new to site, changing hobbies

[waterwarrior]

hey im new to this forum, just wanted to say hey and tell a little about myself. im stationed in cali right now in the military. im a mechanic by trade and by hobby. i love wrenching on my car the problem is that it is sooo damn expensive and latley im just over it. since i was a kid i have loved making light sabers and even made a gb proton pack. < a poor atempt im sure according to your standars but it was fun. so im looking for a new hobby to consume my time and i think costume making will be a delightful artistic switch, and less expensive too! i was on google looking at comic con pictures and was blown away with the detail of some of these costumes, further googling led me here. at this point i was completley blown away with what i saw. and for that i want to applaud you all for making such detailed representations of our favorite heros/villians. so here i am i want to take the first step towards creating something awesome, im particularly fond of mass effect costumes and saw some good ones on here already. the ironman ones blow me away too. any way sorry that you had to read a novel for an introduction. if you guys and gals have any links to useful resouces or books i can buy to give me any insight on how to begin this process, or if you are like me and you like typing, hit me up i will certainly be thankful for your time.

thanks again guys!
and hello

 

[Risu]

Welcome to the forum. What base are you stationed at?

 

[waterwarrior]

im in the coast guard staitoned on the central coast of cali

 

[Apollo]

Welcome aboard and leave your wallet at the door!

 

[waterwarrior]

what would be a good way to get started costume making? whats an "easy" first project?

 

[Drewid]

Personally, I recommend doing a Hasbro E11 Blaster conversion using the Doopydoos kit. It's not that difficult, relatively cheap, and covers the basics: light dremel work, bondo, gluing, sanding, and painting. Do you have a costume that you're aiming for? Oh, what part of the Central Coast are you from? I might not be too far from you.

 

[waterwarrior]

im outa san luis obispo. so yeah you are near me if you are indeed in sb. id really like a an iron man costume. i do notice that there is a lot of people doing those. the pep projects look really involved but not very difficult to get the basic form. and being that im a mechanic i have dabbled in body work before so some im sure i could do somewhat well at that aspect as well as the painting. but i think overall id like to have a really fantastic mass effect commander sheppard armor. and would really like to have that knowledge base on how to work with those types of materials.

 

[Drewid]

I'm out of Goleta, so yeah, pretty much Santa Barbara. The N7 armor is sweet and I'd love to have a set. There's a few ways to go about creating armor, but the pep method reinforced with fiberglass is probably your best bet in this case. Hmmm... you could try to take a nerf gun and modify it with fiberglass/resin/bondo to look like one of the ME guns. That way you're already working on the costume you're going for while building up your skill base

 

[waterwarrior]

that sounds like an idea. ive seen the pistol done it looks pretty good. what kinda techniques would be involved in something like that?

 

[waterwarrior]

are there any how to's that make for a good project?