The Protoss Project

Today's experiment was about making Zeratul's psionic blade. This was more just playing around with stuff we mostly had on hand, to see which process could work the best. Luckily, I've been hoarding plastics for various little projects, so finding them was more of the task than anything.

We started out with a tip from one of Chris's co-workers: When you take regular styrofoam, you can dissolve it into a plastic... goo... by slowly stirring it into acetone.

All of the tools we used to create a little puddle of plastic from styrofoam. From right to left: Acetone, Nitrile gloves (better than latex, IMO), stir sticks, basic "shapes" made from aluminum foil, and cups. Beneath it all, a hunk o' styrofoam.

A quick Google search yielded this video, which was pretty close to what happened with us (only we used just a tiny bit of acetone, about enough to half-way fill a little dixie cup, like what you pour mouth wash into). We wound up with a horrible smell (nail-polish remover is acetone) and a puddle of plastic goo!

I apologize now for the lack of really good pictures of this whole process, as we didn't think of taking pictures until we were already on to the next part of the experiment...

A bit of the styrene plastic goo in the bottom of the cup

We took this goo, and laid it over our aluminum foil shape, trying for a thinner layer. This was tricky at best, because it is very, very gooey. If you've ever played with sugar for candy making, you know how sticky it can be when it's in melted-sugar form, and that's a lot of what this was like. It became very, very stringy.

We waited. And waited. The top layer cured pretty quickly, but the under stayed very squishy for a very long time. A half hour later, and it was still squishy. I think that this plastic goo needs air to begin to cure, so what I did was start slowly pulling the stuff back, which yielded very stringy bits, which I would then push the entire thing back in. Lo and behold, it started to cure faster doing it this way.

I kept at it for a bit, and then just got slightly annoyed. It's interesting how it becomes almost like Model Magic, but stiffer. You have a lot of working time, depending on how much is exposed to air. I'm sure had I been patient enough to just let it sit and cure on it's own, it would have, but I am just too ADD with stuff like that.

After much just playing with it, here was our result:

Texturized styrofoam plastic goo pile, almost fully cured

An interesting texture, and I'm sure had I done it over a larger area, it would have been more interesting than this little sample yielded. Still, it is something to consider. The down sides that I see, for this project is:

1. It seems like it is rather brittle. It has the same feel of styrofoam, but more like a very dense styrofoam. Not enough to really disfigure with a fingernail/pushing a finger into, but enough that if I made the psionic blade out of it, I would have to be very careful about bumping it into anything, as it might chip off.
2. It is not as translucent as I thought it would be. I don't know why, but I expected it to be more translucent, and instead, this is almost like a completely opaque white. I'll let it cure overnight and let you know if there is any change, but I'm not expecting it. There are tiny bubbles in the plastic (from curing?) that make it even more opaque.
3. I have no idea how I would paint it to permanently stay green/yellow. I don't know if regular paint would stick to it, and I'm assuming it is much like regular styrofoam when it comes to spray paint (i.e. don't do it, it'll melt!)

My final thought on this: Meh. Interesting idea, I may use it for other cosplay pieces in the future, as it's kind of like a cheap, easy to use friendly plastic like substance. And lightweight. Very lightweight, which is always a plus!


As that was curing, however, we scrambled about the house to try to find all of the bits of plexiglass we had, and the heat gun (or, in this case, we could only find my embossing gun, which was just fine it seems!)

Now, I've done some work with plexiglass in the past, and so has my husband. And, by work, I mean we cut it up and replaced a car window a few weekends ago. That's about it, so this was definitely one of those learning experiences.
We started this whole process with the thicker plexiglass you buy at a hardware store. All we were able to do was put a bend in it, we couldn't get much in the way of lumps and crevices that we need to make Zeratul's blade look good. I'm sorry I do not know the exact thickness, but I will dig up the scraps and measure if anyone needs to know.

We then went off to some plexiglass I had purchased from an arts and crafts store, by the stuff for model airplanes and the like. It was a smaller sheet, and rather expensive, but worth it! It is .06 thickness, whatever that means :/
Basically, the entire process was heat it with the embossing gun going slowly, but always moving. If you leave the heat in one spot, you'll notice bubbles forming as the plastic gets too hot, and it starts smelling, too.

Hello :3 Just a piece of the .06 thickness plexiglass, getting ready for heat.

Heating from the top and sides until it starts to bend and flex with gravity

Also, be sure to heat the bottom - I actually think the most success was from heating the plexiglass from the sides instead of directly on the top and bottom, at least until it started to get more plastic (flexible). Then, you need to keep a pretty even heat to be sure that it actually cooperates correctly and melts/bends how you want it to.

We just pushed the hot plexiglass over our aluminum foil "base" to have the shape and texture come through. Remember to use heat-resistant gloves (or at least heavy work gloves if you have a higher heat tolerance).

Pressing it over the aluminum foil "base shape" form

The basic shape, pressed over and let to cool

The really nice thing (IMO) is that you can keep re-heating the plexiglass to reshape it, or add more dimension (or, in this case, start to flatten it out, it was abnormally lumpy...)

Hooray for reheating!

Putting a sharp curve/dent into the plexiglass after heating it again

We're going to want more than one layer, though, to have added dimension, so (if you didn't notice with the picture narrative) we were making two separate pieces of plexiglass, each "free formed" by hand over the same basic shape, so that they would somewhat fit together to create a layered effect.

Two layers of .06 plexiglass
Two layers of .06 plexiglass	Two layers of .06 plexiglass

In the end, here are my thoughts on the plexiglass:

1. It is really easy to work with with a heat gun, or even a cheaper embossing gun like I have!
2. Beware of burns, as this stuff gets really hot and takes a long time to cool off. Especially the aluminum foil that I'm heating it over, too, considering it's metal... I was cooking in my leather gloves, so I think an investment in heat-proof gloves is going to be a must for large scale.
3. Heating it with a heat gun, for any things larger than a few inches, seems like it would be a no-go. You risk burning the plastic, or letting it cool too much in one spot, so it won't flex, and then having to reheat that, while another spot cools... I think you see the potential problem. I'm going to check into the health of using a personal oven for heating the plastic, or possibly buying a cheap one at a resale/salvation army/goodwill store just for this. Daunting? Yes. Worth it? Probably.
4. When over heated, bubbles appear in the plastic. For this project, I actually really like the effect of having them scattered about the blade, it adds nice texture. But, if you needed crystal clear, it's probably not going to happen without a lot of practice first.
5. This is going to be a heavy blade. I think it's going to have three layers of plexiglass total, and I'm not sure if the weight will be too much. We still haven't completed our stilts, so I don't know the exact scale in the outfit, but I'm a bit worried about the weight.

In the end, I'm thinking we're going to frost the backside of the bottom piece of plexiglass (or maybe the top... I'm not sure? Maybe mottled throughout the whole thing, even) to add a bit more light diffusion. The color will come from either translucent paints, or using theatrical gel (something we didn't think to see how it melted until I started writing this... so info on using gels to come!) on the backside or between layers for the right light effects.

On a final note, cut the plexiglass first into the rough shape you need, instead of trimming it down with a Dremel or similar rotary tool - you'll just have nicer edges, as the heat seems to melt them nicely, creating a pretty finished edge!

So, that was our Saturday - some good experimenting, don't you think?

Hope this has been helpful/informative!



Next project: Playing with Paverpol plastic fabric dip stuffs... I just found this on Dharma Trading's web site, and ordered some to see what it was all about. I'm hoping it's like Sculpt or Coat, but thicker (and less coats needed...) so we shall see...

As of 1900 August 16, 2010, we've officially begun work on our Protoss Project.

The first step that we need to tackle (and will hopefully finish up this evening or tomorrow)  is how to deal with the digitigrade stilts, to get the correct "backwards leg" shape of Zeratul. Figuring out how large we're going to be able to make these, and how tall they'll make me, is the first major step in getting the scale of the body to be correct - I can't figure out any other pieces until I have an understanding of how tall I can become!

We started out with this wonderful resource from Gryphern on how they have made the stilts, however, there were a few things that we didn't like with them. We do not intend on furring them (obviously!) and they are a little bulky. Also, we intend on having to wear these for 6 hours or more, so I spent some time trying to figure out exactly how we can make them more comfortable to be worn for a very long time.

This first trial, that we started working on yesterday night and got about 1/3 of the way completed, is only a trial out of wood - we intend, once the design is worked through, to have them welded out of metal, to make them more streamline than blocks of wood.

What I thought may help take some of the tension off of the shin and ankle would be to put the foot plate on a slight pivot, with stops, allowing it to move more naturally, and also allow your heel to rest on something for added support, for standing around for long periods of time.

I have no idea if this will work - I'm a trained costumer, true, but we deal very little with more than basic engineering problems. Luckily, for me, I think more in those terms of engineering, so hopefully, this well-thought-out first prototype will help to figure out what the next step is in this epic project!

((pictures to come shortly, as well as a modification to the Blogger template...))

This will shortly become the working project blog Taeliac Studio. We are working on a huge, new costume project - we are attempting to recreate a fully articulate, life sized and accurate Zeratul costume from the video game Starcraft II.

It is going to push us in directions we've never even thought to go - from welding to electrical work, advanced casting and sculpting, as well as being the largest (physically) costume we've ever created.

We're expecting this to take months to complete, maybe even years. However, we are bent on creating this, and creating it perfectly...

As soon as we get a little more beyond the sketching and brainstorming phase, we'll start posting everything we have here, to show the process as well as the results!