[Carpeteria]

Here's a thread long time coming:

For Dragoncon 2014, a group of us wanted to go full on with RGB Fright Features costumes/props. The idea came originally from Fernando (xxectoxx), who did a version of Venkman's FF toy several years back. We thought it would be fun to get a group of us to run around at DC, so we got to work, but by the time we decided to go for it, there was literally about a week and a half until we left for Atlanta. This was a fast build!

The team on deck was: Patrick (that's me) as Ray, Joy (The Amazing Joy - https://www.facebook.com/TheAmazingJoy?ref=br_tf) as Janine, and Fernando as Peter. Ryan from British Columbia was trying to get an Egon together, but he slacked off, so he wasn't involved. Loser.

I decided to do Ray:



Remember that guy? Ok.

Joy was in charge of all of the soft goods, and we realized pretty quickly that going with stock jumpsuits wasn't going to work for what we wanted to do, so Joy, being an amazing seamstress, decided to make both my suit and hers totally from scratch. The pattern was from a button up shirt and a separate pants pattern, which she combined into one and modified to match the details on the suit itself.



This is the basic suit, prior to getting a front zipper and fastening the shoulder strap (which I worked on). We got brown fabric to match the toy, so this one didn't need to be dyed.



Back of suit. Nice ass.



The toy has these teal shoulder pads, so this is a paper mockup of the size/shape before making them.



Same as above.



And again.



Detail of arm pocket. This is a functional pocket! We're crazy.



Full suit coming together, now with collar and zipper, as well as knee pads, actually being used on knees. That felt weird.



Details of suit top. Marshall Division represent.



Coming together! I originally was going to use rubber gloves, but I realized the toy's gloves are a lot thicker, so I actually went with teal oven mitts, which worked really well, especially as the toy's gloves don't have finger separations. We made additions to the knee pads, as they go lower than regular ones - those and the shoulder pads are made from pieces of foam, covered in white fabric, which were both then dyed to match the colors needed (teal and gray). The belt will be detailed in a picture below, as will the grabber prop. The goggles were my first pair of AWFUL Ecto Goggles, basically made from cheap welding goggles and PVC. I spray painted them a solid gray to match the toy, and they did a good job of fitting the whole thing. Boots are not pictured here, but I found some great moon boots that went to about mid-calf, and painted those gray to match the toy.



Close up of top, nearly complete.



Close up of bottom.



Rear suit. Note super accurate belt lettering.



Close up of belt, with Columbia trademark. Nerds.

---

Ok. So while Joy was working on the suit, I was working to get that prop made. Here are reference photos of how it's supposed to look:






This was more complex than I anticipated, but I was game to jump in. My primary build materials were styrene, PVC, and, mostly, rigid insulation foam. The cones were made from a base for a fiber optic decoration and a pool noodle rocket thing.

I measured out basic dimensions and jumped in:
















I also added in LEDs to spice it up a bit:



This wrapped up the Ray suit, for the most part.

Up next: Janine.

[Carpeteria]

So, here's the Janine toy we're basing the outfit off of:



Yep. That's the one.

So again, Joy wanted to make the jumpsuit from scratch, but we couldn't find pink fabric to match the bright color we wanted, so we made it in white, with the intent to dye it that bubble gummy pink after it was all together.



Figuring out the pants portion here.



Top and bottom connected, with green glasses! Since triangular glasses are hard to find, this pair was made from these:



I Dremeled the extra bit off from the top and painted them solid green to match the toy.



Top with collar!



Post pink dye, with belt and grabber! We found the blue earrings on ebay, which were pretty close to the toy's. Joy found some gray boots, and we dyed a regular white web pistol belt to match the toy. There was a red wig to match as well - photos below.



Fright Feature mode activated! This photo makes it appear that there's a white spot in the suit, but it's just the lighting. It was pink all the way through.

===

Janine grabber time. I basically straight up stole the base of the idea from Abigail Gardner's awesome Janine grabber, which also uses the old Kenner Ghost Popper as a base - thanks for the inspiration! As with Abigail's, the end piece is made from a modified toy rake. I carved out the extra tines and reinforced it with styrene. I also added the "arm hugger" portion, made out of rigid insulation foam as with Ray's grabber. Tubing and other little greeblies were added for accuracy with the toy. For some reason, I didn't take a lot of photos of the build on this one, but as with the other grabber, I also added in LEDs for more excitement:



Finally was Peter.

===

[Carpeteria]

We were working from what Fernando already had, but unfortunately, his suit had been damaged, and needed pretty extensive repair to get in working order. Once we drove down to NYC from MA, Joy got to work sewing and repairing the issues with his vest, which needed to be basically rebuilt from scratch. It's mostly made of yellow vinyl, with foam inside. The belt is a black GB2 style, wrapped in the same yellow vinyl. Fernando used gray Plasti-dip to coat both the rubber gloves and wader boots. Again, we don't have many photos of this process.

While that was going on, I went to work making the Peter grabber from scratch. This day was the most intense, as we had about 10 hours to do both parts of the Venkman costume before we had to caravan down to Atlanta. Once again, this prop is made mostly from rigid insulation foam and PVC, while the little rounded parts on the hook are made from modified single flower vials, similar to these:



Here's some of the build process:




Basic prop body.



Todd from BC was there to help, and here he's sealing it with black Plastidip prior to painting.



Todd models the painted prop.



Almost ready to roll! It's not pretty, but it was done in just a few hours.

===

Here's the full group in gear!




In those pics, you might also see some stuffed toys on the Ray and Janine props. I also, at the last minute, decided to make felt versions of the two ghosts that came with those toys. I'll post up more detailed photos of each soon - they turned out ok, but not exactly as I had hoped. The Janine one turned out better - I used the top of the fiber optic toy used for the Ray grabber for the pink hair, and it light up, while the Ray ghost had flashing red LEDs in the eyes.

All told, we really only wore these outfits for a few hours at DC, which is why we only know of those two photos on the con floor above. If anyone else has more, we'd love to see them! We'd love to wear these again and re-do portions of Joy's costume, as she was 4-5 months pregnant at DC, so it would need to be modified a bit.

Didn't get to do this for Peter/Fernando, but here are some side-by-side comparisons with the Ray and Janine toys:




Hope you guys enjoy!

[Crazy1van]

Nicely done!

[Smeghead]

Sweet! I love the ghost grabbers.

[JakeW]

These are amazing! I love seeing costumes based on the Real Ghostbusters figures.

[Carpeteria]

Side note: I also bought orange hair spray to color my hair temporarily for maximum toy-similarity. It was a massive mistake. The stuff I bought was really watery and basically turned our hotel bathroom into a nightmare. Everything was bright orange. We probably ruined several of their towels. It was running all over the place, and we realized immediately it wasn't going to work, so I washed it out before we went out in the outfits. I also forgot to bring contacts, hence the glasses version of the costume. Oh well. Next time I'll figure out how to get my eyes to be six inches tall and make my ears distend.

Joy also had a plan to cover her eyebrows and paint cartoony looking ones on her forehead, but that also didn't turn out too well. Close enough.

[Last_Minute]

Saw in person, can confirm of awesomeness.

[Grimmy GB]

Dude...amazeballs...wanna see in person!

[FrankNBuster]

WOOOOW!

absolutely awesome! simply looks great!

[halliwax]

dude excellent job!!

[Demon Vice Commander]

I love the copyright marks on the belt.

[GhostBustin_84]

So much awesomeness!!! Great job all around! Can't wait to see what you guys have up your sleeves next....

[Silverstreak]

Very awesome! I love seeing out of the box builds like these. Hopefully you find a replacement Egon one day!

[Riggs45]

I saw pictures of you guys somewhere awhile back and I was stoked! I love this! Fantastic job. The FF were always my favorites