Sith Costume and Lightsabers Part 2

Alright, this is probably gonna be a bit on the longer side, cause I need to catch you all up on what I've been up to before deciding to blog about my progress (and what I've done since that decision too). So let's jump right in!

So first, there's the general Sith look. My girlfriend and I looked around some patterns (she has more experience than I do) and bought some fabric. I liked this (McCalls 6209) design, with the scarf (second one down) and the hood (third one down) combined. So I'll try for that.

I managed to cut out the fabric without messing it up (too much) and found that I can use the leftover scraps for the skirt part. I'm a bit worried that the hood isn't big enough, but I figure I can use a bit of scrap to extend it if it's not big enough. Now I just need to find a sewing machine...

For the mask, I bought a pair of welding goggles from Amazon and found a mouthpiece filter on clearance at Home Depot.

I ordered a face mask and plan to cut holes around the eyes and mouth that will be covered by the goggles and mouthpiece.

The voice changer kit arrived, so I need to put that together and find a way to fit that into the mask.

One problem is, while the speaker and mic might be able to fit into the mouthpiece, the motherboard wont. So I'm thinking I'll put the motherboard in a "small" box that will be clipped to my belt. The wires will go through a hose from the box to the mouthpiece, making it look like some sort of filter system. I got a tape measure to provide the clip.

That's what I have for the actual costume so far. I've been looking at a few things on Amazon to help complete the look.

Trying to decide between these two boots. The ones on the left are cooler, but pricier... Hmmm...

Now onto the lightsabers. I started off with some drawings then got 1 1/4" and 1" PVC (you can get pre-cut 2' segments at Home Depot). I then cut pieces of the 1 1/4" to make some details for the hilts. I need to shorten one of them a bit...

As you can see, all the details are either shaped rings, or end caps.

I've gotten a few extra pieces, such as belt clips, fancy knobs, and leather, as well as some chrome and other metallic paint. And yes, I also got LEDs and buttons. These things are gonna light up :)

Not only are they gonna light up, they're gonna have blades too. I ordered these polycarbonate tubes from Custom Saber Shop (check out their website for lightsaber stuffs

I even bought a pack of colored crystals for some added aesthetics! The bottom one is an original, the top two are some sanding trials. Still working on making them look more like they're supposed to.

I like the idea of the internal mechanisms being able to be taken out all at once, so that you have everything right there in one convenient piece. The problem is that the buttons will be poking out through holes, and will be stuck in the shell of the lightsaber. I think I may have an idea how to deal with that. Here are my plans in paper form.

And then here are the pieces laid out for another look at my plan. The spring will hold the button into the whole, as will the screw, but the screw will also serve as a way to hold the internal mechanisms in place, so that they don't move around when it's being swung around.

To hold all the pieces together, I'm gonna attach them all to a 5/8" wide wooden stick, which will be painted to look more metallic. Also, the code for the stick looks awfully close to C3PO to avoid showing off.

I also want to point out that, to screw everything together, I'll be using set screws. These look the most Star Wars-esque (although I'm sure you can point out instances of other screws being used in Star Wars).

So that's what I have so far. I'm currently working on finding a way to sew my costume together and I'm also working on the internal stuff for the lightsabers. I'm waiting for some tools for putting the voice changer together too. Stay tuned for part 3 of my build!

Sith Costume and Lightsabers Part 1

Hello! Some of you may remember that over the summer I made a Wikus (District 9) costume for Stockton-Con and Halloween. Being the nerd/weirdo that I am, I've already started work on my next costume. My girlfriend and I have decided to create our own original Sith characters from Star Wars, that way we don't have to pull our hair out over accuracy, but can still have a set of guidelines to go by (the costuming seen in Star Wars). For this, I'm going to also need an original lightsaber, so I'm also planning on putting together a few lightsabers: one for me, one for my girlfriend, and my sister's boyfriend said he's willing to commission me to do one for him, so I'll be building 3 working lightsabers. I've decided to avoid sound, since I struggled a lot with that during my District 9 costume and this is my first time building lightsabers. Perhaps later I can mess with the sound. So, let's get into the plans!

With the latest Star Wars film, I've sort of become re-obsessed with the series. Kylo Ren has become one of my favorite characters, so quite a bit of my suit will be influenced by his design.

That being said, I wanna be my own Sith, so I won't exactly be copying Mr. Ren there, just taking the bits that I like. For example, the helmet. For some reason I really like a good bad guy with a mask or helmet (Darth Vader, Joker, Yokai) so I'll be going back to that good old Insta-Morph to make myself a mask. I've discovered Pinterest is a good place to get some pictures for inspiration (I know Pinterest is old news, forgive my ignorance).

Also a good place for the lightsabers, which I've decided to build out of PVC.

I've actually already done a bit of work on this costume. I wasn't originally planning on writing a blog for it, so I don't really have any pictures of the first few steps. I apologize greatly. BUT! I'm still in the beginning stages, so I still have plenty of stuff to show the process of. Pictures of what I have so far will come later, as I'm in the process of moving back into my apartment in San Francisco to begin my last semester of college.

Finally, if I'm gonna be an original character, I'm gonna need a backstory! Part of me wanted to wait until I got the costume together, but I couldn't help but develop some sort of a backstory based off of the plans I already have. Here's a look at what I have so far (yes, it's a bit long, I'm sorry). It's also subject to change as the costume comes together.

(Time period: Pre-Darth Bane)

Kajj Napeel grew up on a planet in the midst of a civil war. He'd been surrounded by fighting for pretty much his entire life. When he neared the end of his teen years, he discovered he was more attuned to the Force than others. He gave up everything he had to travel to the Jedi Council and ask to be trained. Once he got there, they told him he was too old and unstable, and could not be trained to be a Jedi. Devastated that he now had nothing, Kajj ran off, but then "happened to" bump into a mysterious man that promised him he could train him in the ways of the force. The man turned out to be Darth Lehr, and, by the will of the Force, renamed Kajj to Darth Kajjak. During his training, Kajjak found himself in a fight with the infamous pirate, Ressum Glumk, known for wearing a helmet that amplified his voice for intimidation. Kajjak lost the fight and left with a scarred up face and a whole lot of rage. Once Kajjak had finished training and built his lightsaber, he hunted down Ressum. After locating him, Kajjak attempted to behead him, but missed and cut off the front of his infamous helmet. After a quick scuffle, Kajjak succeeded in killing Ressum. After the assassination, Kajjak retrieved the sliced-off front of Ressum's helmet, and now wears it as a trophy to hide his scarred face. 

District 9 Wikus Costume Part 7

Stockton Con has come and gone, and with it the (mostly) finishing of my District 9 Wikus costume. Here are some of the things I did in the last couple days before the Con.

I painted all the alien skin bits I made with InstaMorph with ink, and added a couple more pieces.

I then hot-glued them to pieces of fabric from another shirt. I may or may not have burned myself with the glue a couple times...

I once again used the hot glue gun to attach the pieces to the inside of the shirt where I cut holes into it. It ended up looking pretty cool, but there was still one more thing to do before the shirt was finished.

Blood. Lots and lots of blood. I ended up using a recipe I found online that consists of corn syrup, flour, water, red food coloring and chocolate syrup. The result looked great! These pictures were taken after it had already dried. It still looked wet, which was exactly what I was going for!

As for the gun, I applied a layer of white paint, to serve as the base color.

I then used matte black acrylic paint for some of the extra pieces, like the canisters, magazine and jam guard.

After painting the canisters black, I applied some metallic silver paint in a gradient to give them a really nice metal look. 

Then the troubles happened. I applied the orange sections to the gun, but the details in the gun meant the tape wasn't completely held to the gun, and some of the paint dripped past the points I had taped off, and because I was in a rush (it was getting late on the night before Stockton Con) I was sloppy with the black detailing. I didn't have time to do much of the wiring, and what I did do ended up not working. I might work on the wiring again later.

 Despite all the issues with the gun, the costume really came together in the end! I didn't take many pictures, but here's what I have. I'll probably take more later.

Gun doesn't look THAT bad... From a bit of distance away.

My girlfriend and I got to meet William Salyers, the voice of Rigby in Regular Show, and he complimented my costume and said he loved the gun! Yay! Here are a few pictures of me with some other cool cosplayers there at the convention (plus a better look at my costume as a whole).

The project had its ups and downs, and there's still a bit of work to do on the gun, but it all turned out pretty well. This was definitely my most complex (and most expensive) costume, and I'm honestly already considering what to do next year (Handsome Jack and Corvo are my top picks at the moment).

District 9 Wikus Costume Part 6

T-Minus 3 days to Stockton Con

I was hoping I'd be getting some work done this past weekend, but I came down with a fever and wasn't able to do much, hence this might be a short update.

Been having issues with the Arduino and can't seem to get it to work, so the chances of the gun having sound have decreased. I'm doing what I can with the soundboard, but I need to go out and get a special plug for it. In the meantime, I got the lights working.

To get started, I got the basic switch and button system working. The red lights will be on while the gun is on, while the blue lights will go off when the trigger is pressed.

I decided to place a yellow light in the barrel too, so that it lights up when the trigger is pulled as well, but I wasn't sure how bright it'd be, so I did a test. You can also see that the gun has been given a coat of primer.

Thought I'd add a couple red lights to see how much brighter it'd be.

I think I'll play around with the number of lights in the barrel and how far inside they are. Meanwhile, I thought I'd see what the blue light behind the grill-like piece looks.

Really like how this is looking so far, but I wish I could get the sound working. Have started progress on the hand, this time being cleaner with the tape. Ready for a coat of latex then a coat of black paint.

Not much time left, and I still need to paint the gun, paint the glove, paint the skin pieces and put them into the sleeve, and dirty/bloody up the shirt. Lot of work ahead of me.

District 9 Wikus Costume Part 5.5

T-Minus 11 days to Stockton Con

Aaah! It's almost the final countdown! I realized I forgot to post pictures of the fully shaped gun put together. So here they are.

So far I think it looks really cool! I'll be painting it sometime on Wednesday or Thursday. In the meantime, I'll be trying to figure out the programming tonight.

I've made some changes to the plans. For one, I decided not to do the spinny-bit. I think it's just one more thing to figure out and I don't have much time left. But I decided to add a yellow/orange LED to the barrel, so that firing it will make a light come out. I'm still deciding if it will be too ambitious or not to have the reed switch (the thing that makes it so that the gun can't activate unless I'm holding it with a magnet).

District 9 Wikus Costume Part 5

T-Minus 12 days to Stockton Con.

Over the weekend I really got to working on the gun, and I feel I made quite a bit of progress.

First order of business was prepping the Puff Paint bottles to become alien-goo-stuff canisters. I got myself a hacksaw and cut off the nose thing on the caps then sanded the top of the caps down flat

I had to empty out the paint into a bag. Still wondering what I should do with my bag of mixed Puff Paint.

I found that my alien glove fingers couldn't fit into the trigger guard, but that made a bigger hole in the gun, so I had to cover it.

I took some thin plastic and used an exacto-knife to cut out the right shapes to cover up the holes. I had to cut them in half so that I could still open the gun to mess with the insides.

 Next, I used my grandfather's drill-press to make some holes in the exhaust-like section of the gun, and then 4 holes where I plan to put the LEDs.

I put quite a bit of work into sanding the gun before I remembered that you can't see the details too well on the gun after it's painted. The only thing you can really see is the NERF logo. I might have to cover that up or sand it down more. Parts of the gun do look much nicer now though.

 My original plan was to superglue the canisters to the gun, but my dad suggested I screw them into the gun instead. That way they're more secure, and can even be taken out and changed, in the case that one breaks. I drilled some holes and made some thread cuts, then used a screw and washer to hold the cap onto the gun.

After all the caps were installed, I just screwed in the bottles. The gun is looking a lot more District 9-esque now, though it looks a bit silly with all the different colors.

I made another trip to ReCreate and found a much better canister. I used a PVC adapter (partially covered by a hose clamp)

to screw it onto an ink bottle I found then screwed the ink bottle onto the magazine.

By that time, the weekend was over. I'll be doing more work over the next couple days and hopefully I can figure out the Arduino programming.