Full Circle

Construction - The Abridged Addition


by Ken Warren

The Jump Suit

The jump suit is made primarily of pre-quilted blue nylon - the sort of material you'd make a jacket or sleeping bag out of.  The outer surface was metallic light blue, with a faint undercurrent of purple (visible in some of the photographs); the inner lining was matte navy blue.  The hip belts are just duct tape, as are the shoulder reinforcements.  The mission patch on the left shoulder (barely visible) was a graphic of the original, printed onto iron-on transfer material, ironed onto reinforced cotton, and sewed to the suit.  The helmet insigniae are the same image, printed on plain paper and glued in place.  There is an American flag on the right shoulder, though one was not present in the film.  The arm control is silver vinyl over craft foam, and the buttons are also craft foam.  The upper-arm and knee connectors are also silver vinyl over craft foam, with small mirrors glued to them.  There are two conduit connectors on the sides of the front of the suit which connect to corrugated black hosel the left side connects to the backpack, the right to the chest pack.  The neck piece comes off, and is held in place with velcro.  There is a zipper in the back.  The silver couplings for the gloves, boots and helmet are pairs of embroidery  hoops spray-painted silver and glued in.  The gloves, boots and helmet are removable.

© 2001 G. Anderson

The Gloves and Boots

The gloves are made of blue Pleather®, from a tracing of my hands, sewed on our sewing machine and inverted.  The boots are textured grey vinyl and flip-flop (shower shoe) soles.  The boots were folded over one sole and glued in place; the second sole was then glued to the outside of the first one.  The rings are embroidery hoop outer rings as described above.

© 2001 Ken Warren

The Chest Pack

The chest pack is a cardboard frame covered with yellow poster-board.  I was supposed to use orange, but the source pictures I had captured made it look yellow (the movie shot above).  Oh, well.  There is a mission insignia on the top face, and three square mirrors.  The square monitor section is a piece of a quilting template on green craft foam; the black panels and white side thingy are craft foam, and the writing is Wite-Out nonsense.  The curved sliders are sections of styrofoam rings.  The knobs and the round elements in the hexagon are all more mirror segments.  You can't quite see the conduit connector on the left of the picture, that held the corrugated black tubing.  The 1.5" black webbing that is attached to the backpack is held to the pack by hair pins punched through the cardboard and taped flat.  The jet control handle a small paint roller with a bicycle handle stuck to the end..

© 2001 G. Anderson

The Back Pack

I abandoned the cardboard understructure for the backpack.  The back panel is foam core; the boxes are all poster board.  Yellow electrical tape holds it together.  You can see the air connector at the top - a clear plastic tube connected that to the helmet.  The white and black elements are craft foam, with mirrors on them.  The knobs are just knobs.  The silver things on the main boxes are silver vinyl, again, mounted over craft foam, with craft foam glued to the outside.  The rocket jets are poster board covered with tin foil and rolled into a cone.  The straps are held to the frame with hair pins.  Again, it should be orange, but I got confused.  You might recognize the other connector between the rocket section and the bottom box on the left, that attached to the other length of corrugated tubing.

© 2001 G. Anderson


© 2001 D. M. Dubé

The Helmet

The helmet began life as an inflatable Easter egg.  I made a buckram mold of that for the top of the helmet, reinforced it with plaster tape (like buckram, only with plaster), and trimmed it to be the shape of the top.  The back, sides and neck are cardboard.  The whole thing is reinforced with duct tape, and finished with blue masking tape.  The shape is wrong but suggestive of the original.  I was originally missing the mission insigniae on the top, but added them for WorldCon.  However, the ridge on the top was just too much of a pain.  The face plate, which had to be opaque for the stage, is another kind of quilting template.  You can see the air hose connector embedded in the side.  The back module panel is craft foam with holes cut through the entire helmet, and silver perf paper to cover the holes.  These were air holes.  I also punched air holes in the face plate right at the bottom, so they were basically invisible.  The silver ring is attached to the cardboard with a thin strip of blue vinyl to give it some flexibility for attaching to the neck of the suit.
The Complete Costume
© 2001 Ken Warren

The Monolith

The monolith is a wooden frame made of nearly 80 feet of 2x2 posts.  It comes in two sections that attach vertically using hinges and R-clips.  Each section also has a shelf - the bottom section's shelf has four castors for wheeling the unit around, and screws to attach a UPS to power the system (we would not expect power to be provided).  The shelves also attach using hinges - slide it in place, lock the hinges with R-clips, and it stays.  The top shelf is only for stability.  There is a cross-beam that sits about 6' up.  The outer surface is black-on-black foam core, hot-glued and screwed into place.  The screws and the separation between the top and bottom sections are covered by black gaffer's tape (thanks, Mark).  The "TV screen" is a cut-out of the foam core, backed with clear plexi-glass, which itself was backed with grey cotton fabric.  A black drape hangs over the back to block light leakage.  A "Big Ball Of Lite" disco ball is duct taped horizontally to the cross beam to shine directly through the TV opening.  A black switch is embedded in the front of the monolith just under the TV, so I could turn the ball on during the presentation.
Gorilla Head Mask
© 2001 Ken Warren

The Gorilla Head

At Balticon, the gorilla mask was part of a commercial full-body gorilla suit.  It was made of fake black fur glued to a painted latex head mask.  It was lent to me by a friend.  For WorldCon, I felt I had to make it myself, so I did.

The gorilla head I made was made from liquid latex, molded inside a child's gorilla mask.  The skin was colored and mottled with brown shoe polish.  The fur was 3"-pile golden-brown faux fur.  The neck closed together with Velcro.  Nothing was used to hold the mask inside the suit; the lining of the fur and the inside of the latex provided more than enough friction to keep it on my head when the helmet came off.


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