Working on props feels like software engineering.
You go from “How the fuck am I supposed to do this?” to “HOLY SHIT IT WORKS I’M A GENIUS.”
And finally “Welp, guess I broke like 3 new things.”
Rinse and repeat.
I figured out a way to secure the noods and board so they woulnd’t be floating around in chaos.
⭐ This Week’s Focus
Challenge Item - Ears
Other - Blade of the Black Empire (BotBE)
🧵 Shit I Did
- Submitted PAX West meetup application
- Sanded the BotBE parts (almost done)
- Figured out wiring and internal supports for the BotBE
- Tested out the Pixelblaze board (for the orbs) to make sure it works
- Tested out the ears with wire and headband and found out that the headband will not work for more than a couple hours
🔮 Thoughts for Future Work
- I probably don’t need to sand as much as I have been. I’m just trying to make it easier on myself later.
- The airbrush is probably not as delicate as I think it is.
- See if I can make the ears work with the wire not attached to anything, or possibly the wig cap.
- The things I worked on this week involved a lot of engineering, testing, and creative thinking. I’d like to try something less mentally intensive this upcoming week.
📋 TODO — Next Week
- THIS TIME test out the airbrush
- Glue, prime, paint, and finish the BotBE
- Get started on the foam repair work, starting with the cape
📸 Photo Dump
All we need to do is put it all together! Yeah right…
Before and after. I’m spraying it with Rustoleum filler primer so it’s possible I wasted hours of my life making it beautifully smooth.
Hello world! The board connects to the wifi and you can use the webapp to change the light pattern. It’s honestly pretty cool.
I’ve been constantly reminded on how delicate these lights are and that I need to be careful. It took some debugging to get this lit up and I got quite the electronics lesson (more on that in a future blog).
The diffusion isn’t perfect, but neither is the void, so we’re going with it.
I swear I am NOT doing some illegal fel experiment! I just needed to test the light overnight to see how long it would last.
Took me some tries to get the correct diameter and spacing for this board holder. I need to invest in some calipers so I don’t have to eyeball it.
There was enough depth in this eye portion that diffusion was not needed. Trust me, it looks even better in real life!