnets. Thinning out the lights on the right.


I love my disc

Waiting on more photos from the shoot.

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Sheepgirl said:

Waiting on more photos from the shoot.

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Your costume looks fantastic! And you've got a really good face for Quorra (Truth be told, I think your wig looks fine.) I really love the thickness of your lights. Wait...that's EL wire?! It looks thick like EL tape! Where did you get it?

Annisse said:

I read about the ballon rubber process of rubberizing the Siren suits and I will be doing this to mine. I go for accuracy over comfort

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Thanks for the earlier compliments on my look, I appreciate it! I've decided on doing both, but with a twist. With Quorra I plan to go as accurate as I possibly can (so I'll be watching you and all your successes & failures Annisse! ). With the siren I'm wanting to do more of a performance costume, something that I can dance in. I do hooping and I'd like to do some LED hoop performances in the Siren costume. So for me mobility will be key.

I believe she diffused it with a film of some sort. I was thinking about doing this and now that I've seen it, this seems to be a good method. EL wire is cheaper but I'm unsure about the diffusing film.

Just wanted to pop in and share my liquid latex adventures with you guys! :wacko

I got a gallon of liquid latex to coat my vest for my Quorra costume. I bought a lycra workout shirt and the plan is to coat it with the latex, spray with black Plasti-Dip to color it and stop it from sticking to itself, then cut out the correct vest shape. Thought I'd share my experience because I see a few people are thinking of coating material with latex too.

I HIGHLY suggest getting or making a dressform in your exact size! I'm sure most of you already have that, but I don't and I'm wishing I did! What I did was laid the shirt out flat to apply the first coat so I wouldn't get latex seeping through onto my skin. Then I put the shirt on and started painting the front of the shirt where I could reach, because nobody was home to paint it for me! Do yourself a favor and either get a dressform or find someone you trust with it to paint it on you while you wear it! Because painting yourself isn't a very....wise decision, hah!

You have to be very careful while painting, because the latex dries very fast. Once it starts drying, if you go over it again before it's completely dry it clumps up and it's pretty much impossible to smooth it out after! Unfortunately, that happened to mine but I'm hoping that more layers will cover it up some.

Also, the guy at Lowe's told me if I mixed 100% silicone with the latex it would thicken it up. This does work, but so far it's made it clumpy. I'm going to try to work with it though and see if maybe I just didn't mix it well enough. If you are trying to get any thickness at all, you need a LOT of layers! I'm thinking of getting one of those soft silicone bowl scrapers and put thicker layers, then smooth it out with that. I'm thinking that might help with the streaks showing, too.(Right now I'm using sponge applicators, and they show streaks pretty badly.)

The place I really am concerned about getting it thick enough is for my friend's Sam costume. He didn't like wearing foam so.....any latex application ideas are welcome!

I attached a picture of my shirt with about 6 or 7 layers of latex on it. It actually looks like it's gonna be cool once it's smoothed out and the right color!

@Panzer: Yes I diffused it with a shower curtain :> Sometimes flash photography can reflect off the shower curtain though. So watch out in shoots. Also multiple inverters instead of 1 can increase brightness! I only used one and this shot was taken during nighttime.



@Annisse: My light hasn't shorted out yet. If it does, I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO FIX IT. Arms and torso are one complete length. I've worn in about 5 times. I think it helps that I barely moved :X Didn't need help putting it on, only getting it off! Haha. I spent most of friday night searching for a girl to just pull it off me. I used 2 inverters. One for the leg and one for the torso+arms. Since the leg has less wiring, it's brighter than my torso+arms, so I had to dim it. I used highbright!
As for helmets, I'm still waiting on photos from my photographer. I'll definitely post it when available.

LA was so much fun!!!


@Lady Nerd: ELWIREPROS.Com. search for eddy in this thread :>

Sheepgirl said:

@Panzer: Yes I diffused it with a shower curtain :> Sometimes flash photography can reflect off the shower curtain though. So watch out in shoots. Also multiple inverters instead of 1 can increase brightness! I only used one and this shot was taken during nighttime.



@Annisse: My light hasn't shorted out yet. If it does, I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO FIX IT. Arms and torso are one complete length. I've worn in about 5 times. I think it helps that I barely moved :X Didn't need help putting it on, only getting it off! Haha. I spent most of friday night searching for a girl to just pull it off me. I used 2 inverters. One for the leg and one for the torso+arms. Since the leg has less wiring, it's brighter than my torso+arms, so I had to dim it. I used highbright!
As for helmets, I'm still waiting on photos from my photographer. I'll definitely post it when available.

LA was so much fun!!!


@Lady Nerd: ELWIREPROS.Com. search for eddy in this thread :>

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A HA, you did not wear your helmet! Plus you need to slow way down with.... It was really cool, until you refused to wear it saturday but hopefully we'll see it in is completion for wondercon, AX or SDCC.

ALA was awesome!

Has anyone tried Eddie's diffusion method for red/orange yet? I might bite the bullet and give it a go when I get my 1st batch from Hong Kong.

Sheepgirl said:

Cell, I think the thicker the wire is, the less flexibility. You need a certain degree of flexibility for corners and such.

Anyhow at ALA I wore Quorra. Used 2.33mm EL wire with the diffuser method. Really fun to wear at night. Photoshoots were lololool. I'm sorry I missed the tron gathering! My inverter stopped responding. I kept pressing the power button but IT WOULDNT TURN OFF. So I just let the batteries burn out.
I wish I could afford lights that were more flexible. Gluing them to a base makes joint functions a bit hard. Maybe I'm just scared to place stress on the wires since they were expensive.

Things I neeed to work on: LEDs for the middle thing. Printed hex lycra. Regluing the lights (taping them doesn't work as well). Getting a proper wig (I used a wig meant for a different costume). Rewiring the light disc. Adding the back hub and magnets. Thinning out the lights on the right.


I love my disc

Waiting on more photos from the shoot.

Click to expand...

You're Quorra looks amazing!! Great job!! So I don't have many pics of mine But I did the el wire thing as well and I DID have a very hard time moving my arms because the wire did not want to go with it, this is one of the reason's I'm re-doing mine in EL tape. I was tired of having to repair the reflective tape and make sure the wire was ok after I wore it. I got a sample of the EL tape in the other day adn it will be perfect for the arms, it bend so much better! Something to think about if it keeps giving you problems. Again great job!!

shogunvader said:

A HA, you did not wear your helmet! Plus you need to slow way down with.... It was really cool, until you refused to wear it saturday but hopefully we'll see it in is completion for wondercon, AX or SDCC.

ALA was awesome!

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I wish I could've worn it with you guys..WHY DIDNT YOU WEAR IT ON FRIDAY!? EH?

Sheepgirl said:

I wish I could've worn it with you guys..WHY DIDNT YOU WEAR IT ON FRIDAY!? EH?

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A HA!
I had work and business on friday. And on saturday you hand held your helmet, yet there are not pictures to be found.

Plus despite the fact that you weren't glowing, you could've still worn it. A HA!

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Rinzler said:

Has anyone tried Eddie's diffusion method for red/orange yet? I might bite the bullet and give it a go when I get my 1st batch from Hong Kong.

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I am planning to use the diffusion method with orange for clu's robe. I want to get the 2.6mm High Bright el wire from coolneon.com however they dont have "orange" in the color options for the 2.6mm. There is instead a color called "Erin's Tangerine" which the site describes as "a perky shade of orange right on the spectrum on the way to yellow."

Sounds like the color will work but i was wondering if anyone here has bought this color and if it will be appropriate for Clu.

Yavanna said:

I am planning to use the diffusion method with orange for clu's robe. I want to get the 2.6mm High Bright el wire from coolneon.com however they dont have "orange" in the color options for the 2.6mm. There is instead a color called "Erin's Tangerine" which the site describes as "a perky shade of orange right on the spectrum on the way to yellow."

Sounds like the color will work but i was wondering if anyone here has bought this color and if it will be appropriate for Clu.

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I'm pretty sure Clu's circuitry is yellow, not orange. I've seen many people say orange, and many say yellow, but to me, it looks very yellow..

I'm certain that with a little guidance from you subject matter experts I could replicate the hex print. It's the same process I used to replicate Iron Man 2's Black Widow catsuit fabric.

seattlelumin.com is a place that sells coolneon and some original products. i just picked up a decent amount of wire today it has the orange your looking for from cool neons brand

@Coolfunkcurly: Nice work, I hope you do take on the hex print, doesn't seem like there are too many suppliers for it.