Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

[Emmalouwho2]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

SuperM 77 is a really cruddy glue for foam, I've been using it and it just doesn't work well, all my foam pieces are coming apart already. I'm going to buy some Foam Fast 74 (Monoyasha used it for her raptor) and use that instead, that's what's holding up my own project currently.

Yours is coming along quite well, though

 

[writefast]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Go man go!

 

[clonesix]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

This thread has a lot of information that I had not previously seen. I have been researching this, and doing a lot of scale drawing. My current thought is that if I build this, I will need to make it modular, or there is no way I am fitting an 8' dinosaur into a Honda Civic. Nose to tail, I see this as a minimum of 12'.

The head/neck assembly needs to unbolt from the carcass, as does the tail, and legs. I am not sure how I would put that back together on-site. If it were all one piece, how would you transport it?

My next issue is support. The examples all show shoulder mounts, where all the weight is supported by the shoulders. Any back packer that ever tried to carry 50 lbs. did so by a padded hip belt, where the hips carry all the weight.

An additional desire, is to have display tablets wired to cameras. I would like to be able to see what the pupput is long at, and that would mean a pin-hole camera in a nostril. I don't think a camera could go behind an eye. Current technology should also make it possible to receive external video from someone on the outside of the suit.

 

[SkeletonMan]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

hide the pin hole cam in the nostrils

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

SuperM 77 is a really cruddy glue for foam, I've been using it and it just doesn't work well, all my foam pieces are coming apart already. I'm going to buy some Foam Fast 74 (Monoyasha used it for her raptor) and use that instead, that's what's holding up my own project currently.

Yours is coming along quite well, though

Thanks so much for the tip!

I actually had gone by some Fursuiter's site where he actually had a chart showing what glue works best on what material. Sad to find out he was TOTALLY WRONG on gluing foam to foam. I'll order some Foam Fast 74 immediately.

-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Just a quick update: During my last 60 hour work shift days, I did manage to finish sculpting and painting 64 teeth. I also completed one fully-painted prototype resin eye and two others that I THOUGHT would be my final versions, but I'm still debating that. I don't have photos of the eyes at the moment, but I'll try to get some posted here before the week ends.

Meanwhile, here are two shots of the teeth, one where I tried to quickly organize them into what could be considered "lineups" for both upper and lower jaws:

I started by painting a base coat of battleship gray... then covered that with white (with just a drop of black mixed in)... then did two washes: one in a color that was actually named "coffee"... covered by one called "ivory". I think they turned out pretty good.

Coworkers wondered if I was going to paint blood on them. I said I might do that later, once they're "installed" into the mouth. (In the category of "other morbid suggestions", the also suggested I [well, the raptor, really] carry around a Cabbage Patch doll in my mouth! LOL !!)

My wife was kind of freaking-out on me last night, saying I need to get more of the body done. And she's right. But I know now that one major thing that's been holding me back from pushing through on that is... my basement work-area is a complete mess from previous foam work. I'm far, far from being a neat-freak. But when I'd go down to the basement lately, I just would get this strong sense of mental confusion. My wife jokes that I'm her "paper monster": I have piles for this, piles for that, in various rooms of the house. Yes, but I can tell you EXACTLY what's in each pile...and to me, that's organized. Seeing foam and tools strewn about was actually hurting me more than I thought. (We live in a 108 year old house, which lacks closets, so storage is often an issue.)

So, I decided to get up really early this morning and clean that up. Now I need to work on doing the same in the garage, but the mess isn't as big there.

It's hard, when you know you're behind and you have this super-to-do-list... to force yourself to stop and spend an hour or two just cleaning up and reorganizing. But I'm pretty sure this will pay off in helping me make some decent progress before Friday.

Catch ya later! I hope to work on the legs today and finally start strapping that body cage.

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

One more thing: I bought some fans on eBay, but I guess I didn't visualize how incredibly small they were. I can't believe that they'll be adequate...but I could be wrong ?? Can anybody with any knowledge about fans and costumes please speak to this ?:

Specs:

Size: 30mm x 6mm
Max. Air Flow Volume: 2.4CFM
Max. Fan Speed: 7500RPM
Voltage: 5V
Noise: 22dBA at rated voltage and zero pressure, measured at 1 meter to side


Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Just a quick update and one photo:

This is a photo of the three eyes I've built. The one on the left was a first "prototype". I felt that I made the pupil too wide and goofy looking.

Also, there's a layer of glow-in-the-dark paint directly in front of the yellow base color. I only did two thin layers in the prototype. The paint is SUPPOSED to dry clear. And for the prototype it did. But I didn't think it glowed very brightly.

So, with the other two eyes, I used SEVERAL layers (like, 6 maybe?) of glow-in-the-dark paint. Unfortunately, these seemed to dry a bit cloudy. BUT, they do light up very nicely in the dark, after you charge them in the light. I tried photographing them in the dark but my camera refused to cooperate. I would need to understand the manual settings in order to get the shot, I think.

I should also mention that the base yellow layer of paint is itself a luminescent / phosphorescent "neon yellow".

One other thing I like better in my prototype / like worse about my "final copies" is that in the final ones, for some reason, the superglue between the two discs caused distortion, but you only really see it when you view them from the side.

On an earlier test-run, I applied TOO MUCH superglue and got it all over my fingers and the surface of the disks. So, with these three eyes, I decided to just put several tiny dots of superglue about an eight of an inch inside the perimeter. When I would squeeze two disks together after doing this, I could see the little "puddles" of superglue between the two disks. But I thought that would dry completely clear. And it would seem that that's not exactly true. I guess I should have made sure I had a thin LAYER of superglue between the two disks.

For the sake of time, I'm probably going with the two eyes on the right. And you can see the artist's pallete that I used to form these disks. Wiping the plastic depressions with a paper towel sprayed with Pam cooking spray worked nicely. After well over a day's drying time, it was pretty easy to pop these eyes out of that mold.

Gotta run.

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[Emmalouwho2]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Huge eyes! How big are they?

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Those are about 3 inches...maybe a little bit more. I needed 2 and a half. But I'm going to be tucking foam and skin around them to make them look a bit smaller.

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[Emmalouwho2]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Wow, three inches? That's the same size as Monoyasha's raptor (and what mine will probably be) although her head is much smaller...wouldn't have guessed.

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Another quick update:

This morning, before work, I used that 74 spray to glue my shoes to the feet. It was rather cold outside, so I hurried a bit. And the final "angle" of the feet-to-the-shoes isn't quite what I wanted. But I may just live with it and try to walk on my tip-toes a lot when wearing the costume.

Here are some pics:

I took that top-down view just to show you that I did stuff the shoes with foam when I went to spray-glue them... and also that I may have carved my foot-holes a bit TOO big, but perhaps I can just stuff them with a bit more foam and glue them. The only trouble is, that 74 foam is nice and sticky. The second that two foam pieces touch, it wants to lock-on. So, it was tricky enough to slip the upper part of each boot into the foam as it was.

I've also added dew claws to the feet.

I'm anxious to get started on skinning the feet... so I'm not sure if I'm going to try to adjust how they're glued onto the boots at this point.

I did rip apart a seam in one foot... a seam that made the foot bend upwards slightly at the "ball" of the foot. And then I re-glued it with the 74 spray... because the original bond with the 77 spray that I used wasn't holding very well. (It was fine on the other foot, for some reason.) But when I re-glued it, I propped it in my car trunk so that some pressure was being applied on both sides. That made that particular foot's angle a bit bigger than the others. As a result, the toes are bending upward a bit higher than I'd like.

So, I'm at the point where I'm like.... do I try to fix this... try to make the angle better and waste more 74 spray and time? Or just leave them, because the shoes ARE bonded to the foam now (though I could take a razor and cut them apart)... and go ahead with skinning them. I can always walk around on my tip-toes as much as possible.

I've got until my lunch hour to decide. <grin!>


Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Just did a "test run" in the feet. What a pain to put on! I need a heckuva shoe-horn. Makes me wish I had used cowboy boots, but good luck finding cowboy boots in a thrift store for less than $30.

I can stand on my tip toes, but then you can feel the toes sort of "dig in" to the floor.... which necessitates the need for me to make a sort of "hopping motion" as I run. Each step becomes a mini-leap. But perhaps that will look appropriate when the rest of the costume is in place. Guess we'll see.

-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

OK, so I've created the finger-nails and toe-nails out of cardstock, simply by cutting it and curling it into cones. My intention is to cover both the inside and outside of each of these with fiberglass resin, to strengthen them...and then I'll paint them.

But the huge curling toe-claws are giving me trouble. I was overlapping strips of cardstock around it and temporarily taping it into place, when I got fed up and quit. I'm thinking if I were to make that "nail" out of cardstock, it still has to be able to slip on and off of the foam, at least until I get it hardened and painted. And it was starting to look like doing that was going to be difficult.

Any thoughts on that? I'm wondering if I should just cover it in a single layer of cardstock, not worry about taking it on and off, glue it into place and start coating it with resin.

-= Dave =-

 

[Emmalouwho2]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

I haven't a clue on what to tell you about the claws...I'm going to be casting mine in plastic. I wish you serious luck with that, though and hope it'll work well for you.

 

[Emmalouwho2]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

I just saw your post about the pivot hinge on the fursuit livejournal, I don't think you could use any sort of screw or anything like that on the head. My only idea is to follow Tiger of the Wind's jaw tutorial, using elastic to sort of hinge it.

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

I just saw your post about the pivot hinge on the fursuit livejournal, I don't think you could use any sort of screw or anything like that on the head. My only idea is to follow Tiger of the Wind's jaw tutorial, using elastic to sort of hinge it.

You're talking about this page, right ?: fursuit: Quadsuit Tutorial: Tiger of the Wind

Yeah, I've been focusing on that, as I put in an hour or two of googling on that subject after I made that post. I sometimes wish such tutorials would actually go into a bit more detail. I re-glued my lower jaw back into place on my upper jaw late yesterday. And I chopped off a good six inches of neck, then carved a helmet-shape into that, and glued the helmet in as well.

But I'm wondering about the way she did that. Why elastic? I would think you wouldn't want the piece between your chin and the creature's chin to have much "play" in it at all. And, geez, the piece she used looks like it's at least an inch wide. I'd really like to SEE, as much as possible.

I'd love to see exactly how she installed the springs too. I was originally thinking I'd use a piece of elastic or rubber band on each side of the mouth, and then disguise that by putting it inside skin flaps on each side of the back of the mouth (which is what was done in a Garage Monsters tutorial I saw on the Stan Winston site). But I would need some sort of "points" to attach to.

Well, it's definitely a problem I need to work out this weekend or perhaps by Monday night at the latest.

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[Emmalouwho2]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

She chose elastic because that's what's used for balaclava based heads, I assume. It needs to have a lot of play to it so it'll stay shut and it won't hang open, I guess. That's what I've assumed for it. I wish you luck with your jaw! I don't have much else to advise you.

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

Quick update:

One week to go until my deadline <sigh>.

Here are two photos I took at about 4 PM today. The first is of a partially-finished foot. Since taking this one, I've glued on two of the three "toenails" (not pictured) and have gotten a bit further in cutting and gluing the cloth into place:

Not the best photo... my apologies... a plainer background would have made it easier to see.


I did make all of the fingernails and toenails out of cardstock. (All except for the two big "hooked" toes; I'm still not 100% sure which way I want to go on making those, at this point. But obviously, I need to decide ASAP.) I then coated the cardstock with fiberglass resin (mixed with hardener, of course). I gave them all a quick once-over with a dremel's sanding disk, to get rid of drop-marks. Then I spray-painted them all with satin black spray paint, plus a layer of matte finish clear coat to protect the paint a bit.


And here's the tail, just prior to my covering it with the cloth skin. You'll see that I did cut it into segments, in an attempt to get some of the odd "kinking" out of it, which was only somewhat successful. And I stuffed the empty space between the pool noodle and the foam layer with poly fill.

Since taking that photo, I have added a much-needed 6-inch "tip" to that tail... plus I finished gluing the cloth "skin" over the whole thing. I'll probably post a photo here within a day or two.


Despite having a very busy Sunday ahead of me, I hope to totally finish both feet by tomorrow night. (Again, that's except for those curving "big toes". At first, I was going to use the cardstock-and-resin technique... then, I thought I'd make a mold and fill it with hot glue... and now I'm not sure if that's what I want to do. I'm tempted just to carve the current foam ones into much nicer curves, spray paint the toes black, and see how they look.) If I'm lucky, I might even get in some work on the mouth, gluing the teeth in.

Thank the Lord I'm off work all this week to hopefully finish by 2 PM Tuesday. My one growing concern is how I'm going to actually put this all on. I may NEED to be able to put the whole thing on ALONE, which may be problematic. I had originally thought I'd step into the body and THEN put the feet on. At least when I've got the body cage in front of me, that's how I'd see me putting it on.... stepping INTO it and then pulling it up to shove my head inside.

But honestly, putting on my feet and legs first and then throwing the body over my head would be better. If I wanted to do that, though, I think I'd have to cut out one of the four horizontal "bars" of my body cage. (Wish I'd have thought to take a photo of that for posting here. Perhaps tomorrow.)

Building the main torso out of a PVC cage SEEMED like a good idea at the time, but I now think that would be better suited for BIGGER suits than this. Still, I have to have SOMETHING to help provide the shape of the torso, something to support a layer of foam.

I had one minor scare today: I went to a somewhat distant Joann's Fabrics to buy the last of the fabric "skin" that I think I would need. So far, I only have 6 yards. I figured I'd need at least another 5 yards in order to be absolutely sure I had enough. But that Joann's store was all out. Now, I had tried looking up the fabric by name online weeks ago and couldn't find it on their website. (And at my local Joann's last week, they told me they had 37 yards of it available online.) But for some reason, when I got home today, I found it within 5 seconds. So, I ordered 10 yards, with rushed shipping. An expensive solution. I should have made the effort to buy more from the local area stores weeks ago. Oh well, at least the stuff's on its way.

Not sure if I mentioned it earlier, but I did have a chance to test 4 ohm resistance speakers versus 8 ohm resistance speakers with my sound setup of two daisy-chained Boostaroo amplifiers with an Arduino Uno and Wave Shield. And it seemed to me like the 4 ohm speakers were actually NOT as loud as the 8 ohm ones. Still, the whole thing isn't as loud as I'd like, so I ordered ANOTHER Boostaroo amplifier. The model on this one is going to be several years NEWER than my two old ones. And I'm pretty sure the specs said it was more powerful than each of my previous two. So, we'll see what THREE of them daisy-chained together can do.

Gotta run!

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

re: Jurassic Park Velociraptor Build Thread; Target Date --> Halloween 2013

OK, here are two more quick pics:

Here's the skinned tail, with a curious cat thrown in for scale <grin!>. Yes, I realize you can see that seam, but that's the bottom of the tail you're looking at.

And here's that PVC body cage that I was talking about with my last update. The head-end is to the right, tail-end to the left. That strap of PVC that I've taped in there with duct tape is just temporary thinking. I want at least one strip around the circumference to help me shape the foam as I go to lay it into place here next week. And I was practicing stepping into this whole thing and putting it on / taking it off.

I made the curves based on my 6-inch toy model. However, I had to significantly "chop off" the rear end, in order to adjust to my body. I thought about this last night, after I posted... and I think I'm going to move that strap forward a bit, make it sort of like a "rib cage", and then I think I'm going to cut the lower PVC / pelvis bar off. If I do that, then I should be able to slip this whole thing over my head and enter it more-or-less "through the stomach".

The tail will actually screw onto the PVC adapter on the upper left. (Going from 3/4 inch PVC to 1/2 inch for the tail.) I'm HOPING this will be strong enough. I suspect I'm going to have to figure out some other way to support that weight (though it doesn't seem to weigh much to me). I need to be able to remove that tail or put it back on quickly. I wonder if I'll need to perhaps add some sort of brace from the lower left of this PVC cage upwards and into the tail itself. I guess I'd better test this soon! <grin!>


Thanks!

-= Dave =-