Nickel - Tube Head - Katamari

Greetings humans! ;D This post shall go into the details of how I constructed the tube head for Nickel. I started exactly the same as I did for Prince and Princess, by creating a hole in the bottom of the tube for my head to go through.

My helmet had this stupid point at the back which needed to be sawed off... :P And so I did.

I added the blocks of foam so  that the helmet, and by extension the entire head, would sit at the right height and angle. This was especially important for Nickel because the head had to clear the shoulders of my box body.

We visually determined the placement, marked it out, and then glued it all in place.

I had my friend Ian do the soldering (and re-soldering) of all my LED circuits for this project. I ran out of time to do it myself. It looks fantastic! I will go into more details of how those were constructed in a later post.

The hubs that the LED's were put into in the red cylinders were made from a disc of foam core and a cylinder of illustration board. And lots of glue. LOTS.

I drilled a hole where each LED would go, evenly spacing the array. Then I farmed them out.

These beauties were returned to me! ;D

I then taped all the exposed wires so I wouldn't get a crossed wire and end up with an electrical fire. That would be very bad.

...Particularly because it is not so easy to get this costume off quickly...

Then I cut 2 foam core discs to go in the end of the tube. These would fit snugly and be glued into place.

Then I cut a ring/disc that I glued around the bottom of each hub, so that they now resembled a top hat crossed with a jellyfish.

Then I cut a thin ring of foam core to act as an inner support for my red cylinders, and a circle of a plastic binder to act as a frosted filter. The black rings were my only gluing surface for this entire cylinder.

Meanwhile, I had Alex add an illustration board outer layer to my head. (The sonotube had obtained numerous dings in the garage.)

Then I worked on the cylinders. Using clear tape, I carefully taped together strips of red acetate  and curled them around.

I had a friend of my mum's--who has access to a laser cutter--cut me 2 perfect circles in red plexiglass. These were glued to the frosting circle and then the foam ring.

Alex then glued the 2 foam discs in the ends of the tube. The eye slot and neck hole were also nicely cut.

Back in the land of plastic, I carefully glued the acetate roll to the black ring along the top edge. The end result is a bit fragile, but looks quite clean and I am very happy with it. Because of the multiple layers to the red acetate, it did not need a frosted filter.

Alex then spackled the joins in the illustration board and sanded them out to achieve a nice, smooth and almost seamless look! ;D

With the 2 red cylinders done I was ready to assemble. The top-hat-jellyfish were carefully inserted through the neck hole. Then the foam core discs--ones on each end of the tube head and their respective jelly-hat--glued together, making sure that the electrical hub was centered in the middle of the hole. The red cylinders--which were made to fit into the hole exactly--were slotted over the hubs and then glued into place.

The border on Nickel's face was finished with a rectangle of craft foam, glued on and painted grey. A fabric piece was attached so that Nickel's face flaps up like the rest of them.

Alex says: I LOVE GLUING!!!! D:<

...Which is her way of protesting against all things sewn. :P

 The antenna was glued on and so were the decorative nuts. ;D

The final step was to solder the switch and battery into my electrical circuit to make everything work!

Beauty!

An in depth look at Nickel's circuitry--including diagrams and calculations-- will be coming up in the next month or so, but I will be taking a bit of a break from all things Katamari for the moment. I am also planning on doing a tutorial on how to put together a simple LED circuit. Those will probably be up in september or october sometime.

Nickel - Body - Katamari

How do you make an awesome robot body? You start with cardboard. No, seriously. The final body is made out of hardboard, (which is like a thin masonite) but I started by making a cardboard mock-up so I could make sure it fit perfectly without wasting time, money and materials.

(Side note: I am totally running out of finished pictures of this costume, hence the recycled images. :P)

The main concern here was getting it to fit as tight as possible, so that the profile could be as slim as possible, while still keeping in mind that I had to have room for all the circuitry and batteries to fit in behind the front panel. I guesstimated some arm holes.

I ended up with these two pieces which would make up the body. 

Once I was happy with my mock-up, I set about replicating it in hardboard. I had to keep in mind the difference in material thickness and alter some of my measurements with that in mind.  

 I got my pieces cut at home depot to start because my table saw is just a little bit busted, but several of them were the wrong size, or cut badly. >:/  I ended up having to recut those ones.

Then I traced my arm and neck holes onto the pieces, and cut them out with a jigsaw.

 Then I cut the hole out of the front for the control panel by drilling holes in the corners so I could get the jigsaw in and cut the rectangle.

Once those pieces were prepped, I cut the supports that would go in the corners and would act as a frame to hold it together.

 The problem with using hardboard is that although the super-thin-ness is an asset, it also means that there is essentially no material to nail into. In order to make it work you have to add blocks into the corner to support the structure so it doesn't fall apart.

Now I needed some help from a friend with more shop expertise, the rest of the build was a two man job. :P Special thanks to Ian for making this happen! :D

Those blocks were first applied with wood glue and then brad nailed into place. The brad nails helped to suck the two pieces of wood together and the glue help to make the bond even stronger.

I repeated this process on all 4 corners.

Fits like a glove! Which it should if you made a mock-up first! Hahaha

The top panels were added in a similar fashion. Same with the insert for the control panel. You can see below the inside with all the supports in the corners.

This side of the insert had to be made a little differently. This is the side where the hinge was going for the door on the front. I order to attach that, I needed to have the space at the back free, which meant I couldn't put a corner block. Instead, we put two beams with copious amounts of wood glue to hold that panel in place so I could still drill in and attach my nuts and bolts.

Once that was done I spackled and sanded all the little holes left by the brad nailer so the surface would be smooth after painting.

Then I measured and drilled the holes for the bolts so I could attach the hinges. The problem with the hinge on the front panel is that I couldn;t find bolts short enough, so there was a fair sized stub left over on the inside. Luckily, I was able to work it so that the bolts swung inside the insert so that the door would close properly.

Then I attached the side hinge.By having a hinge in the side it meant I could make this box as tight as possible without having to worry about not being able to get it over my head.

Now the base of my body was done.

...Just as soon as I glued in the final piece. XD

Then we set up the pieces to get the full spray treatment. Which is: primer, paint, paint, paint, paint, etc.

Then I prepped the control panel to move into its new home. More on that piece in a later post.

The quick solution to closing the box was velcro, as I was unable to find tiny clasps at home depot. these were just glued to a couple panels that overlapped the openings.

Once the base grey was done, the masking was put on and the details were added in and acrylic paint.

The final touch was the nuts that were added as detailing, and the control panel.

The extra final touch that you can't see, but made all the difference in the world to me was the foam layer that I put on the inside above the shoulders so I didn't die. XD