Thursday, November 4, 2010
And the Weiner is...
I could complain about my wife being out of town and, therefore, not only not able to help me with my Venom costume, but causing me to be distracted, as I don't operate well (at all) when she's not around.
I could also blame the time I spent on reviewing stuff for the websites or helping to run the ACM Regional Programming Competition at LSU, but that would be unseemly, now wouldn't it?
Or, I could blame it on the red paint not drying on the rubber snake (it didn't for about a week, actually) or the fact that Hancock Fabrics didn't have enough of the material I wanted. I could even say it's all because my sewing machine refused to work the night before the contest... which is true, but hardly the one thing that went wrong...
The truth, of course, is that I tried to do too much, in too short of a time. I didn't even wear a costume for Halloween this year. Live and (hopefully) learn, I suppose. My plan is to keep working on the Venom costume over the next year, in my "spare" time. I am generally a busy person, but I'm going to try to set aside a few hours a week to work on "Personal Projects," such as building a full-sized R-Series Droid, modifying my car, dabbling with electronics and making costumes, not the least of which is this Venom costume.
In other news, my best friend, neighbor, fellow Game Vortex game reviewer and partner in crime, J.R. Nip, did throw together a costume in a single night, and not only did it come out nice looking - he actually took first place at Lamar's Corporate Headquarters Costume Contest. He went as Dilbert, with black shoes, white socks, black pants, a white shirt, a flip-up red tie that I helped rig up with a metal coat hanger and a mask he made of poster board, skin-tone material and enough chemical adhesives to tranquilize a horse. He did an awesome job, and won a hundred dollar prize, to boot!
Ah, well... Venom will have to have his day next year. . .
Thursday, October 28, 2010
A Weak Start... Head and Shoulders...
Speaking of the seat of my pants, I sliced open an old jumpsuit from waist up to middle back and across the back, in a plus-sign shaped cut for stress relief, then plan to patch the jumpsuit tonight and use it as the underlayment of the Venom costume. I stitched out my first "rough draft" at making a muscle-suit chest out of an old pillow that, despite my dog's wishes, is otherwise destined for the city dump. I will need to pick up some super strength Velcro for attaching one half of the muscle chest and for other certain parts to work right, as well as a good bit of black fabric, but I plan to do that at Hancock Fabrics on the way home. Tonight is build night... Hope this goes well.
The baseball cap and coat hangers idea seems to be working out pretty well, so far. I plan to add in some black foam core board I have left over from another project, to keep it light while providing some rigidity, but it will need to be painted with a plasticized paint when it's in place.
I also need to stop by some place for my paints on the way home. I have some black dimensional fabric paint (puff paints rule!), but I need some black gloss, white gloss and black gloss paints... Maybe Vinyl? Perhaps Latex? There's a Rustoleum Vinyl made for fabrics, but I don't know if I can source it locally... we'll see...
(Pictures to be added later this evening.)
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tongue! (But not on the first date...)
I found a suitable rubber snake! After searching around Baton Rouge and finding snakes that were either not rubber, too expensive, too small or too flimsy, I found nearly the perfect thing at Party Time on Bluebonnet. This snake is not as thick as I was originally looking for, but it is three feet long and is made of a very "springy" rubber, such that a slight motion will start if bouncing and oscillating, giving it a generally "lively" appearance. Best of all? It was around a buck and a half. Can't easily beat that...
Monday, October 25, 2010
...And I'll Form the Head!
Venom's head, like his body, is larger than a human's, with an exaggerated, over-sized mouth. To create this head, I plan to incorporate a baseball cap (as the upper half of the mouth and a custom made jaw made of a metal coat hanger that hangs from the cap, forms the outline of the jawline and serves as an infrastructure for the jaw.
This image (Created by Andre Holzmeister) is what inspired me to go with a baseball cap-based mask. Note the baseball cap brim-shaped upper mouth. If you fill out the area above the brim a bit, and cover the entire thing with black, shiny fabric, you have half of Venom's head. (Well, you'd want to add the eyes, too.)
I don't know how well you can tell in this sketch, but I quickly sketched out a form-up of that idea, and I think it could turn out quite nicely.
The tongue is an interesting challenge. My first thought was to use (part of) a rubber snake. Find a rubber snake tail that had a good curve to it, paint it appropriately and you're done. Surprisingly, sourcing a decent rubber snake (considering size, curve and reasonable cost) proved to be a bit difficult. I am considering other possibilities, such as making one out of fabric and painting it with black vinyl paint, but I've not yet got a single solution that I am dead-set on. We'll have to see how things turn out, I suppose.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Almost Halloween...
This year, I've decided to take a similar approach to a costume I've wanted to try for a while: Venom. I kicked around the idea of making this costume before Spider-Man 3, so I'm not trying to replicate the Venom from the movie. I'm more interested in the somewhat amorphous, hulking "Eddie Brock" Venom from the good - ole days of Marvel. However, I'm willing to draw inspiration from, well, pretty much anywhere, so I'm looking at the old comics, Spider-Man 3, anything I can see from the upcoming Venom movie, as well as other universes and even fan pics online.
As I see it, there are a few targets to hit with the 80% Venom goal, here:
1) A mouth full of teeth. Venom has a disfigured, over-sized maw full of mismatched horror-teeth - think shark, crocodile, canines... very primal.
2) Hulking size, musculature. I will need to build upward and outward from my own physique, making a "muscle suit" of sorts. I will need to especially build up chest, shoulders, back, arms and calves.
3) Tongue. Venom has a long, nasty, prehensile tongue. We're talking 2-3 feet of nastiness here. Bonus points if I can get it animated. Toying with different ideas on that one.
4) Black, shiny coloration. I am planning to build up the costume with whatever I can find laying around, then skin it with something cheap (probably muslin fabric), and then, finally, coat the outside with shiny black vinyl paint. I am toying around with the idea of doing some sort of hex-like or muscle striation pattern on top of the paint, but that will be one of those "if I finish this thing and find myself bored with lots of extra time on my hands" things. Basically, not likely to be done.
5) Claws. Venom has large, pointy claws. I plan to modify some gloves for this purpose, but I'll have to remove them to get any work done.
6) Feet. Actually, one thing that will be difficult to accomplish is some decent Venom feet. There's not a lot of detail, just large, muscular feet, but since footware is typically more detailed than that, it's going to be interesting trying to get the right look. I've considered cloth over boots, but if it covers the bottom, you lose all of your grip and you will tear up the cloth pretty quickly.
Also, it's probably worth noting that the above list is a list of major items in order of importance. If I can't solve the feet problem, most people would probably forgive simple black boots without a second thought. If I can't get to the claws, black gloves would suffice. The teeth, the tongue... those are pivotal. The shiny black will help to sell the look. Mind you, not everything is listed above; this isn't a checklist of everything to do. I would have to use some shiny white vinyl paint for the spider emblem and eyes, as well as some red for the tongue and mouth, but that's sort of assumed to be part of the other parts.
This is the costume I plan to wear to work for the costume contest on October 29th, as well as while helping to run the ACM programming competition at LSU on the 30th. Who knows, if it goes well, perhaps I'll find some party or competition to go to for the 31st.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Trek Wars?
The Millennium Enterprise, anyone? - At TeeFury... , but Gone in 24hours! | TeeFury
Friday, October 8, 2010
Nigh to Knight-Fall...
That's right it's time again for the Renaissance Fair. Time to dig out my Tunic and hat, and, perhaps, whip up a dress for the missus.
Anyone in my area that is considering going to the Louisiana Renaissance Festival this year might want to check out the coupon deal I just got in my email:
$14 for Two Adult Admissions to the Louisiana Renaissance Festival in Hammond... that's half-price! I'm on their mailing list and get coupons every year, but they're not nearly this good.
So, Psibabe, J.R. Nip and myself(Geck0) will be going this year. Not sure when, yet, but these tickets are pretty much good for any single day they're open, so that's not a big deal.
I think this Groupon thing may just be worthwhile... :)
Monday, August 16, 2010
JavaScript String Replace All... and Then Some...
I had that problem, and found Brandino's article, JavaScript String Replace All to be just the trick.
It seems that you can use a regular expression as the target of the string.replace function.
In fact, in addition to being able to do multiple replaces on a single target, this also would allow you to create a regex target for your replace that would replace different things with the same replacement text... which could be handy if you need to remove or replace certain unwanted characters throughout a string...
Friday, August 6, 2010
LEGO Mindstorms NXT sensors to limiting? Roll your own...
Designing Lego Mindstorms NXT sensors - Stew’s Spot
...pretty neat... If only I could find some free time...
Monday, July 19, 2010
Iron Man Inspired Repulsor Beam Blaster V1.0
Iron Man Inspired Repulsor Beam Blaster V1.0
Friday, April 23, 2010
XKCD to the tune of Modern Major General?
Thursday, February 18, 2010
How 'bout them Saints?!
And, for that matter, I think "aftershock" is not too bad a way to put it. I don't think I've fully gotten over the "shock", at any rate. "How bout them Saints" used to be a phrase that people around here would say when they wanted to change the subject... and merely as an indication that they wanted to change the subject. It wasn't a lead-in to an actual conversation about a pro football team, but more of a way of saying, "There's got to be something else we can talk about, right?"
Now, however, one winning Super Bowl later, the Saints aren't just a topic of conversation, they're a cult... and "How 'bout them Saints" isn't just a phrase of speech, it's a likely headline across the front of a newspaper. I say "likely headline" because I didn't actually see the front of the newspaper the day after the Superbowl - they were all bought up. Like they were the last newspaper to be printed. Not only did they sell out - everywhere - early in the morning, but that was even with the fact that the newspaper companies printed more copies than normal in expectation of the demand. There is actually a car dealership in Baton Rouge that picked up what appears to be a truck full of papers and is advertising a free Saints Super Bowl win newspaper for coming in to the dealership.
To me, Baton Rouge has always been a sports town. Primarily, though, it's a college town, with both LSU and Southern University, there are a lot of extreme sports fans rooting for some large wild game cat or another and, with LSU colors being purple and gold (well, yellow, really) and Southern's colors being blue and yellow, it seems that "Yellow" is the most agreeable color to wear in the city of "Red Stick". (As a side note, since the Saints colors are black and gold (well, yellow, really), it's not a bad idea to buy stock in yellow if you live in the Baton Rouge area.)
It is quite amazing to me how fanatical the Baton Rouge area has become about the NEW ORLEANS Saints. Yes, they're the closest NFL team to Baton Rouge, but I was not prepared for the rush on newspapers and the merchandise vendors in tents not just on "every street corner" but more like set up in front of almost every other store. I could easily pass fifteen of these makeshift street vendors with black and gold (well, yellow, really) T-shirts on my way to work. It's just too much!
Did I watch the game? You bet your sweet bippie. I haven't watched a football game in years, I don't plan to watch another one in the coming years, but we not only watched the game, we threw together a small (very small) party to watch the game. We made a bucket of Mojitos, bought three six packs of Iron Beer (The national soft drink of Cuba) and had some generally Cuban themed snacks to accompany the Superbowl, which was held in Miami, Florida (pronounced, "Northern Cuba"). Although we invited a few people to join us, it ended up being just myself, my wife Ashley and Chris. Which was probably just as well, because we were so tied to the game - and the commercials - that we never even made it to fetch the Mojitos out of the freezer.
Besides the obvious quality of the commercials during the Superbowl and the excitement of the close game and the amazing plays, Chris had a personal interest in the game in that he grew up with Tracey Porter, the Saints player that turned and interception opportunity into a breakaway play where he covered three-quarters of the field and ended his run in a touchdown that proved to be the last points the Saints made (or needed) in the game. Chris would have had to have been much less excited to be "on the edge of his seat"; on two separate occasions, I had to remind him that it was fine for him to sit down and enjoy the game from the comfort of the couch. He would run to his house for something, then rush back and stand in the living room, watching with all-consuming determination at the television, waiting to see what happened next. I guess that comes from his covering sports as a photographer. I don't imagine you sit down much when your down on the side-lines of the field taking pictures of the action.
My poor dog had never witnessed a football game on television before. For that matter, he might not ever have seen a sporting event on TV - and definitely not one that people in the house cared a flip about. He was beside himself when there was a flag on a play, or points scored, or even a first down would cause the three of us to yell something; he would run up to the entertainment center and stand up on his hind legs and bark at the screen. (Sorry Tracey Porter, he just doesn't know you - it's nothing personal.) He also wasn't too keen on the fireworks and yelling that occurred from the streets around us just after the Saints actually won the Super Bowl. I have to say I was a bit surprised, myself. Even getting beyond the whole Baton Rouge / New Orleans thing, how did these people still have fireworks? Did they buy them specifically in case the Saints actually won? Or did they simply have leftovers after firing fireworks off to exhaustion for New Years? I guess I have a hard time with this, since they're not even legal to use in my neighborhood.
I can only imagine what Mardi Gras must have been like this year. I didn't venture toward New Orleans for it this year, but the normal Mardi Gras crowds are more than enough for me, so I am fine with not being in parade crowds that were up to 50 people deep in places. Hard to imagine, but I'm okay with keeping it limited to my imagination. If you went to Mardi Gras 2010 (and survived), congratulations and thank you for your tourist dollars... you don't get 50 people deep from the natives here.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Discover Your Brain on Videogames...
It's a nice read, and I won't ruin it for anyone, but, in short, it indicates that playing videogames can help to sharpen an individual's brain - not in the "hand-eye coordination" way that we hear as a somewhat frequent retort to the media's latest frenzied attempt to blame anything from violence in our schools and road-rage to terrorism and global warming on our favorite digital passtime, but in what they describe as "mental dexterity" - essentially, playing videogames can help train a person to solve problems. Who knew?