Mecha Cosplay

[DeusVult]

I decided to go to my first con next year and while I'm at it go all out and cosplay too. (Animazement 2010)

I've chosen to do a mecha suit.

[color="Red"][SIZE="3"]MSN-04 Sazabi[/SIZE][/color]

I know its going to be tons of work and expensive. But I got till May and hoping a lil bit of my technical abilities will aid me.


[color="DarkRed"]Shield Part 1[/color]
Here is a pic of me micing the model for the base shield piece. This takes a long time to do. I think I may scan flat shapes like this and trace (vector) over them and then dimension and scale them up in CAD.
[SPOILER][/SPOILER]

Have no room in the house to do this. So its out in the cold dark driveway.
[SPOILER][/SPOILER]

Marking out the lines on the polystyrene. The Minwax was just for weights.
[SPOILER][/SPOILER]

I found that cutting with a long fine tooth blade like a steel hacksaw blade works very well.
[SPOILER][/SPOILER]

[Ante Bellum]

Wow. I want to see how this turns out!

[Esoteric]

Yeah, very ambitious, but very cool! I'd love to see the finished product.

[ShiroiHikari]

You get 500 cool points for cosplaying a Mobile Suit and 500 more for making it the Sazabi.

[steenajack]

I'd like to see how this turns out. Looks pretty neat.

[DeusVult]

Thanks everyone! I'll try to keep everyone posted on progress once or twice a week. I was thinking of doing a blog as that would probably be easier to follow.

I basically have all my materials now. I'm still searching for some used drywall stilts. I'm going to do some experimenting with Bondo Filler tonight.

[CrimsonRyu17]

HAIL NEO ZEON!

Srsly, keep us updated on this. You got 1k cool points from me.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I was gonna say that sounds a little over-ambitious for your first time, but it looks like you've got your head on straight and you're going about it with the right tools, so hey! Best of luck!

[DeusVult]

Thanks 4 the cool pts.

I started a blog for this. It makes things easier. Come check it out.
http://mecha-madness.blogspot.com/

Most recent post is first.

[DeusVult]

Well, things are a little slower than I like. But I blame the holidays and the weather for now.

LOTS and LOTS of sanding. . .and Bondo. . . and sanding.

I have finished the shield for the most part (Still have to make it's arm attachment) It may get warm enough to paint it this week. If not then I'll have to postpone it later.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

I'm working on the gun. Which went together much faster and easier than the shield. I may have to shrink the back end though, simply because my human anatomy doesn't allow for a long arm to place the butt of the gun against my shoulder. One more evening and this should be done.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Next will be the feet. I already have this drawn up in CAD, but have only cut out the bottom sole. I also got my stilts in last week. And, um, I may not use them. They give me a height increase of 24-36" But I only really need about 15" And they are VERY hard to walk on. I don't think I will have time to practice on them and get good enuff to walk on them with a large suit on. I will prolly just build large platforms out of wood. Anybody want to buy some stilts?

[Esoteric]

Bondo = lots of sanding
Maybe you can find something a little softer for small, non-structural fills.

Looks great so far! And yeah, ditch the stilts. Cool as they might sound, the last thing you want to be doing at a Con is screaming, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!" You'd be sure to break your costume too, or yourself.
Six inch platform soles would probably be as high as I'd go.

[ShiroiHikari]

Glad to see you making progress! Ganbatte!

[DeusVult]

Bondo = lots of sanding
Maybe you can find something a little softer for small, non-structural fills.

Looks great so far! And yeah, ditch the stilts. Cool as they might sound, the last thing you want to be doing at a Con is screaming, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!" You'd be sure to break your costume too, or yourself.
Six inch platform soles would probably be as high as I'd go.

Thanks! Yeah I was wondering if I was going to reinforce the shield so in case I felt wobbly I would use it like a crutch. Proportionally it doesn't work and defn the danger of me falling is Very high. So yes, Ditched!

I was considering using some drywall spackling. (We have a couple 5 gallon buckets of it) I'll have to test it out. The bondo is not bad but it does eat through a lot of sand paper and is pretty rough on my sander and dremel tools.

Glad to see you making progress! Ganbatte!

Thanks, *prays for rain less evenings and no complications.*

[Esoteric]

I was considering using some drywall spackling. (We have a couple 5 gallon buckets of it) I'll have to test it out. The bondo is not bad but it does eat through a lot of sand paper and is pretty rough on my sander and dremel tools.

Drywall spackling might work...a little on the brittle side maybe. Since you have so much of it, it's certainly worth a test. If you find that Bondo is just too troublesome for so many small superficial surfaces, you might try a Polyester Filler. I work at a place that manufactures/paints fiberglass raydomes. The painters there like [color="Navy"]Poly Filler RT[/color] because it dries fast, shrinks very little, and sands easy. It's purely cosmetic though, not structural, so you would need to fix your joints with a glue/epoxy/Bondo first, then smooth them over with PF. A quart kit costs about $20. Not sure how far that would get you, and unlike Bondo which you can get at any hardware store, you'd probably have to order RT straight from PTM&W. Anyway, like I said it's an option if you get desperate.

[DeusVult]

Drywall spackling might work...a little on the brittle side maybe. Since you have so much of it, it's certainly worth a test. If you find that Bondo is just too troublesome for so many small superficial surfaces, you might try a Polyester Filler. I work at a place that manufactures/paints fiberglass raydomes. The painters there like [color="Navy"]Poly Filler RT[/color] because it dries fast, shrinks very little, and sands easy. It's purely cosmetic though, not structural, so you would need to fix your joints with a glue/epoxy/Bondo first, then smooth them over with PF. A quart kit costs about $20. Not sure how far that would get you, and unlike Bondo which you can get at any hardware store, you'd probably have to order RT straight from PTM&W. Anyway, like I said it's an option if you get desperate.

That Poly filler sounds like a winner. A tad Expensive though. I'll have to check it out next time I do a project like this. (I already bought the big gallon of bondo so best to use that up) I tried the light spackle yesterday. It was great to work with and really helped smooth the rest of my bumps and valleys. It also sanded VERY easily. As long as this stuff doesnt crack too easy i think I found a winning combo here. I'm hoping once I base coat with some OOPS latex paint it will help prevent any cracking. The one downside to all of this. My parts ar starting to get quite heavy.

(I also read on some R/C foam planes forums they use the drywall spackling and latex paint)

[DeusVult]

[SPOILER]
[/SPOILER]
Quote from "The Longest Day"

-I got a gun Sarge!
-Well good for you.

[Esoteric]

Awesome.
If drywall mud works okay then hey, use it! With the weapons finished, you'll just have the hardest part left.

[DeusVult]

I'm so excited that it's snowing again, but sad cause another weekend is shot again from working on the cosplay. I've pretty much lost all of January.

EDIT:

Well didn't do much with the suit, because I was procrastinating by sledding at the local school. XD

I did manage to get the bare guts working for my eye. I took the RC components of a Tyco Rebound, the motor off a sailboat rudder, and the battery pack off of some other thing from long ago. Next I will build a housing to drop in a bunch of LEDS. Then mount this in my helmet. I still have to tear apart the controller and make it small enough to fit in my glove.[SPOILER][/SPOILER]