Taking and giving

So this post is a bit of an announcement / cry for help. I really want to better myself regarding this whole prop replica-making thing (because, as it turns out, it is all kinds of crazy fun to do). Eventually it would be super awesome to sell some creations but I'm nowhere near that level yet, and if I want to get to that level, I need to practice. So, what, then?

So give me ideas. If you give me an idea for something to make, and I make it, and you like the results (and if it's not cripplingly-cost-prohibitive), it's yours. Free*.

So please, leave a comment or whatever with something you think would be awesome to see come to life. Please note I will only work from suggestions posted in the comments below, so that there is a documented chronology to requests.

Thanks!

*yes, an exception! Free except shipping and handling, which would be determined at the time of shipping

Headcrab Zombie

So for a long time I've wanted to make a Half-Life costume. Originally, I wanted to do Gordon Freeman, and I even got so far as printing out the giant pepakura model and started gluing a bunch of cut-out polygons together. But life wound up making me put that project to rest when I moved to a small apartment with my (then) girlfriend (who is now my wife) and space was simply not available. Now that we have a house together and I have room to do extensive costuming, I'm back in business! So what do I do? A Half-Life costume! But I've seen some Gordon Freeman costumes online and, honestly, not many impressed me. Also, I'm losing my hair a bit and nobody wants to see a balding Gordon.

Figure 1 - a headcrab

So I opted for another iconic Half-Life costume: the Headcrab Zombie.

Dovahkiin Iron Helmet

My wife's recently been playing a lot of Skyrim, and so when deciding upon Halloween costumes for this year, she naturally gravitated toward Dovahkiin. She set out on replicating the studded armor, but she was without helm. Being that she works a lot and has little free time, I volunteered to make the helmet for her while she tailors and sews the rest of her armor.

I took this project up 9 days before our Halloween party, excited about trying my hand at something like this and, at the same time, nervous about the time crunch (my own costume is still not complete!).

Proton Pack

Here's a confession: I love Ghostbusters. Ever since I was a little kid, I've been infatuated with the movies and the cartoon. I've always wanted to be a Ghostbuster and so, for Halloween of 2009, I decided to be one.

I made this decision early in the year, in about March, so that I could get to work early. I found blueprints online (which I later found out had been long derided by the larger proton-pack-making community as being not close enough to screen-accurate) and began assembling items. Being that I wasn't all that concerned with being super screen-accurate, I had no qualms with using dimensions largely condemned by the community.

Oh, and one more thing - I wasn't making just one proton pack. No, I was going to make four, for myself and three friends.

By Halloween.

Love and Hate

The in-game model

My wife's favorite game of all time is Fallout: New Vegas, and her favorite weapon to use in that game is a pair of brass knuckles called "Love and Hate". For her birthday one year I decided to make these for her.

I didn't exactly photodocument their construction at all, but at least I can put these pictures here. The main part was made out of MDF, the letters were cut out of thin balsa wood, and the spikes were a wooden dowel sharpened with a pencil sharpener.

 Spraypainted with a metallic brass finish, then some polyurethane spray on top.

I recognize that they're far from perfect, but I was under the wire and not all that proficient with, well, making stuff. The important part is that she loved them. At the time, I only had a coping saw to cut the MDF, so it came out pretty bad. With my current tools, I feel like I could probably do a whole lot better. In fact, maybe I'll give it another try...

Obligatory first "welcome" post

So I'm starting this blog primarily because I'm about half done with a pretty involved Halloween costume, and I wanted a way to share its documented progress with folks. I tried posting pictures on g+, but they're just static and there's no real way to fully communicate my crafting and thought processes without creating a million posts and flooding peoples' pages.

So I'm resorting to a blog. I'm just going to create a post with the progress thus far, and will edit it as it nears completion. Additionally, I will probably create other posts that detail the construction process of past costumes (like the Ghostbuster costume). Anyways, yeah.