Loot Haul: C2E2

Haven't made much progress on the horse yet. Neck's a big issue. I did however get a chance to examine a wooden artist's reference model at this year's C2E2. Figured out what I needed to be able to replicate. Those wooden horses cost $99, which surprised me.

I did browse the stalls for some 1:6 scale loot to haul back with me. I didn't find a cache of guns like I did at Wizard World '07, but I did find something unexpected...

Why, it's a 2004 Donald Trump talking doll from The Apprentice! After about seven years, the battery works still. You can probably pick this up on purpose for under $5 at the right places, but I found this for $10. I didn't care much about picking him up for comedic purposes, but more for a $10 suit.

The Man
Donald Trump's a solid guy. He's actually designed with hard stops in his neck to prevent you from spinning his head 360°, Exorcist style. That was unexpected. His hands are massively rigid and can't do anything short of karate poses and breakdances.

He has no waist articulation due to the electronics, but that's fine. You won't be buying this for poseability. In fact, you won't be buying this at all because it's pretty useless outside of the suit. Last week, his joints were still stiff, but now, his left leg is loose and swings around by gravity. The doll has the same hip strength as the real one. Their party days are all over.

His feet are painted on, and the shoes are integral to his legs. Not bad shoes either. Just a shame I can't move them around. The paint comes off after a few poses, but in most cases, he'll have pants on to hide that problem. The shoes do scuff off the paint easily, so you'll end up with flesh colored  shoes after a while. Definitely not something that was meant to be played with roughly. Guess we'll leave the manhandling to Ivana. 

The Suit
I did find some issues with the suit, but that's to be expected for a $10 suit. I had a suit for $10 once and it was terrible, but acceptable considering the cost. You don't complain when you spent less than the cost of lunch on a suit.

 Wet Willy be dammed, your suit is coming off!

The suit itself was nice. Had a inner lining, which was surprising. I was expecting just the outer side being done neatly. However, the pockets are rubbish and non functional, which is acceptable. They were sewn on with less skill than the rest of the suit though, with loose threads coming out. Makes it look like Trump is on hard times in 1:1 scale and 1:6 scale.

The shirt was flawless for what it was. I had to separate the collar from the shirt, as it was sewn down to hold the tie in place. It did have cuffs that could be buttoned (or snapped together), which was a nice touch, considering most people won't be stripping Donald naked routinely (unless that's your thing).

The tie was very low quality. It's held in place by an elastic string. The string's conveniently short enough just to not fit around Donald's fat, solid, unyielding head that you need to cut off the string to liberate him from his clothes. I made the mistake of trying to untie the tie and now it needs some help to get back to operational status. It'll make a good modified clip on tie...perfect for a budget Trump.

The pants have no belt loops, but that's fine. They do have leg cuffs, and the legs also are WIDE. They were sewn with a generous allowance for even the fattest of Elvis impersonators. Actually, all his clothes are done with rather wide arm and leg openings. The pants do fit other figures fine without any problems. Just need to make sure nothing snags on the seams while you put them on.

Overall
Make no mistake, I did buy the Trump doll just for one person, and one person only. Perhaps the silliest $10 spent. Considering what I spent for Golgo 13's other suit, this is fairly acceptable.

As for what to do with a naked Donald Trump...

Golgo 13 Suits Up

Rather than sew a terrible suit, I went the easy route and bought a grey suit off toysity. Suit cost me $15 with $15 shipping, adding another $30 to the overall cost of Golgo 13. I'm starting to understand why the Hot Toys Golgo 13 cost $220+. The suit Hot Toys has is pretty obscenely detailed and well done compared to anything else out there.

 The suit set comes with a black shirt, red tie and some very forgiving and flexible shoes. I wanted to get a white suit/black shirt/white tie, but they didn't have plain white suits that looked good. Or white suits in general.

 The suit offers a good range of freedom, combined with the joints of the Dragon Neo 3 Body. However, it should be noted that either the body has rather beefy arms or the suit's really designed for our elbow-challenged non-combatant, Ken. The arms are a rather tight fit.

The pants have pockets and belt loops, which was nice. No belt though, but not complaining. The pants were a tight fit at the waist, with or without the shirt tucked in. May be a bit of a problem if I decide to give Golgo 13 underwear too. The shirt, coat and pants fasten with plastic clasps; no Velcro here. That makes for a clean look, but a very unforgiving fit. Unfortunately, I can't fully put his hand into the pants pocket for his casual pose.

 I can however, hide the fact that I can't by covering his hand with the suit.

 I finally bothered painting the case. Mechanically, I'm happy with it, but it's still large and not a discrete means of transporting an M16. I may try making another variant with the parts angled about for minimum volume and surface area.

 Overall, I'm happy with the suit, despite it not being lined on the inside. For $14, it's ok, but for $30, I'd at least want some extra slack on the waist and a belt. I could have gone the crazy route and bought a $60 suit from Saturday Toys, but I was going for cheap Golgo, not "same price for an inferior product". Right now, we're at $104 for "Golgo 13 for Under $130". The Saturday Toys suit would have made that goal a fail, at $134. And that's without a trench coat too.

 I'm also missing a .38 revolver. Duke Togo will have to make do with a .55+ caliber Ambassador! Not quite an easily concealed revolver, but it'll have to do. I'll have to build a proper revolver, knife and sheath/holster later.Until then, we can now make Duke Togo do completely un-canon acts for our own amusement.

 Hooray for the terrible idea of using my monitor as a backdrop! Duke is not impressed.

What if we had Golgo 13 snipe people with bunny ears?

Golgo 13 does not approve. I wonder if that could be imposed as a job requirement if you hire him.

 

Fortunately, where Hotaru fails, the mighty hand of J.Norad can force Golgo to do anything.

Making a reclining chair, part 2! Now with padding!

With some plans drafted for the chair sides, we're going to finish the chair. The goal I envisioned is to allow the chair to be dismantled if needed, so I'll be making some weird components. I opted to make some notches in the chair sides to fit the crossmember in the reclining mechanism as a means of holding it together.

Using the lamination techniques outlined a while back, I made some large boards 2 cards wide, one card tall and 4 cards thick using some excess X-Men TCG cards as middle filler (need to whittle down that stack) and a Magic outer covering. These will hide the joining mechanisms. Next bit of action is to make the posts for the armrests. I'll be making these in beam sections to be joined by biscuits and slots, rather than cut out large sections.


Each section is approximately 5mm thick, composed of 4 layers of 4-card thick sections. The inner section has notches cut into it before gluing. The alternative would be to cut the notches along the face, then peel the layers away. The former method allows better control over notch width and depth, as I can measure now and I know the thickness of 4 Magic cards.

There will be three parts to the armrest assembly: the front support, the back support, and the main armrest. After gluing the laminations together, they were sanded flush.

Biscuits and larger support elements were added to the members to allow better control of position when assembled. A similar method was done with the chair back.

With all the parts assembled, the chair is semi-completed. Just needs cushions. The project used up a good deal of cards, which can be seen by the dwindling stack of cards under my monitor. Both stacks used to be the same height.

To make the cushions, I wanted something spongy. Unfortunately, I didn't get what I wanted, so this crappy white plastic packing material I found at work shall do. I cut out a section roughly the shape I needed for the cushion interior.

With some useless fabric, I created a padded outer cover that would make the plastic less horrible feeling. Next step is to wrap it up in the cushion cloth. Something that looked like khaki was used.

This method is really half-assed. Since I won't be seeing the bottom of the cushion ever, I decided to assemble it by stitching it to the seat filler.

Repeat until you have this horrible looking square. Worst thing I've made in a while.

I repeated this method for the leg rest cushion, but with 4 layers of thick fabric, then sewn that to the larger cushion by means of a simple cloth. The middle cloth serves to prevent debris/legs/children from falling into the gap between the leg rest and the chair body. The straps allow me to secure the cushion to the leg rest assembly without glue, so I can remove it if necessary.

And that's the main cushion for the seat. Now, to go make the back seat cushion... then this project will be completed.

Sewing Some Ushankas

First off, all credit goes to the boys over at The Sixth Division for their in depth tutorial on sewing a 1:6 scale ushanka. If you follow their guide, you'll get some cheap and decent looking ushankas. I'd just like to add that you might want to consider browsing the kid's hat section instead of looking for fleece gloves. I found a kid's fleece baclava for $6 that has enough material for about ten ushankas. Gloves were priced at $9 with enough material for about 3. Of course, there's always thrift.

They kinda look like bad afros. No wonder why it's not supposed to be solid black.

On a side note, I'd suggest making a star and gluing it to the cap. Embroidering one might be a bit tricky since the thread sinks in if you pull the thread taught. Mine look like crap. But hey, not bad for about 10 minute's work apiece. I might try painting the outer cap grey to better resemble the in-game model for the Officer's Ushanka, since the guide does mention painting it to get the right look. A solid black appearance makes identifying the flaps difficult.

Maybe after crafting a few of these things, I'll finally get one in game.

J.Norad's Random Sewing Technique

A quick technique I came across in a sewing book for tying off thread ends. Most of you might find this useful if you're learning to sew and are sick of making knots to tie off your thread.

First, you need to thread your needle through an existing stitch where you want to put the knot at.
Follow the needle paths as depicted in the image




After you thread that through the last loop, just pull the needle out and the loops will close in and form a knot.

Whee. Precise knots where you want them!

This Weekend's Project: The Magic Gauntlets

There's a reason why no one sells 1:6 scale gloves with individual fingers. The majority of the dolls you will buy will have molded gloves. Why? First, you'll need the prerequisite of individually movable fingers. Again, you may ask why that's necessary. You can't put on gloves if your fingers are non-flexible. Aelia's hands have wire understructure that allow her to have one set of hands that handle all her poses, rather than make her have multiple hand sets like other dolls.

Second, 1:6 scale gloves with individually separate fingers are a pain to make. Perhaps the most expensive part to make if you were to actually make them for a mass produced figure. It's too much sewing for a small part. Luckily, I'm the only guy willing to try making it, since I only have to do it twice.

The gloves were made by sewing four individual tubes around her fingers, then sewing them together to form a glove. It's infeasible to sew them like gloves done at 1:1 scale, since the size prohibits them from being turned inside out to hide the seams. Therefore, the seams are on the outside of the gloves for all five fingers. Aelia's gloves are armored, which gives me the benefit of hiding the seams with armor plating. A bit of Magic and a bit of hot glue allows me to stick the plating onto her gloves. Each finger has separate armor plating segments that also allow her to retain her finger flexibility.

The only problem I've had so far is that her fingers are too short inside her glove finger length. She can do some limited gestures, but lacks the finger tip dexterity to fully grasp items. Still enough to hold a polearm. They are pretty good looking despite their bulk.


Aelia is nearly complete. Just needs some refinements to her waist armor segments and she'll be ready for priming.

This (Last) Weekend(day)'s Project: Meltina (Mystina)

About those buttons I mentioned last time...

I was working on a Mystina outfit for Miranda. Despite her not having the right hair color or me having the right shade of light purple (or "Light urple" for you Celebrity jeopardy fans), I went for it. Who's this Mystina character you speak of and why is she also called "Meltina", you ask.

Valkyrie Profile, Tri-Ace, 1999. Perhaps now one of the most interesting cases of "supply and demand" for a video game. No demand when it came out, and therefore not a lot of supply now when the demand rose. This game was notable for the amount of voice acting and cut scenes, and notorious for even the tiniest of scratches on the CD rendering the game worthless. Sealed copies can be swindled for $130 at your local gaming pawn shop, while the re-release can be had for a modest $30 or so.

Anyways, Mystina is one of the mages you can recruit in the game. Meltina is her Japanese name, which sounds really weird regardless of which language you're native to. Sounds like she has something to do with converting solid states of mass to a liquid form. My search for a blue mage costume went sour after flipping through several Magic: the Gathering card visual spoilers, and I decided to mess with this fabric I picked up cheap. No idea what it is, but it's silky, uncontrollable, and a pain to stencil patterns onto without it rolling/stretching out.

Yep. Brunette and with maroon shirt. It actually looks like the colors her in-game sprite has in the Playstation version in combat. I'm not going to go for full accuracy, since I have no idea how to make the frilly doily looking things on her sleeves and collar. Best I can do is this quasi-silk shirt thing. Might as well now highlight the main purpose of the previous post: the irregular buttons.
Blue triangular buttons. I didn't want to cheapen her costume with velcro, because that's the way of dollar bin costuming (Yes, I used Velcro for the TF2 characters, but I went for in-game appearance than functionality. They don't seem to have any visible means of fastening their clothes together.). It would diminish her uniqueness more, as she's not a unique head sculpt by any means, and velcro would make her clothing reminiscent of Barbie and the rest of the sluttier knock-offs that have surfaced.

There's not a lot I can do with her costume, aside from give her something that doesn't scream "slut dressed in vinyl with an uzi". Her lack of willing-dismemberment forces me to actually start manufacturing buttons and such to overcome the barrier of using velcro to secure everything. You can't tell due to her shirt covering it up, but she's using the belt buckle technique I used on the Kris Mage.

I'll have to get around to making boots for her and "completing" her outfit fully. Problem is that I have no idea how to make decent small boots...yet.

Construction Techniques: Belt Buckles Out of Paper Clips

Sometimes, you need something now and can't be bothered buying something to gut and harvest for parts. Today, I'll highlight making belt buckles out of regular paper clips. First, you'll need the following items:

• Any paper clip (This was done with regular uncoated non-hex clip paper clips)
• Jeweler's needle nose pliers (rounded tips for bending coils and stuff)
• Small regular pliers (flattened gripping surfaces)
  
• Lots of determination and a steady hand

First, you'll need to straighten out the paper clip. Don't worry about accuracy, as long as it's bent straight. Try to minimize cold working the paper clip (bending it back and forth). The more you bend the paper clip, the weaker the clip will get as you will easily get to the state of fatiguing the metal.

The above image shows roughly the belt buckle shape. You want to take your jeweler's pliers to do the bending, by holding the region where you want the bend to be with the tips, then bending the paper clip around it. You want to form a shape that looks like a window, as illustrated by the top drawing. It should look like a window, or a blocky "8". To cut off the excess material, you simply need to score or notch where you want it to break off, then simply cold work that region. The notch will grow as you cold work it, eventually leading to a fracture.

The trick to getting the buckle to work is to bend the two halves at an angle, illustrated by the bottom part of the drawing shown above. With the buckle bent this way, the belt strap or whatnot will have to overcome more friction to become undone. This will allow you to put belts around curved objects without needing the little pin and notches used to hold a belt in place.

Here's a demonstration of the paper clip belts in use on the Kris Mage.

I've used paper clips to do the loops on the dress where I fed the ribbon through. Below that, there are two belt buckles that hold pretty well by themselves. You'll need to sew or attach your belt to the middle section to complete your belt.

I'll be experimenting with more belt buckles as I upgrade my TF2 dolls with better belt materials. Cardboard isn't cutting it, nor are they up to standards.

Fear me! I am the Fire Mage! FIIIIIIIRRRRE! BUUURN!

Well, here's to a week or two of boredom. I've made myself a Kris Mage, one of the many cards that influenced some of my artistic endeavors over time. I've always loved the detail on her outfit.

Anyways, time to show what a bored engineer can do with practically no experience sewing outfits or doing embroidery! And since I'm out of knives, we'll have to play with fire.

I could have easily used Lia since her hair better matches, but I like Hotaru better. It's the sad truth.

Every cultural ransacking starts with a little red book.

I shall engulf thee with the might of my fiery wrath!

Taste the fury of crimson flame!