First wear at Expo - Things to Modify (Posted 30th October 2012)

• Mask
o Make mouth holes into strips
o Cover strips with black fabric on the inside
o Possibly try to reshape eye holes
o Attempt Ver2 of Mask

• Shoulder & Bicep Armour
o Reinforce attachment between armour
o Possibly heat up shoulder piece to take some of the stress out of it
o Sand down sewing points
o Possibly add foam to inside

• Forearm Armour
o Sand down sewing points
o Add thin foam to inside

• Knee Armour
o Put foam padding on inside
o Attach armour to trousers

• Weapons
o Build Throwing Hammer
o Touch up baseball bat
o Build Baseball Bomb

• General
o Buy new Wig
o Buy/Build more pouches

He makes a break for Home (Posted 21st October 2012)

Both the top and the armour is now complete.
Just need to make the grip for the bat, but I'd say that Sportsmaster is now COMPLETE!!

But He's Safe! Safe at Third! (Posted 15th October 2012)

Pretty much done....Just got the following to do:
- Bat needs some covering on the grip. Might use some strips of leather I have.
- Shoulder armour finished, but needs attaching to the Bicep piece.
- Blonde Wig needs straightening and a touch of styling
- Top needs finishing. This is the biggie! It should be complete for next weekend, but there's no Sportsmaster without this....:S
Let's see what happens....

.....And he nearly misses the Plate.... (Posted 27th September 2012)

So, it turns out that the bat I thought I had wasn't long enough. Seems my mother can't tell the difference between a Rounders Bat and a Baseball Bat :P

But now I actually have a baseball bat. A bit of damage to it, but what do you expect after taking it to a few Capes and their Kids.....I might give it a lick of paint to make it look better though. Just have to see how much time I have....

Slides into Third... (Posted 20th September 2012)

Brief Update:

- Mask now complete. All straps attached, and foam padding added to the inside to make it more comfortable for a long-term wear.
- Shoulder Armour Mk2 marked out, and will be cut tomorrow. I've made it about an Inch bigger all round than the previous one, so it should look better once it's seated.
- All Armour pieces now have the elastic and Velcro strips attached. I can't bend my elbow too much, but other than that, it's surprisingly comfortable to wear.
- Baseball Bat found. It's a foam one, so Con-Safe, but has a patterning on it that should make it look like a Wooden bat in photos and from a distance. I may cover the handle with leather to make it look more realistic, but I'll decide on that over the weekend. (Will upgrade to an aluminium one if I go for GK clearance)

I will update again after the weekend, when I know the progress of the top

And he rounds Second Base..... (Posted 16th September 2012)

I'm getting there with Sportsmaster.
Overall, this has probably been one of the easiest costume builds I've done.

All that needs doing now is:
- Elastic and Velcro to be added to various parts of the armour.
- Top to be built, but this shouldn't take too long
- Find my baseball bat....

This should be completed by the end of September, but we will see what happenes...

Mask Progress - Start to Finish (Posted 13th September 2012)

1 - I started with a Hockey style mask I bought a couple of years ago.

2 - I filled in the extra holes using milliput. I keyed the reverse part of the mask, then pushed the milliput through the holes from the inside.

3 - After sanding the milliput to be level with the front of the mask, I keyed the whole of the mask.
The splodge of paint to to check that there was no small gaps between the milliput and the mask....which there were, so I smeared more milliput around the the areas and sanded it again.

4 - First layer of Charadon Granite Citadel Foundation paint. I started running low on paint after this layer, so I switched paint for the next layer.

5 - 2 layers of Fenris Grey Foundation paint. Although this looks rather blue on the photo, it is a nice grey-blue.

6 - 2 layers of my own mix of Citadel paints. I really like this colour, and am painting the armour in this as-well.

Let's get the ball rolling.... (Posted 11th August 2012)

I've worked out that I have the bulk of this costume already:
Boots, Trousers and T-Shirt - Already owned
Arm Armour - To be made from armour I already own
Vest - Material owned, pattern to be worked out
Mask & Elbow/Knee pads - To be bought

For a weapon, I'm going to be looking into getting a foam baseball bat, and painting it so it looks "real".
Since one of Sportsmaster's comic weapons is an exploding Baseball, I'm also thinking of getting a cheap baseball and mocking up a fuse for it.