Battle Damaged Samus

[scarletsolitude]

So this is my second cosplay... First cosplay with armor building.

I was actually inspired by this illustration on DeviantArt.



I thought it would be perfect as my first armor build. My dream is to eventually build all of her suits. Possibly trying to achieve one a year. I'm not a big LoL fan and all of my other planned cosplays are mostly sewing based with very little building. But I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew with my first... Especially since I kinda have a tight deadline (ECCC during the first week of April). I also think Zero Suit Samus would be really cool to eventually make... But my sewing skills are at a level 1. So I figured a "battle damaged Samus" would kinda cater to both versions while giving me room to mess up. What's that saying? If you mess up on armor, then it's just damage!

So far I've 100% completed the helmet. Tbh, at first I thought I wasn't going to wear the helmet out in public. I've always wanted either a Samus or a storm trooper helmet and figured it would be way cheaper to build one (and very rewarding). I might end up building a storm trooper helmet eventually now that I know their secrets mwuahahahaha.




What I might end up doing at ECCC is one day wearing the helmet and seeing how that goes while the other day I'll wear a wig and just carry the helmet as an additional prop. The helmet took me about two months from start to finish. I used a little bit a longer route that ended up giving me the result I wanted:



Starting with card stock, I used fellow member Talaaya's pepakura file. From there I layered with masking tape to prevent the paper mache (diluted wood glue and water) from warping the card stock. After layers of paper mache and sanding to even it out, I applied a few coats of wood glue, created my template and applied the worbla. To smooth out the worbla for paint, I used wood filler, wood glue, and a ton of sanding. I could have probably gotten a totally smooth finish if I did more sanding, but I liked the gashes that were appearing and so I used to my advantage. After red paint, I used black acrylic to fill in gaps and provide damage and wear on the helmet. The grill is made from worbla and the tubes are electrical conduit.

So after that long process. I'm onto the rest of the suit. I'm almost finished with the arm cannon pepakura. But I'm still trying to decide on if I should do the same process as the helmet, since this time I know what I'm doing and it'll move much quicker. Or if I should use fiberglass resin and bondo. It's been rather chilly in Portland so I'm a little worried about getting the measuring down. And the cold. Did I mention it's cold here? (I'm originally from Florida...). The pepakura took me longer than I anticipated. The helmet file only took me maybe a night and a half to complete. So I started the arm cannon file a little too cocky and now I'm really feeling the time crunch. I figured fibeglass resin/bondo technique would go a lot quicker, but I run the risk of ruining the pepakura... Aka dying inside.

There's a lot to think about. I'll probably be asking for a lot of advice. And I'm also probably missing a lot of information that should be in this first person. Wish me luck!

 

[zorprime]

I'm actually working a Samus armour for my wife as well, I went the pep, resign, bondo, and sanding route with the helemt. The rest of the suit I'm using EVA foam or foam floor mats like I can get a Harbor Freights for cheap. I've built the arm cannon and one should out of foam and they turned out pretty good, and they are a fast build if you need speed vs strength. I really need to get a thread going as well, but I want to have more of it finished first . Here's some pics of the helmet a shoulder arm cannon for reference.

 

[scarletsolitude]

Those pieces look awesome! I wish I could get my husband to do my armor

Seeing your foam shoulder piece is making me lean toward using the foam instead of a full pepakura model. I enjoy building pepakura, but they take up so much time.

Here's a picture of the arm cannon. the three pieces aren't sealed together and I think that may be making it appear way bigger than it should. Either that or I'm small. I'm probably going to go back to it later and see how the other pieces look all together. If it still looks huge, I can still go back in and do some slice and stitching.

 

[Talaaya]

Oooh looks amazing so far! zorprime's too! Glad to see my peps getting used.

I'll be at ECCC too, although not as Samus. She's still not quite ready to wear to a con. I'm hoping to be done for this year's PAX Prime. I'd love to see your suit in person at ECCC! Do you go to Rose City Comicon? If I do end up getting Samus done I want to bring her down to Portland for that. We could take a pic of our suits together! : D

Let me know if you have any questions about my process. I'd be happy to help! Oh, speaking of which, I can go measure my arm cannon if you'd like to know how big mine is.

 

[scarletsolitude]

Oooh looks amazing so far! zorprime's too! Glad to see my peps getting used.

I'll be at ECCC too, although not as Samus. She's still not quite ready to wear to a con. I'm hoping to be done for this year's PAX Prime. I'd love to see your suit in person at ECCC! Do you go to Rose City Comicon? If I do end up getting Samus done I want to bring her down to Portland for that. We could take a pic of our suits together! : D

Let me know if you have any questions about my process. I'd be happy to help! Oh, speaking of which, I can go measure my arm cannon if you'd like to know how big mine is.

This totally made my night!! I haven't been able to post on your thread yet, but I adore your suit and I hope that lives up to your quality and awesomeness.

I plan on wearing her to PAX Prime as well so we could snap a pic there if you finish your suit by then! But if not, I do plan on attending RCCC again so there's always that opportunity.

And that might have been a mistake to say because I have sooo many questions. Also knowing your arm cannon size would be great! I'm just worried that it's too big or maybe I'm just making it look bigger (I'm 5'4" if that helps). But I plan on putting that aside from now and just starting on the shoulder ball piece, the glove, and other pieces and see how they look together.

 

[Talaaya]

Haha yay!

My cannon is 18" long, about 6.5" across at the wide section near the back with the roundy bits, and the nozzle is 3.5". I'm 5'9".

 

[scarletsolitude]

Thank you for checking! So mine ends up being just shy of 22" length, 7.25" wide in the same spot, and the nozzle is 4.25". It's a little bigger so maybe we should trade? Lol.

I keep comparing to Metroid 3 screenshots and the way the arm cannon fits on me looks similar as far as length goes. When holding the cannon, the tip sits a few inches above my kneecap. But it might be a little too fat. I've thought about trying to cut and paste again and trying to make it more narrow. But at this point i might have to assemble it along with the other pieces and see if maybe it's just my body making it look way bigger than it should... It also doesn't help that I picture it 20x bigger in my mind until I put it on again and look in a mirror. And if it still looks too big I can always use it as a model for an EVA foam build.

Oh I do have a question (it won't be the only one I promise) about lighting. How do you have yours set up as far as switches and packs? I'm thinking about using LED strips but I'm also not sure how that would work for the hand, given that it's round and the tape is not.. Maybe I just have to play around with diffusing it?

 

[zorprime]

Thank you, and thanks for the peps as well .

Most of the cons I go to or events are in the south (since I'm in Alabama) but I would love to see your suit in person as well. One question I'm trying to remember, did you create something to set the shoulder bells on that sat on top of your shoulders or did you just strap them across the back (I can't remember). I'm defiantly getting ahead of myself, but I hope to get more of the suit built soon.

Scareletsolitude, the cannon looks great (better detailed than mine, but I hope to add some during the paint phase I'm messing around with light at the moment as well as trying to figure out where to put the handle inside the gun so my wife can hold it easier and move it around... If i get a little more creative I may put a switch on the handle that holds the gun to turn it off and on, but we'll see.

Oh, and my Ironman (shell-head) is hold in the pieces that I've built so far .

 

[Talaaya]

Oh I do have a question (it won't be the only one I promise) about lighting. How do you have yours set up as far as switches and packs? I'm thinking about using LED strips but I'm also not sure how that would work for the hand, given that it's round and the tape is not.. Maybe I just have to play around with diffusing it?

So my suit uses EL tape (similar to EL wire) which runs on AC power. The company I got it from sells inverters to convert the AC to DC (which is what LEDs run on) but they didn't have any powerful enough to run the amount of EL tape I needed for my suit so they custom made me one. This inverter has an input for the battery pack and an output for the EL tape. The entire thing runs off a set of lithium batteries and it powers the whole suit except the cannon and the helmet. The inverter is a fairly heavy box which is about 4"x3"x2" and I made a harness for it so it can hang around my neck like a necklace (there wasn't an easy way to attach it to the chest armor and it would have unbalanced it anyway). Probably very little, if any, of that is relevant to you though.

At one point I was going to do LEDs but when I discovered EL tape I went with that instead because it would create perfectly even light instead of points of light. You can totally make LEDs look good though. Usually that's accomplished with a light diffuser and having the LEDs set back a fair distance from the diffuser. That's not something I would have been able to do with my skin tight leg armor. If you have a little bit of wiggle room you can put the LEDs perpendicular to the hole they shine out of and bouncing the light out instead of directly shining it out. For example, if you wanted to light up a visor you don't put the lights in front of your face, you hide them below or above or around the entire perimeter of the hole. Your face bounces the light out and makes it visible to viewers. The same concept can be used for the leg lights except instead of your skin reflecting the light you put a sheet of reflective material like foil or metal tape. This way the pinpoints of the LEDs aren't visible and you get much more evenly distributed light.

By the way, the EL tape cost me a pretty penny so I wouldn't recommend it to your average cosplayer, at least for as much of it as I needed. Also, I may actually end up putting LEDs in the arm cannon because the yellow EL tape wasn't bright enough and it was more of a weird green than it was yellow.

Thank you, and thanks for the peps as well .

Most of the cons I go to or events are in the south (since I'm in Alabama) but I would love to see your suit in person as well. One question I'm trying to remember, did you create something to set the shoulder bells on that sat on top of your shoulders or did you just strap them across the back (I can't remember). I'm defiantly getting ahead of myself, but I hope to get more of the suit built soon.

I assume this is addressed to me.

You're welcome! Aw, I hope you get a chance to see it in person. Pictures don't quite do it justice. I don't plan on traveling anywhere far with it though so unfortunately unless you come up this way that may not be possible.

My shoulders are mounted to the chest with speaker wall mounts which have ball joints and a rotating axle (i.e. a slightly unscrewed bolt, haha). That's the only thing they're attached to. I explain more about this here and here and here.

 

[scarletsolitude]

So my suit uses EL tape (similar to EL wire) which runs on AC power. The company I got it from sells inverters to convert the AC to DC (which is what LEDs run on) but they didn't have any powerful enough to run the amount of EL tape I needed for my suit so they custom made me one. This inverter has an input for the battery pack and an output for the EL tape. The entire thing runs off a set of lithium batteries and it powers the whole suit except the cannon and the helmet. The inverter is a fairly heavy box which is about 4"x3"x2" and I made a harness for it so it can hang around my neck like a necklace (there wasn't an easy way to attach it to the chest armor and it would have unbalanced it anyway). Probably very little, if any, of that is relevant to you though.

At one point I was going to do LEDs but when I discovered EL tape I went with that instead because it would create perfectly even light instead of points of light. You can totally make LEDs look good though. Usually that's accomplished with a light diffuser and having the LEDs set back a fair distance from the diffuser. That's not something I would have been able to do with my skin tight leg armor. If you have a little bit of wiggle room you can put the LEDs perpendicular to the hole they shine out of and bouncing the light out instead of directly shining it out. For example, if you wanted to light up a visor you don't put the lights in front of your face, you hide them below or above or around the entire perimeter of the hole. Your face bounces the light out and makes it visible to viewers. The same concept can be used for the leg lights except instead of your skin reflecting the light you put a sheet of reflective material like foil or metal tape. This way the pinpoints of the LEDs aren't visible and you get much more evenly distributed light.

By the way, the EL tape cost me a pretty penny so I wouldn't recommend it to your average cosplayer, at least for as much of it as I needed. Also, I may actually end up putting LEDs in the arm cannon because the yellow EL tape wasn't bright enough and it was more of a weird green than it was yellow.

That's a good suggestion about putting the LED lights off to the side instead of directly underneath. I was watching a tutorial about using paper to diffuse and setting back the LEDs, but now I'm definitely having to rethink the design a little so I allow enough room for either option.

Thank you, and thanks for the peps as well .

Scareletsolitude, the cannon looks great (better detailed than mine, but I hope to add some during the paint phase I'm messing around with light at the moment as well as trying to figure out where to put the handle inside the gun so my wife can hold it easier and move it around... If i get a little more creative I may put a switch on the handle that holds the gun to turn it off and on, but we'll see.

For your arm cannon handle, I would suggest having your wife wear the cannon and then try to best guess where her hand goes to insert a dowel that would fit and attach it there, as well as wrapping it in foam for comfort. That way the wrist isn't being strained if it sits too far up or having to reach for it. The switch being close to the handle was also something I was thinking about as well. Although I've been working on my shoulder ball and glove instead.

 

[scarletsolitude]

Sorry for being away for so long! Life has been a little hectic. And the cosplay con crunch hasn't helped either! Plus it's a pain getting photos from my phone on my desktop.

ECCC is less than two weeks away. But I still think I can make it in time. Portland is going to be sunny most of this week and next, which will be a tremendous help since now I have some daylight after I get off work to do painting and fiberglass work outside. I'll save the image heavy post and insert my most recent progress:



(Sorry that all the images keep appearing landscape?? But you get the idea )

Still need to construct the shoes, bicep, arm, and hand. As well as sew the zero suit portion and ribbing for the joints. If all goes according to plan I should have all of these at least constructed by the weekend. And then I can spend some of the weekend and the last week weathering and painting battle damage. Should be fun~

 

[Talaaya]

Oh man this is looking great! Hope you're able to finish in time!

 

[scarletsolitude]

Oh man this is looking great! Hope you're able to finish in time!

I think I'll make it! The husband is taking over sewing the zero suit portion because I very little sewing skills, so that will be a huge weight off my shoulders.

I'm hoping the remaining pieces won't be so time consuming to construct. And once I get passed that it's just painting, strapping, and lights. I just might not get that much sleep this week

Hopefully I'll still see you there!!