[Tutorial] Quick n' dirty steampunk goggles

This whole thing is 90% foam. Believe it!

Need a pair of steampunk goggles on the fly? making these would set you back a couple of hours at most, and can be made of random junk lying around your house.

The goggles I made were meant to be pinned to a top hat I made (no tutorial sorry, not unless I decide to make another hat!) so they CAN be used on your face but they're nowhere near as comfortable and can be kinda flimsy for actual wear. But they definitely work if you just want a pair for show.

NOTE: This tutorial does not include any measurements whatsoever, because your base materials might vary.

Materials:

A reasonably sized cardboard tube (any tube shaped material would work actually)
Foam (two thicknesses, preferably between 2mm - 5mm)
Scrap cloth or faux leather
Scrap transparent plastic sheet, mine came from a plastic file
PVA glue (or favourite foam sealant)

Tools:

Scissors/ boxcutter knife
Contact Glue
Rub N' Buff in Antique Gold
Acrylic Paint
Needle and thread
Brushes

Optional:

3D paint
Tiny screws or thumbtacks
Elastic
Stapler
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Research!

The first order of business is to find a reference for what you want to make your steampunk goggles looking like. I wanted something more vintage looking (without all the extra fancy stuff) plus I need to do it really fast (because, I tend to do shit last minute) so I picked a very basic design.

Cut the tubes and fit the first foam layer

These will form the main 'body' of your goggles. Take your tube and cut it in half and then cut the other end slightly slanting so they will fit around your eyes comfortably. If you aren't going to wear them you don't have to cut them to an exact fit.

Next cut out two larger strips of the thinner foam and wrap it around both tubes, glue them down and trim off the access. Once they dry, coat the outside of the foam with a sealant and let it dry.

While waiting for them to dry, measure out and cut adequate amounts of scrap cloth, elastic or leather to make into your 'strap'. Make a short one to act as the nose bridge of the goggles and a longer one that will go around your neck/head/hat/whathaveyou.

Make the lenses

Use the 'front end' to measure

For the 'lenses' cut out circles from your transparent plastic sheet and then glue them onto your tube. Don't worry if they're too big, you can trim them off later. You can use tougher plastic or even coloured material for this step, as long as it's semi transparent anything works really.

They will more or less look like this

Optionally, you can also paint the inside of your tubes if you don't want people to see that they're actually made of cardboard rolls :P I painted mine black but at a later stage than I should have. Lesson learnt!

Rims!

Once you have trimmed them, cut out a pair of 'rims' for your goggles. I wasn't super careful when cutting mine out so they're a little uneven but I did trim them down somewhat. Once they're ready place the outer rim on top of the goggles and glue it down. 

This will act as sort of a 'sandwich' to hold the lenses in place and make it look cooler/hide all your ugly glue. You can also glue an additional ring of foam on the back of the goggles to simulate padding or to just make it more comfortable if you do intend to wear it later.

Here is where I added little drops of 3D paint to the outer rims to simulate rivets, you can also use 3D paint to make them look all regal by painting decorative patterns on them if your character is of the fancier persuasion.

Coat the outer rims with sealant as well. You can add little screws or thumbtacks as well but do it after you've sealed everything.

Paint paint.

Paint up your goggles to be with a base coat. Black is preferable. You may need 1-3 coats depending on how thick your paint is, just be careful to avoid dripping any on your lenses. Allow to dry thoroughly in between each layer.

Now here's the fun part.

I LOVE THIS STUFF

After the base coat has dried, break out your Rub N' Buff and use your finger or a brush to start painting the entire body of the goggles, buff them out when done.

If you don't have/want to use Rub N' Buff, regular copper coloured acrylic paint will work just as well.

Take a bit of care to avoid painting on your lenses as usual.

Strappage

Once everything is done, take your straps and either glue or staple them to your goggles. Optionally you can cover the staples with a bit of paint or foam, though bear in mind that glue is not as good as tacking the straps down and should be treated as a temporary measure.

After that you're pretty much done! I might write a more proper tutorial later because I am going to be making more goggles, hopefully with more comprehensive instructions.

Happy building!

[Tutorial] Super easy foam claws

I happen to like claws, nails and other pointy things. Hell, I have an entire costume lined up that's practically nothing but foam spikes (ugh) so this time we're gonna talk about making some foam claws (or teeth) for yourself. It's an easy project but it requires a lot of elbow grease if you're going to do it by hand. So lets get to it.

rarawrawrawrrrr

Please read through the entire project before collecting material!

Materials:

4-5mm foam, colour irrelevant if you're going to paint it
Glue sticks (for hot glue gun)
Contact glue (or similar contact cement) I prefer Shelley's Kwik Grip.
Newspaper (for blueprinting and stuffing)

Tools:

Scissors
Boxcutter blade or X-acto knife type cutting implement. Sharper the better.
Hot Glue Gun
Pencils, markers, etc for marking the foam

Optional:

Sandpaper 150- 600 grit depends on need
Heat gun
Dremel or equivalent rotary tool with sanding bit
Filler or latex acrylic based caulk (get gloves for that shit! its bad for skin)
--
Template and cut

First, draw up your claw blueprint and make a template out of it before you get to cutting. For tracing it out I used a yellow sewing chalk pencil to outline it because it's easier to see.

The way I do it is by drawing three shapes (bottom, top and the middle piece) and then cutting the 3rd piece in half. The 3rd piece will form the 'walls' of your claw. Of course you could make it taller or shorter depending on your needs.

Chop chop!

Sticking it all together

There's two ways you can glue up your claw.

The first method is to use hot glue to connect the pieces together. This way can be a little tricky if you aren't using high-temp hot glue sticks as it can sometimes cool before you finish sticking them together. But this method is good if you want to get it done VERY FAST.

The contact glue way is to apply glue on both the sides you are connecting and letting them dry just a little till they're tacky. After that jam both sides together firmly and they should stick almost seamlessly.

Before sanding and trimming. Yes I used a satay stick to get glue into all those little corners :)

The results are roughly the same, it's just a matter of your personal preference and how strong you want the bond to be. Just remember that the closer and more accurately you glue it, the less visible the seams will be!

When it's done you can then trim the corners, carve notches, shave it smooth with sandpaper, stuff it with newspaper for strength, the possibilities are practically endless :)

Finishing

If you need to paint it, just seal it up in your preferred method of treating foam and paint away!

Also if there are tiny cracks in your foam, you can always go over it with some caulk or filler and let it dry overnight. This in turn can be sanded smooth or you can smoothen it with water before letting it dry, roughly same results.

Alternatively, if you're bothered by little hairy bits left behind from sanding or uneven cutting, you can run your heat gun over the foam to remove the unwanted texture. Just remember not to leave it there too long! it could cause your glue to melt.

I used the claws to make teeth for these boney shoulderpads I made for a client LOL

That's pretty much the entire project in a nutshell. Hope it was helpful!

[Tutorial] Repainting an MLP Blind Bag pony

Hi everybody! Hope the Halloween weekend was fun ;)

About a week ago or so I decided to take one of my spare MLP Blind bag ponies to modify into a present for a friend's birthday. I thought it would be nice to customise him his OC and I pretty much like to paint too so it was a win-win decision on my part.

I do enjoy painting miniature stuff, believe me. But I never got into the Wargaming scene simply because well, I don't enjoy Wargaming and it is a rather expensive hobby (says the cosplayer, lol). I'm more of a pen and paper kind of person at heart.

Anyway, here's the things you're likely to need to repaint your own blind bag pony.

Materials:

Nail polish remover or acetone or dettol disinfectant (the yellow one)
Acrylic paint (as many colours as you need)
Water
Tissue paper, cotton buds or cotton balls
Matte paint varnish of some kind (I used Pledge Future Floor Polish)
Soap

Optional materials:
Ultra-fine black permanant marker
Spray primer coat (white or black)

Tools:

Brushes. Preferably a few different sizes ranging from medium to fine because blind bag ponies are small and they tend to have lots of tiny nooks and crannies that your brush needs to fit into.

Toothbrush

A few small Tupperware or storage containers (like the kind you use for storing condiments)

A jar or a cup to wash your brush in

Optional Tools:

Pallet
Piece of old cloth for wiping brushes on

--

Ugh, so sparkly.

To start off, I used a Glitter Mosely Orange as my base. For the most part he was shedding glitter like nuts and has a transparent base with a solid mane and tail. As far as I can tell you this method would work for a large majority of blind bag ponies though I'm not sure what the Breezie variants are like yet because I haven't had a chance to see them in person.

Removing the paint and glitter

There are multiple ways to tackle this, but first you will want to determine how much paint you want to remove. Removing the glitter is a bit difficult and it tends to leave behind a rough surface thanks to the glue that Hasbro uses on their ponies. This may not be necessary if the pony you're using isn't one of the glitterbombs I got.

Slow

This is if you have a lot of time to spare and/or you don't want to harm the pony base or yourself by using harmful chemicals.

Prepare a mixture of dettol in a 1:1 ratio with water and pour it into a jar or container that you can afford to get dirty. Submerge the entire pony and leave it be for 1-2 days. The dettol will cause the paint to flake off, so get your toothbrush, dip it in the dettol and soap and scrub off the paint. It should come off quite easily, just don't use water till the paint is all off because plain water will cause the paint to coagulate on your brush and everywhere else. Repeat this till there's absolutely no paint left. Can take anywhere from 1 to 3 days if the paint is stubborn.

Moderately fast

Put your pony on a surface that won't be damaged by nail polish remover or acetone (like not on a varnished table for example) and soak a cotton pad in your choice of remover. Place the soaked pad on the pony and leave it there for a minute or so then rub. Repeat this process with more cotton pads and cotton buds to remove the paint. You will need to repeat this a few times till all the glitter and paint comes off. Glitter is particularly hard to remove and tends to leave behind a lot of glue so this is actually better for the solid coloured blind bag ponies.

Soak

Rub

Scrub

Very fast

For the impatient and those who really know what they're doing, this method works as well. You will also need protective gloves for this because repeated exposure to acetone and other similar spirits/thinners can have an adverse reaction in the long term.

Pour out just enough acetone to cover the pony into a small plastic or glass container. Drop the pony inside and swish it around. You might have to rub and scrub it a bit by hand or alternate with an old toothbrush and soap till the pony is completely clean. This will take just a few minutes at best, but is smelly and potentially harmful to your skin.

Partial removal

This is good if you just want to change the mane colour or a few small details on the pony in question. Simply dip a cotton bud into some nail polish remover and rub on the section you want to get the paint off. Note this will remove cutie marks and eyes at the slightest touch so you need to be careful still.

Regardless, unless you're only aiming for partial removal, you should completely strip it of all it's original paint before moving on to the next step.

Squeaky clean!

Painting

Before you start, you want to prime the pony. Normally I would suggest sanding it first, but this might destroy any finer details on the pony (because it's pretty shitty plastic) so we're skipping that step. The method I'm using basically uses acrylic paint the whole way but you can also do this step with spray paint primer.

Base coat 

Mix some white acrylic paint with some water so it's slightly runny and paint it over the whole pony. Nevermind if it drips, this would make it a smoother application. Let it dry completely and repeat this step two to three times for good measure, or until the pony's plastic colour is no longer visible.

First coat will look roughly like this.

2nd coat!

To make life easier, you can make use of the little hole in the pony's foot to prop it up. I used an old paintbrush stuffed in a bunch of foam in a cup to hold mine up as you can see here.

Adding colour

Next is the part where the Tupperware will come in handy. If your pony is a color that has to be hand mixed, these will help out a lot. Mix your colours directly in them and add just enough water for it to be runny, these containers will prevent your colours from drying out over the few hours/days you need to paint your pony, especially if you're using custom colour mixes. Prepare as many of these as you need.

Once your base is properly dry, paint the pony's coat colour and main hair colour. The pony I was working on only had flat colours so it was fairly easy, it might be slightly trickier if your pony had colours like Rainbow Dash for example.

You can go either mane first or coat first, it doesn't really matter.

Paint the coat and mane as needed and let it try. Again do it until the base coat is no longer visible under your colours. Don't worry if you miss, you can always use a cotton bud dipped in a bit of water to wipe off mistakes and access. It's important that you allow each coat time to dry because too thick coats that aren't allowed to dry can run or bubble leaving your pony with warty surface.

Keep repeating with coats till you're satisfied with the result.

Cutie mark and eyes.

Now here's the hard part. You will need your finest brushes here.

Prep the area that you want to paint on your cutie mark and eyes with white paint. You will need between 2-3 coats of white till the area becomes solid. This is to make the colours stand out when you paint them on later. Also bear in mind that the paint needs to be smooth because if it's lumpy it will show in the final product.

This is also a good time to do details like hooves/crowns/wingtips if your pony has those features.

Almost done!

For the eyes, first do the black outline for the eyelashes with black paint. You can also do this with a thin black marker as well. Paint the colour of the iris first and let it dry. A couple of coats might be needed before you paint on the pupils. Allow each section to dry. don't worry if it's not perfect. You can always retouch later. Add the 'eye sparkle' and let it dry thoroughly for at least 4 hours.

As for the cutie mark, paint individual colours one at a time till you're done. The paint here need not be as runny as the base coats because it's quite small and you're likely to need a ton of dexterity to handle it.

Yay!

Once you're satisfied, use your sealer, let it dry properly and you're pretty much done.

And remember, if it doesn't turn out out well, you can always dump it back in acetone and try again.

Hope you found the tutorial helpful!

[Tutorial] Simple cyberhand base

This tutorial is inspired heavily by the work of HellWolve on deviantart. He's a master costumer/larper so do check out his work ;)

As it seems to be my fashion to do things at the last possible moment, I decided to karate myself a quick cyberhand for Halloween last year in order to go participate in a Halloween event that uh, required a costume for entry.

I decided to go as a futuristicky cyberpunk dude (in an extremely loose sense) so a cyberhand is a must (at least it is to me, never leave home without your augmented bits! there are critters out there!)

I can't really give a costing this time because I used materials that I already had lying around in the first place. Daiso driving gloves were RM 5.

These are the stuff you need:

Material:

1-2 black cotton gloves (length and amount is totally up to you) I got it from Daiso.
Thin craft foam (1mm should do it)
Paper (for drafting)

Tools:

Sewing chalk (mine is pencil shaped)
Sharp scissors
Contact glue (any brand that's tacky and doesn't seep will do)
Needle and thread

Optional:

Detailing paint brush
White paint
Computer case screw
Lighter

---

First thing I did was draw a template of my hand on a piece of paper while I had the glove on so I could get a rough estimate of what plate went where. This is also a good time to decide how many plates you want to use. They can be longer or shorter depending on your hand size and how 'robotic' or 'armorlike' you want.
The finger plates can also wrap around your finger 3/4 of the way for a blockier feel.

Plop.

I also cut the glove down to size because only a bit of it was poking out of my sleeve and it didn't need to be that long (the cotton glove I used stretched up till almost at shoulder level)

After you're happy with the amount you need, cut all your templates out. Label for good measure because if you're anything like me, you'll forget which plate goes where.

Now grab your foam and draw out as many shapes as you need using the templates, then chop them up with your scissors.

I prefer to use Selleys contact adhesive because it's easy to apply, but Dunlop glue or any similar adhesive works fine too.

Not an advertisement.

Always check your foam plates against your fingers before gluing them down so you can make any last fitting adjustments to the plates. Once you're happy glue down the plates drawn side down so you can hide the chalk. Alternatively you can wash the plates beforehand but personally I feel it's too much work :P

After that you're pretty much done! Here's a few alternative things you can do to spiff up your glove before you glue/sew your plates down:

Paint your plates before attaching.

Make 'futuristic' impressions by heating up the computer screw with the lighter and pressing down in strategic locations.

Glue down decals (can be stickers, small flat trinkets, what have you)

Here's my result. It's slightly bunched up because I was using a very loose cotton glove but depending on how tight your base glove is, the end result will look better.

Simple yet effective!

[Tutorial] Super-quick Harley Quinn Mallet

Some time ago I volunteered to join in a costume appearance for fundraising Typhoon Haiyan funds  for charity. I had somehow agreed to costume as Harley Quinn (don't ask, I'm still embarrassed ><) and decided to build her iconic mallet up quick just in case they didn't have any props or other costumey stuff available as it was an extremely short notice thing.

Didn't help that I was busy with other things and ridiculously broke, but it's good to have stock of random supplies in the house...you never know when they'll come in handy!

All in total, the project cost me maybe RM15.

At any rate, this is what I used:

Material:
1 pc 1mm leftoever pvc foam board (something like sintra, but not as expensive)
1 recycled plastic pipe from an older project
4 sets of nuts and bolts
2 appropriately shaped bukkits
Duct tape
Tons of wide masking tape (you'll need a minimum of 2-3 rolls)
Red and black acrylic paint
Matte transparent spraypaint for sealing

Tools:

Soldering iron (because I prefer to melt holes rather than drill them)
Hot glue gun
Screwdriver
Brushes
Markers
Cutter knife (or an x-acto if you have one)
Pliers (optional)

----
I started out by using one of the buckets to trace out two circles about as wide as the mouths of the buckets so form the 'lid' of the bucket. I used this bit of extra pvc foam board I had lying around but if you want something cheaper or lighter you could use mounting board or cardboard even. Cut out the two shapes and put them aside.

Next, I cut the edges off the buckets' mouth using a knife and a pair of pliers to help me yank off the more stubborn bits of plastic. I made sure to leave a little bit behind so it's easier to stick the cut shapes to the buckets later down the road. You can omit this step if your buckets don't have a wide 'lip'.Sandpaper it down for safety.

Do the back too!

Careful with the amount of force you use, it's better to twist the plastic off or cut it rather than yank, that can crack the plastic

After that I took the old pipe from an older project (it was a staff) and cut about a foot off to make it short enough for Harley's Mallet. Depending on your construction a PVC pipe might be too soft for use in the long run so I suggest that for longevity you use a wooden stick instead if you can.

I also had to peel off the epoxy clay from the top

I lined up both buckets together and marked where I would put down holes for bolts to hold them together. Note I accidentally broke one of the buckets trying to nail holes with a hammer =\ so I resorted to using a soldering iron for better effect.

accidents happen :(

I also used it to cut out some space to insert the PVC pipe to complete construction. Just do it in a ventilated area if you're melting plastic!

Don't forget to cut some space for your stick

When you're happy with the placement of things, screw in your bolts and pop out your hot glue gun, glue in the pipe with liberal amounts of hot glue as well as around the base of the buckets on the outside for good measure.

Don't worry too much if it's messy, it's likely to be covered by tape in one of the next steps. Duct tape down the stick from the inside for some extra durability.

At this stage you can glue on your bucket 'lids' or do it after you finish your tape. It makes no real difference.

This is roughly what it would look like at this point

Don't forget to cut off any access so the lids are flush with the bucket

Take your tape and tape down your buckets lengthwise. You will have to keep doing this until the entire bucket is coated and it's shape becomes more like that of a mallet, not two buckets glued together hodgepodge.

You can put as many layers as you like, though more is better. The paper tape also helps make it possible to be painted later. Don't forget to press it down till it's snug.

When you're happy with how thick it is, you can then get to painting. I had to do mine indoors so I laid a load of newspaper on the floor and used some plastic bags to protect the chair I was using to prop up the mallet.

The design I used isn't 100% in line with any particular Harley Quinn mallet I've seen (also because I was short of time anyway) but feel free to use any design you see fit. Woman's had a lot of different mallets.

I painted I think maybe 4 layers of red and black. The masking tape will suck up a fair bit of paint on it's own as well, so use liberal amounts but be sure to let each layer of paint dry before smacking on the next. Clumpy paint takes ages to dry.

After it dries completely (it will take awhile, trust me) I hit it with a coat of matte transparent spray paint to seal it up and we were done!

I'm fairly proud of the results considering it was done in a very short amount of time for a ghetto Harley. Hope this tutorial was useful!