My 2014 Tron Legacy "Evil Tron" Suit Build

[EvilTron]

I went to my first DragonCon last year (2013) as Batman with the UD Replicas Dark Knight Rises Suit and had a blast! I even got to talk to the UD designer and all around awesome dude David (I know he's on here somewhere... You are awesome and i wish i could get my hands on the tron suits! )

But when night came i realized that having a light-up suit would be absolutely killer at this Con. So I knew next year, when nightfall came, I would run back to the room and "Tron UP". And with Tron Legacy being one of my favorite movies...its on! So since Dragoncon 2013 Ended ive been on the hunt for all the pieces of a fully functioning tron suit. Its been 5 Months of relentless searching and I've finally gotten all of the things i need to put the suit together... The Hardest Part obviously being the light rig. That being said, here's how my EVIL TRON (Orange Custom Tron) suit is coming along....

Here's what I've hunted down on gear...thanks to some help from some RPF members,

HELMET--- I saw a picture of the Quorra Helmet... the one that looks like this..



I really wanted that freaking helmet. After 3 weeks of searching for ways to make this happen i stumble onto the RPF and find Crimson Works, after a good chat with him about his work i decided to give it a whirl and see what the end product looked like.....and this guy does not disappoint. Verry Happy With the end result.




So HELMET... FREAKING CHECK!

Next it was onto the Identity Discs...... I think everyone who saw tron legacy remembers this scene in the Disc Wars...


It was when i saw that scene, that i decided, if I ever got a tron suit... I would have double magnetized discs. Well that's where the RPF came through again, I searched on youtube and found someone making some pretty cool discs, with push button inner ring and outer ring in custom colors. Found him on this forum, Soul Inertia.

So here's the end result of the discs i got from him...



Before i got them, I'll admit i was worried the oranges wouldnt match, but i was wrong,



So now that i had the tangibles it was off to find the right light source for the suit.

Let me mention this.. I AM STILL LOOKING FOR EL WIRE GLOVES LIKE TRON LEGACY... cant find them anywhere. I may have to make those out of leather gloves and el wire.

THE LIGHTS

After a buttload and a half of researching.... weeks and weeks worth I finally decided to go with Electroluminescent Tape instead of EL-Wire. Its more expensive FOR SURE, but if i was going to do this right... like the batman UD suit, I was going to have to spend a little extra. The biggest things I had to worry about was 1. Battery Life, Amount of Batteries using at one time, and how fragile EL Tape is. So i called the company and was told you can get 6 hours of light from these on fresh batteries. Perfect. As for the amount of batteries, there's ALOT to power the suit body... 56 Double A's. Which mean alot of DC Converters as well. (I'll get to where im going to put them here in a few)

It's at this point ill ask if theres anyone who knows how to combine these souces... i would love to have this rigged to an ipod for touch on and off.

So the lights came in...


DC INVERTERS, POWER SWITCHES OH MY... anyways theres alot to the wiring.

THE FULL BODY SUIT

So that started the HARDEST part of this so far... what suit would i get to use the lights on. After 2 months of researching i narrowed down to Motorcross Armor... specifically the ones here



Mainly because the one i originally wanted was no longer made. But i got to thinking about all the wiring and it just seemed like it would end up putting too much stress on the light packs and lights since it was in 2 pieces and wouldnt be cohesive with pants. SO it brought me to Full Motorcycle Leather... and trying to find ALL BLACK full motorcycle leather was extremely difficult, and i refused to pay 1,500+ for it.

So fast forward 2 more weeks and i found exactly what i was looking for by a company called Dainese in Italy. And I purchased it.

Welcome the Dainese T. M6 DIV. Motorcycle Suit to the equation.


So that just came in today. So that prompted my RPF Starting post for getting the lights going. If anyone has suggestions on this or questions feel free as this has been a long reseach project, I would be happy to talk about it as im starting to get into lighting the suit and attaching the disc back holster ect.

Thanks so much for having this forum as its been so much fun reading everyones projects and i am so happy to have my own.

 

[Armatus Cosplay]

Looking great so far, can't wait to see how it turns out
How is the visibility out of the helmet?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[EvilTron]

The Helmet's visibility is decent. I thought it would be a lot worse than it was. Its kind of like looking through glass with a light layer of water running over it. You can see everything you need to but pure definition isnt there. But i can navigated around in dim light very easily so that is pretty important.

 

[Soulinertia]

Looking good! :thumbsup

 

[EvilTron]

Thanks SI for your discs....they are fan-freaking-tastic! You're obviously the king on this tron forum You wouldn't have any leads to tron gloves would you? Im in the middle of leather alterations on the Dainese suit (which has been a real blast, let me tell ya.... leather needs special machines for it) and havnt had time to invest in the search for gloves.

 

[Soulinertia]

I created these out of some simple spandex gloves and rubber. You could use foam too.

 

[EvilTron]

Yeah thats a good idea, i suppose i could run the light wire from a batter velcro'd to the inner sleeve with any of those options

 

[Crimson490]

Can't wait to see it all come together. Nice find with the suit!

 

[zombienoms]

I know at one point UD replicas made motorcycle gear that was tron style. It was gorgeous though a full set was a grand. Still it was fully functional road gear and amazing looking

 

[joshvanrad]

This is freaking awesome. I'm definitely following this.

 

[LDR]

Nice. I'll be watching this.

 

[EvilTron]

zombienoms, I actually reached out to David at UD about getting the Tron Suit from him. I already purchased the Dark Knight Rises Suit from him, but to no avail.

SO I FINALLY HAVE AN UPDATE TO EVERYTHING. It has been a few months of craziness... It turns out it's harder to get a Full Body Leather Bike Suit sized locally, so i sent it to California to have it sized to my body portions. The motorcycle suit from daniese was perfect other than the waist. Motorcycle suits usually leave alot of room there for bending as they are meant for rider comfort. So i had all the extra cut out of it. It only took about 3 months to get everything back and it fits perfectly. A little expensive, but the form fitting is a major part of this build.

I have been itching to get this thing going because Dragon-Con is coming up, and there's alot of modifications, wiring and batteries to fit on this. I have the suit on the manikin , and am now figuring out how to get the lights onto the suit.

It's either,
1. glue and velcro.... cheapest and seems like itd work for getting the suit on and off, with and without the lights connected. I'll need to put something hard underneath the lights to keep the flat, so im thinking of options here. Either thin hard foam or somthing similiar....maybe plastic.

2. Same thing as above without the thin hardened foam option underneath the lights. Im sure that if i move the lights will bend or look wavey.

So after that its constructing a back piece for the lights to go around. Any ideas out there??

I am open eared to anyone who has done a tron suit in the past.

 

[EvilTron]

I'm Also using this suit design as a base. Obviously the helmet will be different.



I've also went and got the perfect boots for the suit from Altimate Boots.

 

[Siyoum3434]

Sorry if I missed it, but where did you get the hex spandex material?
Is it something easy to find if you know the right key words?
I tried looking but can only find goofy patterns here and there!
Cheers!

 

[Soulinertia]

Sorry if I missed it, but where did you get the hex spandex material?
Is it something easy to find if you know the right key words?
I tried looking but can only find goofy patterns here and there!
Cheers!

I screen printed it myself. Kind of a trial and error process. I never did get around to producing it in larger quantities.

 

[Siyoum3434]

Ok! Good to know!
I think I found a plan B, but it'll take a bit of time. That said, I have the time, ha ha!
Cheers!

 

[shawnlepage]

This looks incredible! I can't wait to see the completion.

 

[EvilTron]

Ok after weeks of figuring out batterypack placement I'm finally working on the attachment. I am using velcro and black laminate tile together to make sure the lights are flexible but solid.

Attaching velcro to a fullbody leather motorcycle suit takes more than just the glue that comes with the velcro, I had to use a contact cement to ensure the hold since its going to be holding battery weight as well.

ALSO I'm still working out the best way to stick the lights to the tile without damaging the Tape.... Any suggestions for people who have used EL Tape before???

I'll take pictures this week of the process. So its laid out for the attachment like this

LEATHER
-------------Velcro
Blacktile
----------- Working on what will not damage the lights. Possibly Velcro with adhesive.
EL TAPE

 

[EvilTron]

Re: My 2014 Tron Legacy "Evil Tron" Suit Build

OK so I have been working my butt off with the help of my wife to knock this Tron Suit out this weekend.

However, after 15 hours of working on it...I'm about a few days away still. Here's the progress

We ended up using the black laminate tile as a backing for the EL Tape.... It was only 88 cents a pop so it worked for a cheaper option as well. All we had to do was tediously cut out all the shapes of the EL Tape, electrical tape the sharp edges for a smooth trim and attach the Velcro to the back side with Contact Cement.





- - - Updated - - -

After getting them cutout I've had so many headaches over how to attach the lights to the tile, since you can only use light glue... a problem because of the humidity, or sew them in... and i am not sewing into tile/leather...nor do i have the equipment. After some experimenting I found a scotch holding tape, (supposedly that can hold a stupid amount of weight....it doesnt matter with the light tape weight, but funny to try and see if itd actually hold 20 lbs) ANYWAYS.... It works like a charm!

 

[EvilTron]

I also retrofitted the back of the leather suit with a simple cake pan, painted it black and slapped some high grip velcro on it. This is where the battery housing will be... it all fits... but just barely. Leaves room for the cable runs without pinching them as well. Here's a pic of the back....minus the lights. As you can tell we used a crap-load of Velcro on the back of the motorcycle suit with the help of our friend CONTACT CEMENT. Only thing that works on getting things stuck to leather other than Bards which is also a contact cement...which I couldn't find.