Portal 2 Boots

Wicked

Wicked

Active Member
So I'm in the planning stage right now for some Portal 2 boots for the little lady. In case you haven't seen them yet:
Portal-2-Long-Fall-Boots.jpg


The plan for right now is to get either some black leather boots from the thrift store, cut the heels and front portion out, then *hopefully* use aluminum either dipped in plasticoat and painted white, or alternately aluminum painted with automotive paint.

My biggest concern here is long-term resilience. Being white and boots I thought the plasticoat method (after a few good coats of primer and lots of clear after the coloring) is probably going to be the way to go, but do you think flex is going to be a problem for the paint? With all that weight on it I would imagine it might cause the paint to crack?
 
Why not plasti-dip? It's a rubber spray coating, lots of flex, it comes in white as well as clear(and several other colors).
 
mau5 said:
Why not plasti-dip? It's a rubber spray coating, lots of flex, it comes in white as well as clear(and several other colors).
Click to expand...

Ahh ya that's what I meant by Plasti-coat. I was worried the white might be too dull on it's own. It's a definite possibility though.

@Harmonic - Wow that is REALLY close. The way I'm figuring things I'm hoping the metal "spring" plate on the back is enough of a heel in and of itself. If not I'm going to find some sort of clear, hard as possible, rod to run between the bottom of the boot and the bottom of the spring plate to hopefully add extra support and still look invisible. Either that or mirrors on either side of a box heel with the metal spring plate acting as the back. Cutting mirrors into precise shapes though, meh, not my idea of a good time.

Thanks for the comments.
 
Personally, what I thought I'd do is find some black wedge boots, something with enough support put on the front part of the foot that I can carve a bit of the heel off. I was also planning on getting some white stretch vinyl for the white parts, since I figured any sort of paint would flake off and look messy.

I'd love to have the time and resources to make some actual working boots, but I've only got a month before mine have to be presentable. I was thinking if the metal spring/heel support went all the way down the back of the shoe, down the insole, and into the toebox, you might be able to construct a working model...but to be able to get something to work that's strong enough with the non-tools I have to work with it sounds a bit...challenging, to say the least.
 
Ya functional would be great, but man talk about your engineering nightmares on a deadline. I think they make the real deals out of some sort of alloy, so it'd probably be pretty hard to replicate with readily available materials.

I'm hoping to get started this weekend so cross your fingers!
 
I think making a hard plastic boot painted gloss white and heavily clear coated would be a perfect way to make them. I wouldn't recommend wearing them around frequently, but why would you? The heel could be done with a piece of curved sheet steel, as long as the boot isn't flexible you could attach it all the way up at the top and it would function as a proper heel.
 
First sight of the heel reminded me of the athletic/runner's leg replacement for paraplegics made from carbon fiber, Though, that might be a little outside of your budget.

The heel-less heel works because the entire weight is being supported on the ball of the foot, forcing the angle to be pretty extreme. In the Portal boots, the weight looks like it would be supported pretty evenly between the two ground contact surfaces. That means, that if you want screen accurate, that heel should be able to support half your wife's weight (with some sort of safety factor).

I don't know that aluminum in that scaled thickness would be rigid enough with those bends to take much weight. Still, using it to brace the rest of the boot makes sense to give some structure like an exoskeleton and maybe lock that angle in the ankle. A steel leafspring type heel would probably do the job, and kept small enough could be a manageable weight.

I'd rather like to see this executed, Like those pogo stilts, but in a awesome sci-fi form factor.

Best of luck!

*Well, at least, that's how it looks to me, I'm not a physicist, I just pretend to be one.
 
I would really recommend finding a place that does work with sheet steel nearby and bring in pictures. Somebody there should be able to tell you if it's something they can make for you that you can attach to your boot.
 
Wicked said:
Ahh ya that's what I meant by Plasti-coat. I was worried the white might be too dull on it's own. It's a definite possibility though.
Click to expand...

Ahh, theres a product called plasti-kote which I believe is an enamel based product, I got confused. Plasti-dip is a bit glossy if you give it a heavier coat and spray it closer than you normally would. You could use Future Floor Sealer to give it a high gloss finish, I know people that use it to seal Latex Masks so I'm sure it wouldn't be that prone to cracking on boots.
 
Why not make the heel from fiberglass? Easily available materials, very strong (especially the woven fiber over stranded mat) and will allow some flex too. Maybe start off by making a wire frame and get your desired curve and look from it then wrap the fiber around it, apply your resin and just layer it up as needed. You can sand it as smooth as you want it and spray it with plasti-dip as others have mentioned.
 
I would actually make the heel part out of a strip of bent metal, and then make the white part a fiberglass or hard plastic like Sesl suggested. That way all your weight is being supported by the metal strip and not as much by the plastic. Then just spray paint the plastic, maybe with an acrylic lacquer or automotive paint? Anything for metal is designed to have at least some give in it for thermal expansion, I don't know if it would be enough but I would think so?

Otherwise the Plasti-dip sounds pretty solid to me :)

Would love to see these if you get around to making them!

i
 
Ya know, I was playing this game earlier today just thinking how cool those boots look. Can't wait to see your progress :)
 
I join this forum has I'm about to make a pair of these boots. These boots are very much like the type of stilts I use which are called Power-bocks ( jump stilts ). We can sprint at over 25 mph and jump over 2.5 meters.
This picture show me wearing test pair called FUSION, normal stilts have one spring, these are the most powerful stilts in the world and could carry three people.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/Dark-Knight/Bocking/n884665091_5783998_7871-1.jpg

They make these types of stilts in a junoir size which is how I plan to make a pair. The difference in how they work is portal boot spring from the back of the heel where as Bock stilts use the ball/flat foot.
 
I'm PSYCHED that so many people are giving these a go, anybody that wants to post in the thread is more than welcome. My gf's job just decided to let go of all their part time staff so it looks like we'll be too broke for awhile and will have to put these on hiatus until we can find her a new job. Have at it folks, I can't wait to see what you guys come up with! If anything you guys will probably even find a better way than I had in mind and give me some ideas!

Edit: Sorry for taking so long to post a reply, as you can imagine having your household income cut by at least 1/3 can make for a stressful few weeks.
 
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