metaweta
New Member
The glove used in the movie adaptation of Hellboy is a beautiful thing, but I decided I'd rather build something closer to the original artwork. Here are the source panels:
There's an obvious blue vibe going on, with light or white components, lots of wires and cables, and belts and bands of various kinds.
I looked around online for potential components; one of the first things that came to mind were old glass insulators. While evocative and functional, it turns out that they're far too large. The next thing I thought of were ceramic post insulators. I ended up using a bunch of these, but they were too small compared to what I saw in the comic. I paid a dollar on Facebook and asked Mike Mignola what he had in mind when he drew them; he responded, "What you see in the comic is all I know about the glove. I was just drawing shapes." I started looking around for something the right size and shape and hit on Snapple caps. A long screw through the center and an optional mount formed what I called "snapacitors":
To make them match the ceramic insulators better, I used white epoxy gloss appliance paint to cover each cap before assembly.
Mignola clearly got ideas about the Ogdru-Jahad from Lovecraft's monster Cthulhu, who he imagines as a prisoner in the sunken city Rl'yeh. Rl'yeh, in turn, was built using non-Euclidean geometry. There are seven Ogdru Jahad; as a nice coincidence, there's a small finite projective geometry called the Fano plane with seven points and seven lines. The Heawood graph is the Levi graph of the Fano plane, and is visually interesting. I built one out of a rubber seal, some picture hangers and wire, some fork terminals, screws, and ground strap; I call it a "Heawood-Levi motivator":
For the cuff of the glove I used 6" PVC riser; I bought 24 inches and cut it in two parts, one 11 inches and one 13. This difference in length was meant to echo the first source picture.
Walmart had some nice quilted navy blue fabric; I cut a piece about eight inches longer than twice the length of the riser piece, wrapped the pipe in the fabric, pinned it close, then sewed it half way. I turned it inside out and sewed the rest of the way. This let me slide the fabric around the riser, then bring the rest of the tube up the inside, while keeping the rough seams towards the inside. I folded the outer sleeve in at the top and put small screws through it and some gorilla glue to hold it in place.
I bought several black leather belts at Goodwill and some black leather belt scrap off ebay. I wrapped a small one around the top and bottom and screwed it into place. Here's the first cuff starting to take shape:
The comics have several bands underneath the components, so I added more leather strap. It was too bland, though, so I got it wet and added tentacle monster detailing:
I wanted more than just snapacitors, so for variety I bought a box of possibly-burnt-out vacuum tubes.
To mount them, I took an Altoids mints box and cut six holes in the bottom and one slot in the side. I took some femo clay, put it inside, and pressed the tubes in from the top; then I opened it, peeled out the clay and baked it. Finally, I glued the clay in place with gorilla glue. The tin I painted, then mounted to the cuff with some screws. In the slot I put a cold water supply tube for a toilet; the silver mesh worked well with the ground strap.
I made a breaker bar out of some more leather to fill the area under the box. I had a friend with access to a lathe knurl some pipe for me and cut it to make some nice one-tube bases:
For each tube, I drove a screw partway into the cuff, packed epoxy putty aorund it, then put the knurled base over it and packed it full, then pressed the vacuum tube in. When the putty hardened, it bound everything together into a single component.
The other cuff had a lot of the same: snapacitors, post insulators, tubes in knurled bases, black strap with tentacles:
The few differences included cutting a piece out of the side so I could bend my elbow, a much larger vacuum tube, a relay, a buzzer,
and a tentacly tube. The base is the head from an old VCR, while the "glass" is really a 3-liter bottle preform. The tentacles are made of black and grey femo. To make the suckers, I made small balls of grey clay, then pressed them into the tentacles with the head of a pin.
To hold the cuffs up and to match the comic, I got some wide belts to strap around my biceps.
Both cuffs:
I bought some blue welders' gloves:
and some large chrome grommets for the palm.
The gloves in the comic are ridged, but I didn't feel competent to remake the entire back of the glove; instead I made a ridged pad out of the same navy blue quilt for the back of the hand. It also served to unify the color scheme a bit, since the gloves were a much brighter blue than the cuffs.
To make the robe, I got four yards of black cloth, folded it in half and sewed up the sides. I cut a hole for the head. I made the star out of blue satin ribbon and the dragon out of yellow cloth. I opted to leave off the swastika, since where I live, people are (rightly) far more offended by the actual atrocities committed by Nazis than the imaginary ones from comic books. Here's a half-done picture. I lost the picture where I'm wearing both and shaved my head, but will post it once I take another.
There's an obvious blue vibe going on, with light or white components, lots of wires and cables, and belts and bands of various kinds.
I looked around online for potential components; one of the first things that came to mind were old glass insulators. While evocative and functional, it turns out that they're far too large. The next thing I thought of were ceramic post insulators. I ended up using a bunch of these, but they were too small compared to what I saw in the comic. I paid a dollar on Facebook and asked Mike Mignola what he had in mind when he drew them; he responded, "What you see in the comic is all I know about the glove. I was just drawing shapes." I started looking around for something the right size and shape and hit on Snapple caps. A long screw through the center and an optional mount formed what I called "snapacitors":
To make them match the ceramic insulators better, I used white epoxy gloss appliance paint to cover each cap before assembly.
Mignola clearly got ideas about the Ogdru-Jahad from Lovecraft's monster Cthulhu, who he imagines as a prisoner in the sunken city Rl'yeh. Rl'yeh, in turn, was built using non-Euclidean geometry. There are seven Ogdru Jahad; as a nice coincidence, there's a small finite projective geometry called the Fano plane with seven points and seven lines. The Heawood graph is the Levi graph of the Fano plane, and is visually interesting. I built one out of a rubber seal, some picture hangers and wire, some fork terminals, screws, and ground strap; I call it a "Heawood-Levi motivator":
For the cuff of the glove I used 6" PVC riser; I bought 24 inches and cut it in two parts, one 11 inches and one 13. This difference in length was meant to echo the first source picture.
Walmart had some nice quilted navy blue fabric; I cut a piece about eight inches longer than twice the length of the riser piece, wrapped the pipe in the fabric, pinned it close, then sewed it half way. I turned it inside out and sewed the rest of the way. This let me slide the fabric around the riser, then bring the rest of the tube up the inside, while keeping the rough seams towards the inside. I folded the outer sleeve in at the top and put small screws through it and some gorilla glue to hold it in place.
I bought several black leather belts at Goodwill and some black leather belt scrap off ebay. I wrapped a small one around the top and bottom and screwed it into place. Here's the first cuff starting to take shape:
The comics have several bands underneath the components, so I added more leather strap. It was too bland, though, so I got it wet and added tentacle monster detailing:
I wanted more than just snapacitors, so for variety I bought a box of possibly-burnt-out vacuum tubes.
To mount them, I took an Altoids mints box and cut six holes in the bottom and one slot in the side. I took some femo clay, put it inside, and pressed the tubes in from the top; then I opened it, peeled out the clay and baked it. Finally, I glued the clay in place with gorilla glue. The tin I painted, then mounted to the cuff with some screws. In the slot I put a cold water supply tube for a toilet; the silver mesh worked well with the ground strap.
I made a breaker bar out of some more leather to fill the area under the box. I had a friend with access to a lathe knurl some pipe for me and cut it to make some nice one-tube bases:
For each tube, I drove a screw partway into the cuff, packed epoxy putty aorund it, then put the knurled base over it and packed it full, then pressed the vacuum tube in. When the putty hardened, it bound everything together into a single component.
The other cuff had a lot of the same: snapacitors, post insulators, tubes in knurled bases, black strap with tentacles:
The few differences included cutting a piece out of the side so I could bend my elbow, a much larger vacuum tube, a relay, a buzzer,
and a tentacly tube. The base is the head from an old VCR, while the "glass" is really a 3-liter bottle preform. The tentacles are made of black and grey femo. To make the suckers, I made small balls of grey clay, then pressed them into the tentacles with the head of a pin.
To hold the cuffs up and to match the comic, I got some wide belts to strap around my biceps.
Both cuffs:
I bought some blue welders' gloves:
and some large chrome grommets for the palm.
The gloves in the comic are ridged, but I didn't feel competent to remake the entire back of the glove; instead I made a ridged pad out of the same navy blue quilt for the back of the hand. It also served to unify the color scheme a bit, since the gloves were a much brighter blue than the cuffs.
To make the robe, I got four yards of black cloth, folded it in half and sewed up the sides. I cut a hole for the head. I made the star out of blue satin ribbon and the dragon out of yellow cloth. I opted to leave off the swastika, since where I live, people are (rightly) far more offended by the actual atrocities committed by Nazis than the imaginary ones from comic books. Here's a half-done picture. I lost the picture where I'm wearing both and shaved my head, but will post it once I take another.
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