Sorry for the long delay in updates. Let's see, where were we?
On the last update I discussed the building of the chest piece of the HEV suit. One thing I forgot to discuss was the building of the little inset detail piece in the middle of the chest, right below the lambda logo (see the picture below).
I build this piece out of craft foamies. It turned out O.K... not great, not horrible. I used 3 foamie pieces, on for each side and one for the top with creases cut into the foamie pieces and set with a little heat from the heat gun. The big mistake I did make was not backing the superglued seams with hot glue. I had done that with most of my seams, but I was thinking of this piece as a detail, not as something structural. That came back to bite me in the butt later. The abdomen piece underneath put pressure on the foamies and also the chest pieces on either side flexed a bit while wearing it which put more stress on the seam than I expected, which led to it cracking in the corners as you can see in the picture below. Luckily I brought superglue, tape, and some foamie scraps so I was able to repair it when I got back to my hotel room.
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There's not much to discuss about building the belt. I didn't even take any pictures of that piece in progress.
The abdomen piece of the HEV suit I also made out of craft foamies (got to love the foamies!). I started by wrapping tracing paper around myself to create a rough pattern, then I cut foamies into broad strips and glued them together with some overlap to make it look layered. Here's a picture of what it looked like in progress, at this point it was just taped together, which is why it looks a little crooked. It was also made from a variety pack of colored foamies, so in this picture it looks kind of like the Ethiopian flag.
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The next step was sealing the foam. I had originally intended to use an older version of the "Doc Holiday method": Spray Mod Podge, Liquid Electrical Tape, Adhesion Promoter, then spray paint. However, I wasn't terribly impressed with the test piece I did with that method. It worked well, but the paint did still wrinkle somewhat if the foam was bent. Also, the Liquid Electrical Tape required 24 hours to cure, and I was quickly running out of time before DragonCon.
In the end, I decided to skip the liquid electrical tape. I used diluted PVA glue (Aleene's Tacky Glue, which is what Stealth was using in one of his videos). I brushed on three coats of the diluted PVA glue, let that dry really well, then sprayed a coat of Dupli-Color Adhesion Promoter, then sprayed my spray paints. The nice thing about brushing on the PVA is that I could do it inside the house, I didn't need to wait for daylight or nice weather outside like I would with spray paint.
I enlisted an old dresser in my basement and some scrap PVC tubing as an improvised drying rack while doing the PVA coating, I made a similar drying rack for the spray painting using some lawn chairs and the same PVC tubing. Ghetto, but it worked!
At that point, I'd completely run out of time. I did the spray painting on Tuesday, Wednesday was spent at work and packing, Thursday was my flight to Atlanta for Dragoncon. But, I still hadn't done anything to attach my pieces to my under suit! Nor did I have some important details like the lambda logo on the front of the chest piece, or the red lining for the chest. So my choice was really to either go to DragonCon with no costume, or go with a costume that was still unfinished. I decided to pack up my unfinished costume and take it, plus some supplies, with me to Atlanta.
In my hotel room in Atlanta, I put sticky back velcro on the abdomen piece to hook it to itself after wrapping around me and to fix it to my shirt. I also used sticky back velcro to hook the upper leg pieces to my pants and the upper arm pieces to my shirt. A word on sticky back velcro.... it SUCKS! The sticky won't hold, particularly after you start sweating. :cry
I also painted the lambda logo on the front with yellow acrylic paint, and created the red lining by cutting strips of soft foam, covering them with red cloth, and securing the cloth to the foam with some Elmers glue I picked up a the Atlanta CVS. The cloth pieces I secured to the HEV suit with sticky back velcro. Here's what the lambda logo and the red lining looked like:
I think the only other thing to discuss is the crowbar. Originally I'd intended to make a rubber crowbar or buy a prop crowbar. But prop crowbars are a hell of a lot more expensive than the real thing, so in the end I just purchased a crowbar from Home Depot and painted it black. I think it worked out pretty well.
Here's a couple of picture of me in the HEV suit just before venturing out Friday at DragonCon: