The Ant-Man costume has been one of our most popular costume to date. It was the first costume we made that featured moving parts, none of which were motorized. They were moved simply by the child moving in his wheelchair. Here is how we did it. 

We started with a basic PVC frame around the wheelchair that would hold the legs, head and back of the giant ant.      

We were also handling the initial brainstorming of how to make the ant legs move.    

On top of that, we began building the helmet out of foam floor mats. There were so many pieces of the helmet. We used Modge Podge to seal every piece of the helmet.    

The unpainted helmet constructed without the eye lenses.  

The secret to making the legs move? Roller Blade Wheels! Roller blade wheels were cut apart and each wheel was screwed into a PVC cap.     

Here are the pieces that make up one side of the Ant-Man Antony legs, with Roller blade wheels attached to each leg.  

A board was placed on the Masonite wheel cover to serve as a bump for the Roller blade wheels to lift each leg up individually as it rolled over the bump.  

The wheel cover is tied onto the wheel of the chair with zip ties.  

The legs are attached with the Roller blade wheels resting on the Masonite wheel cover.  

Additional PVC is added to the front and back with posts to hold up the foam carved head and back end of Antony. The foam is then covered in batting to smooth out the edges. 

All the pieces are ready to be painted black.  

Black fabric was wrapped and sewn around the foam sculpted head and back end.  

The eyes for Antony were made from a clear plastic ball that were spray painted on the inside. The antennae (not shown here) were wooden dowel rods spray painted black and inserted into the top of Antony’s head.  

The completed Ant-man and Antony wheelchair costume.  

Here is the completed costume in motion.

Meet Ant-Man’s Antourage #AntManEvent

I was invited as media to cover this press event. All opinions are mine alone. Meet the #Antourage trio – T.I., Michael Pena & David Dastmalchian. When Ant-Man needs back up, he knows he can lean on these three for help. We had the opportunity to sit down with the guys during the #AntMan press coverage a few weeks ago. They are absolutely hilarious and had us laughing from the moment they stepped…

So this last weekend marked the 44th annual Big West Tournament, which for the fans means nail-biting games, but for the players means potential to make it into the NCAA finals, something UCI has never seen.

I’ve been a long time supporter of UCI men’s basketball, and athletics in general, so when I heard we made it to the final round of the big west tournament I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go. This year, the tournament was held at the Honda Center in Anaheim, which made it an even easier decision to go. In addition to the Big West games this weekend also marked the start of finals week. Now, for me I am currently taking the hardest class I’ve ever encountered here at UCI (biochem, I will conquer you!) so I naturally started studying last week. Taking a 4-hour break from studying was a risk, but I didn’t think twice about saying yes when some friends offered to drive. Hundreds of UCI fans decorated in gold and blue made up the majority of the crowd at the Honda Center while the University of the Pacific had a solid section of black and orange fans.

Although UCI was down almost the entire game, it was always close, and after watching UCI come up and win a game so many times before the UCI crowd and I didn’t give up hope of winning. We cheered louder than ever before, ensuring that the players knew we were supporting them. We silenced the arena and put our anteaters up in the air for good luck on free throws. And we never gave up hope until the last buzzer sounded. Unfortunately, too many missed shots ended the game in a disappointing loss by a mere 6 points. The University of the Pacific won the Big West Tournament and will be going on to the NCAA rounds, while UCI the senior players said goodbye to their college basketball careers. It was a sad ending to the night, but at least our men had hundreds of fellow anteaters supporting them in their walk off the court.

I couldn’t be more proud of the progress our men’s team has made, and surely next year the Anteaters will be back on top!

ZOT! ZOT! ZOT!

The court!

Look at all the blue and gold!