Tron Legacy Costume

kenobibale

anyone know how much el wire it would take to do a full suit? would 2 separate long lengths be the best, one for each side of the body, left and right i mean not top and bottom although i suppose that would work too

pharon66

What would some one else have to do to get those pictures?

HooDooMan1

I'm not sure how much wire it would take for a full suit, but instead of doing a single long length of wire down the side of the body, I would probably break it up into separate segments at points where there is a bend. From what I understand, EL wire doesn't take bending stresses too well, so you might want to put in breaks where there is a bend, like your waist, your knees, your elbows, etc. to avoid bending the wire too much and causing it to short out or break. So, for example, if you are putting EL wire on your arm, don't put a single strand from shoulder to wrist. Put in two separate strands, one from shoulder to elbow, then another from elbow to wrist. That way, you avoid putting the wire through the point of maximum flex, the elbow. (I hope that makes sense!)

PAULFIERCE

I was at the TRON LEGACY panel and even the actor guy that plays SAM said you cant move around a lot because of the EL strips are fragile and the key is to just stand up straight when you are wearing the suit. LOL

Regarding the TRON suit that they had on display at FLYNN's arcade. It was just there for people to take pics of, you couldnt touch it, but it wasnt encased in glass or anything so I got really up close and personal with it!

took really good pics of the back of the suit where the disc is, and the shoulders, abdomen, and thighs.

carboxyll

I partially disagree with how fragile EL wire... the only weak part of the how operation is you initial solder point to the invertr. You have 2 very small ~.002in according to the calipers. You will more than likely need a micrometer for an exaxt. The point is that is where your weak point is.

If you can avoid any high impulse force to the solder joints you should be ok. Maybe add a loop for some give?

The wire itself is VERY durable, I have taken a blow torch to it for 2-3mins..... the plastic does melt but it will keep its continous glow. You can see in the pictures how sharp up apoint you can make it. Its also not that hard to wrap or move around, don't think it would impair movement very much, I think the padding built up around the thin suit is what is causing the resistance when moving.

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Sakara

the base suits remind me of the suits they made in Xmen. Strong leather (or in Tron's case rubber) like panels with stretch sections for the actors to move.

Annisse

I have worked with El wire myself since 2004 my 1st trip to Burning Man and it IS quite fragile depending on how it is used on the body.

I am a costume designer and I decided one day after returning from BM I was inspired to make a line of EL Wire costumes. I did and made corsets. One of the corset tops I made with El Wire has broke many times because of the way it was sitting on my body. If you bend that wire enough and if you are moving around alot, let's say dancing, then yes the wire in the mid section point can break and there goes your whole connection.

It's kinda like if you have a thin metal wire. It is durable with a few bends back and forth, but when you keep bending it over and over and over again it eventually will break. The El Wire is similar. I kept moving, dancing, the mid section of the wire were it was hitting like around my waist caused friction and the thin wires which are encased in the clear tubing of the El Wire, broke and I lost my light up connection. There is no way to fix that either.

I made another corset and just the tightness of it on my waist and me walking broke and my whole corset design was left in the dark.

Some of them broke near the solder point and some in the mid section of the wire. Either way point is, yes, El Wire is not as durable as you say. Even if you get a thicker gauge it is still capable of being very fragile. It can only take so much repeaded bending abuse.

The Tron Legacy costume application looks very streamlined and flat laying on the body, so it should work much better than what I went for and I am sure El Tape, which I have yet to try, would hold up even better.

Just my input from someone that has worked with this stuff many times.

Carboxyll, can you please tell me how you frosted that clear vinyl you used to difuse the El Wire? That is very cleaver and a great idea. I almost want to try that method out on my Quorra suit I will be making instead of going with the El Tape.... I just don't understand how to use the Cut and Shape your own.

Thank you!
~Annissë

Annisse

Does any one know if there is a demontration vid where it shows you how to work with that Cut and Shape El Light Sheets? I just saw the website for them, but I can't understand how you will be able to cut those sheets into the many pieces you will need to install into the TL suits. I have never worked with El Light Sheets before only wire. They seem perfect to do the suits with, I just need to understand how to use them exactly and get all the pieces you cut rigged to the power source to light them all up.

Thanks!
~A

Dakarn

I'd be interested in that myself. Regular EL wire isn't bright enough to light a identity disc brightly so I was thinking of going with sheets. From the sheet kits I've looked at I don't get how you can cut it into strips and keep a continuous circuit.

carboxyll

I'll see of if I can take some disection pictures of the EL sheet for you tomorrow.

For the vinyl I purchased some spray-on frost from Lowes (It took me like 5 mins to find because the gloss spray looks the same packaging wise), my Walmart did not carry it. I actually just sprayed one brief coat then another after 30 seconds or so. Later that night I did tried it on some glass. I did about 4-5 coats but i waited longer between each application and that turned out really nice. Oh yea, I also prepped it with some prep-all, but any cleaning solution would work.

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carboxyll

[QUOTE=Annisse;1316389]
You can get EL wire pretty bright, it runs on AC current, when buying an inverter see if you can one with a high Hz value. The higher the Hz the brighter it is... however your wires' life span will decrease.

I'm pretty sure the EL wire and sheets have the same lumen value to each. Its phosphorous on a copper element.

I am building an Identity disc too, you can check out the thread on that. I am going the LED approach though.

Soulinertia

The work you've done so far on your disc is amazing caboxyll!

pharon66

I don't know of a vid but I read a post on another forum once. I have now Idea where is was, but it's something like: there is a specific side that has connection tabs sticking out of the sheet. You can cut it in any shape as long as you don't cut those tabs off. so you can almost cut it however you want as long as that side is a part of your piece.

I did just find this forum post about how a guy used this for a tron inspired arcade controller:High-end artwork mod #2: Electroluminescent Panel

Here is a vid I found of it lighting up:YouTube - Electroluminescent Paper Demonstration

MrSinistar

I think it'll be much easier to work with Reflective tape than El-wire. While it doesn't glow, it produces spectacular effects when a picture is taken with flash. Here's an example:



This is my own helmet that I recently finished for a con. I'm planning on finishing the whole suit, however I'm not sure that the whole suit will be covered in reflective tape.

At ComicCon, there was the Flynn Lives ARG event, where people were dressed up as programs (I'm assuming they were civilian programs, and not the gladiators (Sam, Quorra, etc.) that we're used to seeing). They used much less rubber and more fabric materials compared to the costumes we've seen so far. They also used the reflective tape effect.

Lot's of reference pics:

HooDooMan1

Hi Annisse,

The website that was mentioned earlier, Electroluminescent Sheets and Panels states that sheets can be "overlapped so that no seam is visible in a field of light." The custom Cut and Shape sheets have terminals along all four sides of the sheet, so as long as you keep any two terminals attached, the sheet will light up. The way I've thought about cutting them and rigging them to the power source would be through the use of splitters. For example, the A4 sized custom sheet has a lit area of 7.7 inches x 11.1 inches, which means you can have, for instance, 7 different one-inch wide strips that are 11 inches long. Since the sheets can be overlapped, you can overlap each 11 inch segment with another one (tape them together or attach them some other way) until you reach the desired length. At that point, you would need to use multiple splitters so that you can split the single connection coming out of the driver in order to connect to each 11 inch segment. Some drivers come with multiple splitters, I saw a 4 way splitter on another site somewhere. That's one way you could do it. You'd be running wire all over your body, but you would be making the most of the EL sheet.

Using that same concept, you can cut out angles (such as those on Quorra's arms and thighs) and overlap them with straight segments. It may be a bit cumbersome, but I think it might achieve the desired effect. I hope this makes sense. If it's not clear, send me a message and I'll see if I can explain it a little better.

Good luck on your Quorra suit!

Annisse

WOW! yeah easier said than done I would really have to see a demo in person or at least a video to understand how that cuttable EL sheeting works. All I need is to see it once and I can take on constructing the costume on me own. That EL sheeting is totally new to me, I have never even heard of it till I came to this forum

Thank you for your help!
~A

Annisse

Interesting but does not help on how you would apply the EL Panel sheet to the Tron Legacy costumes. All he did was cut holes for his controller to this panel, I understand that, simple, but how would you cut multiple stripes then attach all those stripes to your TL costumes and get all those individual stripes to light up???

~A

SithsPadawan

im thinking the same thing

the lights are probably the hardest part of these damn costumes

i mean you can always be cheap and use reflective tape, but who really wants to do that

and Carboxyll
my girlfriend and i were thinking of trying that
i was told that it doesn't really work buy the guy who designed the manufactured the Tron inspired motorcycle jackets at Comic-con

but i have this feeling if you do it just right it should-work
so i say give it a try and tell us how it works out

cause my guess that will be cheaper and easier then like EL Sheeting and whatnot

YenChih Lin

Nobody dared to try my idea? http://www.therpf.com/f9/i-think-ive...76/#post596062

DAVIDYR1

I remember speaking with you. You had that killer Mad Hatter costume on...great suit BTW.

Let me just add that you guys here are capable of anything. I'm constantly blown away with what you're all doing and I'm sure that you'll all find suitable ways of lighting your own suits. What I personally deemed unfit, not usable or inappropriate for our suits was based on bulk production factors and possible headaches we'd be facing if we did the lights one way VS another.
Truth be told, it's a complicated process even for us...but what we chose to not use, for what ever reason.... may work wonders for you guys and your suits just the same.

My advice....try everything. Experiment...go nuts!!!! Have fun with it all and I'm sure each and every one of you will find suitable ways of getting the lights to work to your satisfaction.

When I said "doesn't work" .... was directly related to our product and how we need to have it all function. I can only bet that in the next few weeks/months you all are going to find ways of making this all work in a fantastic way.

Dont let any one person discourage you, and if our talk in any way did that then please accept my apologies....and continue to explore these options shown in this thread.

Looking forward to seeing what you all come up with!

David
Universal Designs Ltd.

kenobibale

are the sam flynn legacy suits blue or white lights? i cant decide in most of the promo shots or screen shots they look white and in the trailers they look kinda blue to my eyes

SithsPadawan

OH DUDE YOUR ON HERE!
cooool
now we can be friends XD

but yeah, my girlfriend os nuts
i told her what you told me and she was like
"Whateve, i wana try it anyway" XD

we have a few new ideas since ive been scouting these threads
so ill be sure to post our progress

and it was great talking with you, i hope to see you again next year ^^
(buy the way, you are still selling the Batman suits right, a friend of mine wants one like theres no tomorrow)

and Ken
im sure there white
but a light blue would register just as well

Rook 3

Yep, David's here, and he has a great info thread about his suits located here:

http://www.therpf.com/f9/officially-...-6-25-a-81156/

Russ

carboxyll

I tried making a quick mold just to see how the EL wire would look in the suit.
I poured the mold with some silicone i colored black.... It didnt turn out well 1. because i didnt let it cure all the way, 2. Its too low of a durometer I used.

Next time I will try a higher durometer silicone so it will be more stiff.i cut some reflective tape and layed it down, and then EL wire, then the test samples of the silicon.

eh.. I'm not happy with it, i'll play around with it some more and figure another way to diffuse the light. Hopefully the higher durometer silicon will have a crisper edge and hold its shape better.


oh yea, i guess i should explain the pictues.... I cut a mold, then sprayed smooth-on mold release (you can veg. oil if in a bind), smoothe on pigment mixed in with the silicon. put in a vacuum for 4 mins to degass it.

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HooDooMan1

I posted this in another thread on here, but I thought it was relevant here as well.

After seeing this article about the new TRON: Legacy/Adidas apparel collaboration:

AJANAKU » Blog Archive » Adidas x TRON: Legacy x Oryon Tech

I checked out the Oryontech website at Oryon Technologies : Innovative Technology. Endless Possibilities... [www.oryontech.com] and realized that the ELastolite technology was what they used on the actual costumes for the movie. I was mistaken in an earlier post (possibly another thread) when I said that LightTape was what was used in the movie; it was actually ELastolite. The ELastolite technology is different than that of LightTape. It's created using a different process and the end product is actually thinner, more flexible and more pliable. I have no idea how much the ELastolite costs, but from what I've read on the wardrobe costs for TRON: Legacy, it probably ain't cheap. I may email them and see if I can get some more info.