Chell: Wrist Wrap

This should not have been as difficult as it was.

Chell has what looks like a white wrap bandage around her right wrist. I decided to spiral-sew some white elastic so I can slip it on and off pretty easily, instead of having to wrap a bandage and find a way to hold it in place whenever I wear Chell.

First, I wrapped the elastic around my wrist and pinned it in place to make sure the length was right.

After a little bit of swearing at the sewing machine and my tiny wrists,
I determined that the first connection would have to be made with
my best friend, Loctite superglue.

After more swearing at the sewing machine, I finally got on a roll.
Then I got off the roll when things got really close together,
and the right (top) elastic was not lining up under the needle, so
I was sewing one piece of elastic to nothing but itself.
About four times.

I glued the bottom connecting spot too, and
here's the finished product.

It's a tiny bit tight, but I'm going to slip it over something (a soda bottle or the like)
to get it a LITTLE bit more stretched out.

Ta-da! Wrist wrap, done.

So that leaves the to-do list (edited since last time) looking like this:

28 things to get done in 49 days (19 for Chell, 9 for Zoe).
I've decided not to put the lights/sound in the portal gun for May,
but I'll work on it over the summer and hopefully, I'll have that
all done for any fall shows I go to.
I'd like to have all that for the TWCC cosplay contest, but
maybe next year.

Chell: Long-Fall Boots Weekend

I rewrote my to-do list for Tidewater Comicon this weekend, because I have a better idea of how I'm actually going to do most of the things. Here's the new list:

Some of the things have already been done now, at time of posting.

So I worked on the long-fall boots this weekend. They're one of the tricky parts of the Chell costume, and one that I really need to get right, or I'll sprain my ankles and fall on my face and get a concussion and who knows what else.

I nailed it at the thrift store. These boots were just about as perfect as I was going to find. Ten bucks and they fit like a dream:

First things first, I had to remove the studded/buckled straps from them:

Voila.

Then we took them to the house and used a Sawzall (okay, Birk's dad did, because he's helpful and knowledgeable like that) to take off the heels:

Some advice, if you want to try this.

(1) We started with a fine blade (which got through the metal rod/screw/nail/whatever runs up through the entire heel) then switched to a coarse blade (which got through the rest). It kind of melted the plastic of the heel a little, and it was pretty tough to get through.

(2) Don't wear flip-flops. You won't want plastic/metal shavings in your feet. Just trust me.

(3) Be INSANELY CAREFUL. The shoes were jumping around, and like I said before, the plastic melting makes it a little hard to saw through. One person holding the shoes down, another doing the sawing, and COMMUNICATE. Otherwise, someone is losing a finger and you'll have blood everywhere.

(4) Put something under the shoe while you saw. The vibrations rubbed the side of the shoe on the table, and you can kind of see the result on the shoe on the right in the picture. The other one turned out worse. I figure it's okay, because we're going to paint or Plasti Dip or something these things, but still, there was a genuine possibility that we were going to go right through the shoe and leave a hole in the side.

We didn't go any closer to the sole because we didn't really have to, and it was hard to be especially accurate, since - as I mentioned - the shoe and saw were bouncing all over the place. But I'm going to use a little Bondo to smooth everything out and make it look nice, so accuracy wasn't really essential.

I also used some packing foam to create a prototype/template for the foam part that will go around the boots:

I thought I was going to build boots from scratch.
After I got this far, I decided to go to the thrift store.

The finished template, with notes in case I don't get
back to it for a little while. I'll have to remeasure now
that I'm using the thrift store boots but it should be
close enough.

The current plan is to make those out of stiffer packing foam (not the EVA foam mat pieces), but only if Plasti Dip or Bondo will adhere to it, so I can get the shiny white look I need.

I also managed to finally hem the legs of the jumpsuit:

Still a little big, but taking them in will be a different day.

Starting Chell

Chell has been on my "to cosplay" list since day one, and I've decided to give her a shot this year. Here's what I have done already:

I ordered a costume jumpsuit on Amazon. It was the only one I could find that (1) might fit me,
(2) didn't have any printing on it, and (3) was a reasonable price.

Step one of the portal gun: painting a shipping tube black.
(I knew I was keeping this tube for a reason.)

As of right now, the task list sits at 29 tasks to do in 90 days (in time for Tidewater Comicon) and it's the costume I intend to enter in the cosplay contest. If all my plans pan out, I'll have amazing long-fall boots, a portal gun that switches from orange to blue lights (and stores my wallet/phone/glasses), with a GLADoS potato on one of the arms (that might even talk... we'll see). Plus the jumpsuit, tank top, wrist wrap, and haircut.