Engagement Party: Costume (Cardwave)

9 July 2007    1 Comment

As mentioned, our (chickz0r + me) engagement party was a costume party with the theme ‘something from your childhood’.

As most geeks my age would agree, Transformers rock. The choice was fairly easy.

So, I present, Cardwave:


(Again, using Will‘s photos rather than my own, as Chickz0r has the decent camera ;))

Cardwave is my tribute to the Decepticon Soundwave.

Due to time constraints, I didn’t get to finish Cardwave.
Some of the notable peices that are missing are anything below the waist (the ‘Transformer’ belt they all seem to have – which I’ve dubbed ‘Crotchular Protection, Legs), as well as completed painting – the day before the party I ran out of paint (at ~9pm), and given the party was at midday, I didn’t fancy the fumes of spraypainting it on the day.
Cardwave is also lacking his shoulder canon (that got left at home, I didn’t figure out a good way to attach it), and eject button (its…sort of there, just really crappy).
The hands are also done really badly – they’re all fleshy!
The ‘face guard’ part of the helmet also isn’t correctly trimemd, which resulted in the helmet trying to pop itself off half the time (which was rather uncomfortable)

Construction

Materials

Construction Process

I didn’t really know where to start from, or how to go about constructing a cardboard costume, so I went for the age old technique of ‘sticking stuff together and seeing how it looks’.
For the most part it worked well, but it did require an excessive amount of test fitting. The worst case of this was when I was home alone, tried it on after putting the shoulders and sides on, then found myself stuck – unable to move further in or out of the costume. In the end I managed to pickup a knife sitting on my desk and I cut arm holes in the side of the costume, but that was a scary time.

Once the cardboard was tapped together, I was a little worried about the structural integrity of the joints, as well as any potential ripping off of the masking tape as I put on/took off the costume. I decided to do a layer or two of paper mache to the insides of the joints. This gave me the benefit of extra ‘joining’ strength, as well as making the inside of the costume relativlty smooth, meaning it didn’t catch on my clothing.

The helmet was constructed in several phases.
First was the very basic “upside down U” look, where two peices of cardboard covered my ears, and curve was added at the top.


Getting some detail!

Detail was next, so Soundwaves two ‘ears’ were added. They joined fairly easily onto the existing ‘ears’ that I had, as well as the rest of the frame. One of the peices of cardboard I used was a bit thicker and heavier than the rest on the frame, so that had to be ripped off and replaced so things were a bit more symmetrical.

Next I had to figure out a way to make the face guard easily removable. In the end I made a ‘sliding’ system, which locked into some cardboard grooves I created in the helmet.

At this stage, I will admit, I was little worried. The costume didn’t look ‘great’. It looked like your regular cardboard costume (ie, crap). However, after that came styrene. I’ve never worked with styrene before, so like the rest of this adventure, it was a bit of guess work. The end result, I feel, was well worth the ‘risk’. The styrene finish looked fantastic.

At first, I tried creating ‘sleves’ if you will, that slid over the existing cardboard sections, then just gluing that down. Unfortunately, the cardboard wasn’t cut well, some was different thickness, some joints required extra tape, etc…and it would have been too much effort to get it all done like that.
Instead, I ended up cutting squares of styrene, and just gluing it on with a glue gun. If you’re working with anything thinner than 1mm styrene, be careful what glue gun you use. Mine is a 65w Arlec Glue Gun. Not fantastic quality, but it really heats up the glue….so much so that the styrene melted somewhat, but more importantly, nearly burnt my fingers through the styrene.


What was done before I left…

Some of the cutout styrene was painted already, some wasn’t. Since I was running out of time, I glued on what I could, then departed for Chickz0rs place.

Ryan rocked up the night before with my costume, styrene, paints and some tools.
I got to work and painted and cut out what else I could, painted with what little paint I had left, and went to the party the next day.

Next time..

Next time (if ever!) I do a costume like this, I’ll get all the cardboard first, and cut it into manageable sizes, rather than just cutting up various size boxes along the way. The biggest change I’d make would be to get all the same thickness/strength cardboard; that would save so much time/effort.

I love the effect the styrene gives, so I’d use that again, but much thinner. 1mm may seem tiny, but its a pain in the rear end to cut quickly.
0.25mm would be my best guess at a good thickness to use.
I guess if you didn’t want to use cardboard at all, 1mm (or even 1.5->2mm) thick stuff would be strong enough to make the entire costume out of. Adhering it (so that its actually strong enough to stand up to a bit of pressure) may be a problem though.

Finally, I’d actually draw the thing up/measure it to my body properly. The helmet (which was done nearly last) was so easy/quick to do because I had the measurements…and funnily enough, it worked first time.

‘Till all is one!

I will finish Cardwave, I’ll buy more paint, I’ll file down the corners, I’ll glue on more Styrene, and I’ll even make some legs for him.
When thats done, I’ll get many more photos (although, the quality of Will’s EOS20D really shows up compared to our S3 IS. I’ll just try get good lighting..)

Soundwave Superior, All other costumes Inferior


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