Adventures in Cosplay

So... remember a couple months back when I promised pictures? Well, here they are! -tadas weakly- I'm so sorry for the delay!

Here's my Loki cosplay. This was after a very long day at the convention... Also, my friend made that scarf so no tutorial for that.

Final gauntlets.

Bonus pictures:

Marvel Mashup!

Loki and Tony Stark meet the ladies of the Titans.

Yeeep... I'm crazy... 2 props in one week in the middle of exam week... x-x 

So! This time I'm making Black Widow's Bite, or her blue taser gauntlets. 

Materials

Pair of glove skiing gloves

square of black fabric

2 9ft blue EL wire

Black electrical tape

I cut the black fabric and hemmed it to avoid the cloth from fraying, and then cut 2 corners out for the battery box of the EL wire to fit. 

Then I cut a thinner strand twice the length of the fabric already cut This forms the loops for the wire to go in and the circle thingies around her wrist. 

Then I attached that part unto the piece of fabric with the corners cut out for the battery box.

Then I attached that part, which I made for the light and the circle things, to the back of the glove. Then I started putting the wire through the loops. Once I got to about halfway through the loops, I pulled the wire through and sewed the wire onto the glove (the blue wire that runs on the back of the hand of the gauntlets) in the pattern shown below (modeled by my lovely friend, Black Widow!).

After finishing the gauntlets, I taped over the loops ends of the wire with electrical tape.

Final product!

LEDs are here and I'm ready to hook the lights up!

The LEDs were actually harder to wire than I thought, mostly because I failed at making a working circuit. However, a friend helped me a lot with this step by correcting my wiring.

Red symbolizes the positive end and green negative, though to be fair you can switch those 2 and the circuit would still work out. I also added a 570 ohms resistor to each series, but it's probably a little too much. It's better to get as close to 450 ohms as possible, but I only had a choice between 570 ohms and 270 ohms.

Soldering resistors and wires is not very easy with only a table vice and one pair of hands. ;-; But I'm done!

The lights weren't as bright as I had hoped... D: I can only hope this will show up okay under a shirt and in convention lighting...

Since the LEDs got here, I've gotten started on wiring them up. 

Planning for how to connect the LEDs to each other. 

I'm putting the LEDs on the top of the styrofoam, since it's going to be put underneath a shirt and I want to let as much of the light come through as possible. I'm using a 9V battery with an adapter now, since it's more compact than a holder for 2 AA batteries. 

Carving out a spot in the back for the battery. May have accidentally gone too far... Oops.. BUT STYROFOAM HATES ME D:

I'm painting a clear varnish over the styrofoam since I want to fill in some of the gaps in the foam, which will hopefully make it easier for tape to stick onto the reactor.

Just waiting for the varnish to dry. This... looks a lot like a lump of rice... ;-;

I also went over the cardstock with some clear packaging tape, to make it slightly sturdier and make it so I won't immediately destroy it in case I put some tape over it.

Call me crazy, but I'm actually making a prop during exam week... x-x This time I'm making Tony Stark's Vibranium Arc Reactor. It's going to be pretty basic, since I never expected to make anything at school, and thus I don't have any tools. 

Materials

Styrofoam circle at least 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick

black cardstock

blue LEDs (waiting for delivery)

a battery holder for 2 AA batteries (waiting for delivery)

Measured the size of the circle and drew the design of the arc reactor on the cardstock.

Design of the arc reactor is all cut out! 

Styrofoam is the bane of my existence... x-x

Shaved the size of the circle down to fit the paper, and added a little bevel for aesthetics.

I am finally done with the base layer of paint! Now for the final gold layer.

I was originally planning on sanding the gold a bit to make it look worn, but after doing it, I decided I didn't like the way it looked so I made the whole thing solid gold.

I'm done! I put in the crystal and glued on the cap. I also sprayed on a layer of flat clear finish, but that's just personal preference.

The staff once again, but this time with the light on. You can't really see it due to the flash though.

The flashlight holder and main support for the crystal didn't stay glued, so I have to do it again.. D: Well, at least this time they should fit better, due to the leftover PVC cement on both parts, and the flashlight holder should be better sanded so it doesn't twist apart when I try to remove it.

This is how the two pieces mention above are put together with the long part of the cane/staff.

All glued and put together!

How the two pieces look separated.

Now to glue the outermost part of the crystal support together! For this I spray painted where the two pieces would come together with many, many layers. This was because I wanted to paint to help fill in the gap between the PVC pipe, since the pipes don't fit perfectly inside of each other (as evidenced by the fact that I twisted the 1/2" pipe - innermost pipe - and the 3/4" pipe - middle pipe - off each other after they should have been glued).

A good time to sand off any imperfections in the paint or anywhere else would be either before the above pieces are glued together or before the final layer(s) of primer when everything is put together. 

Finished gluing/cementing! Now to wait for everything to dry before anything else.

Not much of a post today, mostly because I'm exhausted and just want to collapse into my bed. But the PVC is all cut and ready to paint/glue!

Here are the really messy/terrible drawing I did of what I'm going to cut out.

Final pieces to glue together. I can't give actual measurements, since everything I did was just eyeball it.

I got started on the painting and gluing today, but it was 10pm when I started and I was getting eating alive by mosquitoes, so here's all my progress so far.

I'm gluing and painting at the same time, mostly to make the most of my time while everything dries.

The main rod part of the staff is really the only part I glued and spray painted (with gray primer) since that part is pretty much done.

Materials

5 feet of: 1/2", 3/4", and 1" PVC tubing

1/2" and 3/4" PVC slip ending

1/2" slip connector

4 feet of 5/8" wooden dowel

flashlight

blue crystal

PVC cement

I started with 5 feet of PVC tubing for each size, but it's really overkill. The only one that needs something close to 5 feet is the 1/2" PVC, and that's only because that's going to be the long part of the cane. 

Measuring out where to cut the PVC. Top tube is the 1/2", middle is the 3/4", and bottom is the 1".