The final phase has arrived – we’re two days away from AX and this is just about the last time I’ll really be able to work with my partner on the armor. Last night we managed to get most of the pieces and painting done, today’s just about fitting it on my comrade’s body and making sure he can walk and not trip over rocks and die a horribly painful death.
Got to my buddy’s house early in the morning and threw together the back plates for the legs first thing. Just some small bits that needed to be glued together.
Added the silver cups that would act as the thrusters in there.
Funny thing with the silver cups though – since they’re made out of very thin plastic, the hot glue we used to attach them actually burned through the cups. In retrospect this means that the cups weren’t very securely attached, as the area where the glue should’ve held it together kinda just…vaporized.
I also went ahead and whipped up the collar armor on my own, having it slant a bit so as not to look too obstructing.
Also, due to problems last year with my comrade sitting down and having his neck and chin rub against the neck-hole, we decided to make the inner neck piece removable and attachable via velcro. A simple fix that offered my partner much more comfort in the suit.
Just as we did last year, the shoulders are being attached straight to the torso. There probably is a better way to do this that would allow for more articulation in the upper arms, but given our limited time we decided to just use a tried and true method.
Just about all of the armor is ready, tonfas are glued onto the forearms and the shoes are all set. All my partner needs to do is step into them.
Backpack is like 90% done, just need to add the thrusters and paint the circles. The opening mechanism works like a charm, no problems there. Lower legs are also just about complete, painting and all.
What’s been my workstation for the majority of this project. I was usually the one sitting there gutting foam and gluing parts together.
Thigh pieces coming along, though they do feel extremely fragile. It’s all one giant piece, scored along the paper to make it fold. Unfortunately it’s only held together by paper on one side, so the possibility of it ripping and coming apart is there.
Stepping into the shoes with one leg attached to test fitment. Right after this comes actually gluing the sneakers onto the wood.
Aaannddd it was done. First test fit and run of the legs and feet, comrade had to walk onto the driveway and around the sidewalk.
Walking with these things on is apparently radically different from walking normally – whereas humans normally roll their feet when they walk, with giant wood blocks strapped on, my partner has to literally clomp and stomp like a robot.
We still need to attach the ankle armor and make some adjustments to make sure his shoes aren’t showing, but overall for our first attempt at actually using elevated foot pieces, it works well and looks pretty good.
Attaching what we can at the moment; the skirts, lower arms, and thighs weren’t finished by the time I left, but I have every confidence that they’ll turn out all right. From what we have so far, it looks pretty good, especially for such a rushed job. This chronicle only took five episodes in total, but we’re right about at the endpoint. The helmet has yet to be made, and I’m not even sure we’ll be able to make that in time. Unfortunately it’s pretty much been decided that we won’t have enough time to make weapons or beam sabers or anything. Sad days. Given the relative lack of armor at last year’s ‘con, I’m sure we’ll still look comparatively good at the Expo.
Read on the rest of the build:
