You may have noticed G1 Jazz hasn't updated in while :( that's because the commissioner is extrememly busy because of the holidays and I need to communicate with her more before continuing. Anyway, I got the building bug and decided since the new year had started it was officially not "too early" to start this year's costume(s).

Figured I start off with an original character of mine called Camshaft this year, then depending on when I finish and whether or not I can make it to Botcon I'll do another canon movieverse character to wear to Botcon (I'm certain Camshaft would be mistaken as an interpretation of Cliffjumper and would hate to have to go through that all day :/).

Now, onto the worklog.
Started yesterday (1/2/10)
and plan to finish in two months ('round the end of February, near my birthday).

Planned materials:
Underarmor (black, covering from neck to ankle) - $104.98 (purchased not only for the costume)
Gloves (black) - ~$10 (purchased before this costume)
Shoes (black)
Headsock (red but willl paint black, like Blackout (whose headsock was blue)
Cardstock (lucky charms box :P )
Cardboard (free~)
Styrofoam (free~)
Shinkwrap/Heat Gun (borrow)
Valspar spray paint for armor (red; car body) - $3.75 (1 can)
Acrylics (cadmium red, cerulean blue, ultramarine, cadmium yellow medium hue, titanium white, and mars black)
Hot Glue (about 30 mini sticks)
edit:
2 yd. Elastic $1.29 (x3 packs)
Velcro $1.49 (1 pack; unsure of length)

Technique
I'm trying a new technique for my armor again. I'm shrinkwrapping any cardboard or styrofoam pieces for a smoother (consistant) surface which then gets painted. I've already tested it on a bit of my styrofoam, but I won't know the final painted surface 'till I go down in the crawlspace tomorrow to see how the paint dried (it's cold and snowy and dark out now, and I don't want to go down there atm, lol).

Shrinkwrapped without paint: http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC1-149125667
Shrinkwrapped with some paint: http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC3-149184715

Cam
So - the character - he looks like this:
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Camsh...round-123951357

And I happen to have a low-poly model of him too:
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Camsh...Cycle-144075550

=====================================
And my first progress pic on the costume itself -
Some of the armor test fitted on the glove before painting and attaching (the cardstock [happens to be a Lucky Charms cereal box] doesn't get shrinkwrapped): http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC2-149125992

Got a lot of the smallish singular pieces cut out and done over the past couple of days.


Under Armour is on its way in the mail, hopefully it'll be here by Friday weather permitting (I'm getting more snow tonight as well, and we're dropping below zero (*F) - a decade-record low here! :o ) So I won't be painting for a few days while I wait for the crawl space to heat up a little again.

During that time I hope to tackle some of the larger and harder parts - the tires, feet, outer chest plate, and doors.

Cool! You don't ever see people going all-out with their OC's... I'm excited for you! :D I'm also excited to see how this method comes out.

And lol, looks like he's got a bit of a limp in that 3D render!

Can't wait to see your progress and I hope you don't have to wait to long that's the worst part >:[

Under Armour came in this morning! 8D Oh man, I love it! I actually wish the gym were open today so I could work out in it, but I'm content to just sit here at home and work on the costume some more too, :D
And I likely won't have to work tonight, so that more time to carve out stuff. :)

I'm treating my O.C.s just like I would a canon character. *nod*
Best part is I've been "researching" him for the past couple of years, so I don't have to spend time doing that for the costume. :)

It was my first attempt at a full character walk cycle in 3D, so if a limp is the worst then I'm not so disappoointed in it! XD I tried to make left and right steps not perfectly the same, and I ended up with something that's probably just a bit too different between each step. :/

Well hopefully I can work on stuff not affected by the cold (yay heat gun shrinkwrapping for extra warmth!) while I wait for this nation-siezing cold to blow over. >.<

But the under armour is warm too :3

*salute* back to my labor of love!

[edit] Pictures added :D [/edit]

Made a little bit o' progress over the last couple of days, mostly in thinking/designing bits of the costume I was unsure about.

Once I realized that Artoni was in a similar rigging situation with her Barricade outfit, I asked her what she used for hers and ended up finding out about and deciding on using elastic to rig my costume. :) 'Tis cheap ($1.29 everywhere I looked for up to 2 yards) and I'm sure it will work well for my needs. :]

This also means some rigging for the costume I build for Botcon is solved :D

It solves the "need to make pieces appear to float on me without damaging under armour / clothing" issue I was faced with (wasn't a problem with Blackout due to the fact that it was old clothing and I didn't plan on ever using it for anything besides that Halloween costume).

NEW!
Rigged pics of the upper arm :D
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC9-150285468
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC10-150285531


========

There was progress in developing my shrinkwrapping technique - dad came up with the idea to use a clothes iron to help chop the plastic to fit the pieces before shrinking to smooth. Ingenious, since the main machine only has one long, straight, immovable arm really incapable of creating concave corners in the wrap. (it was a problem I had avoided so far on shrinking the pieces since all the easy pieces I started with didn't have any sharp concave curves).


========

I got around to building one of the wheels today - something I was unsure about, but now have total confidence in having found out the skeleton of the shoulder wheel I was working on made a perfect mock-up for the wheels which will be on my feet.

I have yet to add the foam on the outside of it to have the treads carved out of yet. I'll take pictures before and after that though. :)

Possibly concerned about cracking the foam if I sllice it too thin in places. Will have to be ample with the glue and let the foam sit overnight to let it become more used to the curve of the wheel.

NEW!
Pics of said wheel :D
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC-Wheel-150264637
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC-Wheel-2-150265013


========

I'm also toying with creating that gritty, aged look that the movieformers have in 'bot mode. I'm not really satisfied with the results so far, but will post pictures soon for critique, because this OC costume will be the best place for me to practice this on, if I ever want to do it in the future, and I'm sure it's mostly issues with my color choice and applying of it that are the problem which could be fixed with your help. :) :)


Eeeee. Very excited about the progress so far and looking forward to the next couple of days. Hope to pick up the elastic tomorrow or Thursday so I can rig the completed bits. :) Seeing bits of it done are what I was waiting for. :D It helps so much with one's confidence.



[edit] Well, I took pictures of the pieces I tested on. It's like the camera's working against me, since it looks even worse in photos (I suppose the red doesn't help though....)

http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Crit1-150265375

http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Crit3-150285150



Mmm...So, painting said textures on with about four different mixed colors - a bluish white (looks silver next to the red), a whitish red (sort of partially removed paint look), a very near white (small accents), and the straight-up red I have (a cadmium red) which is a little off from the actual armor/car-paint looking red.
I did that because I noticed most of the stuff on Optimus and Ironhide was simply worn down edges to silver.
I'm thinking I need to restrain everything (really should I have painted them THAT much?), but increase the "silver" versus the other colors, as use them only as transistions into silver. And I'll restrain the silver to the edges like on Prime/Hide.

But that's just a theory for me to ty out next. What do YOU think would work better?

Super busy at school so I had no free time since last update until today - I've been at it all day, but seem to be a little depressed somehow about it (o.o), it feels like I'm going slow.
Anyway, some progress pictures.

Leoblaze on my desk, lol....
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CCLeoblaze-152445094

The chest just needs one big chunk of the front of the car to be made to finish up that, and then the only part of the torso left would be the doors on the back...hmm.
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CCFront-152445794
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CCFront2-152445945

Working on the foot now.....
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CCLowerLeg-152445412
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CCLowerLeg2-152445587

I have yet to do any of the upper legs except for the easy pieces in the back.

The hands are all cut out, but only half painted I think. Waiting on all the silver pieces so I get all one silver/grey for the costume. Then finishing painting touches go on at the end and all done.

I suppose the costume's probably a bit over the 50% mark in all reality, but it doesn't feel like it, :unsure:

Edit:
Pictures of the nearly-finished arm:
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC-Arm-152484021
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC-Nails-152484252
Just need two bits in the palm, and that white bar on the inside of my arm will be black.

I also find out one of my fears - the hotglue needs to be reinforced/more liberally applied to any shrinked shrinkwrap. It does fine on unshrinked stuff.

Looks like I've only had Mondays to work on my costume... Hope to change that though, need to speed up to meet my deadline. :)

Worked on various parts today - the front of the foot/toes were painted and attached to each other. Walking's fine on hard surfaces, but carpetting wil still pose a problem *sigh* just can't win on carpet....
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CCFoot02-153433124


Also started on the main chest piece - it seems much of my problem-solving was done for it today, and I'm confident of my measures. It's not all cut out yet though. The front's getting really close though. :)

The headlights were a lot of fun, and I think they're so cute! :lol: They're just little boxes without a front or back that was then shrinkwrapped. I have yet to put one layer of paint on the back so that (in case anyone gets low enough to look), you can't see the other pieces behind it, but light can still shine through from above! Hoorah! :)
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CCHea...hts01-153433779

In front of a poster of the vehicle. :D


I wanted to get all of the front end cut out today....Hmm. I'm looking to see if school will be slowing down, and trying to see where I can work on it during the rest of the week, so I get done faster. :)
Very happy where it's going right now.... Praise God. :D

edit: oh, and I guess I haven't mentioned yet that the arms and hands are pretty much done - the palms are the only bits left there, and they can wait until everything else is done. :)


so maybe,

feet: 50%
lower legs: 90%
upper legs: 10%
torso: 60%
arms & hands: 95%
head: 5% (lol)
We're getting there!

Hey it's looking really good! And LOL, I love those headlights. The shrinkwrap technique sounds really interesting, but I don't think the photos are doing it justice... it just looks like paint to me?

Agreed they're pretty sweet.

I really want to mess around with some of the styrofoam and shrink wrap. It looks cool but I can never find out how much I like something until I can feel it in my hands.

Ehh, shrinkwrapping has a lot of cons - it doesn't like curves, and shrinking it has a bit of a learning curve - my earlier pieces make me want to reshrinkwrap them, but I shall not ( D: ). So If you do it incorrectly you can get some ugle corners. Bleh. Good thing is you can just tear the plastic off and try again if you really want to. :)

Careful with shrinkwrapping styrofoam...a little above the tempurature it takes to shrink my stuff (once the heat gun gets fully heated usually) it can also start to melt the styrofoam inside, so you have to take breaks when working on those....

I just got [Prototype] as an early birthday present....so I won't work on Cam tonight, XD even though yesterday I would have given anything for this hour of free time.... :P

Didn't really want to update since I don't have much to show, but I have been busy on it. :)

The feet are nearly done - I've got all the pieces cut out for them, will shrinkwrap them today, paint and maybe attach them if I also paint the wheel in the foot. :)

Got half of the upper legs cut out and done. rest is easy to likewise cut out, then shrinkwrapping paint and BAM done there. Again, gonna get that done today too!~

Chest is all cut out and shrinkwrapped, but I haven't painted it yet because -

I painted the two foremost pieces and the paint did some weird cracking in smallish, but obvious areas. I don't know why - I've only had one other piece do that before, and don't think it's the cold since it doesn't happen to all the pieces that get done at the same time, and I don't know if any dirt would do that, and why it would only happen on the final coat.... o.O Anyway, I'm being safe and waiting for a tiny bit warmer weather (looking like that may be today too, lol)


About 10 days left 'till the deadline, and if I finish all that's planned, God-willing, all that will be left will be the doors (3/4 doors really, since part of them is IN his back)) and head!! Yay! And some small detail things I'd like to add. OK! Off to get busy! *salute*

Updaaaaaaaate.



Pieces I haven't made yet are the doors, head (obviously :P), and a bit of armor between the knee and the bit of the upper leg I'm holding place.

Almost none of the back pieces have been rigged (or worn in this shot) since I need to finish the doors first.

Pieces that haven't been completed yet would be the tires still. In the feet that just means painting, in the shoulders (not shown here) still have to cut the treads and paint it. Dad says we can do that today, since I've waited for him to be available so he can hold the grinder still for me while I carve. Yay. A week left.

I'm not satisfied with the way the lower legs are sitting over the feet, but I'll live.

I reshrinkwrapped the front bits of the chest that had that paint cracking problem. I'm guessing a cold draft got onto the paint and made it do that, at least, that's my best guess.
Totally not satisfied with the chest after assembling it (I've removed and left off the turn signals because they looked so bad). Will fix before Botcon after I finish Brawl. :)

Edit: Forgot I didn't show updates of when I finished the foot:
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Cam-F...WIP01-154614040
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Cam-F...WIP02-154614146
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Cam-W...ot-03-154614250

edit #2: just finished the tires. :) Will not be painting treads on the tires in my feet. Since they're the rear wheels of the vehicle, if anyone asks, they're racing tires. Rofl.

Awesome! :D
I really like how it looks, can't wait to see the whole thing finished!

Holy cow, that's looking fantastic!

Looking absolutely fabulous!! *jazz hands*

Almost...done...*fall*

Going to have it done by Saturday! (May not have pics until later though).

So, update stuff:

Everythin' important has been cut out and shrinkwrapped where necessary. I'm working on finishing and attaching the pieces of the head right now, and dad shall help me carve the doors (which I made yesterday) tonight, so I may yet paint and right them tonight.

The very top piece of the head is being annoying. I'm interested if there's some equation to figure out the curve for cutting out this thing, XD.

So, some progress images to keep you ... err. stoked? :ph43r:

http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC-Ca...-Head-155426856
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC-Bl...ead-2-155427068
Tha' eye hole on the back is where I'm slapping a piece of cardstock with "Camshaft" on it. Double duty, covering my head and naming me, lol.

Last year was interesting since Blackout actually had a piece of armor that sit exactly there and was the right size/shape to cover that hole. :blink:

http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC-New-Mess-155426574
LOOK AT THOSE TIRE TREADS.

Even with my shaky hand making them all crooked, they look awesome at first glance (just don't stare too long!)

Test run completed. :)

Test Run Pic
And now I have a myriad list of small stuff to work on or improve before we go outside and take more proper photos. XD It's raining today and such; don't know when both schedules and weather will work together for pictures. Hopefully I can wash the car right beforehand too, to take pictures with, XD

I can't wait to start on Brawl, either. (insert DA :excited: emote here) Mwah. So. Excited. For. Stuff. X3

Edit: Back of head. :D
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CAMSHAFT-156717056

The support structure on the back:
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/CC-Back-156717168

Sitting (during test run)! :D
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Sit-156717455

Awesome.

OK, I think we can move this to "Finished" :D


Little Red


Side View


Back View

Stuff that I have left to do are figuring a better way to keep the feet strong, and I forgot to paint three things - thing holding the neck on, door handles (which are flush to the car, thus they are just being painted) and a little detail thing on the door I just wanted to do.

Pieces I never put on the costume that were in the design were the red armored palms nearest the wrist. I got the silver ones under the knuckles, but the red armor apparently I made really early on was too big, and unecessary IMO.

Yay! Looks awesome.

Thanks! I'm so happy I can make cheap costumes that look fairly good!~ :) Nothing compared to your guys' stuff in aesthetics or quality, but considering the price difference, I think it looks alright. :)

I just wanted to see how much I've spent on it, and, if you don't include the expensive $100 Under Armour, which I love and wear whenever I excercise, and which I will probably will wear under Brawl too (and any other costumes), I spent $9.11. XD

Even cheaper than Blackout, who just had a pair of $10 gloves (which I reused for this costume!~) :P

That looks really awesome! Nice one! b

looks utterly fab! You did such a good job on it :)

d ^_^ b to you too! :lol: Yay for positive stuff!

Since I have teased myself about taking Cam to Botcon with me and Brawl, and because I actually want to keep this costume (unlike Blackout, whom I enjoyed mauling after I was finished with him), I've found a box (app. 1 x 1 x 4) that holds all of him with exception to the feet. For storage, that's great! (yay!~) for traveling, if he goes to botcon I can stuff the feet in Brawl's box. :P
http://natsumeryu.deviantart.com/art/Cam-Box-04-156847358

Moved!

And it looks great! And boy am I envious of the box you can fit it all into... you wouldn't believe what I had to put Mirage in.

yea, I wish I could put my costume in such a box, the box i use can fit two or 3 people, you can use it as a tent for one person if you wanted. D=
The costume is so great! I really wanna finish my own now.

Looks AWESOME! I saw the big pictures you posted on the DA club. Makes me motivated to do my Autobot OC so yours will have a buddy! :)

I sympathize with you folks... :( I was totally afraid before all this that I would have to get a really big box, but since the feet don't have to be in the same box it's A-OK!~ (and thanks to the elastic and velcro, not everything has to be stiff and stuck together!) Brawl's got huge chest bits though, like Blackout (Blackout took up too muh space because of the heli blades) so he'll be in a bigger box, &/or several boxes... :S

More OCs!~ Then we could have an OC photoshoot! <3

Thanks again, guys.... ^.^;

GL!TCH CON 2011~~~~

:D Cam was run one more time here!
We opened him up and there was one or two things to fix up on him since I last had him out of storage (for damage/fix up painting). Then I was out and about in him for several hours.




Transformer playing Transformers: War for Cybertron! :D


Steampunk Camshaft!~~~~
I and Nintendude BOTH wanna make some steampunk robot stuff now. yesh...

Cam doesn't do stairs. Mr. Peter Pixie helped me up onto stage for the cosplay contest. :)

Cam did great, all day up until about 5 minutes before I was to go up on stage. Then his right finger fell off, and his left shoulder/chest armor connector died. Both at once. Cam was a nervous wreck, apparently, LOL.
So I had to swap hands impromptu for Peter to help me yup, so I didn't lose my finger and I could hold my chest in place....It got complicated....


This is Cam's sad face as his shoulder doesn't want to stay in place. :[

All of the above were taken by Davis Michael, you can erase the end of any of the photo links to go back to his photobucket dump. :) He is the 405TH friend's father mentioned in Rampage's log.

edit:
link
Two images of me by Megan, an Umbreon cosplayer.
link
image by Whitney.
link
Two images by Elizabeth.
link
One more by Elizabeth.

You can find more pics if you see the images I'm tagged in on facebook. :)

love it!! cool pics!