Apotheosis's 2014 Halloween Costume Contest Entry:Children's Captain America TFA

My six year old son, having watched the first Captain America movie and the Avengers decided he wanted to be Captain America too. Since we don't have any native super heroesin New Zealand and I think Cap is pretty cool I had no objections. Jack has a can do give it a go attitude and set out building his own costume.


So Jack used paper mache over a balloon and then used my vallejo acrylics to paint the helmet



He used some cardboard to make the shield and crayons to do the reds, and he hand cut a few dozen pieces of white paper and glued them on to make the silver circle. Then he made a pentagonal star and pasted it on. Looking sharp their little guy.

Sadly the helmet was egg shell thin and show and tell was taxing on on it and it was destroyed.

Fear not my little friend, for daddy has seen people make things out of fibre glass before. So a few googles later and we have discovered pepakura and the free cap pro file.

Not really believing this was at all possible, i decided a quick print and sellotape was in order.

Captain America The first Prototype:


So I can see how this might work. I dispatch the wife to buy some decent card stock. But while I'm waiting I thought I'd have a crack at using plain on cardboard, so we glued the pep onto the cardboard we liberated from an old box we had and hey presto!


And damn thats a nice fit. Now in hind sight, we should have stopped here and painted it. But sadly my ambition exceeds my talent so...Time to send the wife on a run to buy some FG resin and some builders mix (Bondo)



Good habits start young, here's Jack sanding! he hates sanding! He better learn to love it he he hopes to do more of these in his future.



I had untold trouble with the rondo. The FG resin the wife procured used a very slow harder, something like 2 hours. But it was taking several days to cure. I tried brushing mover hardener over it and it seemed to help. (We did measure the qty. per the bottles specs and used a gram scale to do it. No eyeballing it here. Being the firm believer in testing as we build Jack decided to through the 'hat' on. Oh Dear!



Jack learnt some new words and Dad decided to have a bourbon and Jack was bribed with a mars bar. Back to the drawing board.

So this time we used the card stock the wife had got us. and we decided to use dad's head to start with and hopefully by the time this shrunken head does its magic trick it will fit.



And to make sure the helmet was rounded enough on the sides, i resined it and let it dry on my head. all two hours of cure time. Hmm patience is a lesson Jack, oh he's watching tv..



so patience exhausted its time to resin some more and use a ballon that has many time more patience than I do.


I can't bring myself to throw out the old one. It might fit a 4 year old?
So Its not legal to show the child labor photos of Jack sanding and filling, sanding and filling. But you can see by the happy grin he's glad we are near the end. Nose bridge got damaged in the sanding phase so I'm building a new one in situ. You know thats not going to go well don't you...


Well actually, its not so bad. Once I got the wife educated on the differences of filler primer and primer, things were getting better. It was time to start thinking about the shield. I bought a satellite TV dish of the NZ version of eBay for $5 and showed Jack how to scribe a circle with a piece of dowel and a nail. Then we cut the circle out with some tin snips and only cut ourselves once, right Jack? (actually it was dad who cut himself, in order to teach the boy about sharp edge awareness) Then I had to remove the anodising coat that they had put on this thing. More sanding, yah!. 3 Days of cusiing in the sun sanding with 50 grit sandpaper and it was shiny. Now we rigged up the same jig with the dowel and run the sand paper around in circles to get that spun steel look. And then used a nail to etch out the three circles.



Then its a trip to the car shop for some duplicolor metalcraft anodising paints. We wanted the steel grain to show through the paint and decided, etch primer? we don't need no stinking etch primer!


Red came out looking good. And we can definitely see the scratches under the paint. So onto the two dollar shop to buy some dog collars for the shield straps. And some webbing belts and some eva foam for the buckle. This is were things get a bit mad going over board. We make a steel template for the bottom to give it strength and then foam and bond over the top. Some metallic pant with the airbrush and a cap like belt buckle.




Looks the deal, we had grand plans about using RE magnets but in the end i riveted the parts together and closed the belt at the back.

Cap isn't complete without his wicked looking harness, so the same process as above, steel backing (scraps from the sat dish cutdown) and some creative foam and bond work later. Webbing belts cut down and died.



And its a convincing looking harness. Now I had to think about the star on the front of the shield. I hit the school fairs with Jack. He got lots of new toys and I got a small square cake tin made of aluminium. The base was removable and the right size for the star. Some handy tin snip work and etching with a nail point. Some ados F2 glue and a dreadful scream as it didn't work and lifted some pain around the edges. Jacks vocal grows daily. So a rush over to a friends house to get a riveter and some tiny rivets. Some prestidigitation and a cool star with built in battle scaring.

We used the airbrush to add some more battle scars.



Then back to the helmet to add those leather ear warmers. I cut up a $1 handbag for the fake leather and learnt to hand sow. Then back out with the airbrush and all it needs is a chin strap.


So after all that, about 5 weeks I guess, its finally ready for halloween. Here is Jack's Captain America TWS pose with his TFA suit.



Star was cut from foam and glued on to his blue top, boots are snowballs and dark cotton trousers complete the ensemble.



Heres the back of the harness, while Cap gives Iron Man a slap down.



And just so you know I'm making none of this up the cowl has a chinstrap!

This entry is complete. :thumbsup