Not a car.. Cosplay thread post Holloween, pre local comic-con

I saw the small builds thread pop up and some encouragement there regarding non-car "builds". The stormtrooper build was also super awesome, and while this is probably much LESS awesome, it is a build of sorts. 

Quick background for anyone that cares, I'm a nerd, raising nerds, we watch anime as a family, and both my kids were reading subtitled anime by the time they were 5. So we go to the local CON and Halloween is always fun around our house. 

So this year the boys wanted to go as Midorya and Todoroki from My Hero Acedamia. 

That shouldn't be tooo hard... so I'll lay out the process here. This may help others, and also provide some of the resources I used. I hope at least someone else enjoys this :p

PS: if pictures aren't working I'll fix. This is the first thread I've created... 

I can do an "upload" but not link to the googles... ugh.. and they are huge. I can play more once I get home. I just wanted to get it started while I was thinking about it. :)

Okay. found some articles on using G Drive, you figure as a proffesional IT person for XX years, this would be easier... 

Anyway, first things first, the hair... they both have some unique hair, FunkyKid1 doesn't want to color his, so to the amazons we go... 

Got a wig for 18 bucks, cosplay person sells them, pretty good quality, plastic hair, but a full wig net with adjuster, with a lace under. Not bad for the price, and prime! double bonus. 

Okay, it's sideways, but you get the point. This picture thing is hard. Needs a trim for a kid, but he looks 20 in this pic, he's only 10... ugh. Great i'm looking into my future now too!

FunkyKid2 has shaggy hair anyway, so he just goes for the green spray paint. Easy Peasy. Need to layer less black under spray and we picked up a brighter green for Holloween.

Hair: Done

Next.. base outfits.. in solid colors... 

So, need some green and blue long sleeve shirts with some matching sweat pants... how hard can that be?

Insert cars to replace all the swear words here! Why can't you just get colored Tshirts, nope they all have to have logos, or robots or unicorns, or SOMETHING on them, or they are crazy colors!

thankfully Mrs. Cricket came to the rescue here: www.primary.com  kids clothes in solid colors, no logos.. whew. even got free shipping and was able to get a pull over blue sweatshirt with a quarter zipper, just like todoroki has.  side note: www.blankapparel.com was running up, but didn't have as much for kids. I also have a note for this site so I can use it for me. :P

Base Clothing: DONE

Next, Midorya's pads, some cheap skate pads will work for 95% of that.. to chinamart we go! ugh, everything has labels.. well.. my wife has a seam ripper... sit in front of the TV for a bit with it and wallah! no more labels!

So I now have a solid green shirt, but Midorya's costume has black stripes... I like spray paint, but it doesn't work on fabric that good, but they make spray on fabric dye! Mask and paint, 3 coats on each side (i should have masked better, it's overspray central. I under estimated how bad it would be)..  first masking ... 

Next, I didn't want to do fabric dye in the garage... dog pads in the basement with a fan in the window it is.. 

didn't turn out too bad, even with my horrible overspray, I will probably remake it for our local comic-con, the shirts were cheap. 

well, no picture of finished.. I swore I took a few.. huh.. 

Next: building armor

Bonus points for getting the kids reading sub titles, dubs suck!

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffacebook%2Fvideos%2F10216746952683499%2F&width=500&show_text=false&height=281

Not the best video as it was raining and dark for Halloween, but kids drive us to make some fun stuff.  

that bumblebee is pretty sweet!

So I needed to make armor. I've made weapons before, using foam floor tile, but that isn't as flexible as I need. I did some research and found that you can order some foam, essentially neoprene, pretty cheap. Barge Cement will pretty much weld the foam together, so those are some new tools in my cosplay kit. I have a bunch of 2mm craft foam left over from some old builds and other random stuff, so i should be good to go now.

First, I need to figure out how to create some patterns, i'm not a tailor, so trial by error with some paper and some good old CAD.

the mask for Midorya is probably the hardest part, so I start with that. The pattern didn't turn out too bad. If I ever make another one, I will leave the bottom as a single peice, it ended up a big sharp, in the middle.

the back piece for todoroki was easy, but the straps were much harder. this is the pattern I ended up with:

So I cut the mask piece out of the EVA foam. I cut 50% through in triangles along the folds so it could create the bends smoothly. I forgot to take a picture of this. use the barge cement to glue it. some masking tape to hold the shape.

I let drive overnight. Then I stitched some elestic to the mask after measuring on FunkyKid2's face. Don't breath in the glue fumes kids!

So i got most of the parts cut out and shaped, there they are waiting for paint. You can see the back armor (the square ish piece) in this as well as the ear peices.

Up next how to paint foam... 

Sewing... necessary for cosplay and Lemons alike.

and boy do my skills lack, SWMBO does most of the sewing, i'm not actually allowed to use her machine. It's a 1970 or early 80's kenmore, she has it all tweaked out, it's a tank, but reliable as hell.

I may pickup a cheap one for my cosplay and car stuff.

Great thread.   I should probably start one for the costume my daughter wants me to make with a TV for a head.  Probably could get some folks here to help me with the part(s) I am struggling with.

I use rattle can for my cosplay weapons, but always have issues with peeling. Upon some reading on the interwebs plastidip as a primer, sticks better, and also give the foam that "hard surface" look. So off the garage, lay down some paper and we have instand spray booth! Also you can see FunkyKid1 also subscribes to the MazDuece's footware for work club.

Kids helping lay down thing coats of plasti-dip. I love the trigger handles. also with the crocs, these kids love their crocs.

a few coats in, this was I think 3, I ended up with about 9 light coats

adding some color, rustoleum gloss or matte depending on the parts, the brown in matte looks close to leather with the plasti-dip under it. Metalic silver for the "metal" parts. This was the first coat:

after about 4 coats of silver:

The seams didn't smooth out as much as I liked, but it turned out pretty nice before the holes and black pieces. Next up: that crazy hood piece of Midorya's.

Cooter said:

Great thread.   I should probably start one for the costume my daughter wants me to make with a TV for a head.  Probably could get some folks here to help me with the part(s) I am struggling with.

Do it! I have been saying we need a cosplay/costume sub thread, seems to be a bunch of us here! thanks for the complement. I've been doing it for a few years, but i'm still a novice, but i'm getting better.

Sewing is a good Grassroots skill. Way cheaper to make your own seat covers and door panels than to buy them. And it's handy to fix other stuff too.

Midorya has a crazy head piece that is supposed to mimic all mights hair, it's like giant rabbit ears essentially. Wife to the rescue.

She made that and the belt pouches. We eventually hooked it to the shirt for the final costume.

we tried fabric glue be eventually just sewed the velcro on.

We also needed to do the burn make up for Todoroki's face. Off the local costume shop (sadly now closing) for some decent stage makup.

We went with the more purple color palette. 

Next up: Armor part 2

So once the paint dried, it was time to glue together the back piece for todoroki. I started with the shoulder straps.

I made some rectangles out of 2mm craft foam and sprayed them silver. The barge cemented to the straps I painted leather brown. not my best work, but we were starting to get down to the wire for holloween, projects are projects, you never have enough time.

then glue the corners at the right angle for the back piece. Wait, then try it on:

Oh, I used the dremel to etch out the "vents" into the black foam like the cartoon, I didn't to great here either. I was using a cone grinder and it was moving alot on me as the foam is pretty flexible, but it does end up looking like the cartoon. Turned okay over all, next time, bring in some clamps.

Then the vambraces:

brown felt, some more foam rectangles sprayed silver, I poked a hole with an exacto knife and use paper spread tack rivet things. Sewed in some velcro for easy on and off.

The mask needed some finish work. I glued on the ear pieces, then did the finish work. I used the exacto to cut 1/3 to 1/2 way through the foam in triangles to give it the flexibility to bend and give the black lines. I barge cemented the ears on, then used a circular dremel grinding stone to poke out the circles in the foam. I need to get better on some of the lines to have a cleaner look. but it adds to the "aged" look I guess.

Probably my best piece all told:

Ordered some all read converse, cheap on amazon, he can wear them to school too. I got some gloves at Menards, used some blue sharpie to give it lines. Gloves done. some random accent stuff... and...

Finished 

Not bad, getting better and better. I can post some earlier costumes if anyone else is interested I know it's not cars, but I'm sure there enough nerds around to appreciate it. Was fun to do with the boys, and they liked them.