Apr 13
Finally getting to a point I like with the Ryo costume… latest plastic pass on the calf armor is showing reflections, which means it’s pretty smooth. These aren’t painted yet, though I am using black tinted plastic for the newest layers.
Left pic shows a reflection of the foot part (among other things), right is showing some reflections of the room light. Smooth and shiny, the way I like it…
Apr 12
Well, hopefully this will help make A-Kon happy…
Apr 10
At this point, it sounds like A-Kon is worried about me poking someone in the eye (with my foot, knee, or hand spikes), and litigation as a result. Or maybe that Dallas PD will be upset about the costume. Still no word on if soft foam spikes are okay, or how round the spikes would have to be to be acceptable (or if they have to be round as hard spikes, or round as soft spikes, or both).
I think maybe I should bring Gourry with his broken sword (no point!) to A-Kon, and bring Ryo to another Dallas or local con that has lesser restrictions. Better remember not to bring the Sword of Light hilt to A-Kon, it’s got spikes, which are probably not allowed…
Update: Finally got word that soft foam spikes would be acceptable. Or that hard spikes will be okay if I can “cup my palm over them”, whatever that means. Though for some reason, the main acceptance person with A-Kon keeps telling me when the Fri/Sat hall cosplay contests are, even though I never asked about that. The website is fairly clear about when/where to go for that…
Apr 7
It sounds like I might not be able to wear Ryo around A-Kon, because of the spikes on the left hand, both knees, and both feet. I already knew the katanas wouldn’t be allowed, but I was hoping to get away with soft foam cast versions of the katanas for that. But the spikes on the armor possibly preventing me from walking around the con? That’s kind of upsetting. I’m asking for details now, we’ll see if it works out or not.
Edit: A picture of the issue portions of the armor. Their worries seem to be about the spikes on his left hand, feet, and knees. Knees are ugly right now, so I didn’t include them in the shot, but others:
Apr 3
I think I’m about 80% there.. nearly all the armor is created, if not sanded. None of the parts are assembled yet, and nothing is painted. I’m mostly filling dents and smoothing armor at this point, getting ready for final construction.
Add material, it gets lumpy, sand it smooth, add a protective coating, repeat, repeat, repeat…
Note to self – don’t try using Smooth-On’s 320 Smooth Cast plastic with acrylic paint as a tint. It just doesn’t work.
First, it doesn’t mix properly, then as it casts, it foams up…
Then it breaks apart as it’s demolded…
Complete failure. Ah, well, it was worth a try.
Mar 3
Finally got around to soldering up some LEDs as a test for Wing Zero’s beam saber blade…
This “blade” is made up of 48 super bright LEDs (15,000 mcd, 2.2v, 25mA), wired to a 9v battery with a 4 ohm resistor. I didn’t use a flash in these photos, but I do have lights on in the room.
Feb 14
I’m not sure why, but my sleep schedule has been seriously weird lately, mostly involving long periods of insomnia. Go to bed between 7 and 9pm, wake up at midnight? Grah.. rage.
Trying to shift back to a more normal sleep schedule isn’t exactly easy, but I’m working at it.
Feb 9
Continued progress on Wing Zero – the Twin Buster Cannon and shield..
Feb 2
When using my carver, I work with 1/2″ insulation foam for the most part. This is good, since the thinnest router bit I can get of any decent length is a 1/8″ bit that is 0.625″ long, perfect for carving that thickness. To build up thicker items, I carve one layer at a time, gluing them together as I go.
This works well, but means the lower layers have a lot of “unused” space (areas that are actually carved on higher layers), which the carver used to move over. I just changed the code so it doesn’t do that anymore. Test piece, Gundam Wing Zero’s head, center layer. Old estimated time – 138 mins, for what would mostly be an outline at that level. New actual carve time – 10 mins. Not too shabby…
The best part is, the new code can be improved further. Right now it finds the first “local minimum”, meaning that it’ll find the fastest point to move to from each known point along the path. This can lead to non-optimal results, but at least they’re still far, far faster than the old technique.
