Making a mannequin

Last weekend I headed over to my trusty sidekick's place and started on the process of making a model of myself out of duct tape.  Here are some process photos for you.  I don't have nearly as many as I'd hoped to take, but I'm not quite done with the mannequin yet, so there are more to come.  As we finish up, and make another of Curtis, I'll add more for you all.

I had to use a bandanna to hold my beard out of the way, otherwise it would have gotten all caught in the duct tape.  That's the weird thing around my neck.

Beginning the chest:

Front done, back begun, and one arm started:

Right arm complete:

Both arms done.  I can't move much at all now:

My girlfriend says I look like I'm ready to hit the gay nightclubs with this on.  Another friend thought I look like a white Kimbo Slice.  Such is life.

Detail shot of my back - note the cross hatch pattern to make it form-fitting:

 Cutting the shell off - Curtis caught my undershirt.  Awkward:

 After we cut the body suit up the back and on the wrists (just enough so I can get my hand through), we threw it on the back of a chair and patched the back up.  This was not a simple process, so be careful and take your time if you're doing your own.  Then we covered the top (the neck) with cloth and taped it closed, and filled it with expanding foam insulation.  Since the insulation isn't that cheap, and you need a ton of it (especially if you're a big dude like me), we decided to take up some of the space with a bunch of leftover 2 liter soda bottles.  This ended up being a mistake, because they don't form into the right shape like the foam does, and you can't really get the foam under them.  I'm going to have to do some repair work with the form because of that, but that's fine.  We had two bottles of the "large gaps" type foam, and it filled most of the body along with five bottles.  We still need to fill both arms and a portion around the neck and waist.  Before the foam set, we put the form on a wooden dowel with screws sticking out of it, in order to give it something to stand on.  I only have one picture of the foaming process, but as I said, more are certainly to come.

 That's me and Mike (Curtis's brother) pouring in the foam.  He was a great help through the process, so thanks Mike!

More coming soon!

Hey no one!  How haven't you been?

The funny thing about blogging is that you're basically not talking to anyone, and then you're suddenly talking to everyone.  I'm still in the "not talking to anyone" stage, so no surprise that it's awful quiet around here.  Prove me wrong.  Leave me a comment.

It's been a while since Halloween, and I haven't touched any tools since then.  I needed a break from robot costumes, and it's been nice to have a little more free time.  That said, I'm starting to get the itch to work again.

Since my last foray into building, I've been researching techniques and methods for making more refined and detailed builds.  It's lead me to www.therpf.com, where I've been reading up on casting molds in silicone and resin, as well as vacuum forming and sculpting.  All of them are really related, it's tough to do a professional-level design without some amount of all of them.  If you look to your right, you'll see a blog called Volpin Props in my following links - that blog, and Harrison's precision and attention to detail, has been instrumental in my own excitement to produce higher quality items.

I'm not entirely sure what direction I'll be headed from here.  I know KILLroy will have a 2.0, but beyond that, the sky is really the limit.  I don't have any particular movie or show that I'd like to start doing replicas for, I've been enjoying the freedom that comes with designing for myself, but as my experience with these new techniques grows, I'm sure I'll try to do a little replication here and there.

As a start, I've been picking up materials to make a 1:1 mannequin copy of myself, to be more able to do active work on costumes while I'm not wearing them.  I found a pretty good tutorial on how to create your own here, and decided that I'd give it a shot.

I haven't had time to work on it beyond shopping, but now that I'm actually doing some brainstorming, I'll be sure to check back in once things start to progress again.  I'm urging Curtis to start making a mannequin for himself, as well, since it's going to be beneficial for us both.

The next step for us is probably to clean up the basement, since it's basically still destroyed from our last minute stress work on our robots, but once we get some sort of organization in place, we're off to the races.  Stay tuned!


PS - I've also been writing for a Magic: the Gathering site called ChannelFireball.com.  I wrote a magic-oriented description of project day for them, which you can find here.  Give it a look!