Chris Lee's Robotech Cyclone (Genesis Climber Mospeada) Costume

Build Diary

Cyclone Photos and Video Reference

Construction progress:

Basically the suit is done and wearable (with handlers). There are a few details that I will complete over the next few months, but I'm really going to take a break from working on it for a little while.

	Forms for feet group one
	Forms for feet group two
	Forms for forearm gauntlets
	Progress 3/4/2007
	Reworking the forms 3/18/2007 - I discovered that the Sculpt or Coat is worthless for vac forming because it melts from the heat of the plastic then adheres to it, so now I have to re-skin all the forms with hardboard.
	Progress 3/28/2007 - First good pulls from the vac former.
	Leg and gauntlet work
	Leg covers have been pulled and painted. The articulated attachment points between the knees and leg covers have been figured out, finally. I engineered a 4-degree-of-freedom mounting system for each side that incorporates a drawer slide and a ball-jointed speaker mount. This will permit movement and compensate for the flexing and variations in distance from my waist to knees as I move around in the suit.
	A quick-release method for attaching the leg covers to the pack frame (while still allowing them to pivot freely with body movement) will allow me to put on the upper body pieces first when getting into the costume.
	The pack frame will be the sub-structure for attachment of all of the upper body pieces as well as the quick-release pivot point for the leg covers.
	Early work on the backpack with motorcycle rear end form that will attach to the pack frame. I'm getting the basic structure put together with foam, then I'll skin it with styrene.
	More work on the bike back end.
	Jet pods that will mount to the outside of the tires.
PICS COMING SOON	Shoulder bells - these will need to be redone. For DragonCon 2007 I just re-pulled some pieces over the foot toe molds and cut them out differently to look like shoulder bells.
PICS COMING SOON	Codpiece
	Chest plate and shoulder rocket mounts - I will eventually need to make the rocket pod covers and target scope for these.
	Tires and struts - I carved the tires in black foam for weight savings. I used off-the-shelf 14" plastic car wheel covers. The struts are a combination of a ShopVac extension tube and a Rubbermaid cooler cup dispenser. The backpack is getting heavy. I'll probably need to wear a lumbar support.
PICS COMING SOON	Helmet - this is a tricky one. I ended up modding a cheap BMX full-face for this as a temporary thing for DragonCon 2007.
COMING SOON	Retractable "katar" sword mechanisms - these wil be added later.
COMING SOON	Lighting - to be added later.
	Decals - I scanned the decal sheet that came with the 1/15 scale model kit and have traced them all into Adobe Illustrator to clean them up. I'm having a friend take the vector files and cut them using his vinyl cutter.
COMING SOON	Sound? Possibly. Also may add jet blast (canned air) smoke effects to the jet pods.

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