June's Seraphim Costume

[chaoticjune]

Thanks Finnlock, I really liked the Sisters costumes I saw from you. (I ended up here via a thread in dakka dakka where you posted a lot of your builds) It's good to know that it's easy to work with, with the talk about fumes and boiling water I was starting to get worried. And I've used a lot of hot glue and hobby knives myself, so I've probably got the some of the skills down already [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />

I'd appreciate any tips you have, this project is like 10x more ambitious than any I've attempted before!

I'm going to be purchasing most of the materials I plan to use for the hand flamers today or tomorrow, I figure I'll start with those and start a WIP thread in the inquisitor section when I'm actually "in progress".  One downside to being out here, is that it takes quite a while for items to arrive, so if I miss something it'll likely cause a long delay. Fortunately there's a hardware store, and a small (extremely overpriced) craft store on island.

[chaoticjune]

So, the supplies for my hand flamers are ordered (provided I didn't miss anything)

I decided to go with a supersoaker thunderstorm for the base, and I'll be squaring it out with plasticard. The magazine and part of the magazine holder will go, but otherwise I think it matches the general shape pretty well. I've got an LED light bar for the fuel indicator, since i thought it'd look neat, and was way cheaper than a real gauge. (and painting one doesn't seem like it'll look right at this scale) I found an inexpensive flex light to use, I'll be hooking all the lights up to a single slide switch. If I do it right with the tank (maybe go cheap with a 12 oz soda bottle???) the squirt function could possibly still work, no way to tell until it's in my hands. I'm hoping i can heat and bend the plasticard for the nozzle portion, and I've got to find some sort of bluish material (or just classic flame yellow) for the 'pilot light'.

Here's my sketch:


and here's the super soaker:


and here's the inspiration for a hand flamer:

[Finnlock]

If you saw the one I made on DakkaDakka I used a toy MP5 for the base and the body was made from Sintra.

The super soaker is a great idea, however for the fule tank I used contact clearner solution bottles, they had the shape and size I was looking for. Maybe you'll find something better where you are, but all soda and water bottles didn't look right to me.

I also have soem hydrogen prooxide bottles I have been saving because they have roughtly the same shape and scale as the ones I used and lastly I have been saving soeo of the empty smooth on resin bottles for the same reason.

Anyway there are lots of options out there for the tanks.

If you need any castings of fluers, skulls, eagles or purity seals LMK and I'll ship some out to you.
Just PM an address

[chaoticjune]

Thanks Finnlock, I might have to take you up on your generous offer, but I'll wait until I have solid progress before wasting your time. I really like some of the castings I saw in other threads [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />

They have this tiny 12 oz soda bottles here which are basically just shorter versions of the normal 20 oz bottles. The bottle itself would be all wrong for a flamer tank though, so I would have to wrap it in a different material to make it look right. (then I could attach it to the gun via the threads, and have a water-tight tank for the squirt gun function.) In all reality though, I will probably end up ruining the squirt gun functionality, or skipping it due to aesthetics.

I do have some contact solution bottles that would probably look okay, but I'd basically have to waste the solution, I don't have any empties. It might be something to think about though [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />

[Gunhead]

Thanks for the concept drawings.

Finn: Am I on crack to suggest larger chest piece and shoulders (or am I just too used to SM armour now)?  [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' />

EDIT: And NO I am not suggesting a larger "cup" size!!! [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/rolleyes.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rolleyes.gif' />

[PhoenixRevival]

Thanks for sharing the drawings! Think you're already decently ahead of the curve just by having those.

Just a thought on the 'fuel canister' of the flamer; Keep in mind if you have a decent bottle/cylinder of any type you'd probably be better of with that and then bulk up and detail from there. Little extra work but more than likely a better way to get what you want thru adapting something. =)

[wookieegunner]

Very nice drawing.  Are you planning on using the batteries already in the gun to power the LED's?

[CLOTHAR]

I didn't mean to scare you with the talk of fumes.  As long as you are in a well ventilated area, you should be fine.  Just something to be aware of.

That water gun is a good find.

[chaoticjune]

Thanks everyone, you're all very kind   [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

Gunhead: I don't know about the chest piece, it's not really drawn very well to scale, because it was just a sketch. I've since decided to go with a fencing chest protector. They're a little bit pricey (like 50$) but they seem to come in different sizes. Figuring out the correct size might be a little difficult, they seem to convert from chest measurements to different sizes. If it's anything like bras, you have to add a few inches to the underbust measurement to get a proper band size. I'll just have to take a chance and hope it's easily adjustable.  Fencing Chest Armor

Phoenix: You're welcome, they're really just sketches to help visualize what I want. I need to make a "real" sketch of the entire costume to share. I'm probably just going to go with what's available for the fuel canister, and modify it to make it look better, rather than waiting for the perfect object. I'll just need to figure out HOW to modify it, lol.

Wookiee: I'm going to take the gun apart, depending on what I find I might be able to use the guns batteries, which would be the preferred solution. It'd be nice to get all the power controlled by a single switch, and if the batteries are in the handle, it'll be possible to replace them after the build is done. I'm going to try, but if the squirt gun uses a high voltage I'll probably have to go with a separate set of batteries for the lights. (2 leds for pilot light, 7 of 10 for the led bar, and likely a single red LED on the other side.)

Clothar: Thanks, it's important to think about those things. If worse comes to worse I can always work outside on my condo balcony and do some sweating while working.

[wookieegunner]

That gun runs on AA batteries, I believe it is 2 of them so you are lookiung at 3V.  Worst case scenario it is 4 batteries so you're looking at 6V.

[chaoticjune]

I think you're right Wookiee, I just don't want to count my chickens before they hatch [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' />

[Finnlock]

At the time this was the most complex costume I had ever made too. It was a real learning curve, but it played well to my strong suits of problem solving and out of the box thinking. So if I can do it, so can you! And you a have a Balcony!

I used a tee-shirt manquien for the chest armor. It was cut up and heat formed to fit. Depending on your physical build this might not be viable for you.

I did that because I didn't like how low the fencing chest piece came down. it left too much area exposed. The Tee shirt form covered more area and sat better under the corest  and looked more like armor.
It also allowed me to attach the collar directly to the chest pices which also then allowed me to conect the back pack to the chest pices vua clips and that was the best part because it really helped balance the wieght of the armor out. I also was able to add padding to help keep the shoulders up and also gave me a place to mount the clips to Only problem would be you need to have some one help you suit up. You can'y do it yourself if you do it exactly the way I did it.

Will you have help? If not I will tell you the alt way to make the armor I had as a back up plan. The 1st set I made was for my GF's halloween contest and she was going to have to put it on mostly by herself.


Anyway...here is a pic of the hand flamer I made.
http://finnlock.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3jszut
Here is a pic of it as a WIP


Infact go through my photobucket account and you can kinda see how I get to the armor builds. A lot of it you have seen on DakkaDakka, but there is some stuff I didn't post too.

Sorry, seems it's all intermixed, but feel free to look around and see you you get any ideas. Once I get back from Canada I'll take some more detailed photos.


http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa258/B...;cpZZ1QQtppZZ28
http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa258/B...;cpZZ1QQtppZZ28
http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa258/B...;cpZZ1QQtppZZ28


Okay, enough of this wall of text and poor spelling ( I'm dyslexic so if you find any mis spellings feel free to keep them)

[chaoticjune]

Thanks for the ideas Finnlock,

I'm not sure if I would fit into a T-shirt mannequin, they tend to be quite lithe and have smaller chests. Without going into specific sizes, I'm not sure it'd be comfortable, or where I'd even find one. I'm not even sure how a bra + corset + chest armor is going to fit together :/   I was thinking of using the fencing armor for my lower chest, and then use sintra to make the suit collar with a larger piece underneath that'll drape over my shoulders. I can then mount my backpack and shoulder armor to this. It's hard to explain, but you can kind of see it in one of the sketches I posted.

And no, there's nobody handy to be helping me put this on on a regular basis. I could ask a friend, but they aren't here 24/7  [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' />

[larkin]

Thanks for the concept drawings and Finn your work is awesome [img]http://i6.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /> (thanks for the pics )

[chaoticjune]

I found a site with the internals of the squirt gun... apparently there is some sort of Nerf/Super Soaker mod community out there.  [/url]