Well, I've decided: I'm going to Nan Desu Kan. This local convention of Americans to share their love for Japanese culture and entertainment (Mostly to talk about Anime, Manga, and Video Games.) This sounds like something I would love to attend.

However, there's a problem. I wanna cosplay. Just sounds like a fun thing to do. However, there just aren't that many 6'3" 285 LBs anime characters. I would rather not go as something that I really don't "fit" the role for. So I mulled the question over, and after talking with some friends, have decided to go a Majin Buu. Buu is a large guy, and if he where my height, he would probably weigh about 500 LBs. This is great because I can always make a costume to make me look bigger. ^^

However, any full body costume (Like this one will have to be) is going to get hot. VERY hot. So, I thought, "Hmm, I'm an engineer. I have a problem. So, let's apply my expertise and solve it."

So my friends and I did some more thinking, and this is what we came up with. First, we make a Buu body suit. We do this by sewing cloth together into a Buu shape (with elastic holes where his much smaller legs are). Then we take bits of foam and shape them the way buu is shaped and sew it into the cloth. The foam will give form to the Buu costume without sacrificing flexibility (Which is a good thin seeing as the costume won't fit through doors otherwise. ^^) Then we make a head out of paper mache and build it so it has a rack with Styrofoam insulation in the upper parts. This rack supports Peltier junction whose hot side is attached to a heat sink and fan combination and the other side have another heat sink and fan, except with the fan rigged to run backwards. This means that the fan will blow away from the heat sink. This will keep my hair from getting sucked in to the fan ^^;;;

The hot side fan intake will come from Buu's head tail, which will be made of fine mesh and thin nylon. This was it can be pink, and air permeable without having the cloth pulled tightly over chicken wire and looking really stupid.

The head will be built so it has supports that rest on my shoulders and will be strapped on. That way I won't have any problems with the head falling off since the head will be considerably unbalanced. This is going to cause a bit of a problem because Buu has a really small head as compared to his body, and I have a big head (Probably from all that ego stroking I give to myself. ^^)

Now, all I have to do is actually build it. Not that it is an easy task mind you ^^;;;





- posted by Jim The Cactus @ 5/24/2004 06:39:07 PM | Permalink | (0) Comments. Add your own!