Definitive Ant-Man 2015 Costume Thread

I have a bit of time, so I'm going to try before the end of the week to put things onto the pants that I had considered forgiveable if they were not there or at least temporarily optional.

These details include the details on the calf and ankle of the rear of the pants as well as often forgotten armored cable that attaches to tubing near the knees.
Reference:

Promotional image of the back of the pant legs. Calf details.
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Suit on Display at a comic con a year or two ago. Note the armored cables outside the knees.


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Eldridge Arts suit WIP and her solution.
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Sewing foam-fabricated calf attachments and velcro to the back of the ant pants.
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Trying the pants on with the boots for the first time. The tension of the pants being worn on the front plastic joints was too much, as I suspected. I wanted to try this gorilla glue hot glue stick everyone has been swearing by. It didn't do worth a damn. I stand by my statement: Hot glue is a lazy and unreliable solution to most cosplay applications. Don't ever rely on it. Take the time to use a overnight-setting contact cement and never glue what you can screw or sew.

All things considered, I like how the pants look. They are without a doubt the best fit as my untailorable jacket is slightly too large for me and the arms too long. Way too late to worry about that now. After this try on I added some stitches to the calf accessories and a bit of stick on velcro to the sides to hold it wrapped around my calves. These pants are not at all like the actual suit pants and have an elastic opening in the rear so the pants fit the wearer and stretch for him. That made it tricky to attach these things so I sewed over the elastic part and used velcro on the leather parts on the sides.
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Tonight I'll see about attaching that cable to the knee area. I have an idea about running rigid wire through it and attaching the wire on both ends with some stitches and wax thread, then covering those stitches with plastic or clay joints.
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8/17/17
I think I had to get the most creative on this project last night when I had to come up with a leg hose and cable assembly and make it attach. A few failed attempts with crafting thread and big leather awls left me frustrated when I just couldnt' pull the big needle through the leather even with a pair of pliars. I could get the needle to poke through but the back end where the thread was just wouldn't go through. I felt like I was doing more damage to the suit than improvements.

So here's the apparatus I added:
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It is made from a plastic T joint, the same armored cable as the helmet to back connections, rubber tubing for the lower part to match piping and tubing on the suit, foam for the secondary joint, and then some rigid crafting wire inside to hold it all together and give it some shape. I could probably remove the wire now that the glue and thread has set but I might leave it. I like the idea of having more real metal on the suit.

So to attach it, I had to settle with a more pointed needle and standard thread. I don't know much about sewing but I saw in a video that you can make a loop with thread and double run it through stuff for strength, so that's what I did. I double thread stitched the stuff into place and then used Barge contact cement. After it set overnight it seemed pretty sturdy. Let's hope that doesnt' change when I put on the pants. There is a lot of stress over bendy knee joints.

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I still need to make it look like this assembly connects to the piping running down the front of the leg, but I have a couple of options. Will probably have to cut out more piping which is not fun, but I'm getting better at it. I've learned that resharpening an exacto knife or a box cutter regularly makes a HUGE difference in how easy it can cut through things. All this time I was just wearing them down then changing the blades.

The helmet is still in transit. It's made it to my state capital. But it says delivery is tomorrow. That's cutting it close. This all has to be done, reliable, and ready to meet and greet kids at an event on Saturday and I still have to attach the back box to the suit jacket.

ONWARD!
 
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The helmet looks nice. I used magnets to hold my helmet faceshield on as well. I didn't wire LEDS in mine, though. That's a nice touch.

Keep up the great updates!
 
So getting the helmet in my hands on time turned out to be a little dramatic. The post office sent it to the wrong zip code. I had to drive 90 minutes round trip to where they were holding it for me.

I get the helmet in hand, put in on excitedly, and learn that the helmet is MUCH too narrow for me on the Z axis. From the back of my head to the removeable face plat I am pushing the face plate out with my brow and nose.

This means that last night getting the suit ready I had to dremel out the back of the helmet and removeall rear padding to make up some of that face. The end results is I can wear it and get away with the helmet, but the contacts to light up the eyes are intermittant and I'll have to do further dremeling to make up some of that space I need by setting the lenses farther forward in the helmet before Dragon*Con. Here I am trying on the helmet for the first time:

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The final leg hose (That I had time for anyway) was sewn and glued on to the pants and I got the antennae attached to the helmet and powered it up. Velcro was added to the VERY heavy back box (more on that later. The weight created problems you should know about if you try this) and as you can see here, I also glued velcro to the jacket.
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I should note that the velcro glued AND adhered to the back of the jacket was still not enough. It must be sewn. The constant moving around is just too stressful on glue or adhesive. Even industrial strength adhesive. Sew it if you can. That also goes for all the tubing and piping. ALL the glue gave out except in a couple of key spots. All the stitches held.

But getting back to suiting up fully for the first time...

Here I am putting on the completed pants...then the cowl....and then finally the suit...
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A couple of armored cable attachments extend from the box and provide power to the helm. The cables are plenty long for me to hook up my own cables and let them dangle on my shoulders when de-helmeting...

Finally, after over six weeks I got these pics of the full ensemble taken by my 8 year old son late Friday night...
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And then it was off to the races for a hectic day taking pics with kids and fans at a cancer benefit. I didn't get many shots of my own but was able to pull these shots together....

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Lots of fun and I'm pretty excited with how it came out!

Now...dry run lessons learned, builders, TAKE HEED:

1) My back box is very heavy with a battery in it. It wanted to keep pulling the neck of the jacket into my throat and that trashed the neck apparatus. I will have to add velcro to keep the suit in its regular position. Maybe sew some behind the front of the jacket and onto the pants so that the jacket stays forward and resists the back box pulling the neck up.

2.) As mentioned before: Barge contact cement is ok enough for foam parts, but all of the latex, or 3d printed, or velcro I used it on...especially tubing...it came off in droves. Sew, sew sew. Almost eveything I sewed stayed on perfectly.

3.) There are some high stress areas that just CANNOT withstand sitting or moving around. My partial Y joints at the thigh in front of the pants? There is a giant crease that forms right under then when I sit. Plastic just CAN'T stay in place with that kind of stress even if you sew it. I will attempt to make bendy foam joints there to replace the strong plastic ones that just ripped off the pants when I sat....or dont' sit. But when you take off the pants they'll pop off from that stress so yeah...

4.) Paint came off of the tubes massively. Even with two coats. I suggest you try to paint the INSIDE of the tubes if you can so it cant' wear off and the tube itself makes its own clear coat.

5.) Even with a fan my lenses fogged up about halfway inside the helmet. Being able to remove the face plate was a godsend and was easily able to klenex off the lenses.

6.) I know it's not screen accurate but if you can work in a belt beer can holster to keep water handy, it's worth the sacrifice of accuracy.

7.) My antennae came off of the helmet easily after the event. When you adjust the helmet (you can see how low my eyes were in the helmet sometimes and it needed adjusting, but then that would push on the face and make the lights go off) be sure to adjust BETWEEN The antennae, because if you bump them, they want to bend or break! I will be adding wooden dowels or toothpics to my antennae to make them bond stronger to the helmet for when I forget to not adjust the helmet from the sides.

8.) Leather stretches out as you wear it and warm it. The pants went from feeling very tight to me having to pull them up constantly. Get suspenders. Even if your pants start off tight, they wont' be tight anymore after you've worn them a few times.

9.) if you can get pockets on your pants, go for it. I have none, and it sucked not having a wallet or a phone in times of need. OR have a handler friend follow you around. I had a volunteer and it really made my day so I could coordinate with the other Avenger characters there and find them between breaks.


I will be spending the next couple of weeks casually adding more and more stitches to the suit, replacing some rigid parts with bendy-forgiving ones, and trying to get the helmet to fit me better with more dremeling.

If I think of anything else, I'll pass it on!

Hope you enjoyed this build process! I will continue to keep learning and improving the suit as it has MANY shortcomings, but it seems to serve its purpose well.
 
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There were a few things I wanted to add to the suit when time permitted. I was able to knock out some of them over the weekend. So some parting details before Dragon*Con:


First I upped the details on the intricate collar area to put cross connecting joints and pipes. The ones on the side of the suit collar look like they are joined with a 4 way hub that doesn't resemble any other joints. I Just used a little heat gun and foam for those. The back of the neck was similar and I opted to just put a couple of T-Joints. I'm not sure if those will be visible when I wear the helmet. I give all of these a high chance of falling off with all the neck movement coming. The leather is triple thick and couldn't be sewn through without me drilling holes in the neck (Hey, I did it for the pants!). If and when lose these I'll follow up by reattaching them perhaps with velcro. Maybe that'll outlast the Barge Contact Cement and Hot Glue combo I'm using now on those select few pieces.
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Side Y Joints. One of the most visually fetching aspects of the suit is that the pipes come from a Y down the arm to a second Y opening back up at the forearm and then disappearing into the gloves. I don't have time to add tubing on the lower arm, but I did paint the seam chrome and add these Y joints which I hope can hold up with all the bending that'll happen there. I doubt it will hold up, but I'll try to add stitching to re-enforce them before I depart. This may require me to drill small holes through the leather if I cant' get my awl needles to punch through.
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Maybe I'll see some of you at Dragon*Con! I will be at the SFC Giant Marvel shoot on the Sunday of the con. Hilton Steps. 330-530p.
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Well, the goal was to be done by Dragon*Con, so here are some favorites from the big SCF Marvel shoot at Dragon*Con. Almost all goals were met except to have the helmet able to open at the touch of a button. I can still take the face plate off, which is a HUGE convenience, and the suit had a lot of stitches break and glue that came undone, but I don't think I lost any major pieces. Things can be repaired. I believe I will have the arms tailored to fit a bit more snug, but overall I'm extremely happy with how things worked out.
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Some parting words on my build:

I've learned talking to other Ant-Man builders that the best method for attaching tubes to the suit is not glue or sewing as I have tried (with double stitching and even thick waxed leather thread), but rather to actually use screws.

That's right. Simply screw a small threaded screw from inside the suit so the flat head is facing your body outward-facing and through the leather or material you use and into the tubes.

I did this after popping stitches at my first 2 outings and did not have a single tube come unattached on my third outing.

Here's a few final pics:View attachment Ant Low Adjusted.jpgimg_4267_37813786682_o RETOUCH copy.jpg img_4301_37813784752_o RETOUCH copy.jpgimg_4205_37797093476_o RETOUCH.jpgimg_4227_37587805610_o RETOUCH.jpgimg_4301_37813784752_o RETOUCH copy.jpgimg_4205_37797093476_o RETOUCH.jpgimg_4298_37587807360_o RETOUCH copy.jpgimg_4290_37587807840_o RETOUCH copy.jpgimg_4265_37587811030_o RETOUCH.jpgimg_4252_23993049038_o RETOUCH copy.jpgimg_4243_37813787622_o RETOUCH copy.jpgimg_4247_37587811770_o RETOUCH.jpgimg_4213_37797093256_o RETOUCH copy.jpgimg_4243_37813787622_o RETOUCH copy.jpgimg_4278_37135539084_o RETOUCH copy.jpg
 
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Another year, another Dragon*Con approaches. It's time to do some "finishing" on the suit. Things I ran out of time and gumption to do on the original build, but also things that have been driving me nuts.

First, the helmet. I took it to a fitting for an episode of NCIS which needed cosplayers. They turned the suit down because it was "too recognizeable." Great...anyway, on that trip the helmet fell and the resin spiral antennae broke off and broke in pieces. I always hated those things anyway. So I found a really great 3D model of the helmet and had a pair of accurate antennae printed up. Here's a side by side:
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Then, it's always bothered me to have to hold my face plate when I'm letting the lenses defog or getting some air. Even having a fan in the helmet is not enough sometimes. So I wanted to be able to mount the faceplate to look like the helmet was "open" as seen in the 2015 movie. This was a pain in theneck. Getting magnets to mount well enough to hold sucks. Glueing magnets sucks. Magnets pulling into each other sucks. I almost gave up on this...but I eventually got it to work! I used Neodymium rare earth magnets which can be cheaply found at Hobby Lobby. Here's how she looks:
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Now for my gloves. I've always found the tubing work to be hideous. The gloves never looked as good as the suit. I was lazy and I ran out of patience and time to find the right tubing. Also now that all of the paint is coming off of the body tubing, I know I needed to try a different material and paint method to redo the tubes.

I've settle on a method to redo those body tubes and will tackle them next. As a trial run, though, I finally fixed my horrible gloves with real tubes and a hopefully more durable paint method and tubing material.

Here's some shots of before, during, and after the changes. I love them now!
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I can't wait to suit up. I'm returning in a week to the first event I ever brought the suit out, a great local charity for kids with cancer. The build has come a long way in little adjustments, repairs, and upgrades since then!

What have I learned in this latest upgrade?

Superglue Gel is VERY useful. I got the idea from my buddy at Fincher Technologies who did the work on my helmet and back box electronics.

The gel is being used to hold my magnets in place and also I'm trying it out as a base holding method for the new glove tubes. If anything does come loose I will go back and stitch the tubes down as I had with the ugly old ones. You can't go wrong with a little silver thread.

I'm gonna toss up a couple pics of the Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp premieres. Had a lot of fun there with other cosplayers. You can clearly see on them how awful my tubing is deteriorating. Replacing them with better material and a better paint method is next.
 
These are photos from the Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp premieres with some great local cosplayers. You can really see how badly my tubes didn't hold paint and deteriorated from being in constant motion. I hope to remedy that soon. You can also see how badly the helmet antennae needed replacing and the ugly old glove work which I'm really glad is behind me. .

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Where do you keep personal items when wearing Ant-Man?

I suggest a black beer holster for water clipped onto your belt and THIS:
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It can be found in black inexpensively on Wish.com and it'll hold your wallet, phone, a water, tools, a camera, emergency glue, and whatever else you'd like.

I have it on one ONE of the photos above. It blends with the suit so well, I challenge you to find it!
 
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