Armor Construction Completed (Posted 11th October 2012)

I finished making the armor after a few stressful attempts are various different designs/ways of making the stomach armor.
Anyway here you can see views of it from the front, side and back.
It allows for quite a lot movement and for the most part feels comfortable to wear.
The next step is to give it all several layers of watered down pva glue to seal it all so that i can paint it.

The Body (Posted 7th October 2012)

I've spent what little spare time i've had this week making the body armor.
I made patterns from cardboard to work it all out and then cut it all out from large sheets of plastazote, and used a heatgun to bend it all into shape and glued together with a hot gluegun.
All i need to do now is make the stomach piece and then seal it all with layers of watered down pva glue.

Sorting out the Helmet - Pt. 2 (Posted 17th September 2012)

I cut down a broom handle into 3 pieces and screwed them onto the helmet, but when tried on with the head it didn't sit right, so I cut down the back one and extended the front 2 by screwing on some rounded off MDF squares.
Once I sorted out the positioning inside the head I screwed it into place.

The Snout - Pt. 2 (Posted 23rd July 2012)

So Today i finished covering the snout in filler.
It put a layer of normal polyfiller on it then sanded it down, then done another layer and sanded it down again.
I then gave it two light coatings of Spray Filler and used a very fine grade piece of wet and dry paper damped with some water.
Unfortunately in some areas it just almost ripped off a few of the layers, but hopefully when i paint it you wont notice these minor surface imperfections as the paint should in theory fill these gaps/layers.

Sorting out the Helmet (Posted 19th July 2012)

For the inside of the Head I've decided to use a 'Drinking Helmet' to attach inside so that it sits on my head nicely and so that turns and moves as I do.
I removed the Beer Can Holders and drinking straw then used a dremel to cut off the peak so that it fitted inside the Head.

The Snout. (Posted 17th July 2012)

Ive spent the past few days carving the snout from layers of blue styrofoam stuck together with expanding foam.
I used a large kitchen knife and craft knife to carve and shape it, then to smooth it down i used sand paper.

Basic Head (Posted 1st July 2012)

So the Dremel Cutting Discs I ordered came through the post the other day so i was able to get cracking on the head today.
I marked out the hole for my head and used the Dremel to cut it out and covered the edges with Duct Tape to stop the papier mache and fiber glass from fraying/coming apart and to protect against splinters.

Eye Spy (Posted 1st July 2012)

I decided to make the by using the Vacuum Former(Pictured)at Uni, and used a wood dome to mold the heated plastic sheet over. Once it had cooled down and set i popped the wooden dome out and then filled the inside of the plastic dome with 2 part rigid expanding foam to make hard and durable but still keeping it lightweight.
Once the Foam had fully hardened i cut the excess foam off with a kitchen knife and then used a Stanley knife to cut off the excess plastic.

Splinters! (Posted 26th June 2012)

Now that the head has been covered in fiberglass and fully hardened, i spent about 20 mins today sanding the outside down to remove any splinters and large/sharp points.

Resin and Fiberglass (Posted 22nd June 2012)

So i finished giving the balloon a 2nd layer of papier mache yesterday and left it dry and came back to it today.
I gave it a coating of resin to harden it a little more before and put some orange dye into it when mixing so that i could see where i had painted it on.
Once dried i mixed up some more resin this time with purple dye and started to apply a layer of fine grade fiberglass, unfortunately i wasn't able to get it all covered so i shall have to come back to it after the weekend.

Let the Fun Begin! (Posted 20th June 2012)

So today i inflated the balloon and hung it from the ceiling so that it would make it easier when adding the layers of papier mache.
I've given the balloon one layer so far and will give it a second layer tommorow.

So it Begins (Posted 19th June 2012)

So here is the first Journal i have done on CI and i'm quite looking forward to it as this will more than likely be my most challenging cosplay to date.

SO, I've decided to start with making the head and thought of various ways of how to go about it and came to the conclusion that paper mache over a balloon would be the best way to go about it, so i got hold of a pack of 'Punchball' Balloons as you can inflate them to a large enough size and they are spherical as opposed normal balloons that are 'tear/pear' shaped.