dani426:

CAUTION: When using fiberglass resin, Bondo, polyurethane resin, sanding, spray painting, and similar chemicals, be sure to wear appropriate safety equipment.  Polyester resin based chemicals, such as fiberglass resin and Bondo require a respirator which protects against organic vapors.  Gloves are also a necessity as repeated contact with polyester resin can be severely toxic.  Full coveralls are highly recommended when working with fiberglass fibers and sanding.

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This is my big build thread write up thingy (GIANTWALLOFTEXT, and I’m relatively new to Tumblr…so how do I put like a cut to hide the wall?) that will go into detail on how we made the Jiraiya costume debuted at Anime Expo 2012.  Well, at least the parts I worked on. 

A bit about my background.  First the costuming bits.  I’ve worked on Halo armor starting in 2009, when I decided I didn’t want to waste my summer playing video games…so the logical step was to make costumes from games.  I’d always loved the ODSTs from Halo for being the best of humanity in a world of aliens and super soldiers, among other reasons, so I decided to make one for Anime Expo 2009 as my first costume.  Since then, I’ve made several other Halo costumes and have been lucky enough to gain a lot of experience in techniques commonly used in that community, including pepakura, fiberglass, and molding.  The Jiraiya costume is one of the first non-Halo costumes I have tackled.

Pulse and Line are the ones who proposed the project.  They have done a lot to earn the status of ‘most obsessed cosplayer’ for Persona 4 on Anime Cosplay Paradise, having dozens of variations of every character from the game.  They’ve also done a great Izanagi costume (especially considering it’s their first costume with ‘armor/prop’ bits), which they showed off at AX 2011 and which was modified for Fanime 2012.  Be sure to check out their profiles on ACP.

Linefaced ACP Profile
Impure Impulse ACP Profile

I have been blessed to know these two since 2004, and they are very dear friends who’ve helped me through a lot in my life.  I’d been going over to their house a lot, so of course when they asked me for some costuming advice, I was eager to help.  I’m very touched by how much they feel I contributed to this project, but this was definitely  a group effort and couldn’t have succeeded with out all of us being equally crazy. =)  Pulse ended up doing the vast majority of the foam work, and Line did an amazing job with all the sewing bits. (hopefully I’ll learn to sew like that someday!).

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Again, before we start TAKE APPROPRIATE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS.  Don’t be the poor person who can never work with certain materials again because they developed a horrible allergy to it from not wearing gloves or respirators.  I’ve heard some pretty nasty tales before, so take those extra few seconds to toss on the protective equipment. 

The original idea was proposed by Line.  My initial involvement was from them asking me if I had any ideas how to go about making the head.  I suggested they look up how Deadmau5 costumers created theirs, as the shape was similar (and unsurprisingly, Jiraiya was often referred to as deadmau5 during the convention).  We saw a few felt heads, but eventually found links to acrylic globes on Amazon.com.   It was fairly obvious the main purchasers of these acrylic globes were costumers due to the recommended items which consisted of EL wiring and hot glue.

Back at home, I looked up pictures of Jiraiya modified in photoshop for reference and cut out cardboard mockups to figure out the size.  I ended up going with a narrower V in order to make it easier for Line to maneuver around the con as well as to accentuate the lanky design of the Persona.  I also got a basic design for the shuriken for hands.   I decided to hold off on the eyes until I could see the acrylic ball.

The first task when going over was to fill in the little nub on the top of the acrylic ball and make it look smooth.  Using Bondo auto body filler, we filled in the hole and sanded it down flush.  We also scuffed up the acrylic ball with low grit sand paper and put down a coat of primer to improve paint adhesion.

The cardboard mockups for the shuriken ended up being too big for Line’s hands, however they served the purpose of creating a shape template.  We sized it down appropriately and transferred the form to 110lb cardstock.   Once the forms were cut out and folded, several layers (approx 3 coats) of fiberglass resin were brushed on top of the paper to help it hold its shape.  Fiberglass cloth was laid inside the paper form.  Fiberglass cloth is not quite as strong as fiberglass mat, however it is much easier to work with and also more than strong enough for our purposes.  The cloth is laid inside so that the paper model retains details on the outside, resulting in a minimum amount of bondo aplication to smooth it out.

Due to me being lazy, I ended up using the original cardboard template for the V as a base.  We taped it down at the angle we wanted and laid down a sheet of cloth over the outside.  The sheet ended up not being strong enough, so we cleaned up the cardboard and I laid several layers of mat on the inside.  Due to the glassing on the outside, a large amount of bondo was required to create a smooth surface.  The also warped slightly when laying the mat down due to the angle it was resting at.  If I had to redo it, I would use exclusively mat for simplicity and either lay elusively on the outside or inside.

I used one side of the V to demonstrate the ‘rondo’ technique to Pulse.  Rondo is simply mixing fiberglass resin with bondo to create a thick but pourable mixture.  Painters tape is used to wall off an area, and this can be used to quickly create flat surfaces.   

 A good day or so was spent exclusively on bondoing and sanding the V and shurkens to a nice smooth finish.  The finish on the V ended up being a waste however, as I had forgotten about the detailing with the lines.  We used foamies (3mm craft foam) cut to the right shape and attached with hot glue.  However, by using hot glue, there were gaps between the foamies and the V.  Modge Podge was used to create a smoother finish and fill in the gaps.  Having not used modge podge before, it didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped.  I also had a tough time getting the finish smooth again, and in the interest of time, it was left rougher than I would have liked.

The details on the ‘eye’ shurken were buttons with bondo used to fill in the holes.  The details on the hands are thicker pieces of craft foam cut to shape, sanded, sealed with plasti dip, and painted chrome.  A gloss clearcoat was applied but ended up ruining the chrome finish.  These will likely be redone.  The gloss clearcoat on the gold paint looked fairly nice however.

The vest was made out of EVA foam.  It was the first time we had worked with it and we ended up watching many techniques off Youtube from people who had used it for Iron Man, Halo, and Mass Effect armor.  A template was made with thinner craft foam  before being transferred to EVA floor mats (what you can pick up to line a gym floor).  Once cut to shape, it was sealed first by using a heat gun on its surface and then spraying plasti dip (later reading suggests to hit the eva floor mats with a heat gun before cutting them out).  Is sprayed the plasti dip on very thick, and in the future I might try using the dip/painting version instead of the spray cans.  When painting the vest, we had an issue with an odd grey film appearing on some points as well as with some spots where the red duplicolor spray paint we used kept running.  We eventually solved this by sanding down the vest, spraying primer, and repainting it.  We detailed the trim by using a silvery/mylar fabric folded over to look like a rounded edge.  The vest ended up being a bit small, so we will redo it at some point.

For the gloves, Line found the perfect camo pattern…though I forget where she got it from.  Once she figured out a good size (with the fingertips stuffed to give it the exagerated look but not too exagerated so she had some control in them), we used some random bits from Jo-ans for the back, then washers with a little reflective mylar fabric underneath them for the tips.  The front and back details were attached with velcro. 

The eyes (what look like Mickey Mouse ears) were two pieces of thicker craft foam glued together and shaped by Pulse.  We had to redo them a few times, so these were finished pretty much the night before they drove down to the con.    Another foam detail was made to connect between the eyes and the main head.  The eyes were connected to the detail connector by ramming a skewer through the two.  The detail then connected to the head by a bolt going through a drilled head to some washers, with little spaces dremeled into the eyes so they could sit more flush.

We bough some lights from an auto shop.  Due to time constraints we had to take shortcuts.  We dremeled in a recession in the eyes and laid the lights in there, running the wiring down to a switch and battery pack.  Also we did a horribly sodering job which should have in all rights resulted in the burning down of the house. We covered this up with two opaque pieces of plastic and a red filter dealio for diffusion (the reflectors we bought were too short) and laid it all under a piece of craft foam.

We watched way too much Project Runway while working on this the last day.  Waaaay too much.  My sassy gay man quota is maxed out.

Finally, the morning of, we attached a strip of 2 inch webbing with hot glue to the V to hold it in place and a helmet liner from a hard hat into the head so it would sit higher and also move.  Pulse would bring down supplies for last second painting.  Because that’s how we roll.

Line was great about wearing the costume both at the Friday gathering as well as on Sunday so I could see it. ^^  If you want to see it again, the next opportunity will be at Gamcenter’s Persona 4 Arena launch event in San Mateo, CA on August 7, where hopefully you will be able to see both Izanagi and Jiraiya. ~_0

All in all, it was a very fun project and a great learning experience for everyone, including myself as I haven’t worked too much with foam.  There is definitely better ways we could have approached things and room for improvement and upgrades, but as a whole, I think we’re all happy with the final product. 

Even this giant wall of text doesn’t really encompass the whole experience and work that went into the project, plus I likely skipped or glossed over a lot of details, so if you have any questions about costuming construction, don’t hesitate to ask either myself, Pulse, or Line. =)   And be sure to follow us to see more neat costume stuff.  Mostly them if you want Persona stuff though, because you’ll see lots of random Halo stuff on mine. =P  Still, some crazy person may have commented to me that they wanted to make ‘2 new Personas each year’…so we’ll see how that works out. ^^

I’m extremely grateful to be a part of this project (which is also my introduction to the Persona fandom - playing through P3P now and looking forward to P4G), for Line and Pulse’s friendship and the friendship of everyone I met at AX this year, and for all the compliments on the costume.  Can’t wait to tackle the next project!

And just because this needs to be spread through the Persona 4 fandom, this is fucking amazing work.  What I especially like is the step by step pictures in it, I love awesome things being broken down to show that, hey, this started with these items, but combined it made this gorgeous thing.  Great job!