over a month ago, i tweeted about how i would fashion some wolverine claws out of plexiglass. a friend of mine, abu, was having a superhero costume party (where i met SG) and he was going as wolverine. i, of course, took this as an opportunity to get away from my boring science and math classes for getting some creative injected in my otherwise creative-less life.
i spent several days drawing up all kinds of sketches and plans, some even including degrees of angles (what the frak?). my original plans involved the use of some wood and a mat board, which abu and i got from a local art store. abu later expressed his doubts in using the mat board so i sought the help of an industrial designer friend of mine on the best way to approach this. he recommended using polythyrene and said that i can probably get some scraps from one of the plastics companies in town and that maybe they’ll have other recommendations for the kind of material to use. so armed with my backpack and sketchbook, i marched into regal plastics the next day in between classes.
one of the many sketches i made, but certainly the most hilarious
i explained to the man behind the counter what the situation was and he said that polythyrene would be too flimsy for what i was trying to do and that he’d recommend that i use plexiglass, of which they have a lot. thus began an adventure that took me to home depot, a place that cuts plastics and plexiglass, hobby lobby, bering’s hardware and a 4 AM visit to my parents’ house to get one of my art tool boxes. in the meantime, abu’s homework was to figure out a way to drill into plexiglass without cracking it.
(side note: everyone that i talked to from all of these places was so nice and helpful but none was more helpful than the man from bering’s hardware. we spent a good 45 minutes walking around the store and formulating a plan on the best way to do this. he was almost as enthusiastic about this project as i was. i should go back there and show him the finished product)
so that thursday, i got to abu’s place and after an hour or so of some test drilling and sawing (that summer of jewelry making and metalsmithing actually came in handy), we quickly realized that doing this the rock-your-socks-off way would take more time than we realized so i re-explained my original plan of using the mat board to abu and of course, he had no other choice but to accept it. actually, we had to put our ideas together because i have to give him credit for wanting to use the hanger wire. we ended up working on the claws until after the sun set which was actually pretty nice since we were in his backyard and the weather wasn’t too shabby.
enjoy the photos!
we used my wood for sanding and his hanger wire to attach the claws
this is what you get when wolverine actually ages.
yeah i was playing on my iphone... the planning was my job, the grunt work was his
we double layered the mat board for the claws.
grr! grr...? arf!
aww, i made the little prince do some manual labor. he's a flimsy little guy.
i let him do all the spray painting, i wasn't about to get my outfit covered in paint.
see how dark it was when we finished?
yeah i don't know why the wood pieces were positioned differently...
as leader of the gold team, i outrank wolverine... but he's some sort of maverick. he's john mccain. also, too, does that make me sarah palin?
yeah i just wanted to show off my storm costume. in yo face, halle berry!
nabbed from abu's facebook
maybe i can talk abu into dressing up as wolverine again for a midnight showing of x-men origins: wolverine… or maybe we can just get the bobo leaked version and have our own private opening night with 200 of his closest friends.
speaking of the wolverine movie, i was a little peeved that the storm cameo that we saw in the trailer was cut out of the final edit. boo hiss.
x-men origins: wolverine
eeburrah vision 