Down to business

I was just going to do this last night but then I thought sleep is really awesome so, whatever, we're going now.


to jump straight into it, I have never done a project this elaborate before. at least not a 3D project with this many processes involved. In an attempt to make the project scope easier to see I broke the Big Sister down to her basic elements. here's what I got:


-Helmet
-Brest Plate
-Tank and Cage
-White Shirt and Pants
-Leather Corset and Hotpants
-Shoulder Pads
-Right Arm Gauntlet and Wraps
-Left Arm Gauntlet and Wraps
-Leg Braces and Boots


and as a bonus I may make a couple of props for Sarah, my Little Sister friend:


-Big Daddy Doll
-Little Sister Hypo


at the very least I'll work with her on the hypo so there is consistency  between that and my costume.

Then, once the list-making was done I began looking at surface qualities and textures and deciding how I want to approach certain elements of the costume. One major consideration I had was the leatherwork. The three major elements on the Big Sister that incorporate leather are the corset, the shorts and the leg braces. with some investigation I have decided that I will ost likely need to find a way to make each of these items. the corset doesn't really function like a normal corset, as her hips are not super exaggerated. there are several desighns for corsets online, so I may be modifying one of those to make my own. 


for the pants, I would just try to find some booty shorts  and cover them with leather for the pants, however, other cosplayers who have done this seem to always have pants that are too long. These pants almost seem more like underwear in length, so I am contemplating taking a shot at making them myself.


And for the leg braces, I will definitely be making my own, as a single vintage, bare-metal leg brace would cost at least $500. I will likely be making my own belts as well, as there are 29 belt bucles in total on the Big Sister, and just buying 29 belts will cost around $100, and I would like to cut that cost down if I can.


In a perfect world ,I would just use leather, however I am assuming that the cost of that would be insane so I'm looking for a good fake leather substitute.


For the metal parts, I was a bit concerned about how I could make them LOOK like metal. Most folks just use paint, but even with a lot of work paint generally still looks like paint so I rooted around for a while before finding this:

This is a prop helmet made by a man named "Mr. Bird" with cold-cast metal. Cold-casting utilizes a process where you mix powdered metal with a resin, then when it's dry, it can be buffed, polished and tarnished like real metal. It's even cold to the touch. Best of all, you don't need to cast a mold (something I had hoped to avoid), you can just paint it on a surface.


Awesome!


I haven't checked prices yet, but I pretty well have my heart set on covering the helmet and breastplate with nickel silver then all the little brass bits with... brass.


the guys over at Lab 604 have some pretty detailed shots of the air tank and cage in process. I'm guessing it won't be too much trouble to reverse-engineer their process. It seems to be primarily a cardboard tube, aluminum, and some DOW board, so nothing too pricey.


Aside from that stuff, everything else seems doable with some model clay, cardboard and a little patience. 


that's it for this update, sorry for more boring pre-making stuff. Next I'll talk about all the proportions and mathstuff I've been doing to plan stuff out. Then, we build!