Going all out for Ant-Man with the goal of wearing it at Dragon*Con 2017.
I only have 50 days to get it where I want it. I'll have to wear it out in the heat of Atlanta for the Giant Marvel shoot at 330 in the afternoon potentially in the summer sun.
Here's the plan:
There are a lot of helmets out there with wonky dimensions. I've only seen a couple that work for me. I found 2 sources. One is custom molded by an artist in the UK which I've ordered. The other is a 3D print by a guy in Japan who goes by "Mr. J Works." He seems to have dropped off the face of the earth RIGHT when I ordered my helmet kit from him. It would have had lights, a fan, and an opening mechanism. I've gotten no response from him and all of his accounts on Facebook, Youtube, and Ebay have gone really silent lately. He had good feedback until very recently.
Here's a video. His work is amazing. Damn shame I cant' reach him...Hope by some miracle it shows up and he's just on vacation or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAAd3Nn8fjc
So I went ahead and bought the helm in my Avatar pic from the guy in the UK as plan B. It just came up as a sale right when I started to doubt my main helmet source. Figure if the kit I wanted more comes in eventually I can sell one or the other or just get a refund. Either way time is ticking and I have to move forward.
Because of the heat this helmet MUST have a fan and it MUST open. Why? The helmet is attached by armored cable to the back box, so taking it off also means having to detach the cables because there's no way to hold a helmet cabled to a backpack that's not awkward when cooling down. So unless I want to be like that poor Ant-Man costumer I met back in 2015 who had to ask me to attach and detach his cables so he could catch some air (and I don't think he had a mask fan either) it MUST open.
The guy in the video below did it nicely:
https://youtu.be/7WDdI5sNd1E
I'm sending the helmet I settled with from the UK to a friend in Georgia. I dont' have time to do everything so I'm letting that guy take care of cutting the face plate off of the helmet and wiring it with lights and a fan, then making it so the face plate can either be lifted off and affixed to the forehead of the helmet with Magnets (I've seen Iron Man helmets do this to great effect using rare earth magnets) or if there's time it'll actually open with the touch of a side button. It'll all be powered with a helmet-mounted USB-interface phone/tablet recharge brick.
A shot for motivation from the actual prop department duing production of Ant-Man.
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The Suit: I've ordered a custom leather suit from White Sheep Leather in Pakistan. They communicate well, hand make everything, have hard prices to beat, and give you a good base suit that fits more like a motorcycle suit, on which to add detail.
The White Sheep suit comes with flexible fabric or leather piping. I'm gonna need to look at it when it arrives in a couple of days to see if I can keep it (their piping) or if I'm going to remove or cover it with rubber tubing. I plan to make
joints out of worbla or some other moldable hardening agent that I can paint and make to fit by hand.
The piping I do attach, I intend to do the same way the best Ant-Man cosplay ever made was done by
Eldritch Arts. She spot-sewed the piping in some spots then used a special glue she recommended to me to affix the piping between black or silver stitches. I ALMOST got her to do my back box, but because of timing, and because I know she's super busy also prepping for D*Con I opted to do the print below.
Then I'll add to the suit buckles and hard looking pieces in joints that aren't made of worbla with
foam painted to look like metal and molded to the suit because they all have to be curved to follow body contours.
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Gloves and Belt:
XCoser makes an acceptable (for my taste) light-up belt and gauntlets. I will repaint those to my taste and to match the helmet and other metallic components. I'll probably also fill in the words "ANT MAN" they have all over their stuff. Why? I just don't get that....anyway Xcoser's belt does not come with the proper back belt component. They put their real buckle there. So that I'm having one 3D printed with a file I found on Autocad's site. It'll be painted to match everything else.
The Leather gloves are being made by White Sheep Leather and will be attached to the Xcoser repainted Gauntlets. Then I'll have to run tubing down the fingers and make them appear to go into the gloves with some spot-stitching, the same glue used for the above mentioned piping, and worbla or foam "joints."
The buttons for the gloves, I haven't settled on. I found 3D models for them, but I want buttons you can push. I need to see if anybody else had better options for those. Otherwise I may make them myself with foam and plastic buttons from electronics components.
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The back box
I almost settled on making this from foam, but I also found a good file for this on Autocad's site to 3D print, so this will be a print.
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Connecting the back box to the helmet:
I will either use RCA female connectors on the box and helmet mounted into the resin/plastic and then will use armored pay phone cable with male RCA's in them to attach.
OR
I will get strong rare earth magnets and make these magnetized attachments for easy quick removal when the helmet just has to come off.
(I keep thinking of 2015 Dragon*Con guy who's magnets weren't strong enough and came unglued. Never glue what you can screw, bub!)
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The boots:
I'm undecided between two plans.
I'll either get the $80 Sport Boots that turn up in searches for Ant Man boots and add modifications to them with foam:
https://shop.softailsandhogs.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=V305-Mens-Boots&CartID=1
OR
I'll get the boots offered by a Chinese company which look ok, and which I could improve on with some painting and piping/foam, but I'm worried about the fit. I have to walk around in these a LOT. They MUST be comfortable. I'm willing to let go of accuracy here to save myself tons of blisters. So probably option A here....
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Under the helmet I'll be wearing a breathable ski mask to hide my skin. The helmet will have a face fan. On either side of the fan will be velcroed small wash rags soaked in "Florida Water" cooling liquid. Smells great and has a menthol like effect to cool the body.
Inside the suit chest pockets (or strapped to my torso if no pockets come with the suit jacket) I plan to put a couple of thin, cold gel packs. They should keep my body temp down at least an hour.
The White Sheep suit does not have texture in the red, persay. Instead it's porous, so it should breathe some. So under the suit will be a breathable layer of black under armor to keep me as cool as possible.
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The Helmet is currently headed to Georgia to be modded. Cheers to the artist who hand-crafted it then put it up for sale on the rpf forums of Facebook.
The suit should arrive in 2 days. The belt and gauntlets shortly after. I'll start with the gloves and repainting of the belt and gauntlets, then hit the piping and metal strapping on the suit.
The boots, I'll decide on in a week and order something. Any input is welcome here.
I'll start sending pic when I begin the physical part. Shopping around for tubing and armored cable is my next immediate concern.
Gav
EDIT: Say Baw, did someone say piping joint?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/351046247181
Perhaps actually used on the suit?