Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Mega Optimus Prime Costume Update (Yes, I resisted saying Megatron. (Does that still count?))

Last night I got 2 more sheets of styrofoam and between then and now made a lot of progress. I began by cutting arm holes in the torso. Measurements were kind of rough as I just tried the torso on and made utility knife cuts roughly where the front and back of my arm would go. A quick test proved everything worked just fine.

Next I decided to do the top of the chest. For this I put the torso upside down onto a piece of foam and traced it. Any of the detailing Optimus Prime has can be added later, so I didn't need to worry about doing any bizarre cuts... at this point anyway. I designed the top so that it'll slide back toward my neck and then the small rectangular piece will be inserted at the back to lock everything in place.

Here's a dry run. Unfortunately, the styrofoam I got from Home Depot this time went through hell. It was warped pretty bad (as you can see by the left side curling up) and had divots knocked out of it everywhere.




I decided to get around this problem by using wooden dowels that, once glued in place, would hopefully hold everything down. Didn't work. At all.







The following picture is the top now being glued down.




... and a view from inside of the now larger head hole. (It's still not too bad. I plan on wearing a red turtleneck under this anyway so it'll all work out.)



I screwed up earlier when tracing the torso for sizing how big the top should be. I forgot about the extra overhang where Optimus Prime's windows will be. I traced where the top left off and mirrored the line the distance of the windows' thickness away from the original.

Next (you guessed it), I glued
the new extended overhang on.

















Here's the new overhang after being carved and rounded. In retrospect, maybe the Transformer I picked should've been Shockwave, he's much more boxy.









I also began working on the second forearm. Since this has already been flogged to death earlier, I'll just show the pics:





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This costume rulez.