Starting Davey Jones...

[DR4296]

Flexinol wires contracts like a muscle when you put a current on it so if you actually have the wires molded in or glued all the way down the tentacles and controlled by a program, you can actually have the tentacles moving around. Plus you're going to save a lot of weight. You can also find these as nitinol wires or ribbons.

Hmmm.... 5% compression doesn't seem like much, but it may be okay. I'd rather not have to go to using some sort of micro-controller on this. I'd much rather rig up a simple circuit for each tentacle and use manual buttons in my claw to pull this off. The few pages I've read so far suggest that it takes a lot of power to do this. So, I'm going to read a bit more and see if this is something I could just rig up with some batteries, resistors, wire, and switches.

If so, I may just order some today (and try to put a RUSH on the order)!

Thanks for the tip!

-= Dave =-

 

[Zeppo]

Re: the mask sculpt - that short little tentacle/valve on the side, that he would blow air or whatever out of - he only had it on one side, not both. It was on the left side of his face.

Otherwise, looking great so far.

 

[DR4296]

Re: the mask sculpt - that short little tentacle/valve on the side, that he would blow air or whatever out of - he only had it on one side, not both. It was on the left side of his face.

Otherwise, looking great so far.

Ah, good point. Didn't notice that in my reference photos. Had assumed symmetry. I suppose I could chop off the swelled-end of the right one and "make it longer" later. I THINK that's a full fledged tentacle on the right.

I do like to be accurate.

 

[DR4296]

Sorry it's been so long since the last update.

Here are some photos of my progress over the last few weeks:


1) The Vest:
============

The vest is basically done. I used fabric glue to attach a ton of small sea shells to it. Granted, I went a bit overboard!:

It's rather heavy. And yes, I'm sure some shells will break and fall off as they make contact with other shells and other objects. But overall, the fabric glue does an excellent job of keeping the shells adhered!


2) The Pants:
=============

The pants received the same treatment, though I did attach a bit of seaweed and a plastic star fish. Note that I did not attach shells along the top few inches of the pants, because I expect that the vest should extend down that far.

I also tore up the bottoms of the legs. With the right one, I left the leg long in the back, but short in the front, with the expectation that I'll be putting my crab peg-leg in there.

Shortly after cutting that, I suddenly realized: Hey, wait, I should probably put my REAL leg ENTIRELY BEHIND that grey pant leg... in ADDITION to putting it behind a long flap of blue material that will attach to the coat -- that was my original plan for hiding my leg.

So now, it would seem I need to cut a large hole in the rear of the right leg of those gray pants... for slipping my real leg through. And then, I'll need to wear some sort of black thin pants and socks to further hide that "real leg".



3) The Hat:
===========

The hat is basically finished, though I could always add a few more shells if I feel so inclined later on:

As you may recall, the original hat was a black hat with a wide rim. I had trimmed its sides, then attached thick cardboard to it, so as to make those "horn-like tips" to the hat.

Well, in the past few weeks, I cut, glued, and stitched some blue material to the hat. This material is very, very close in color to that of the coat, but I'll admit that I purchased it later (we simply hadn't bought enough "extra" material when doing the coat). We had some left-over gold trim from the coat, so I was able to use that for the hat's gold border.

One thing I worry about is the fit: This hat just BARELY fits on my head. It is quite tight. Now, if I'm wearing a latex mask as well ?? So, I may have to figure out how to perhaps pull the hat upwards off my head just a few millimeters, and yet still keep it firmly attached ??



4) Mask and Right Hand:
=======================

No photo updates at this time. I'm still layering latex onto them. It's been slow going. I haven't been layering multiple layers per day like I'd like to. But we're getting there.

My "mask-making latex" arrived and that is significantly thicker than the flesh-colored latex that I had been using.

One regret I have is that I coated my sculptures with vaseline before applying the latex. Maybe using cooking spray would have been a better option. What happened was, after a few minutes of painting vaseline on with a brush, I'd get annoyed and impatient: the brush was effectively "clogged" instantly, so I ended up just "pushing vaseline around" on it, as if I were using a squeegy. This resulted in me probably using a bit too much vaseline.

So, when I finally applied latex, it seemed that little tiny "balls" of latex showed up in the mask. I'm thinking they're balls of excess vaseline. I've cut some of them off with an exacto knife. Some of them just may give the mask a bit of "character". Not sure.


5) "Muscle Wire" Tentacle Test:
===============================

I think I have to admit to myself that I'd been intimidated by using this "muscle wire" stuff. It's awfully thin! And with my fat fingers, that means it's difficult for me to work with.

So, I only just "got around" to testing it today.

Here's a short video (apologies for the quality!!):

http://www.davidraasch.com/images/davey_jones/dj_work_vid2.wmv


To test this, I took one of my previously-built test-tentacles...and removed all duct tape, so that I could separate the whole thing down the center again.

I then stuck two machine screws from the outside inward, one at each end. On the inside, I put a washer over each screw. I then attached the "muscle wire" and lowered a nut over that. Then I took a piece of electrical wire and attached it over that, with a second nut on top.

I then quickly taped it back up. I didn't have any switches lying around, so I just figured I'd attach the battery manually for a few seconds.

(Now, I was using 20.5 inches of their .010 wire. The math said that this should take 11 volts to "work". Now, keep in mind that my "two wires" aren't really touching each other. There's a nut between them. I figured that, with that additional resistance involved, a 9 volt battery wouldn't even be enough to make this move !!)

I think you'll agree that it actually looks pretty cool! It looks very "organic", if you ask me.

Now, I put the two "attach points" in what I thought was a straight line from each other vertically. However, when re-assembling the tentacle with tape, I think this sort of "went out of alignment".

So, my issues at this point (with this method) appear to be:

a) How to make sure my muscle-wire connections are FIRM and do NOT loosen? (Keep in mind each end is between a simple nut and a washer right now. Any suggestions? The manufacturer includes some tiny "crimps" for attaching muscle wire to other wires. But frankly, the damned things are practically MICROSCOPIC !!)

b) How to assemble these in such a manner that the "at rest" position appears natural and then the "bend" points in the direction I want.

c) How to attach these / assemble these THROUGH the mask? (The intent would be to run wires down to switches that will be hidden in my claw. Plus, I may want to make sure that I can detach and reattach these tentacles, in case of need of repairs or replacements. In fact, I might want to make a few "spares" to keep handy in case of break-downs.)

Overall though, I think I can safely "throw out" the idea of using bike brake cables on this and proceed with using the muscle wire!



6) A NEW Burden:
================

So, months back, when my wife and I were talking about our costumes and Halloween, we agreed that we'd make sure to attend our church's "Trunk or Treat" event. And at the time, I said hey, wouldn't it be neat to turn my pickup truck into a pirate ship?

I hadn't really thought about the idea since then...until about 2 weeks ago, when my wife started pushing the idea to me.

So now, I've got the beginnings of a pirate ship wheel here. I've got a 10 foot piece of PVC pipe that will make a great mast. Got a rope. Got a ship's bell (go figure). Would LOVE to get a stuffed sea gull and a cannon! ( My stepson suggested I build a "candy cannon". Yeah, riiiight !!)

My wife is urging me to just get some canvass to hang from the sides of the truck and then we'll just paint those in a pirate ship design. But I'm half-tempted to get some cheap paneling (you know, the kind that looks like it's fake wood)...and cut it to the shape of a pirate ship.

But of course, I've got a TON to do yet on this costume !!!

So, at this point, I'm just buying or grabbing related items if I'm out-and-about shopping. We'll see.



Thanks for taking an interest in this project!

-= Dave =-

 

[Zendragon]

looking good!

 

[hackfox]

Looks Good so far.

 

[DR4296]

OK, I think I'm in need of a bit of advice now on how to proceed. I figure I need to make some serious progress soon on making the "non-moving" tentacles.

Originally, I had hoped to make a bunch of tentacles out of latex, by applying it to a clay mold. However, this is going painfully slowly.

Here are some quick photos of my latex work. I think I'm probably down to needing just one or two more layers on the mask.

The hand, maybe three or four. The tentacle...maybe 2 to 4. Not sure.
In any event, peeling that latex off of there, then stuffing it with cotton fiber, without ripping it, sounds terribly challenging to me.

Now, while in various stores over the past few weeks, I had an idea to speed things up: I found a large latex spider. The legs had something like coat-hanger wire in their centers.

So, I bought that (99 cents) and cut it apart.

Then I found some smaller spiders (but with longer legs). These had black felt over foam with thin metal wire centers. I've taken one apart here and have left the other intact in this photo.:

My thinking was: Perhaps I can bend these to the shapes I want, build them up in a few spots where they need it, add pointier tips to them, then overcoat them with latex and try to paint them to match. (Of course, one challenge would be that those spindly foam pieces would need some serious build-up; they're pretty darned thin.)


Now, some of these would be attached directly to the mask. But then I'm thinking I should make some lower "chin-bib" to attach the lower ones to. I could use each tentacle's central wire and perhaps some duct tape to form this "bib" and then layer it all with latex. ??

The challenge here seems to be to make all of these tentacles look SIMILAR to each other.

I don't know. What do you think?

In reference photos of other people's Davey Jones costumes, most of them have tentacles that just point straight down. I thought that was kind of lame. But I had a very hard time finding any info on HOW they'd made their tentacles and made them a part of their mask.



Footnote to yesterday's post:
=============================

I had trouble finding a source for barnacles online. So I was very excited when I found a source! Once they arrived, though, I had a bit of disappointment. Oh, the pieces themselves overall were of the dimensions I expected. But the individual barnacles were HUGE !! So I can't really use them on the costume's clothing. Here's a photo:

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

Greetings All !
Here's an update:

My "goal date" for having this costume done has always been October 20th. On that date, the local historic shopping district of Englewood is hosting their 9th annual "Mystik Pumpkin Festival", which is an absolutely terrific Halloween festival for kids!

Of course, I also have plans for the Saturday night of Halloween (the 27th).
But there was one date that I alway considered a long-shot... one of those "oh yeah, it'd be great if I could make that deadline" but it never seemed realistic: This coming weekend, the weekend when the Kansas City Renaissance Festival is having its annual "Pirate weekend".

My wife had told me a few months ago that she would probably have to work that weekend.

But suddenly, the other day, it dawned on her that we could go to Ren Fest on SUNDAY. Of course, her costume' completely ready (I BOUGHT everything for her costume out-right). But mine? There's no way on earth the whole thing will be ready by then... though MAYBE I could get everything EXCEPT the moving tentacles done by then ??

Here's where I'm at right now.:

1) THE MASK -- OK, so I carefully peeled off the mask yesterday, after making a nice long slit up the back of it. Here's a photo (please forgive the black marker strokes):


My first reaction was that I noticed that the "mustache area" wasn't sticking out on its own; it was hugging my face. So I quickly whipped up this little "insertion", and this WAS inserted when I took the picture above:

I will probably make some minor adjustments to that before using latex to try to fuse that into place inside the mask.

Issues (and I'd humbly ask for your advice on these?
------
a) There's a gap in back / i.e. the mask cannot be closed without stretching the flaps. I'll need to come up with some solution for this.

b) Those two "mustache tentacles" look like they're too far apart (as I look at that photo). Perhaps that's due to the stretching I'm doing. Will need to address that.

c) Should I put in nose holes? I would think that'd break the illusion. I can always breathe through my mouth.

d) Any advice on how I can reduce how HOT I'll eventually get wearing this thing?


Note that I have NOT built the sort of "sack" that actually makes up the back of Davey's head (and rests mostly under its hat). I guess this is a low priority for me.

Also note that I haven't yet built a sort of "chin section" / "bib" that will hold the lower tentacles.

On the other hand, today is my second day (ever) of wearing contact lenses. And it's not HALF as uncomfortable as the "sample fit" at the eye doctor's office was. So, I'm looking forward to a Halloween where I can actually SEE.

(Also, I should mention, I do realize I need to paint this. I have some latex paints from Monstermakers.com. Just going to read up on some techniques and hints before I attempt it. And I'd PREFER to have all of my tentacles done before I start painting everything.)


2) TENTACLES -- Slow going here. I have two of them finished and removed from their molds:

I have another three that should be ready for removal here in an hour or so.

But, (and I don't have my notes near me to confirm this as I type this), I think I need 16 of them (!)... not including the four mechanical ones I'm working on. Of course, all 16 tentacles need not be as long as these. So I could probably speed things up on the molds by doing shorter ones.

But what would slow me down is the fact that you can't immediately re-use the molds. They break. The little "cheerios" (octopus suckers) break off (the broken one in the photo above seems to be an exception... a lot of its clay cheerios survived).

Still, this means I have 11 more tentacles to go, with each having a good dozen layers of latex. While that's easily do-able by the 20th. I doubt I'm going to make it by this weekend.

Actually, I'll need 12: The right hand's index figer is actually a tentacle.

Now, here's one option I have to help speed me up:

This is a set of 5 costume "finger tentacles" that I bought off of Ebay a few months back. They're made of rubber, but it's a bit stiff and what's really stupid is they're all molded with the exact same bends to the tentacles.

I tried taking a heat gun to those "bending joints" on one of them this afternoon, in the hopes that the heat would help me to straighten those bends, but that didn't work.

I can run one of the wire-pieces-surrounded-by-thin-foam down one of these tentacles, and that will straighten it, but this wire will only go about two-thirds of the way down, so I'd still be stuck with five tentacles whose tips all angle in the exact same direction. <sigh>


3) RIGHT HAND -- I removed that, but it was slightly too big. I have no photo at the moment, but basically, I cut a slit up the side of that glove...and I've pulled one flap over the other to make a tighter fit. I'm hoping using latex as "glue" on that connection will be sufficient.

I'm looking forward to seeing the final hand. It looks like it's going to turn out nicely.


4) LEFT HAND CLAW and PEG LEG -- I took a scissors to some fiberglass cloth last week and cut it to the shapes of the insides of these pieces. I used hot glue to "pin" these pieces into place temporarily, until they could be fiberglassed.

Then, over the past few days, I fiberglassed both the outside cardstock and the inside fiber-cloth-over-cardstock of these items. This afternoon, I whipped up a mixture of bondo and fiberglass (making it very runny) and coated the outside of these pieces for extra strength.

Here's how they look at the moment in my garage:

An hour or so with a mouse sander is all I think I'll need to get these ready for painting. (Though, I may want to pour some bondo down into the tip of the peg-leg, just to give it a bit more strength. Not sure.)


5) DAVEY'S COAT -- No photo at the moment, but I've "distressed" the bottom edge of the coat, by tearing it / shredding it with a large scissors. And right now, it's in my garage, where I'm about half-way through gluing shells to it. (I'm also gluing a bit of fake seaweed and some netting to it as well.) A couple more hours of work (and most of that is time to allow glue to dry) is all I'll need to finish that piece.


6) BELT -- I have to mention this item. I searched local thrift stores high-and-low for a black belt with a 2 inch width. It took forever to find one. When I did, it was too short. So, I figured I'd just cut the belt in half and then attach a piece of elastic between the two halves! This would make it bigger, plus it would "hug" my body.

This sounds much simpler than it actually was. I broke several needles trying to sew through a leather belt.

Finally, I decided to check out Hobby Lobby's leather-working section. For about $5, I not only got 5 strong, long needles, but I also got some interesting black "thread". Actually, it was more like...what if somebody took 4 strands of dental floss, wove them together loosely, and dyed it black. It would not surprise me if somebody said to me "Dave, that wasn't really supposed to be used as thread". It just seems like perhaps leather workers use this stuff for something else.

But, two hours of hand sewing got me this:

I have to work tomorrow, but then I'll have all day Saturday off, plus maybe an hour or two Sunday morning. That's all the time I'll have, if I actually am going to try to make "Pirate Fest" this year.

If this were LAST year, I'd be freaking out about it. Last year I freaked out a lot. I was always working, working. working and always behind...mostly because I didn't really start until August (on my Iron Man costume). Granted, this year's costume is a bit simpler, but starting EARLY has really removed a lot of stress for me in this. I don't feel the urge to RUSH through things (at least not THIS week!).


Still, the one major hurdle remains: How will I rig up the four "muscle wire" tentacles and integrate them with the mask? And I think that really boils down to:

Will I "hang" the four tentacles from the mask itself?
Will I wear some sort of face-harness for just those four tentacles? (Heck, I don't even have a firm plan in my mind on how I'm going to create this "bib" for his lower tentacles.)

But I'm hoping that with time, calm discussion and experimentation, this will all work out..ON TIME.

Thanks!
-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

OK, yesterday at 2 PM was my "deadline" for having my costume ready... in time for a local Halloween event for kids called the "Mystik Pumpkin Festival".

We managed to get some relatives to take a couple of snap-shots of us as we left where we parked. Neither of us had pockets or thin belts for carrying my camera with us later on.

Here are those snap-shots.

Note that right AFTER these snap-shots, I remembered to ask my wife to bend and curve my tentacles, as the majority of them are posable. I've asked some friends to send me any photos they took of us yesterday. So, I'll post those once I have them.


Here are some problems I ran into in the days and hours leading up to our deadline... some things that "hurt" my grand goal:

1) Running out of RD-407 liquid latex. Two Fridays ago, I had rush ordered a quart of this stuff, as I knew I was running out and I was still making tentacles. That arrived this past Wednesday. By Friday, I was almost out again.

I called a place not far from us called "U.S. Toys". They have a costume shop from which I'd purchased latex before. But I'd resisted buying from them this year because I vaguely recalled that their latex wasn't as good as the RD-407 stuff.. plus I'd assumed that the week before Halloween, they'd be all out of latex.

However, they assured me that they always had plenty in stock, so I went and bought a pint on Friday (it was priced $19.99, which is over TWICE as much as the RD-407 that I can buy online).

This latex, however, seems a bit more watery. Plus, unlike RD-407, it really, really does "stick to itself", and remains quite sticky after it's dry. This is something I did not expect, since I'd been used to using RD-407. As a result, my tentacles kept sticking to each other!

On the other hand, anybody who "shook tentacles" with me, encountered a nice "sticky feeling". <grin!>



2) Simply not being far-enough along in my costume (aka running out of time) to allow for putting all of the electrical together, testing, and adjusting it.

As a result, I had to "abort" the idea of having 4 of my tentacles move at about 1 PM yesterday. I had broken a single electrical connection while re-assembling the "mechanical tentacles". Strike one. I strongly suspected that a set of wires coming out of the claw were going to be too short to reach my chin. Strike two.

Half the wire I was using was stuff that I was NOT pleased with. I had gone to Radio Shack and purchased some wire that LOOKED like what I had at home. But on the inside, it was composed of a single wire rod that was quite stiff. I really think I'd have less trouble with the more flexible stuff. Not-quite-strike three.

The final straw was that my wife had helped me out most of the morning with painting my mask and tentacles. And she had enough gear to put onto herself later on with her Jack Sparrow costume. I felt like imposing on her to connect a bunch of wires for me, wires that may not be long enough or might be tricky to connect, was just two much to ask her that day. She was helpful, but hectic. I'd been doing my best to stay relaxed and throw off any pressure. So, strike three.

I also was not very happy with the electrical connectors I'd decided to try to use. They're called "quick connects" (I may have to post photos later and ask for recommendations). You crimp them on. But I often found that when I went to disconnect two of them from each other, one of them would pull completely off the wire.


So, even though I'm calling all of that "problem #2", there are actually several related problems all wrapped up in that one. The end result: no moving tentacles.



3) Thinking the plan I had in my head for supporting the crab-leg peg-leg off my shoe would work, without really testing it, until it was too late. I probably aborted this idea at about noon as well.

I'd run a thick, wide belt through the upper part of the leg. And I actually fiberglassed and bondo'd that into place. Then, I thought I'd simply run a bolt through the toe area of my boot...and then through the tip of the peg-leg and cap that off with a washer and nut. The tip of that leg was made completely of bondo.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that walking would just totally tear up the tip of that peg leg. I tried to come up with better ideas. One I'm still mulling over is the idea of having a "lower strap" made of a bungee cord connection, that actually pulls the lower part of the peg-leg in to me at all times. But the tip of the leg seems to want to slide off of my boot to one side or the other, so I'll need to think about this.


4) The mask itself is actually a bit too small, despite the fact that I DID add a good 1/2" to 3/4" layer of clay over my foam head before sculpting.

Fallout from this meant:
a) Since I had to pull the whole mask tighter to stretch, some areas of Davy's face that were supposed to be raised were now actually flat against my face.

b) I had to compensate with my velcro a bit: If you were able to look at the back of my head, you'd see a good half inch strip of exposed velcro, running up and down my mask. Thankfully, Davy wears a hat at all times!

c) Once I tried integrating the mechanical tentacles with the mask, the mask started to split apart at the mustache area. If you look closely at the pics, you can see a small strip of black there. That's a small black belt harness that I built. It goes across my mustache area to support the two "mechanical" mustache tentacles. I tried streching the mask and pinning it into place over that belt, but the latex would just break off of the pins with movement.


d) My eye holes were too small. Oh my, I even enlarged the right one at the last minute. And, somehow, due to the splitting of the mask, the whole thing kept "riding upwards" all night. I'd have to keep pulling my mask around the eyeholes lower... which led to the funny moment where one little girl told her mommy that Davy Jones was picking his nose !!!



5) I put that standard el-cheapo cream makeup around my eyes. Big mistake. (I know, they write that stuff on the label. But I ignored it.) That, along with the smaller eye holes that kept creeping upward, ended up irritating my eyes big time. I think I need to take my wife to the women's makeup section of whatever store and find some green eye shadow to match my mask paint. Something tells me that stuff would be far, far less irritating !!





On the other hand, I was VERY happy with my wife's paint job on the mask (at my direction) and my color choices. The sickly olive green color was just what I wanted.

The mask started with two layers of flesh color. This was done using flesh-toned latex paint from Monstermakers.com. When we ran out of that, we switched to some flesh-toned latext that I had bought from U.S. Toys as "backup".

Then, my wife sponged on two layers of the green color. This was made by mixing olive green acrylic paint with liquid latex, plus a bit of water to thin it.




So, I need to wear this whole getup to two or three events next weekend. Yet I have two factors to consider in determining how much work to put into repairs and improvements:

1) I'm exhausted.
2) I'm supposed to start work converting my pickup truck into a Pirate Ship for Trunk-or-Treat at my church next Sunday.


Guess I'll have to prioritize. Will probably give it some thought today and make a to-do-list in the morning.


Sorry this post was so long! But I know that tidbits from long posts like this made years ago have helped me to learn a lot. I would hope that by reading this, some people don't make the same mistakes I did.


Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[Damian123]

wow, great job

 

[Damian123]

this came out amazing, sorry for the double post, i just love this lol

 

[DR4296]

A few more pics have come in... Note that by this point in the festivities, my belt and sash had refused to remain attached. Later on, my father-in-law fixed this for me.

My wife and I spent much of yesterday working on turning my Ford F-150 pickup truck into a pirate ship.

Today, I hope to finish up on that work... and then turn to repairing my mask. I will most likely make some sort of latex piece to attach onto the mustache area of the mask, so as to enlarge that area and repair it. I also want to fix up the paint job a bit (it looked to me by the end of the night that some had come off ?)... and give the whole thing a coat of (clear) glow-in-the-dark paint!

I also hope to pick up some more-flexible wire and finish my attempt to get 4 center tentacles to move. The trick will be to make the whole electrical harness easy to put on and take off. I was almost there last week...almost. The movement isn't exactly overwhelming, though, which is why I aborted it last week: the "cost" to get it working, when I did my "last hour check" far outweighed any "benefit".

And yes, I need to figure out a solution to attaching my crab peg-leg. <sigh>

Oh, I mentioned the "quick connects" I was using. I've found them to be a bit annoying, in that sometimes, the crimps don't hold....and other times, they don't want to separate from their partner connectors.

If anybody has any better recommendations on connectors to use, I'd sure like to hear them.

I have today and Friday to make repairs and improvements.

Then, on Saturday morning, we're attending a Breast Cancer Fundraiser Walk (I will be dressed... as a "free mammograms" machine. <grin>) And then, that night, we'll be going to a large popular bar to enter their Halloween Costume Contest. I took second place last year with my homemade Iron Man!

Then, on Sunday afternoon, comes our church's Trunk-or-Treat, where our "ship" will premier... and where I hope to get somebody video-taping me singing Jack Sparrow's theme song. <grin!>

I honestly don't think I'll actually wear it on the day of Halloween itself. We get very few Trick-or-Treaters, sad to say.


Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[Dr Crane]

great work.. you make me want to make a davy jones..

Well, the work offered by organized crime must have an attraction to the insane.

 

[Hunt270]

Incredible. Great job!

 

[DR4296]

Just thought I'd post a few final pics.

And tell you that, for the second year in a row, I won 2nd place at a large area bar's Halloween Costume Contest last Saturday night. $300 !!

My wife (dressed as Jack Sparrow) got hit on a lot by unsuspecting women!

Here's my favorite pic, though: Both of us with two little girls who used to be our neighbors. Their mom says we're their "adoptive grandparents":

Wow, what a busy weekend. I leave you with one final photo: On Saturday morning, we participated in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer fundraiser walk. I'll bet I had something like 150 people take photos of me... or with me! And I laughed with them for two hours straight!

Hope your Halloween weekend was terrific!

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[hackfox]

I like your costume!

Did you fixed the problem with the moving tentacles?

 

[gimpee]

Nice costumes.

The last picture is epic :lol. Excellent idea for the next year.

 

[DR4296]

I like your costume!

Did you fixed the problem with the moving tentacles?

No, I just didn't have the time to fix the mask AND the tentacles. The mask had stretched and torn at the mustache area, so I made a fresh "piece" of latex that would span from the mustache area on down an inch or so lower than before. Attached that, painted it, painted ALL latex appliances with two coats of glow-in-the-dark latex (which looked really cool under all the black lights in the bar).

I was worried that I'd have electrical connections fail or would have the points where the "muscle wire" was connected fail...and I'd have to be frequently stopping and making repairs. I had a lot of "failure" issues arise last year with Iron Man (mostly in the hand switches failing) and it sort of ruined my night by making me a nervous wreck focused on the costume all evening.

This year, by leaving out "that which might fail miserably", I was able to focus on interacting with people at the night club. Oh, and I widened the eye holes big-time (compared to October 20th), so I could actually see people really well ( lots of nice-looking women there that night!).

And besides, the range-of-motion I was gonna get out of those tentacles wasn't very much. I just felt that the amount of "benefit" I'd get out of it wasn't worth the amount of extra stress I'd have had to put in in order to get it working (and repaired) consistently.

In retrospect, I probably should have "bit the bullet" and gone the servo route. I still DO have the costume...and intend to wear it to the local Renaissance Festival's "Pirate weekend" next year.

Thanks!

-= Dave =-

 

[DR4296]

The last picture is epic :lol. Excellent idea for the next year.

I thought you might appreciate that one!