A link to finished pictures

Here is a link to a few final pictures:
http://www.cosplay.com/gallery/206650/

I think it turned out pretty well.  It's hard to walk like that, and it got pretty hot.  But it was probably worth it.  My mom likes to tell people about little kids' reactions to it.  Now to think of another project.

I has claws.

O hay guise.  I has claws nao.  And arms attached to the main body, and velcro on the arms for wingyness.  I am currently in the process of drawing stripes on with permanent markers.  I probably should have gotten a Fabricmate dye pen, but they were like $4, and sharpies were $1.  I did some quick math and the sharpies won.  Still need to do everything with feathers, and sew up the chest and stuff.  And get a real life and job.  Oh wait.

Water bottle grabbing action!

 The palm of my right hand.  The thumb claws are glued into the gloves, but I haven't decided whether to glue in the other claws.  The glove fingers are pretty tight and it's a lot easier to hold the claw between my fingers before trying to wedge them, than the other way.

The back of my right hand, with velcro.  All the pictures of raptors with feathers have them on the middle finger, so I went with the flow.

Sum pix

 

Still need to sew up the belly and lower neck, add sleeves, and stick on feathers.

The home stretch

The skin, hand claws, feathers and paint are pretty much all that's left to do.  And some more jaw help, but I'm not feeling enthusiastic about that.  I need a pulley or something.

The fabric is pretty much all cut.  I've sewn the body and legs together, with zippers and velcro.  No pictures at this time because I am lazy and it would kind of just look like a sewn together mess.  I wanted to attach the gloves and claws to the rest of the body skin, but it just occurred to me that the claws might not be a good idea in the washer/dryer.  Hmm.  Maybe even more velcro is in order.

My dad said I should enter the Santa Barbara Summer solstice parade with it, but I don't know if I could wear this thing for a whole parade route.  He also said I should hang out onstage with he and his band at the same event, apparently as a novelty.  They play oldies, which only vaguely relate to dinosaurs.  The solstice theme is "Jungle," though, so who knows. I tried to tell him that it might be a bad idea to have me onstage with expensive music equipment, since I am liable to knock things over with my tail possibly.  He did not seem to understand my concern, and said the stage was decently large.  Additionally, he probably doesn't understand that I can't dance, much less in a dinosaur suit.

Paint and stuff

I painted, stuck some cheeks on, took the eye tape off, and put velcro on for future fabric connections.  Also put a metal loop on the bottom of the jaw instead of more internal operation, as previously designed.  This is much easier to deal with.  Getting bitten by my own creation while trying to make its bite better is painfully ironic.






A little cheek action.  It's just hot glued on and still needs some black fabric paint to continue the pattern.

 I need to get some matte sealing spray.

 I finally gave up on finding that one missing tooth and made a new one, but these pictures are older than that.

 I went to Fanimecon with some friends, and pretended to be Sauron with the Marvel crowd.  Dark Phoenix and me were lonely while the "teammates" pictures were being taken, so we took our own picture.

Also Bender was there.

Headgear installed

I have made my first youtube upload, showing the follow me eye effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG7JISCmptQ

You know those pictures on facebook and such, where people are taking their own picture in a mirror?  I find those to be pretty darn tacky.  And yet here I am doing it.  Embarrassing hypocrisy.

The eyes are covered with masking tape so I don't accidentally paint them or scratch them up.

Since taking this picture, the jaw has somewhat been elastic'ed into being mostly closed, but I still need to work on getting it all the way closed.  And find that tooth that is still missing.  And other things.

Both of these pictures are of the same side of the face, because the other side has a big white patch that needs painting.

The mask is pretty much attached to my head.  It's like wearing a periscope that I can't see out of.  When I turn my head, it turns.  When I tilt my head, it tilts and does not fall off, thanks to several hours worth of headgear building with brass wire and plastic canvas (the same stuff the outer neck is made out of.)


The circlish watermark looking things are where I didn't clean off my mirror well enough to take the picture.  It used to be a target for suction-tipped nerf gun practice.  Don't judge me.

Eyes installed, tail in gear

I just finished gluing in the eyes.  I made the eyes out of some plastic ball ornaments that came as two halves at a  craft store.  I used a soldering iron to melt out four circles, then I used some wire cutters and a file to clean up the edges.  Then I painted the convex side of two of them like eyes (with glow in the dark paint,) as per this handy tutorial..  Then I Krazy Glued one clear eye part and one painted eye part together, and ta da, follow me eyes.  I hot glued them onto the head, and followed up with suede leather eyelids that I cut out of stuff I had sitting around.  The effect is pretty awesome, but needs a new paint job pretty bad.

The top picture is yellow because of no flash, lower is reflective because there is.  I cannot win.  The neck is pretty much finished, may need some foam under the chin to connect it to the lower jaw like I did with the top.  The plastic canvas is a little bent so the neck doesn't look extremely sexy in this pic, but it doesn't look bad when positioned properly.

In other news, I finally went and got new pvc pipe and rebuilt the tail harness.  Hooray.

My to-do list includes making clawed gloves, attaching the head to my head, making the jaw operate with my jaw, puffing out the body with more plastic canvas and foam, making a skin, painting the skin, and then adding feathers.  And then, you know, wearing it around town to scare the chillins.

On the downside, my desktop computer hasn't worked properly for almost a month, and my car is also on strike.   This would not be such a big problem if I could get groceries decently on my bike.  I should get one of those rear wheel racks.