my first suit, finished

[Lflank]

After long weeks of work.

(Note: The suit as pictured doesn't have a mesh-netting undersuit, but that's just because the mannequin I have it mounted on has arms that don't move, and I couldn't stretch the mesh enough to get it on the mannequin--the actual suit as worn does indeed have a mesh-netting under the armor.)

 

[Night Wing Pred]

what did you make the armor out of??

Nice first by the way!!

 

[Lflank]

Glad you like it.

The armor was made from an old set of football shoulder pads that I painted and glued some greeblies on, a couple pieces of hockey shinguards, and some pieces that I cut from an old car floormat.

 

[Night Wing Pred]

Glad you like it.

The armor was made from an old set of football shoulder pads that I painted and glued some greeblies on, a couple pieces of hockey shinguards, and some pieces that I cut from an old car floormat.

cool, what about the plasma caster??

 

[Lflank]

Another photo:

 

[Lflank]

The plasma cannon is made from two cardboard tube sections (one wide, one narrow) glued to each other at right angles. The decoration is done with a piece of corrugated plastic hose, some strips of foam rubber, some swizzle sticks, two bamboo barbecue skewers, some double-sided tape, and the lids from two Pringles cans.

Inside the barrel is a smaller tube lined with aluminum tape that slides in, containing a blue LED and a battery.

 

[alienQNhunter]

Looks really good for a first try.

 

[strugglingrunt]

well done mate it looks great!

 

[Lflank]

well done mate it looks great!

Thanks.

One thing I wish I had been able to do was coat the whole skin with latex instead of painting directly on the cloth--to give it more of a shiny reptilian "skin" look. Alas, the reason I didn't do that is because I live in Florida where it's hot even in winter, and if I wore a suit that was latex-ed, I think I'd be dead from heat stroke in ten minutes. The cloth skin is, at least, able to let body heat escape and to pass through some air from a breeze or a nearby fan for cooling off (although wearing the suit is still devilishly hot).

I couldn't think of anything I could use that would give a nice shiny look without at the same time converting the suit into a little walking heat trap.

 

[pill baxton]

lookin good! I really love the light in the plasma cannon,it adds that extra touch to the costume

 

[Bovine13]

I love seeing scratch built suits. Nice work.

 

[Elkman]

I like your approach to the armor. It reminds me of this guy from CONvergence:

(from my album on Flickr)

Most of his armor was made from car floormats and other found objects. He won Best Workmanship for that costume, if I remember correctly.

I also like the paintup on your suit.

 

[Lflank]

lookin good! I really love the light in the plasma cannon,it adds that extra touch to the costume

That idea actually came from the fact that in the script for the fan film I'm doing, there's a part where the Pred's cannon is damaged and stops working, and I needed a way to indicate that visually. So it occurred to me that I could put a blue light inside that would then go out. And once I saw it in action, it turned out to look really good anyway.

As it turns out, the way I added the light to the cannon is probably the best way to do it anyway even if I had intended it to be there from the beginning; I took a thinner tube that fit inside the original barrel, attached a plastic bottlecap to the back end, attached an LED light to the inside of the bottlecap and ran it through to a little 3-volt round battery on the outside, then attached it to the tube and wrapped the whole interior with shiny aluminum tape. I use a piece of tape to hold the LED wire down on the battery to turn it on, then slide the whole thing inside (a little piece of swizzle stick at the inside front of the barrel prevents the inner tube from sliding out).

It's a simple system that works well, looks good, and is cheap --- my favorite kind of system.

 

[Lflank]

I like your approach to the armor. It reminds me of this guy from CONvergence:

Most of his armor was made from car floormats and other found objects.

All of the other props and costumes I've done (mostly Star Wars) have been McGuyvered from whatever I can scrounge up in the immediate vicinity.

I guess one has to have an "eye" for it. Not long ago I happened to be walking through the store with a friend and saw one of those Tide soap powder bottles, and it immediately hit me that it's the PERFECT size and shape for a pair of electro-binoculars--when my friend asked "what are you going to do with THAT?", I replied, "You'll see after I get home". It turned out great. And when I happened to see a pair of old floormats in a neighbor's trash, I immediately thought "those would look GREAT on my Pred's armor." So where other people see trash, I see movie props.

I guess some people have an eye for it, and other people don't. I've always preferred to make for myself whatever I can. Any doofus can write a big check and get a terrific-looking costume or prop, but making one's own, from whatever one can scrounge up, requires imagination, skill and talent -- things that most people simply don't have.

 

[Lflank]

I love seeing scratch built suits. Nice work.

Thanks.

Years ago when I started making props and costumes, I had to scratch-build everything because I was poor and couldn't afford to buy ready-made things. Now, I'm no longer poor (I own my own business), but I still prefer to make my own stuff just for the intellectual challenge of it. It's a great feeling when I can take a pile of scrounged-up parts and make something that looks pretty good.

 

[ShawDizzle]

Nice first suit bro. Creative. Im still working on mine.

 

[MProjects]

Nice suit man, i LOVE the cannon! looks great with the blue LED!

 

[Lflank]

Nice suit man, i LOVE the cannon! looks great with the blue LED!

Thanks.

Although the suit looks a wee bit crude when compared to some of the semi-professional stuff that can be found here, the last twenty or so people who have walked into my living room and seen it standing there have all dropped their jaws and exclaimed "WOW !!!!!!"

 

[Blade Hunter]

nice dude props man

 

[sidewayz]

Nice job, thats putting good use to what you have around the house. I might use my old set of shoulder pads and jock ya a bit.