Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood's gats

Image is © Penny Arcade.

In addition to the Blue Stars thing, I'm feeling the itch to build a prop. I've been wanting to make something from Penny Arcade for some time now, and I think Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood's pistols would be fun and simple. So with any luck, I'll get that started up soon.

It would likely be a MDF base with either hardboard or sintra detailing. I could also get around to using this heaping lump of Super Sculpey I have to sculpt the skulls/flip-cover on it. Anyways, this is just sort of a place holder post for now. I just wanted to get this idea up for the moment.

Uzay Blue Stars!

So I've been wanting to get back into Star Wars costuming. Not 501st costuming, mind you. I have ethical issues with the 501st at the moment. But Star Wars trooper costuming tends to be rather cheap, but great things can be done with it.

Feeding into it is my desire to build props and costumes that are obscure and quirky. I was scanning through my reference folder on my home computer a few weeks back and came upon some images of the Uzay Blue Stars Snowtrooper knockoff figure. It's all blue with yellow accents and a white rifle. What's odd about it is that the Turkish company apparently had the rights to the FIRST Star Wars movie figure line, and when Empire came around they had the molds for the Snowtrooper but didn't have the licence. PLEASE someone correct me on that if I'm wrong. My sources for that are iffy at best, but it certainly does seem plausible. So instead of haulting production, they just cast the guy in blue and changed the name to get around all that legal mumbo jumbo. So it's a semi-knockoff of sorts.

Regardless of the origin, it's too fun to pass up. The Snowtrooper overall is one of the cheaper, less intense Star Wars costumes, and since I'm doing a custom job, I get to change materials for my needs. I've drawn up some concept art for it (which I totally forgot to upload, but I'll post it later), and I've started on the coat portion of it. My concept for it brings the shiny ultramarine figure into the real world with subdued, matted blue armor and a darker navy blue cloth portion. I'm also changing the knees and boots to Biker Scout knees and boots. The boot change matches the figure, and though the figure doesn't have knee armor, I wanted to add them to go with the boots. Looks totally awesome on the concept art at least. I'm also changing the forearms to Stormtrooper forearms.

I have a guy who is trading me all the armor components I need for a few props that I want to get rid of. No word on when that's coming my way, though, since he's had to change plastic suppliers.

Guh, I lost my train of thought. I was rambling anyways, so I figured that's a good point to end this post anyways.

Iron Man Mk.1 project haulted

I've stopped my Iron Man Mk.1 project. It was my only semester project for my sculpture class, but I had other priorities as well. I'm a printmaking major, so when I needed to spend money on that, it meant any spending for the Iron Man project was delayed. But overall, it got too expensive. I was building the entire thing from scratch, using the cardboard/fiberglass/bondo method. When it permitted, I molded a single part to produce two, but even that wasn't cost-effective. Low estimates for what I've spent so far on it is about $600. A high estimate is $1000, and that's just not feasible for me at this time.

However, I'm not ending the project yet. Just putting it on the back burner. Until then, I will be taking on smaller, cheaper, less intense projects just to keep my creativity flowing and my portfolio growing.

This may get me into vacuum forming, though. My sculpture professor, though she is on her way out from the school, said that the ceramics kiln can be used to heat plastic as well, and it has racks on it, so it's perfect for vacforming plastic frames. And I might be able to build the vacuum unit on school funds if I dig around enough. But I'm not making plans for it right now. I need to take a break from the Iron Man financially.

Testing the Post-by-Email Feature

I'm testing the post by email feature that blogger has. If it works like I'm expecting, it will allow me to post more often, as I check my email about fifty times a day and don't always think about blogger - as you can tell by the recent Great Second Purging.

--
David Reimer

PURGE!

Okay so I flushed everything out of this stale blog. I'm not a blogger, I admit. But I do like to show progress and talk about my work. So I'm starting over. Again.

I'm not going to do any consistent updating, but if there is a way to subscribe to this, and you do, you'll be able to find my posts.

So I have three projects going on right now, under three different priorities:

1) Top priority is my original comic book version of Iron Man. Technically not the original because it's the gold revamp (so #2...) but still one of the original iconic suits. This one is actually for my sculpture independent study. My sculpture prof saw me working on the helmet over Christmas break and asked if it was for a full costume or just a one-off creation. I told her I wanted to build the whole thing, but it all depends on money and scheduling. So she offered to make it my one and only project if I took her independent study, and of course I jumped at the chance. I told her right off the bat, though, that it's highly unlikely that I'll finish it within the semester, but I'll shoot for at least a really nice display. I'm currently about half-way done with it.

2) Middle priority is a personal project, my first venture into the world of Pepakura. It's a paper craft program that allows users to import 3D models and "unfold" them and print them out as foldable paper projects. The Halo costuming community jumped all over this and several key builders have created free Halo pep files. I chose to enter the pep arena with the Halo 3 basic marines. I though it'd be easy, but the Marine helmet is one of the more complex helmets out there. LOL. The armor is fairly straight forward, though. The helmet is nearly ready for molding, so when i start on everything else it should go rather quickly. Plus the Marine choice will allow me to create some fun cloth components. I'm also hoping to wrangle in several of my local friends into building additional Marine costumes with me. I've offered to provide the armor components if they front the rest of their pieces and help out. My hope is to start a little squad (3 people, mayhaps?) for photo shoot purposes.

3) Lowest priority is my new Coruscant Guard from Shadows of the Empire. I made the helmet before out of cardboard, fiberglass, and bondo both as just a personal project and as a test bed for that particular method. It came out really well - asymmetrical but really well. Unfortunately I came upon tough times financially and had to sell it. But it went to a good home so at least some good came of it. At the time, though, I understood my design flaws and had the desire to rebuild it (and that completed one was actually version 2! Version 1 was never completed). I just never got around to it. With my introduction to the world of Pepakura, I chose to start the project anew, designing the helmet and working out design flaws in a 3D program called Rhino. From there I was able to import it into the Pepakura Designer and print it out. It's a rough model, but it's buildable and that's all I need. The model is currently about 2/3 built, and from there it will be fiberglassed and bondoed. I hope to design and build additional components of the costume using this method, as it will certainly work my muscles at 3D design.

For the handful of forums I visit, I created a progress bar showing these three costumes and their respective progress. Here it is so you can get a grasp of where I'm at right now. And this bar currently shows where I'm at as of today.