And the Weiner is...

Yes, I admit it... Epic Fail.

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. . .

A Weak Start... Head and Shoulders...

Well, actually, Head and Chest... Last night I didn't find much time at all to work on my Venom costume, so most of the work is going to be done tonight when I get home. What does that mean for drying times? Eh... flying by the seat of my pants, as usual on these projects; we'll have to see what develops...

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.)

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...

...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.

Almost Halloween...

So, it's almost that time again. Time to put together a costume for Halloween. Last year, I put together a fairly decent Daft Punk costume, in what I decided to term "80%" fashion. That is, I try to rough in the idea and get it to a good looking, recognizable appearance, without worrying about 100% accuracy. For example, my Daft Punk costume consisted of a leather jacket, pleather pants, leather gloves with metallic duct tape appliqués to approximate the robotic-looking gloves and a tinted motorcycle helmet painted silver, rather than mocking up a helmet that is exactly the same shape as the original thing. I also attached an LED scrolling message belt buckle from ThinkGeek to the inside, so I even had scrolling messages. The overall look worked really well, and took a lot less effort than if I had built up the helmet from scratch.

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.

Long Time, No Posts...

Well, life has done it again; distracted me with all of the general stuff and kept me from posting to this blog. Since I last posted, I've cut down half of a tree for my Mother-in-law, replaced a large section of my fence and worked with my team at work to win the Halloween trophies for Best Decorations and Best Food.

I have also been swamped with things to review, both in games and movies. Currently, I'm trying to get the GameVor'Plex in shape for Thanksgiving, which means clearing the floors so that our new Roomba can ferret about doing our dirty work and then cleaning everything besides the floor.

As before, I will try to post more frequently, if only so I can refer back to this to try to remember what in the heck I've been up to.

Till next time...