Halloween 2010…The distant future.

4 11 2010

A quick blog post—this is a mash up of a couple of internet posts I did about this Halloween and the costume I made. So the post will likely be a bit “rough”

In other words, all errors and typos are intentional 🙂

*******************

So I was inspired by a friend who did a cardboard robot versions of star wars storm troopers***…wanted to do a cardboard robot with the iPad as my chest piece playing clips of robots from classic movies…it all got a little complicated as cardboard became plastic trashcan, arms are drainage ducts, eyes are infinity pendants, got an old compression, oil pressure, vacuum pressure dial off ebay… etc etc…It is now over six feet tall and insanely uncomfortable and hot…gah, what we do for art.

The legs never came together, so I did a last minute box thingy…the last minute box thingy was horrid to walk in, so that was scrapped for silver body suit–a left over from last year when Deanna and I went as “Hole in the Wall” contestants. Might save the robot costume for next year and do the legs and feet right.

Anyways…will post some video later…one good thing is that the costume kept me from getting too drunk…almost impossible to drink in…obviously a Halloween costume flaw.

Here is the pumpkin I did…my first “scrapping, not cutting” pumpkin. My daughter hasn’t been able to play any Fallout 3 for a couple of months and is missing it…so I made this for her as she came home for the weekend just to hit the Halloween party.

Needed a bit of touch up. Lightening of the face and hand…but not bad for a first effort…heck, only cut one of my fingers doing it. Of course I think I probably will end up getting a tetanus shot next week anyways as my robot costume has nuts and bolts and a few screws sticking into the habitation compartment. (edit. covered exposed screws with foam and managed to go the whole night without cutting myself with my costume…so probably don’t need a tetanus shot…yea, teh win).

(side note: Heck we were invited to 3 adult Halloween parties this year…does anybody remember when Halloween was for kids?)

As for Halloween trick or treaters coming to the door on Sunday, surprisingly had a ton of kids this year. Only a few from our neighborhood and we usually get maybe 10 kids on Halloween…not this year…lots of parents bringing their kids by car to our neighborhood…had to run out and get more candy as we thought we had over-stocked, but went through 4 bags of candy very fast…needed double the amount we had on hand.. Huge groups of 15 kids at a time, then a group of 7, then a group of 15 etc etc…was fun though…I think the parents brought their kids from less safe neighborhoods to ours…which is cool…don’t want kids trick or treating in the war zone if the parents can get them to an area with less car traffic and less gun fire

The final cleaned up version of my first scraping pumpkin. A bit of scraping behind the face and hand to thin the pumpkin “meat” and lighten up those areas so the shirt and pants would appear as darker clothing. I used a cord and 60w light bulb to get good illumination from the pumpkin. One, candles don’t put out as much light. Two, the light of a candle is less focused. Three, a strong light allows me to not have to scrape as deep into the pumpkin…easier on me and the pumpkin 🙂

The pipboy lasted well all weekend and went to 3 parties and was on display for the trick or treaters (along with my robot costume sitting on the porch outside). I thought for sure it would get smashed, but still “alive” this morning. I think I will do a scrapping not cutting pumpkin for a couple of more years…was fun.

(sorry for the bad image…love my iPhone, but she doesn’t do low lighting photos well)

As for my costume…everybody loved it…I think the eyes are killer and the size is more impressive when you are at a party and suddenly see me walk in or walk by. And the kids REALLY loved it… at first they were afraid of it, but then gah, they followed me everywhere like baby ducklings…hugging me and yelling, “we love you robot”…it was borderline surreal. and a bit tiring…after about an hour of non-stop being either herded or followed by children I pleading with other adults, “please help me, why isn’t anybody else interacting with the children?” they were, “oh, you’r doing a great job.” finally had to tell the kids that robot needed to power-down. which meant get drunk.

(Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet was my inspiration)

The ipad had clips from about 10 robot movies…an hour long loop…no movie sound, instead I inserted clips of robot noises and robot phrases (“i am a robot”, “warning warning”, “powering down”, “you are a man, i am a machine, other than that slight difference we have much in common”… etc etc)

My eyes pulsed and had insane depth due to led magic…the mouth was my area for vision, but you couldn’t see in, just out. and i loved my steampunk dial console…had temp, oil pressure and vacuum pressure…real gauges. It’s the little details that make it more fun for me. But the kids loved the robot hands the best. Grabbing them, shaking them.

going for some cupcakes.

If I use this again I will work on getting the robot legs…tried a couple of things…didn’t work out like I wanted…so went with simple silver legs…

body…trash can, head…Halloween cauldron, arms….drainage pipe, hand…robot claws with real ratchet sound…

But enough about me….

my wife, who is constantly cleaning and we all make fun of her for it, went as a super hero called Mighty Maid. And yes I am a lucky man. Beautiful, smart and very very cleanly. She is the wind beneath my wings and the cleanser on all the counter tops.

Gavin

Deanna had a good photo of the pumpkin without the light on–or her flash overpowered the light…either way, good image of just the pumpkin and scrapped pipboy image.