View new posts | View your posts Fossil's Uniform from Start to Finish

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I know this is a tad off topic and Im loving all the propness but can i bother asking you why you chose such an ink for your tribal? I have many tattoos and i think thats the first time i saw a radical color used instead of a solid black (or in some cases red) on a tribal.

What's up, FeinDTacticS.

I chose bright green for my tribal because I love bright green. I didn't want any black outline because it's all too common to see tribal/pseudotribal with outlines when there's color involved. I like the reactions I get when people think they're only marker. I've also got a solid red one with no outline either, but the rest are that same bright green.

Essentially I always strive to update old ideas with new twists, and being a tattooist, I get to encourage that a lot in my clients. I enjoy getting them to think outside the box. After all, the whole purpose of tattoos should be to DEFINE, not to conform!

Awesome job! Where did you get the graphics file for your nixie tubes for your belt gizmo?

To be honest, I google image searched Nixie Tubes, and came across this broken one.



I skewed it and rotated it in Photoshop, then made a few copies of it, and voila!

You lost me at Photoshop, Haha...

Minor update: My belt fobs arrived today, and they're lovely! They really make the belt look busy, and the weight is good, too. THANK YOU, COLIN/MMM!








At this point, it won't be long before it's pack/gun time!
More to come.

A couple more questions from your sweet tutorial. What is the thickness of your leg hose? I'm looking to make a cheaper belt gizmo and your idea of using clear tubing and a serial port wire is brillaint. Also, how did you make the circles that the top of the "nixies" fit into? Thanks. Excited to see your pack build.

Great minds think alike!...kinda

http://www.gbfans.com/fans/props/uniforms/1570/38/


Uniform is looking great

Yo, Beezer. My leghose is just 1/2 in Outer Diameter. As for the circular rings over the nixies themselves, it was short segments of this weird blue/grey 1/2 in plastic piping sold at Ace. It isn't really plumbing pipe, it's got these six ridges inside the length of it, and it's sold in 4-inch segments, really inexpensive stuff. I just chopped 'em up and hotglued 'em to the "lid"!




Thanks! And yeah, I saw your daughterboard posted in a bunch of other threads too.

Your uniform is really looking good. I like your belt gizmo holster, and your faux nixie-tubes look like the real deal!

Little bit of a revision tonight:

I removed my hose connector from the uniform, because when I made it, I'd used a couple parts that were a particular vinyl material, and when I painted them, they became permanently sticky and staining, which wasn't good at all.

So I instead painted only the central Crutch foot (the big cone-shaped part), while I used already-black 1/2 rubber feet and black caster. Here's the final result.



I'll reattach mine tomorrow, for tonight, I sleep!

Are you saving the hardest job for last? the pack?

Uniform looks great so far... gives me hope to create my own belt gizmo

Oh, yeah.

I want some updates!!! When is the pack going to come together...

all this uniform stuff is just a tease

Believe me, I know, man. Right about now, I'm saving up for some power tools and materials. I got a couple sheets of metal from Ace (nothing huge, they're about the length and width of an old VHS tape, give or take) which I'll be using for creating a gunbox, but first I have GOT TO GET a rotary tool to cut it with, not to mention some vice grips, and for now, all the income I make is for rent and bills. HOWEVER, if the following weeks are like this current one, I'll be progressing soon; I did several tattoos the other night and got some extra freelance work, so cross your fingers that there'll be more coming. More income means more updates!

Thank you for the interest, man! It really makes me feel like I'm doing something right.

Thanks for showing the packaging for the parts of the leg hose connector. I'm going by ACE this morning to see if I can find those. I wonder when spraypainting them, if you use a flat coat when you're done if that will help with the stickyness, kinda like on the welding goggles?

No prob! If you can, get black parts and you won't have to paint 'em, unless you don't want them to be black (i.e. grey)!

I was able to get everything except the can tip in black. I worked on it some last night at work when I had a few min's to spare. Hopefully today, I'll get the holes drilled, stick it all together, and get it painted. If all goes well, they'll go on the flight suits tomorrow or the next day.

Hey Fossil, do you still have the shooped nixie tubes? I'd love to steal your idea for them.

I still want to see more of this proton pack coming together...

i agree. im not totally 100 percent sure whats going on with that. maybe a how you made them too would be neat

I'm pretty sure it was the picture he had, turned it vertically, and then printed them. And then using a plastic hose, he created the tubes. Rolled the pictures up, slid them in, bam, nixie tubes.

Because a lot of people were asking, here's the nixie innards print-out. This'll give you 8 of 'em.



I sized mine at about 3/4 inch tall by 1/2 wide, and for the people who were a little confused on my method of making nixies, what you do is:

Take some cable, any kind will do, really, as long as there's at least 10 little wires inside.

Cut a small section (about 2 inches) and yank the inside wires out. Set the outer cable sleeving aside; don't throw it out.

Those 10 wires are what gets poked into the board, obviously.

Heat-shrink the end together, so it fits snugly inside that piece of cable sleeving you put aside. Now, cut that sleeving down to about 3/4 inch tall (or however tall you print your nixie label).

Glue the label to the sleeve itself. It should wrap around a little, covering roughly half the surface.

Then pop a little piece of hose (cut slightly longer than the cable sleeve) on there, and bam, budget nixie tube. For this part, it's pretty important to remember that the hose is going to be a TIGHT fit, so slice the back of the tube open, straight down the length. It's going to be facing inwards, so you won't see it. For a little added wow, heatshrink the top.

Updates are a little bit delayed right now, I know, but I'll be back at it soon! Pack time is nigh.

Thanks a ton, Fossil. Now I'm off to start cutting wires open. The wife is so gonna kill me.

Super-fast update. I'm in uniform as I type this, and about to be out the door, headed to today's Dan Aykroyd signing in New Jersey.

Last night, I upgraded the straps on my goggles and switched out that silver knob with a much more rugged-looking black one. The addition of the center headstrap is really great-- it's SO much more supported now, and doesn't allow the goggles themselves to press my nose and cheeks down!

The center strap is looped over and around the headstrap in back, and is free-sliding.




The new knob. I really like how this looks.


All that's left to do really, is wire these bad boys up and add some LED's. Other than that, they're pretty much done!

I know, I know, you guys are waiting on pack build, and trust me, it's coming. (and thank you for even being interested in my progress!) Just gotta save up some more first. In the meantime, it's now 10am, and I have to get going.

It's 106 miles to New Jersey, we got a full tank of gas, a new Gorillaz CD, it's bright, and I'm wearing a Ghostbuster uniform.

Hit it.


They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from God.

(going to meet Dan Aykroyd, brb)

Brother.... you are my Yoda.

Haha.

You I thank.

Hey again, all-- saving up for a bit more supplies right now. But a little update, with content that's relevant.

Since November 2009, I've been hitting up the Home Depot, as well as Ace, Lowes, and Sears Hardware, working on this project... but the Home Depot provided the most awesome omen of all. The first night, when I went in to get my Ecto-Goggle parts, I see this banner on the wall:



This was the sort of thing that I kicked myself for not having a camera handy for... many repeated trips back, I still see it, but never photographed it, but thankfully it was still there the other day, and I went in with camera in hand, to get these two photos. These pics aren't even as good as when I first saw it, when it wasn't wrinkled, 'cause you could see that even though it was a pretty crude painting, the overall shape of the thrower gunbox, the pack, placement of parts, and the coloration of that particle stream... well, to me, it looked like someone knew what they were doing, or at least had some visual reference handy.



Just wanted to share that with you, while I get stuff happening. More updates soon, y'all.

Hey, all!

So I've ordered the 840168 Kawasaki 150 Piece Rotary Tool & Accessory Set:


and an LC1 frame. Both should be here in the next week or so. But I think I'm gonna be building a Slime Blower first, to get my feet wet as far as large-scale propmaking before I dive into a pack build... and I need to know-- I've looked all over these boards, and I want to find out if there's a definitive ident on the padding used for that under-vest when wearing a Slime Blower? I'm mostly gonna be working from Zack's photos, such as this one:



but I still like how there's this kind of double-fin look flaring out from under the straps in the film version, as seen on Winston.



Are there any good photos of the screen-used pads WITHOUT the blower somewhere that I missed? I'm gonna be starting these soon. Any help would be appreciated!

Updates VERY soon now.

UPDATE, PROGRESS, JUBILATIONS!

So today was an awesome day. Before I left for work this morning, there was a package in the mail for me, and not a moment too soon! MY ROTARY TOOL ARRIVED AND IT'S SO GREEN.



SO GREEEEEEN



And I had no idea there were so many accessories in this thing! I was surprised there was the flexible hand-held shaft part, and the angle cutter! That's gonna be a lifesaver. Just look at some of these features!



I spent all day at work, thinking about how great it's gonna be, no more cutting styrene with a box knife or X-acto blades, no more heating up needles to make holes... How I'll be able to proceed on my Ghost Trap I started trying to cut a month ago... It's the little things that make all the difference.

I walked in the door tonight at 8pm on the dot, and there was a surprise for me:

What's this? Could it be...?


Aw, YEAH.


So I couldn't resist. I hopped into my uniform and adjusted the straps on this frame, and tried it on. These photos are mirrored, of course.





I'm gonna go get some foam pipe insulation tomorrow and paint this frame then, but for now, I'm just loving the feeling of it on my back-- I recently read how if you properly adjust the belt, and let the kidney pad do most of the supporting, it's a total relief on your back when there's a lot of weight, and that is totally no lie! Can't wait to get started, now that I'm properly armed! I know I'm gonna do a slime blower first, before a proton pack, to get my feet wet on large-scale propmaking, but man, at this point, it could kind of go either way!

Much more very soon! Thank you for reading!

~Fossil