More ray gun!

I'm working on a new ray gun for my Voyage Trekkers Galactic Union Marine outfit. Multistate anime conventioneering has been expensive lately, so I'm going kind of cheap on this one. I got a clearance bazooka thing from Meijer's for about $5. I'll augment it with PVC.

This, to start with.

I'm heading in this sort of direction.

To be repainted in standard Galactic Union white and black, along with LEDs and stuff.

The thing was set up for lights and sound, with soldered wiring, circuit board, bulbs, speaker, and everything. So I can see what that's supposed to look like.

After I ripped it apart, of course. Wiring looks like string and string means cat toy!

My finished version will not look anything like this. Mine will have more tape.

The wiring didn't survive the dismantling process or something, which is OK. I had no intention of using it in my version anyway. The old batteries had been drained probably long ago and new ones won't work.My plan is through-hole LEDs on the sides and top, and brighter ones shining from inside.
I'll looking to have it finished by Youmacon in Detroit at the end of October.
By the way, Voyage Trekkers' second season is now complete, with a completely kickass four-part finale! Here's Part 4, the finale of the finale, AKA Episode 10 of Season 2. Thrilling and hilarious!

Along with my VT Marine costume, I'm looking to reprise my Sack Brigader from The Other Grey Meat at Youmacon. I got a picture of me in it at Anime USA posted on a Facebook page that wasn't mine, a first for me, courtesy of the Bloomsburg University Manga and Anime Club of Pennsylvania.

This would also work for Halloween, with the sack and everything.

Shortly after this picture was taken, I was fumbling around with the sack, camera, two banners, program book, and entry badge for autographs by voice actor Kari Wahlgren, and dropped the badge. This was bad, since it was a sponsor badge, which is what Anime USA calls its VIP, premium level and gets you to the front of lines.
And I didn't notice until I was cleaning up for the Metro ride home a couple hours later. I have 10 pockets in that outfit and a sack, and I checked all of them inside and out before I accepted the reality that I was dumb enough to lose my badge two hours into a three-day convention. My last hope was the lost-and-found at the front desk, which I considered an extreme long shot. Damned if they didn't have it, though. That was very cool, since someone could have easily scored a free sponsor badge.
I love cosplayers!

Anime USA!

Great time cosplaying at Anime USA in our nation's capitol, as well as Retrocon near Philadelphia!
Sack brigader from The Other Grey Meat on Friday at Anime USA.

I'm with very cool voice actress Kari Wahlgren. She said the costume was "intense." Perhaps thinking I was going for some sort of military commando look, I reassured her that I was just a zombie.

Quite self conscious, putting on the makeup and walking through the crowd, even though lots of others were doing the same kind of thing. I skipped the sealer or whatever else actors use to keep the makeup on their face in action, so I found myself in danger of sweating it off! I hung out in a darkened anime screening room until I cooled off. It was a story of a family with shapeshifting powers or something.
Took the Metro subway there and back, but not in full makeup.

Saturday was Voyage Trekkers day for me, in two states! I wore the uniform of a Galactic Union marine.

The conveyance device was for my two anime banners.

The day started with a drive up I-95 to Oaks, Pennsylvania, home of Retrocon, a convention filled with action figures, toys, and other cool stuff. Wore my cosplay uniform the whole way. Got some smiles from operators of the toll booths, of which there were, sadly, many. But more than worth it. I visited Rod and Leanne Hannah, creators of Blue Milk Special, Once Upon a Caper, and tons of other works.

Like Masters of the Universe!

The local chapter of the 501st Legion, Garrison Carida, was also there, raising money for charity. Blast-a-stormtrooper-for-the-betterment-of-others was great fun!

And Vader too, sometimes. Not to worry, her aim was way off.

The dart in the middle of the stormtrooper to my left's forehead - yeah, I put that one there.

Great cosplaying from cartoons and comics from the 80s, when I was a kid.

G.I Joe!

Optimus Prime! And, um, Jesus?

Then it was back to Washington for more Anime USA! Rode the Metro through downtown DC in full  Galactic Union uniform. Some kids may have stared a bit, but no one else seemed to care.
Got some great autographs at the convention!

Met Travis Willingham again, this time with fellow voice actor and also his wife, Laura Bailey.

Laura Bailey's the main reason I attended the convention, because she's in several of my favorite anime series, many as the lead. In Fullmetal Alchemist, she plays "Lust," a sexy (duh) villain.

Her autograph is next to her husband's. Awww. In the anime, their characters fight to the bloody, fiery, screaming death!
BTW, Stephanie Young placed her autograph in an interesting spot.

She also plays the titular role in "Gunslinger Girl."

Her character, Henrietta, is a cyborg assassin created by the Italian government to do their dirty work.
She has a crush on her secret-agent handler. Things do not end well.

Laura is also the lead in Soul Eater, playing Maka in the Harry-Potter-meets-Hellraiser series.

Close to Travis again. Dawwwww! Their characters are enemies again, but they don't fight.

I got a full set of autographs at Anime USA, which is a first for me, as well as attending all three days of a convention.

David Brehm is thought-ballooning Stephanie Young cause they're married and stuff.

I also stopped by the Maid Cafe. I highly recommend it.

She made me creme brulee. Heart!

Took lots of cosplayer photos this time. Some of my favorites...

Desert Punk!

Attack on Titan! I haven't seen this one yet, but my impression is that the attack is pretty serious.

Call of Duty: Ghosts. Sort of what I've had in mind in my previous outfits.

Deadpool!

Kingdom Hearts! These guys should have won the masquerade but they didn't.

Lara Croft!

Devil May Cry!

Schoolgirls? Who fight evil? Maybe?

Youmacon in downtown Detroit is coming up next. I wasn't sure I would attend, but then they announced Caitlin Glass was returning, along with Todd Haberkorn. They're on my banners, damn it! So I'm going after all. I'm looking at Voyage Trekkers cosplay, maybe with a bigger ray gun.
I'll also be working on an cosplay project from an actual work of anime! For later. Maybe much later...

Northern Mich Con!

Northern Michigan Anime Con was great! Drove up to Traverse City and wore my Soldier A outfit. Still self conscious, suiting up in the parking lot and walking past the normal hotel guests. Then I spotted some samurai, sailor suit school girls, even some military-ish types (I'm looking at you, Hetalia) - ah, my people!
Voice actor guest was the awesome Cherami Leigh.

She plays one of the characters on my Soul Eater banner - Patty, a Demon Weapon who's basic combat form looks sort of like an M9 pistol.

The character normally looks like this. BTW, Cherami gives fantastic autographs!

  So now the banner appears thusly.

Autographs from half the illustrated cast plus half a dozen who aren't drawn on it!

My Fullmetal Alchemist banner is also looking most excellent.

Despite the anime having roughly a billion characters, I got a banner featuring just the two leads. Oh well.
Another awesome Cherami autograph!

My first attempt at a cosplay raygun's coming along.
Read a bunch of cosplay LED forums and blogs, soldering tutorials, resistor calculators, circuit schematics, but they all pretty much went out the window once I looked at the mess of LEDs, wire, and plastic piled up in front of me.
My dad has a soldering iron but recommended just binding the wires together with electrical tape. I happily agreed. And finding the technical specifications and resistor calculations hopelessly incomprehensible, I decided to just wing it.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, here is your rig.

Is a 9 volt battery somehow enough to light a 12VDC LED along with a 3mm LED? I couldn't figure the calculation, so I just wired them together. So far, so good.

kazaaaap!

The ray gun and uniform, which is also coming together, is for a Marine from the excellent web series Voyage Trekkers.

The fellow on the left is a Marine, Sgt. Chan, played by Jeffrey Lamar. To his left are other brave Voyage Trekkers crewmen  of the GSV Remarkable, Lt. Jayda (Logan Blackwell filling in for Brian Blackwell), the Chief (Ricky Brindly), Dr. Rena (Gabrielle Van Buren), and Captain Sunstrike (Adam Rini).

My ray gun only very slightly resembles Todd Cook's official and very professional design.

The black-and-white coloring, at least. I bet his calculations added up!

I figure the one I'm making is an older, assault ray gun (light), used by a Marine on the ship. I'll clean up the wiring, hopefully strengthen the connections, and generally finish it as much as possible for Anime USA Con in Washington D.C., up next. For later, the experience gives me ideas for an assault ray gun (heavy) project.
A different cosplay costume each day is common, so I'm planning for The Other Grey Meat sack brigader on one day, Voyage Trekkers Marine the other.

Sack Brigader

My first cosplay costume of an actual character is pretty much ready to go. Again going with what I have on hand, along with exactly two purchases to go with it, I am a Sack Brigade resistance zombie, from post-zombie-apocalypse webcomic The Other Grey Meat. Here they are in action.

She's a zombie too.

Created by James and June Maillet, TOGM's Sack Brigade is made up of Category 2 zombies, recruited into a resistance movement led by the mysterious Phantom (another zombie, not a ghost or anything) against a despotic grand leader named Robert.
This is what I came up with.

Phantom say you go into sack.

On my shoulder is the "emergency rope," the single most important piece of equipment in the entire story [citation needed].
I bought a tube of make up and a wig. Testing showed the wig is probably a bad idea at this time. Zombies aren't supposed to sweat!
I'm looking at Anime USA for this number.

I have another entry in my featured-tshirt running program. The prize package in Naomi VonKreeps' art contest arrived, and it is awesome, with some of Naomi's newest prints, stickers, and tshirts.

All this stuff! Lizzie the cat is also a fan.

I was concerned about fitting into the "Dawn of the Fett" tshirt cause it seemed small for me, but I wore it anyway on my run today through Clarkston, Mich. - six miles!

Ready for another six!

So I'm pretty much a medium now, down from a pushing-XX-large. Gotta go back to the early 1990s to find the last time I was that size. I replaced all my clothes - thanks Salvation Army!

Anyway, next for cosplay is something involving actual sewing (with assistance from my puzzled mom) and electrical engineering (that would be my equally puzzled dad). Another project from the internet, this time a web series. 

Nerf gun to be modified with lots of spray paint (I can handle that) and LED lights (this we'll have to see about).

Sewing is hard.

The aughh-time-is-running-out thing cosplayers say a lot, I'm starting to get that. Lots to do if I want this to be ready for Anime USA. But if it's not, then the one after that.
Maybe my next project will actually be from an anime or manga....