Category Archives: Our costumes

The Octopus – Costume Design Sketches

Final Visualization

t.b.d.

Last Sketches

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3D Model

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First Skech

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The octopus should have eight tentacles. The plan is to have four long tentacles at the back of the costume like a train. They won’t move. Another two hopefully will be move by motors (see The Octopus – Technical Design). But the actor will only control if they are on or off, because a controlled movement would be challenging the actor to much.

The actors arms will form the last two tentacles. They can be seen as “main” tentacles, since they will interacting with other actors/props etc.

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Design of the Head

  • the transparent head made ​​of thin plexiglass
  • this is heated with a machine and formed over a mold
  • the form will be molded from clay
  • this is then halved, because does not fit the entire form in the machine
  • then two half-molds are shaped
  • trimmed and glued together
  • then we have a transparent hat

Brain Form

In our design the brain indicates the mood of the octopus because it can not speak. We are planning to have a semi-transparent head with a colored, pulsating glow inside. Depending on the color and the pulse frequency the octopus is either calm (a slow pulse in green maybe) or excited (a fast pulse with red).

Because we must have a transparent head now, the brain also have a right brain structure. This is from a tube formed in these then come LEDs. With very high probability, an LED stripe will come down the tube. However, is still being tested if it is the perfect solution, because everything has to be right (the number of light duration, energy supply etc.).

Color Scheme

  • different shades of red, orange and some yellow
  • keep it dark and threatening

First Inspiration

Screen shot 2014-06-05 at 7.39.33 PM 1 2

Oxygen display of the diver

First test for the display on the arm of the diver, it shows the amount of oxygen.
The display consists of two red, three yellow and seven green LEDs each with 150 Ω resistors.

The meaning of the colors:
green – enough oxygen
yellow – the oxygen content is critical
red – not enough oxygen, the diver has to press a button to activate the other tank on his back. At the end blink the the last red LED as a kind of alarm.

Bubble Machine for the Diving Suit

We are planning to incoporate a bubble making machine into the oxygen tank in the back that is suppose to release soap bubbles from time to time. The bubbles are suppose to simulate CO2 and other waste gases that are being realeased.

One funny example that I just found – way after we had this idea! – is this:

Lady Gaga bubble dress

For implementing our idea we already got a functioning bubble machine. Next goal is to get it running via Arduino. We experimented quite a bit with it. Once it´s running we´ll show you how we got it to work!

Material Research

We reached that point in the semester project where we need to find out how to reach our set goals in costume making. What are the best materials to use – what are the best model building techniques and methods – what is doable with the small budget we have?

To get ahead I went to our synthetic material workshop/ model building workshop in the design faculty. I looked at all these material samples we have there, talked to the workshop staff who are as usual a great help to figure out how to implement your idea.

Acrylic sheets for the helmet would be great! Dark in the back, clear sheets in the front. Unfotunately that stuff is expensive! It is a thermoplast though which means you can shape it when heated. It´s really easy to get folds into the material. Organic forms is a different topic. That is much harder since the material doesn´t strech or compress so easily.  Alternative material might be a lower grade clear plastic from the hardware store.

That rubber I described in the pictures would be great. It is still see through transparent, but has this organic colour. It also has the right kind of elasticity to rigidity. I´d love to use that material for the fron side of the oxygen tanks. Problematic is the amount of work and material I would have to put into the mould buliding. You can only pour that rubbery stuff, since it comes luiquid which means I would have to first built an inside and ouside mould for it. Alternative idea that I still have to develop would be to pour large flat sheets from that material and glue or weld or sew it into the right shape.

I will keep you posted on how the model building is going!

 

material tests possibly for the tank

 

Diving Suit Design Approach

While making drawing these various designs of the Crew Member´s diving suit I tried to visualise certain parts:

_ very technical suit versus much more organic looks

_ to incorporate the glowing ‘energy lines’ into the suit

_ gadgets such at the oxygen tank, foldable nautilus shaped helmet and weapon

 

The final costume design is not yet determined, but after talking to team WISEHA we were able to decide on certain features that Captain Nemo and his crew have in common. The clothes must be made from the same kind of fabric and texture. Also the basic suit is going to look the same – meaning a onsie! The characters will differ from one another through all the additional attachments on the garment.

Due to these decisions the final design is shaping and I will post news on that soon!

Brain – LED Stripe

Since the head is clear, now also a brilliant brain can enter it. This I imagined as follows.
The brain is composed of 1 to 3 meter Led-stripe, it have 60 Led´s per meter . The length is decided depending on the look . A brain -ike structure is applied and thus the length is decided .
We want to get an idea of the exact look of the brain when we build a brain example from 1cm thick tube .

( Pictures will follow )

The brain should be with a arduino controlled .
Depending on the mood of the Okopuses the color of the LED strip to be changed. So if the octopus is in a good mood is light up the brain green, less yellow and if he has quite a bad mood , it will glow red .

My first stop was the dimming of LED’s this I’ve found on the following page :
http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Fade
( Pictures will follow )
Next, I studied the wiring diagram for the LED ribbon this can be found on the following page:

 http://www.jerome-bernard.com/blog/2013/01/12/rgb-led-strip-controlled-by-an-arduino/

( Pictures will follow )

1st test for smoke costume

We made a small test with the Tiny FX Fog Machine in order to see if a skeleton out of pipes could lead the smoke to specific points around the body. The pipes tested had a diameter between 6, 10, & 19 mm. The length used were 13 & 25 cm (for the last sections of a forked path – see end of video) and 50 or 100 cm (for a path before distributing the smoke to several sections).

As the video shows, the test was successfull & promises that a smoke costume for King Ubu for the open air theatre in July 2014 could become reality.

 

Next step is to figure out how the final costume looks like & imagine where the character shall smoke out of. Then we have to build a pipe skeleton for the actor that can be worn underneath the costume & find a way to hide the fog machine.

 

Nemo new features

New Idea

– Extra Cape ( Back coat) .

– Vibration of the worm in the Back.

Features:
1: Vibrating based on enemy distance.
2: Angry Vibration.
2: Wave Vibration when in water.

Requirements:
– 10 Vibration motors.
– Distance Sensor.
– Transistors for the motors.

– Lighting on the Upper part of body (shoulder … )

Features:
1: Fade in and Fade out When the room is dark, ( Breathing sense )

Requirements:
– Light Wires.
– Light Sensor.

– Small Moving Board.
Features
1: Moving worms, ( Circular)
2: Shrinking the worms

Requirements:
– 10 Different sized Gears and wheels.
link
http://www.amazon.de/Stück-Zahnräder-Modellbau-Technik-Zahnrad/dp/B00K9SZB7A/ ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401050529&sr=8-1-fkmr2&keywords=zahnräder+klein +plastik

Other requirements

– Batteries