Sunday, May 17, 2015

Operation Cockbite Part 12: The Finale!

And so, the day of the convention finally came. We got up bright and early, piled into the car with the costume, and, well, why don't you see how it went for yourself:


However, as fun as it was, it wasn't without it's wear and tear...

This was barely an hour and a half into the event. the line hadn't even started moving yet. Needless to say the costume wasn't doing to hot. I had a complete failure in one of the feet, all those "virtually indestructible" rubber-infused nylon straps were frayed and failing horribly. Thankfully, i brought an emergency repair kit, consisting of duct tape, a pair of scissors, and my hot glue gun. more than enough to turn this disaster around:

Duct tape was the MVP of this trip for sure. The first day of the con was done with a rousing success, but the costume, well...

Poor ol gusbot took quite the beating... i lost at least half of the I screws. The feet were more duct tape than foam by the time we made it back to the hotel, basically: everything was broken:

I actually ended up finding one of the I screws in the mess of duct tape that was lining the inside of most of the pieces:

and this is what the costume looked like with all the duct tape removed...

Second I screw found in the duct tape on the FEET! could've come from anywhere up to mid-thigh level:

Not pretty. BUT, failure results in learning, and learning results in improvement. so i powered up the hot glue gun, grabbed my handy dandy duct tape, and started improving. First hurdle to jump was the large ball of shredded nylon fluff that used to be the straps holding the leg joints in place. fortunately, through a desperate fluke, i found out that duct tape with a bit of hot glue bonded to foam like concrete! so, i took a page from the "improvised duct tape rigging system" from a few days ago, and started making my own straps:

i also used the duct tape and hot glue wombo-combo to properly secure the clips on the sides of the torso, since they had also been ripped free:

From the pictures above, it's pretty obvious that the feet took the worst of the beating. one of the bottoms was literally just gone when we got back to the hotel. we couldn't find it. It became a sacrifice to the cosplay gods of the Austing downtown convention center. So, that meant i was gonna be walking lopsided. no bueno. so, i had to cut out the bottom of the other foot to balance things out, as well as take even more height out of them to prevent the tops from catching on the shin pieces (which is why they were so warped):

Next was the joints, strengthened with a few cross pieces of duct tape:

The repairs worked fantastically, and the rest of RTX was a goddamn blast! unfortunately for you guys, it was SO much of a blast that i forgot to take lots of pictures. I got a few though, like Blaine himself wearing the Gusbot head!

And Kerry got to try it too, but i got a little too excited apparently... (AKA: didn't wait for the picture to finish before putting the camera down)

And so, the third day came to a close, and it was over. It was a HUGE amount of fun, and i'll be returning this year with something else in mind... either way, gusbot got packed up to be brought home for repairs before heading off to Rooster Teeth Studios as a fun little donation:

RTX 2014. never forget. and, stay tuned!



Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Operation Cockbite Part 12: Dawn of the first day

Alright, the day finally arrived. It was time for RTX. I packed the brand spankin new (and probably still drying) Gusbot into a couple shipping crates and headed on my merry way to the airport!

little tidbit: the austin airport is friggin cool!

Gusbot landed safely!

uh oh...
It appears someone opened the crates up... maybe it had something to do with the hot glue gun, dremel, duct tape, and exacto knife set that i packed witht he costume...

Hey buddy... ya doin alright?

damn covenant bastards... (wait what?)

Thankfully nothing was taken, so we're still A-OK. until...
fuh...

so our rental car was... small.
but with a bit of pushing, lots of cursing, and breaking the lid off, we managed to get one in the trunk and one in the back seat:

A quick drive, a slightly less quick check-in, and a very perplexed bellhop, and we were finally in the hotel room:

Hey, remember that quip i made about foreboding stuff last part? well...

thankfully, i happened to have brought some tools...

fixin time!
Gusbot seems to like the accommodations
swagbag HYPE!

Alright, with everything unpacked, it's time to suit up and test to make sure everything works.
Shoes are looking quite snazzy:

Oh, remember that thing i JUST FIXED?!?

Time to bust out the duct tape...
There, much better. Now, i get back to unpacking and testing all the suit pieces when i realize something...

I
forgot
THE RIGGING SYSTEM!
Yup, the better part of an hour METICULOUSLY GOING THROUGH A CHECKLIST OF EVERYTHING I WOULD POSSIBLY NEED! and i forgot the one thing that HOLDS THE ENTIRE SUIT TOGETHER!
   However, instead of crying about it, I grabbed my handy-dandy roll of duct tape and got to work:

I think it came out quite nice actually. Anyway! with that problem solved, i continued with fitting everything:

It rode up quite a bit and was nearly impossible to walk around in, so a few adjustments were made:

With the adjustments done and everything fitting comfortably, Gusbot was packed up in a box, ready for the car ride down to the convention center in the morning:

And so, the first day of the RTX trip came to a close with the event looming on the horizon. Next part will be all about running around doing crazy shenanigans during the event. Stay tuned!