C2E2 After Action Report:
There was a slight breakage that happened with the handle when packing up to go to the Con, but I was able to use some electrical tape to hold the pieces in place while a fresh layer of clear gorilla glue and super glue cured overnight. I also removed the twirly detail piece that broke at AMKE. Beyond those two minor items, the armor and hammer all survived the Con with zero major issues. One spot of the gold stripping on the belt has popped up a bit, I will probably reapply some contact cement later to prevent this from becoming a larger issue.
The pauldron attachment system of grommets installed directly into the jacket and using Chicago screws + washers to physically attach them worked well. I never really worried about the armor shifting out of place or falling off. I don't particularly plan on carrying over this attachment system to the next iteration of the jacket, but it's probably a system I will end up using in the future. Being able to remove the pauldrons for transport and attach them without any visible attachment (and the fact that I despise velcro and magnets) is pretty useful.
The hammer is still pretty heavy. Similar to my Mark IV helmet battery concerns, I kept switching the hex core lights off to conserve battery life, but in the interest of figuring out exactly how much life the batteries have, after I was done with the Jayce cosplay, I left the lights on all night, and they were still running just fine over 12 hours later, so in the future I will just leave them on the entire time during the Con instead of constantly turning them on/off every time someone asks for a photo (though I will discuss potentially changing the lights later in this post).
I did end up wearing the wig I bought. It doesn't match my beard super well and I don't/didn't have anything to temporarily dye my hair or style the wig, so it is pretty easy to tell that I was poorly wearing a wig. I do believe that it will bring the Cosplay together nicely if I can style the wig a bit better (mostly to keep the front from hanging in my eyes) and color my beard to match it.
I am undecided about getting colored contacts. Maybe I'll get a few sets just to wear for photoshoots, but probably won't bother when walking around at Cons.
I liked the improvements I made to the chest armor rigging, though I need to add even more adjustment holes to the straps, specifically the ones that go over my shoulders. The breastplate had a tendency to sag down on the chest more than I would like.
The belt "buckle" system worked pretty well too. I didn't have anything bust and it sat much more snugly around my waist. I would like the casual version of this Cosplay (shirt and vest, plus belt) to become an option for wearing while doing photography, which will require me to be able to kneel or even lay down fairly often, so I will probably experiment with a way to pin/clip the vest to the belt to keep it from coming up. I may have to move away from using leather for the belt, or go with something less stiff, because bending over was a bit tough due to the wide piece of leather.
Improvements/Goals for the future:
This is definitely a Cosplay I want to keep improving. The Arcane meetups are always the most popular ones I go to at Cons, and I have more people wanting photos with me as Jayce than any other Cosplay.
- Shirt/vest: I still need to add the red velvet shoulder piece. This is probably the main thing keeping the casual version from actually looking like a Jayce cosplay. Otherwise the green shirt/vest and brown pants looks pretty generic and could be one of many different characters.
- Belt: as mentioned above, I want to improve the fit to make the belt hold the vest in place even when I'm moving around. Also, I want to model and add the "buckle" details the the screen version has. These won't be functional, but will look good.
- Pants: I need to add some provisions for carrying things when I'm using the casual version for photography. My current favorite for this is my Solder Boy cosplay, which has a standard belt that I can clip one of my cameras to. The Jayce pants do not have belt loops at all (they use suspenders). It's also a bit awkward to use the fanny packs that I like to wear so often with cosplays to carry my phone, wallet, trinkets, and badge. I'm not entirely sure how I want to solve this, though I may sew a leather strip onto the pants somewhere in the thigh area for me to attach the camera clip system that I love to use. Or maybe tie into the suspender buttons.
- Wig: As mentioned above, I want to actually take the time to style this wig. I think I mostly just need to heat it up a bit with a crimper and clean it up. I need to take a look at screen grabs, but I think I need to trim some of the hair at the front of the wig. Then some hair spray/gel to hold it in place and some temporary hair dye for my beard and hopefully it will all look more natural.
- I'd also like to experiment with adding makeup to give a more flattened nose and darker neck that the Arcane art style tends to emphasize. I already have bags under my eyes large enough to store my Mark IV, so that's one part I don't need to worry about at least.
- I definitely still want to repaint the breastplate and wrist armor. I'm undecided about whether I should reprint them and start from scratch, or bother trying to remove the acrylic paint already on them. I have enough time that I could try to remove the acrylic paint and reprint them both if I decide that it's not worth it.
- For the wrist armor specifically, I still need to add the leather piece that wraps around the arm. Right now it straps down onto the jacket sleeve, but the final jacket version won't have full length sleeves.
- Jacket: I received the new jacket that I ordered, and it has potential (it's way lighter/thinner than the wool one I used for AMKE/C2E2), but still not quite what I want. I am leaning towards buying and modifying a trench coat pattern to suit my needs. Whatever I go with, the new jacket will have leather covering the shoulders, which is how the pauldrons will end up attaching. I will also finally add the back and belt details. This might be where I finally end up buying a Cricut, since the gold pattern pieces might be best done as iron-on vinyl...
HAMMER!
The main updates I'd like to make (besides the jacket) are to the hammer, so I'll give it it's own section.
I want to remake the hammer with drastically lower weight and improved electronics and some articulation.
Weight reduction: I think I want to remake the hammer head pieces out of either fiberglass or vacuum formed PETG. I will probably load up the pieces in Fusion360 and see about machining a mold from XPS foam for fiberglass, or for machining bucks for vacuum forming. I am kind of leaning towards the vacuum forming route, so that I can make the blue stone parts semi-translucent and then put lights inside each of them for added glowing effects, then I would add a thin layer of EVA foam or some other material for the gold top layer.
Articulation: hinging on the weight reduction (literally) mentioned above, I want to finally figure out how to make the top half of the hammer open up like it does in the show. I think if I can reduce the weight enough, I can add the framing and infrastructure needed to hinge the hammer pieces without it ending up heavier than it is now. I would ideally like to make this purely mechanical (using springs, over center mechanisms, and something similar to a bicycle brake wire) and controlled by pivoting the handle (which I would still like to make from cast bronze aluminum), though it might actually be easier to just use some servo motors and a button.
Improved electronics: While it is nice to discover that the fairy lights I am using can last a really long time, they are hard to notice if the room is well-lit. I would like to replace them with much more powerful LEDs that can also shift from blue to red. Especially if I can get the articulation figured out, I want a much, much brighter LED option for when the hammer opens up. If I get really ambitious, I could run some LED strips up the length of the inside of the hammer pieces that will strobe as if the orb is charging. For the battery, currently the fairy light battery and power switch just hang outside the orb and against the hammer, but with this new version I think I would hollow out the cap (pommel?) at the base of the handle and place a battery pack inside, and then run a wire all the way up the handle. Another option would be to put the batteries in the hammer head lower pieces, but I kind of like the idea of spreading some of the weight to the other side of the hammer, and it wouldn't add much complexity to just run two wires down the length of the carbon fiber tubes.
The next Con I'm attending is Anime Central (ACen) in mid-May, and I will definitely be taking this Cosplay with me. This will be the one I focus the most on improving, and at the very least by ACen I want to have the wig improved and hair dye to bring, the breastplate and wrist armor repainted, and a lighterweight jacket (if not a fully completed jacket). I also want to have the vest improved, with at least the red shoulder panel added.
I will be working on the V2 of the hammer, but I don't expect it to be finished by ACen. Since the only parts I would probably be able to even remotely salvage are the carbon fiber tubes of the handle, I will probably just re-order those so that I can leave the V1 hammer intact for taking to ACen. There will be a lot of learning required for each of the items listed above, so the goal for the V2 hammer is probably going to be to debut it at DragonCon.
