Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Bringing Mechalarum to Life in a Whole New Way

If you've been visiting my blog for a while, you'll know that I like to make homemade costumes. The parts involving fabric are interesting and all, but the stuff that really gets me going is building models of items out of a few simple and easily accessible materials.

I used this technique to create the gun for my Sarah Connor costume (and ended up crafting something so realistic, I got a little freaked out carrying it around on Halloween). It's actually based on the rapid prototyping skills I learned while getting my degree in product design - with a little foam core, hot glue, and electrical tape, you can mock up just about anything :)

Anyway, I decided that I wanted to make a stylized model of the Mechalarum suit, both because it's fun and because I figure I might drum up some more interest in my novel by wandering around New York dressed in a strange manner (though I'm sure I won't be the strangest one out there).

If you're interested, here's a bit of a look into my construction process. It's a really fun thing to do. You'd be surprised at the kinds of things you can create with some imagination and a few simple materials! Feel free to ask me questions in the comments below.

The first two strips hot glued together.

Scoring the strips of foam core. That's how you make the curves that are so important to this shape!


Doesn't exactly look pretty at this moment, but you can see the form starting to take shape.

Large open spaces are risky to cover with the tape, but I was getting tired at this point :)

Four AM? Five AM? Who knows? Got to keep on truckin'.

"Skinning" the helmet frame with electrical tape.

Roommate was kind enough to take a pic of me when she got up in the morning!

And look at that, almost done! Easy as pie, right?
It's waiting...
Haven't checked out Mechalarum on Kickstarter yet? Please comment, like, share, and consider backing - we're getting down to the wire, and every little bit helps!

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