Velluminous
New Member
Hello everybody!
(Edit: Just a heads up, I'm looking for some ideas on how to make an internal structure for this. It needs to be collapsible and strong enough to support, while being as light-weight as possible! Comment your thoughts/suggestions below, or link to large-sized builds on therpf that have internal supports. THANKS!!!)
Hope I'm posting this in the right section! So... Where to begin with this? It all started around the end of September last year. I had always wanted an EPIC halloween costume. I'd happened across Black Meadow Studio's Snorlax and thought "You know what? That's the kind of outfit I want. That's what I'm doing. I'm gonna make a full scale, 1:1 Snorlax."
I'd dabbled in a little Iron Man foam armor before (I made the feet, shins, and thighs but ran out of time/motivation), so I had a basic understanding of how to put this together... I just didn't really have the time. You see, it was already the end of September. That gave me one month to knock out this entire thing before Halloween hit.
Go big or go home, right?
Part One: Putting the ideas to paper.
Day 1: So I'd picked out the costume. Hard step done, right? The problem was, there really wasn't a design out there for a costume like this. Black Meadow Studio's Snorlax actually had designs you could buy, but that would require an overhead projector and a few other things that I just really did not have the time/space/money for. So I was on my own on this one. I could try to free-hand this, but let's face it; I have no artistic talent to speak of and it would've looked terrible. That left me with the only option I could think of... Learning how to use Pepakura Designer.
I was already familiar with Pepakura Viewer from my dabbling with Iron Man about 7 years prior... Rusty? Totally. On top of that, now I had to find a model of Snorlax (3D model, no less!) or design my own model. Thankfully, I found a guy who had ripped all the Pokemon Go models. I managed to get it imported into PepDesigner and was immediately assaulted by a giant red mess. Oh yeah.. that's right. Now I have to unfold this thing myself. What had I gotten myself in to?
To be absolutely honest, I was skeptical. But more importantly, I was motivated by excitement. I was gonna do this. I only really had some flimsy card stock (no one in this area sells the good card stock needed to pep costumes) to print on.. and we're talking regular sheets of paper. So I had a mile of cutting and taping to do before this thing would be anywhere close to assembled. A week had almost gone by, and I barely had Snorlax close to anything resembling unfolded. I decided to focus on the head first. Probably not the smartest idea, as anyone who does any costuming will tell you that the first place anyone looks is the face... So if you don't get that right, everyone will notice. Thankfully, this guy would end up covered in fur, so minor blemishes in cutting and gluing would be pretty much unnoticed. It was all a matter of getting the shape right.
At least all I needed to do was bisect Snorlax down the middle, print half his body, then just flip the cut-out for the other half. That would save me time (and materials!).
Day 6: I'd managed to get half of Snorlax's head unfolded (granted, it would still need tweaking here and there to fit on printed pages). So I printed my first test print. His face. It wasn't much, but it was enough to give me an idea on the scale. I'd gone too small. If I wanted a full 1:1 Snorlax, I'd need a 6'11" costume. At what I was calling "size 8", the costume would be about a foot and a half short (Which would be a problem, as I'm 6'2" tall, so the costume would be shorter than me!). To keep things simple, I set things up to "size 10", and started re-printing. Below, you'll see my first attempt at printing, followed by my second attempt, and a size comparison. You might be thinking, "Oh, that barely fits on that chair." Yeah, that's a cuddle recliner. It's a two-person chair. This was gonna be HUGE.
With a giant Snorlax face staring at me (and the smaller test version taped to the living room wall courtesy of my kids), I began unfolding with renewed vigor.
Day 9: By now, I was starting to get back into the groove of things. Cutting and taping.. it was all coming back to me. I started working on the ears next. Here's a picture of HALF of the ear unfolded in front of my keyboard... Just so you get an idea of how big this thing is. By this time, my wife was ready to kill me. I'd only printed the face and an ear and our color ink cartridges were screaming "no more!"... and seeing as how it was my wife's printer, I realized I was now going to have to grey-scale everything. Anyways... I had been printing, cutting, and taping like a maniac. I was nervous, but it was about time to begin the next step... the one where I really would need to commit; The Transition to Foam.
To be continued...
(Edit: Just a heads up, I'm looking for some ideas on how to make an internal structure for this. It needs to be collapsible and strong enough to support, while being as light-weight as possible! Comment your thoughts/suggestions below, or link to large-sized builds on therpf that have internal supports. THANKS!!!)
Hope I'm posting this in the right section! So... Where to begin with this? It all started around the end of September last year. I had always wanted an EPIC halloween costume. I'd happened across Black Meadow Studio's Snorlax and thought "You know what? That's the kind of outfit I want. That's what I'm doing. I'm gonna make a full scale, 1:1 Snorlax."
I'd dabbled in a little Iron Man foam armor before (I made the feet, shins, and thighs but ran out of time/motivation), so I had a basic understanding of how to put this together... I just didn't really have the time. You see, it was already the end of September. That gave me one month to knock out this entire thing before Halloween hit.
Go big or go home, right?
Part One: Putting the ideas to paper.
Day 1: So I'd picked out the costume. Hard step done, right? The problem was, there really wasn't a design out there for a costume like this. Black Meadow Studio's Snorlax actually had designs you could buy, but that would require an overhead projector and a few other things that I just really did not have the time/space/money for. So I was on my own on this one. I could try to free-hand this, but let's face it; I have no artistic talent to speak of and it would've looked terrible. That left me with the only option I could think of... Learning how to use Pepakura Designer.
I was already familiar with Pepakura Viewer from my dabbling with Iron Man about 7 years prior... Rusty? Totally. On top of that, now I had to find a model of Snorlax (3D model, no less!) or design my own model. Thankfully, I found a guy who had ripped all the Pokemon Go models. I managed to get it imported into PepDesigner and was immediately assaulted by a giant red mess. Oh yeah.. that's right. Now I have to unfold this thing myself. What had I gotten myself in to?
To be absolutely honest, I was skeptical. But more importantly, I was motivated by excitement. I was gonna do this. I only really had some flimsy card stock (no one in this area sells the good card stock needed to pep costumes) to print on.. and we're talking regular sheets of paper. So I had a mile of cutting and taping to do before this thing would be anywhere close to assembled. A week had almost gone by, and I barely had Snorlax close to anything resembling unfolded. I decided to focus on the head first. Probably not the smartest idea, as anyone who does any costuming will tell you that the first place anyone looks is the face... So if you don't get that right, everyone will notice. Thankfully, this guy would end up covered in fur, so minor blemishes in cutting and gluing would be pretty much unnoticed. It was all a matter of getting the shape right.
At least all I needed to do was bisect Snorlax down the middle, print half his body, then just flip the cut-out for the other half. That would save me time (and materials!).
Day 6: I'd managed to get half of Snorlax's head unfolded (granted, it would still need tweaking here and there to fit on printed pages). So I printed my first test print. His face. It wasn't much, but it was enough to give me an idea on the scale. I'd gone too small. If I wanted a full 1:1 Snorlax, I'd need a 6'11" costume. At what I was calling "size 8", the costume would be about a foot and a half short (Which would be a problem, as I'm 6'2" tall, so the costume would be shorter than me!). To keep things simple, I set things up to "size 10", and started re-printing. Below, you'll see my first attempt at printing, followed by my second attempt, and a size comparison. You might be thinking, "Oh, that barely fits on that chair." Yeah, that's a cuddle recliner. It's a two-person chair. This was gonna be HUGE.
With a giant Snorlax face staring at me (and the smaller test version taped to the living room wall courtesy of my kids), I began unfolding with renewed vigor.
Day 9: By now, I was starting to get back into the groove of things. Cutting and taping.. it was all coming back to me. I started working on the ears next. Here's a picture of HALF of the ear unfolded in front of my keyboard... Just so you get an idea of how big this thing is. By this time, my wife was ready to kill me. I'd only printed the face and an ear and our color ink cartridges were screaming "no more!"... and seeing as how it was my wife's printer, I realized I was now going to have to grey-scale everything. Anyways... I had been printing, cutting, and taping like a maniac. I was nervous, but it was about time to begin the next step... the one where I really would need to commit; The Transition to Foam.
To be continued...
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