Well, as I'm waiting on the actual suit to get here I figured that I'd start the thread for my work.
The Paint: I used my handy Testors kit. For anything not metal I used their brand of acrylic paints. If you have never done it before and really wanted to, it's not that expensive of a kit, running me about $25. The individual paints and propellants can add up if you're working on a large project, but for these types of things it's not bad. I tape up a small bottle to my never used massage thing I got lying around for a few minutes and it does a great job of mixing the paint.
The Shoes: I went ahead and ordered the Asics a while back through Amazon, and was pretty happy with how they fit. Cleaned them up using my trusty razor blades, but didn't remove the upper completely as I wanted to experiment a bit with keeping it in there. Proceeded to tape them off (spend time on this....I was lazy and have to go over things again now) and then spray spray spray!! The colors used were Rad Red (Acrylic) and Blazing Blue (Acrylic)
The Lenses: So I have this "prototyping" plastic called InstaMorph. There are other brands of it, but I went with them because it's what I saw first. This stuff ended up helping me out a lot during my deployment this past summer so I figured I'd give it a go. Got the general shape down, let the stuff cool and Bam! Instant lens frame. The lenses took a bit of experimenting though. My first plan was to get some oakley lens knock offs for the gold color, and then stamp out the pattern I would need from some dark tint. Then I got cheap and lazy, and bought a cheapo pair of speakers for their mesh, and a reflective iPhone screen cover all for the grand total of 25 bucks. The mesh itself has about 10 coats of Gold (Enamel) on it. Once the enamel was done curing/drying I cut the cover and the mesh to size, and heated the frames up to "push" the mesh into the frame. (InstaMorph heats up at 140F and is reusable!) Taped up my new lenses, and used a mixture of Blazing Blue and Black (Acrylic) to get the color as best to match the frames.
The Suit: Still awaiting arrival. I've got a decent seamstress lined up, and NickTheFox has posted tons of reference guides on how to sew it up (THANKS!!)
That's it for now. If you've got any questions or suggestions please drop a line! Thanks for visiting!
The Paint: I used my handy Testors kit. For anything not metal I used their brand of acrylic paints. If you have never done it before and really wanted to, it's not that expensive of a kit, running me about $25. The individual paints and propellants can add up if you're working on a large project, but for these types of things it's not bad. I tape up a small bottle to my never used massage thing I got lying around for a few minutes and it does a great job of mixing the paint.
The Shoes: I went ahead and ordered the Asics a while back through Amazon, and was pretty happy with how they fit. Cleaned them up using my trusty razor blades, but didn't remove the upper completely as I wanted to experiment a bit with keeping it in there. Proceeded to tape them off (spend time on this....I was lazy and have to go over things again now) and then spray spray spray!! The colors used were Rad Red (Acrylic) and Blazing Blue (Acrylic)
The Lenses: So I have this "prototyping" plastic called InstaMorph. There are other brands of it, but I went with them because it's what I saw first. This stuff ended up helping me out a lot during my deployment this past summer so I figured I'd give it a go. Got the general shape down, let the stuff cool and Bam! Instant lens frame. The lenses took a bit of experimenting though. My first plan was to get some oakley lens knock offs for the gold color, and then stamp out the pattern I would need from some dark tint. Then I got cheap and lazy, and bought a cheapo pair of speakers for their mesh, and a reflective iPhone screen cover all for the grand total of 25 bucks. The mesh itself has about 10 coats of Gold (Enamel) on it. Once the enamel was done curing/drying I cut the cover and the mesh to size, and heated the frames up to "push" the mesh into the frame. (InstaMorph heats up at 140F and is reusable!) Taped up my new lenses, and used a mixture of Blazing Blue and Black (Acrylic) to get the color as best to match the frames.
The Suit: Still awaiting arrival. I've got a decent seamstress lined up, and NickTheFox has posted tons of reference guides on how to sew it up (THANKS!!)
That's it for now. If you've got any questions or suggestions please drop a line! Thanks for visiting!
