CrazedOne1988
Active Member
- Member DIN
- S088
Man, I want a laser cutter.....
Foam Air Assault and Sword Builds for Me and My Girlfriend (Comic-Con 2012/2013)
- Thread starter Spacemeat
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SavedbyGraceG12
Well-Known Member
Did u know someone there, or did u get charged to use there laser cutter? By the way awesome work on ur costume and props!
GermanExile
New Member
Awesome work 
Looks really good, btw you did have good pepakura skills !
I'm new at this point, and have some troubles with paper and glue
Looks really good, btw you did have good pepakura skills !
I'm new at this point, and have some troubles with paper and glue
To be honest, user of the laser cutter was born out of desparation. The deadline for comic-con was looming and there was really no way to cut all the pieces by hand. I certainly love the speed of the laser cutter but the downsides are all the pieces end up smaller and not fitting precisely because of the amound of foam being burned away and the cost! So, the maker lab let me have access to the laser cutter, but they charge $2 per minute of laser cutting time. As a bit of perspective, it appears the average sheet of foam takes about 4 to 5 minutes to cut out all the patterns so that's $10 right there, and something like a chestplate takes 7 sheets. You can do the math right there
. In anycase, this is probably the most expensive Christmas gift I've ever given my sister. Though, f I get a yearly membership, I get like a half hour free a month, and if I teach a class (I guess I'm teaching foam armor making!) I get a free membership. So I guess I'll be steadily cutting pieces out over the course of the year...Awesome work
Looks really good, btw you did have good pepakura skills !
I'm new at this point, and have some troubles with paper and glue
Thanks! Though at this point, I've pretty much abandoned pep for foam work. Still, don't give up. I'm utterly embarrassed when I look back at my original ODST outfit. It took a few iterations of armor before I made something I wasn't totally critical to look at.
I'll be sure to set one aside when I get them done, but it may take a while as you can see in the following update:
I'll get the bad news of out the way first. I had a few epic vacuform fails in my rush to get something done for comic-con. Suffice it say, I damaged the mold and couldn't really make anything in time for the con. With the time pressure of SDCC 2013 out of the way, I'm going back and restarting the swords, to fix a few issues that came up with the first set, I promise, they'll be done before SDCC 2014, or at the very least Wondercon.
So first, let's start with this pristine innocent mold before all the madness:
Going to bask in this for a little bit, because it's about to go downhill....
So, this shot was my last ditch effort to get the swords done. It looked so hopeful and just ready. But before then, I'd already made a few screwups. Firstly, In an attempt to save time, I figured I'd use wood filler instead of the usual spot putty to fix the blemishes on the swords:
Terrible idea. That wood filler came out extremely rough and cracked. I had to keep sanding and sanding and eventually retreated to using drywall spackle. At that point, the surface still looked a little rough, so I thought I'd coat it with a thick glaze that even everything out and seal it so the primer wouldn't rub off:
So screwup 1: It turns out that the glaze will soften and melt a little in high heat, like when you press a sheet of really hot plastic to it. Parts of the glaze ended up sticking to the plastic and pulling pieces of the mold with it:
It took some spot putty and a lot of sanding, but I got repaired the damage within a few days. But with the clock ticking and me needing to actually get other parts of the armor done, I forged ahead:
I coated it in this high heat resistant paint, hoping it would protect the sword and make sure I don't get a repeat of what happened previously
It's probable that since I waited a little less than a day, I didn't give it enough time to set, because I got an even worse result. The paint adhered to the plastic again and this time severely damaging the mold as I pulled the plastic off:
You can see the bits clinging to the plastic here:
At this point, because of the effort it's going to take to just patch the damage and there's some imperfections I not happy with from the original build, I'm going to scrap this one and start another sword. It should be the exact same dimensions because of the wonderful cutout from the laser cutter, so it shouldn't pose too much of a problem later when I have to cut out the plastic.
Ok, so now that's out of the way, I post some happier news in the next post:
First, I redid the heating solution for plastic. Instead of a bunch of IR heaters (which blew a fuse in the house, BTW), I got two portable grills:
Energy-efficient, clean burning propane gas, I-tell-you-what
I also removed the dangling emergency blanket and added some insulating foil bubble sheets. Made it a lot easier to move around.
Because of the increased heat from the grills, I covered the underside of the heating table and the legs with aluminum tape. Figured it would be good insulation. Also, because the grills covered less surface area than the heaters, I put them on a skateboard and just pushed them back and forth to evenly distribute the heat
Also thought I'd share this with you guys because my girlfriend thought it looked cool: I had her spray the outline of the sword on another plank so we make sure it lined up properly when I glued it down:
I used the laser cutter to cut out little center frames that I'll be sandwiching between the blades to mount lights:
I'm glad to report those fit perfectly, so when I actually have blades cut out, it'll be easy to put together
I guess that's it for my sword-centric update tonight. Next time, I'll fill you guys in on the part I actually got done: My sister's armor and her adventures around SDCC
Energy-efficient, clean burning propane gas, I-tell-you-what
I also removed the dangling emergency blanket and added some insulating foil bubble sheets. Made it a lot easier to move around.
Because of the increased heat from the grills, I covered the underside of the heating table and the legs with aluminum tape. Figured it would be good insulation. Also, because the grills covered less surface area than the heaters, I put them on a skateboard and just pushed them back and forth to evenly distribute the heat
Also thought I'd share this with you guys because my girlfriend thought it looked cool: I had her spray the outline of the sword on another plank so we make sure it lined up properly when I glued it down:
I used the laser cutter to cut out little center frames that I'll be sandwiching between the blades to mount lights:
I'm glad to report those fit perfectly, so when I actually have blades cut out, it'll be easy to put together
I guess that's it for my sword-centric update tonight. Next time, I'll fill you guys in on the part I actually got done: My sister's armor and her adventures around SDCC
RTWHOCKEY
Active Member
Wow laser cutting is expensive! And sorry your sword is not coming out well. Hopefully something to improve for Halloween or next SDCC. BTW I've already seems some pics floating around FB of your sisters armor and it looks great! Can't wait to see some of your SDCC pics!
Yeah, I'm unsure if I want to pursue any future laser cutting for foam. Aside from the cost, the fact the pieces don't fit together in some places makes me wonder if it's worth it.
As to the swords, I'm kinda glad they messed up. I was rushing to get them done and was taking way too many shortcuts, but now I have the time to do them slowly and right.
So, time the update on my sister's armor:
As you can see in these shots, the laser cutter left a few gaps:
I filled them with the usual drywall spackle and it turned out ok, but that's pretty much the story of using laser cut foam. Lots of gaps and lots of filler. Here they are filled up and plastidipped:
I do like that that I can do find details like the perfect circle at the top of the forearm:
And as an improvement from previous forearms I've built before, I beveled the area around the wrist to allow for more motion around that area:
Here's a little WIP of the ab plate with the cloth backing to prevent tearing:
Now my sister has always been the more artistically inclined between us. So once the pieces were assembled, plastidipped, and primed, I handed them off to her to paint. She just handed painted acrylic with a brushes, and did a spectacular job:
Because of the total lack of time, we didn't get to paint all the little markings and details into the armor and while I soldered up her suit lights, didn't have time to actually put them in. I guess that's a task for the next con.
In anycase, I laid out all the armor before comic-con:
So that's it for now!
Next time: miscellany around comic-con and some detail work on the new foam helmets
Purichan
New Member
- Member DIN
- S513
I've been reading through this thread for the past two days and I'm amazed, it all looks so good! I like seeing the trial and error for everything and all of the tips and tricks you've shown it's given me a lot of motivation to start my armor build although I'm still pretty intimidated. Can't wait to see your 2013 Comic con pics, hope y'all had an awesome time!
Like Purichan above I've been reading and re-reading your thread recently as I begin my own foam build.
Thank you for documenting your processes so thoroughly, it's been invaluable following your trials and tribulations and seeing the results of your experiments. I love the depth of your work and your images are so helpful in my figuring out how I'd like to lay out my cuts and seams.
I hope your new swords come out wonderful and that all of you had an amazing time at Comic Con!
Thank you for documenting your processes so thoroughly, it's been invaluable following your trials and tribulations and seeing the results of your experiments. I love the depth of your work and your images are so helpful in my figuring out how I'd like to lay out my cuts and seams.
I hope your new swords come out wonderful and that all of you had an amazing time at Comic Con!
Hey everyone, so life has intervened for a while. Keeping me from actually finishing up the posts I was planning on making. But now I can finally give you the final comic-con based update for the armor:
So first, COMIC-CON 2013. Great time, and the most Spartans I've ever seen in one place:
And a great photo of all three of us from Trooper0621:
And my personal favorite, "THIS. IS. COMIC-CON!"
Here's my sister in full Spartan Ballerina Mode:
They were handing out these Hello Kitty headbands at the con and with a little scotch tape handy, we now have Halo Kitty:
She enjoys the helmet attachment, so for 2014 I'll be making an actual set of ears and ribbon we can attach to the helmet.
Here's me and my girlfriend encountering a little Poncho Chief:
And hanging out with a Cortana or two:
Because we're all in armor this time around, we don't have the convenience of a handler carrying out repair kit. So I decided to convert a swag bag I got to something a little more appropriate for a Spartan:
So first, COMIC-CON 2013. Great time, and the most Spartans I've ever seen in one place:
And a great photo of all three of us from Trooper0621:
And my personal favorite, "THIS. IS. COMIC-CON!"
Here's my sister in full Spartan Ballerina Mode:
They were handing out these Hello Kitty headbands at the con and with a little scotch tape handy, we now have Halo Kitty:
She enjoys the helmet attachment, so for 2014 I'll be making an actual set of ears and ribbon we can attach to the helmet.
Here's me and my girlfriend encountering a little Poncho Chief:
And hanging out with a Cortana or two:
Because we're all in armor this time around, we don't have the convenience of a handler carrying out repair kit. So I decided to convert a swag bag I got to something a little more appropriate for a Spartan:
So moving on, I brought 5 Air Assault helmets with me to SDCC just incase the new foam models weren't good enough:
And I thought I'd take the time to go into some detail about the helmets. So this one is mine and it's entirely composed of foam (has fooled more than one person into thinking it's fiberglass). I did have to make and arch of fiberglass on the inside though, the prevent the helmet from warping when the visor was mounted.
The back end is detachable, and held on by magnets. Makes for a tighter fit on the insider and easier removal. And the neck seal is made of a rubber garage door weather seal. I think it's a great soft material with a really neat look to it.
One flaw that I need to correct is the fact that when my sister or girlfriend put on the helmets, they usually have their hair tied up, and the extra volume from the hair pushes the back of the helmet out and the magnets are not strong enough to hold it in place. So I'll be either looking at securing their hair better or strengthen the connectors for the back piece on their helmets. Maybe some kind of latch system or really small buckles
Moving inside the helmet is the visor, which is removable. It's held in by screws which are screwed into posts that are held in place with epoxy putty (aka might putty)
You may have noticed the two fans near the visor, they're hooked up in a single circuit to two 9v batteries, a switch, and a bunch of resistors. The natural vents on the air assault make the perfect place to put them. And I placed the switch on the outside of the helmet so it's easy to turn off/on to talk and hear people speaking to me.
After Comic-Con work took over for a while and I pretty much just worked from when I woke up to when I crawled back into bed. At least I found the time to go to PAX, and meet up with a whole new set of awesome Spartans:
Traveling presented a whole new set of challenges because I've actually never flown the armor anywhere. I had to find boxes that could fit my armor and swords and NOT be oversized. I ended up checking to bags, because any container that was long enough to hold the swords was nearly the maxmimum size for checked luggage and would only be a few inches tall.
I also ended up just bringing my helmet on the plane with me. I reasoned it was just a really big foamy hat.
But all was not well in Seattle. I was waiting at the carousel for a while thinking the helmet was the only thing that made to PAX.
Eventually, I found my luggage. Apparently they treated it like oversized even though it techincally wasn't and it ended up at some OTHER baggage claim just for oversized bags. And my heart sank when I saw this in the sword box:
When I got back to the hotel, I cracked open box and discovered the TSA didn't exactly put the swords back into the box with the greatest of care, and bent the tips:
One emergency hotel ironing session later, and the swords were somewhat straightened
And I thought I'd take the time to go into some detail about the helmets. So this one is mine and it's entirely composed of foam (has fooled more than one person into thinking it's fiberglass). I did have to make and arch of fiberglass on the inside though, the prevent the helmet from warping when the visor was mounted.
The back end is detachable, and held on by magnets. Makes for a tighter fit on the insider and easier removal. And the neck seal is made of a rubber garage door weather seal. I think it's a great soft material with a really neat look to it.
One flaw that I need to correct is the fact that when my sister or girlfriend put on the helmets, they usually have their hair tied up, and the extra volume from the hair pushes the back of the helmet out and the magnets are not strong enough to hold it in place. So I'll be either looking at securing their hair better or strengthen the connectors for the back piece on their helmets. Maybe some kind of latch system or really small buckles
Moving inside the helmet is the visor, which is removable. It's held in by screws which are screwed into posts that are held in place with epoxy putty (aka might putty)
You may have noticed the two fans near the visor, they're hooked up in a single circuit to two 9v batteries, a switch, and a bunch of resistors. The natural vents on the air assault make the perfect place to put them. And I placed the switch on the outside of the helmet so it's easy to turn off/on to talk and hear people speaking to me.
After Comic-Con work took over for a while and I pretty much just worked from when I woke up to when I crawled back into bed. At least I found the time to go to PAX, and meet up with a whole new set of awesome Spartans:
Traveling presented a whole new set of challenges because I've actually never flown the armor anywhere. I had to find boxes that could fit my armor and swords and NOT be oversized. I ended up checking to bags, because any container that was long enough to hold the swords was nearly the maxmimum size for checked luggage and would only be a few inches tall.
I also ended up just bringing my helmet on the plane with me. I reasoned it was just a really big foamy hat.
But all was not well in Seattle. I was waiting at the carousel for a while thinking the helmet was the only thing that made to PAX.
Eventually, I found my luggage. Apparently they treated it like oversized even though it techincally wasn't and it ended up at some OTHER baggage claim just for oversized bags. And my heart sank when I saw this in the sword box:
When I got back to the hotel, I cracked open box and discovered the TSA didn't exactly put the swords back into the box with the greatest of care, and bent the tips:
One emergency hotel ironing session later, and the swords were somewhat straightened
After I got back from PAX, I had to unpack and get ready for Central Coast Comic-Con the week after. As you can see, I may have an Armor building addiction:
.
Anyhow, got hang with the usual awesome group of Spartans at our 405th BOOTH
and took a pretty nice picture of my girlfriend at the Beach:
Well, that's about it for now. I've been steadily repairing the buck for the energy swords and shoot to have them done by Comikaze in November. So the next updates will probably be quite sword-centric.
And I leave you some of my recent adventures caught ever so briefly on video:
.Anyhow, got hang with the usual awesome group of Spartans at our 405th BOOTH
and took a pretty nice picture of my girlfriend at the Beach:
Well, that's about it for now. I've been steadily repairing the buck for the energy swords and shoot to have them done by Comikaze in November. So the next updates will probably be quite sword-centric.
And I leave you some of my recent adventures caught ever so briefly on video:
Last edited by a moderator:
Hey all, time for another update! As has been the current trend, it's full of sword related fails. But to start it off, I'll begin with the only triumph I've had recently. I finally installed the lights on my sister's armor, and used a simple, tried and true method for light diffusion in the spine: Hot glue (globs and globs of it). I'd say it turned out nicely:
And now for the sad saga of Swords 2.0:
So I finally got to repairing the damage from before comic-con and patched it together with resin and lots of spot filler:
Then gave it a fresh coat of high temp paint and let it sit for a few days.
High temperature paint. PFT, DO NOT BELIEVE THIER LIES. The paint still adhered to the plastic during my pull and took some of the buck with it. I won't rehash that damage again, but I put more spot putty and left a just a coat of resin to prevent anymore paint sticking incidents.
To prevent anymore sticking issues, I decided to coat the buck with some pam:
Clamping the plastic together:
My terribly ghetto vacuform setup
And brief triumph! It finally came together and I was able to successfully get the suction to work and pulled the plastic down.
Unfortunately, it starting going downhill on the next pull as it turns out that parts of the buck were still hollow. I'd originally tried to reinforce it by lining it with cheese cloth and pouring the resin in through the holes in the bottom. Unfortunately, it seems I didn't get resin in all spots and parts of the sword starting collapsing on the next one.
I called it a night at the point, and set to work rebuilding the collapsed areas with lots of bondo and sanding. It's getting back into shape and should be ready to attempt more pulls in the coming weeks, but that for the next update. Coupled with more failure.
Next time: laser cutting fails, Comikaze, Pull attempt #???
And now for the sad saga of Swords 2.0:
So I finally got to repairing the damage from before comic-con and patched it together with resin and lots of spot filler:
Then gave it a fresh coat of high temp paint and let it sit for a few days.
High temperature paint. PFT, DO NOT BELIEVE THIER LIES. The paint still adhered to the plastic during my pull and took some of the buck with it. I won't rehash that damage again, but I put more spot putty and left a just a coat of resin to prevent anymore paint sticking incidents.
To prevent anymore sticking issues, I decided to coat the buck with some pam:
Clamping the plastic together:
My terribly ghetto vacuform setup
And brief triumph! It finally came together and I was able to successfully get the suction to work and pulled the plastic down.
Unfortunately, it starting going downhill on the next pull as it turns out that parts of the buck were still hollow. I'd originally tried to reinforce it by lining it with cheese cloth and pouring the resin in through the holes in the bottom. Unfortunately, it seems I didn't get resin in all spots and parts of the sword starting collapsing on the next one.
I called it a night at the point, and set to work rebuilding the collapsed areas with lots of bondo and sanding. It's getting back into shape and should be ready to attempt more pulls in the coming weeks, but that for the next update. Coupled with more failure.
Next time: laser cutting fails, Comikaze, Pull attempt #???
FlusherCape26
Active Member
Awesome armor and sword's I've seen all three of you in so many comic-con cosplay video's on YouTube your work is just sweet hope I can meet you at San Diego Comic-Con next year
hope I can meet you at San Diego Comic-Con next yearHi everybody! It's been quite the absence, so I thought I'd give a few final posts about finishing out the swords and the armor. Considering I have a lot of ground to cover, this may take more than one post, so have a little patience!
I guess, we're going to start with the fails.Turns out, I wasn't able to cut out the swords with the lasercutter, that was mostly attributed to the shoddiness of my vacuforming setup. Basically, I couldn't get the plastic level on the cutter. The design of the frame I was using to hold the plastic when forming basically makes the plastic dip a few inches and apparently distorts the plastic enough that's it's impossible to lay the plastic flat in the bed of the laser cutter. So this variance in height basically meant there was no consistent distance for the focal length of the laser. It ended up with a very uneven cut that in some areas barely cut the plastic and in others severely burned and distorted it. So, to cut out the pieces, I was reduced to a more manual method, which I'll cover later. I may revisit laser cutting the swords out again in a future date, but I'm going to have to redesign the vacuforming rig and buck to ensure the area I'm cutting is level.
As usual, the buck collapsed after the last pull I talked about in the last post, this time it was the handle that couldn't stand up to the force of the vacuum. I ended up having to rebuild it using clay:
And being a solid hunk of clay, it stood up to the punishment this time. So here's the setup:
And finally after being about a year behind schedule, GREAT SUCCESS!
I managed to crank out 7 pieces before I noticed that buck was starting to crack around the edges and was beginning to tear in others.
So the buck is retired for now, I'm not sure if I'm going to repair it or start anew and build another buck based on the lessons learned from this one.
With laser cutting out, I had to cut it out by hand, so I went out and bought this dremel motosaw, basically a small jig saw. This thing is a godsend!
And I was able to cut some nice smooth curves with it:
And you can see that they fit almost perfectly with the lasercut outlines to hold the lights:
One issue I had with the last set of swords came from opening the handles to access the battery pack and switches. In that set, the handles were separate from the blades and they were split in two. To access the battery pack, I would have to remove one side of the handle. In the long run, it caused a lot of issues with seaming and fit between the two pieces plus, I was having structural issues with the plastic holding the blades together. For this iteration, I decided to seal the halves together and fill the seems on the between the swords with epoxy putty. This would create a single cohesive piece stretching from blade to handle to blade and prevent from of the flexing and breakage I experienced with the previous swords.
To access the the batteries this time, I cut out a small piece from the top of one of the handles and drilled holes to accomodate screws to put the hatch back in place, the posts are held in place with epoxy putty. Also, a small tip: sand the areas you plan to add the epoxy putty to, I had some issues with adhesion and at some point after the epoxy had set, if you apply enough force it would pop clean off from the smooth plastic.
You can also see at this point I've applied blue tape to the outside of the sword to prevent any messiness and scratches affecting the outside of the sword while I paint it up. I used the same polycarbonate spray paint from Tamiya that I used for the last sword but this time, I tried to keep the coating light to give it a brighter more "plasma" look. I still ended up with one of the blue swords being darker than the other though, so I guess it takes a little more practice to keep it consistent:
I think that should wrap up this entry, next time I'll proceed to the lights and final assembly and a little experiment I tried with a new latch system for chest plates.
I guess, we're going to start with the fails.Turns out, I wasn't able to cut out the swords with the lasercutter, that was mostly attributed to the shoddiness of my vacuforming setup. Basically, I couldn't get the plastic level on the cutter. The design of the frame I was using to hold the plastic when forming basically makes the plastic dip a few inches and apparently distorts the plastic enough that's it's impossible to lay the plastic flat in the bed of the laser cutter. So this variance in height basically meant there was no consistent distance for the focal length of the laser. It ended up with a very uneven cut that in some areas barely cut the plastic and in others severely burned and distorted it. So, to cut out the pieces, I was reduced to a more manual method, which I'll cover later. I may revisit laser cutting the swords out again in a future date, but I'm going to have to redesign the vacuforming rig and buck to ensure the area I'm cutting is level.
As usual, the buck collapsed after the last pull I talked about in the last post, this time it was the handle that couldn't stand up to the force of the vacuum. I ended up having to rebuild it using clay:
And being a solid hunk of clay, it stood up to the punishment this time. So here's the setup:
And finally after being about a year behind schedule, GREAT SUCCESS!
I managed to crank out 7 pieces before I noticed that buck was starting to crack around the edges and was beginning to tear in others.
So the buck is retired for now, I'm not sure if I'm going to repair it or start anew and build another buck based on the lessons learned from this one.
With laser cutting out, I had to cut it out by hand, so I went out and bought this dremel motosaw, basically a small jig saw. This thing is a godsend!
And I was able to cut some nice smooth curves with it:
And you can see that they fit almost perfectly with the lasercut outlines to hold the lights:
One issue I had with the last set of swords came from opening the handles to access the battery pack and switches. In that set, the handles were separate from the blades and they were split in two. To access the battery pack, I would have to remove one side of the handle. In the long run, it caused a lot of issues with seaming and fit between the two pieces plus, I was having structural issues with the plastic holding the blades together. For this iteration, I decided to seal the halves together and fill the seems on the between the swords with epoxy putty. This would create a single cohesive piece stretching from blade to handle to blade and prevent from of the flexing and breakage I experienced with the previous swords.
To access the the batteries this time, I cut out a small piece from the top of one of the handles and drilled holes to accomodate screws to put the hatch back in place, the posts are held in place with epoxy putty. Also, a small tip: sand the areas you plan to add the epoxy putty to, I had some issues with adhesion and at some point after the epoxy had set, if you apply enough force it would pop clean off from the smooth plastic.
You can also see at this point I've applied blue tape to the outside of the sword to prevent any messiness and scratches affecting the outside of the sword while I paint it up. I used the same polycarbonate spray paint from Tamiya that I used for the last sword but this time, I tried to keep the coating light to give it a brighter more "plasma" look. I still ended up with one of the blue swords being darker than the other though, so I guess it takes a little more practice to keep it consistent:
I think that should wrap up this entry, next time I'll proceed to the lights and final assembly and a little experiment I tried with a new latch system for chest plates.
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