Costuming « Starborne Works

Archive for the ‘Costuming’ Category

The horns update!

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Finally as promised, an entry about the horns!

Okay, so some of you will have seen these at MCM Expo, surface-finished, mounted up to headbands and listed in three price bands. Since then I’ve got the final blank horn prices sorted. They’re all individually priced now, along with their various options.

These horns are made for costume use, so are designed to be lightweight. They have a thin outer layer of polyurethane resin to preserve surface detail, which is then reinforced within with a rigid polyurethane foam. This provides a good balance between light weight, excellent detail reproduction and good damage resistance. The horns however can still be trimmed to length with a serrated knife or junior hacksaw.

Use of a double-density reinforcing foam is available as an option, but will increase item weight. Integral resin colouring is also available.
Foam-rubber is sadly not yet available due to poor surface reproduction, and issues getting them out of the moulds fully intact.

Please see this image for examples of surface detailing effects: EXAMPLE

Here’s the group-shot:

Top left – Type #1 resin horns – Jacob
Top middle – Type #8 resin horns – ???
Top right – Type #4 resin horns – Hebridean

Middle left – Type #3 resin horns – Hebridean
Middle right – Type #5 resin horns – Dalesbred

Bottom left – Type #7 resin horns – ???
Bottom middle – Type #6 resin horns – Jacob
Bottom right – Type #2 resin horns – Jacob

Basic pigments (Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, White, Green, Orange): £1.00
Custom pigments (each, per order*): £5.00

(* Per order means a single £5 charge whether the custom colour mix is used on just the horns or a match set of horns, claws and paw-pads, etc)

Type #1
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 230g (pictured examples 190g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 210 x 175 x 55mm
Base price (GBP): £30.00

Double-density foam: £3.00

Type #2
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 160g (pictured examples 106g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 275 x 160 x 40mm
Base price (GBP): £22.50

Double-density foam: £3.00

Type #3
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 130g (pictured examples 100g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 220 x 140 x 30mm
Base price (GBP): £17.50

Double-density foam: £2.00

Type #4
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 90g (pictured examples 54g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 185 x 135 x 27mm
Base price (GBP): £12.50

Double-density foam: £2.00

Type #5
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 280g (pictured examples 240g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 190 x 170 x 120mm
Base price (GBP): £35.00

Double-density foam: £4.00

Type #6
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 70g (pictured examples 64g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 185 x 115 x 25mm
Base price (GBP): £10.00

Double-density foam: £1.50

Type #7
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 70g (pictured examples 56g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 135 x 185 x 35mm
Base price (GBP): £12.50

Double-density foam: £1.00

Type #8
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 50g (pictured examples 41g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 95 x 145 x 25mm
Base price (GBP): £10.00

Double-density foam: £1.00

Postage
Will be sent 1st Class Recorded within the UK and Airsure internationally. Please ask for a shipping quote.

EDIT: Prices adjusted. Used old formulae sheet. Oops.

Tags: castings, costuming, horns
Posted in Costuming | No Comments »

Expo’s a week away!

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011

If you follow my personal twitter you’ll know the last few weeks have been hectic. Family crisis, deadlines, financial issues and a whole bunch more. The final deadline is now MCM Expo in a weeks time, where I’ll be manning a dealers table for Fatkraken while she costumes. In repayment, I get to sell some of my own items on the table.

It’s Halloween, so I’m selling horns.

Presuming the roto-caster I’ve built in the last week starts working again, I should have a number of each. Some of the first final tests came out today.

Yes, there’s a lot of black there. I was testing some calculations for bulk-casting. Meant mixing up a lot of resin in one colour and black shows any defects better. The two “beige” unicorns horns though actually contain UV and GlowInTheDark powder.

The unicorn horns are cast from a hand-made master. These long ones are 8.5″ long and the shorter ones are 3.5″ long. I’ll be making them up in a host of *co-pony-ough* colours, with the fleece at the bottom either black, white or grey as it’s all I have to hand. They’re a shell casting that’s infilled with rigid PU foam. Will likely be putting them on simple elasticated headbands.

These horns are made in the same way but the moulds are taken from real animal horns. These ones are some breed of goat I believe (of the 8 I got, only 6 had a specific species noted). There’s more coming from Jacob, Heriden and Dalesbred breeds of sheep, but the fibreglass mould-jackets are being tricky. This variety will mostly be mounted on headbands and barrettes, though I may also make a few up in foam rubber.

Once Expo’s over I’ll be selling them directly as loose castings for people to use as they will.

Well after after-Expo, when I wake up from the coma.

Tags: casting, horns, mcm expo, progress
Posted in Costuming, Developments | No Comments »

Back in the saddle

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

It’s been a little while since the last site update. My bad! I really need to config a desktop client just for updating here!

I’ve been a busy boy though. The new workbench got done and is just perfect for what I needed. I’ve been abusing it’s poor new surfaces quite heavily, pushing a lot of smaller projects out of the way quickly.

The New Workbench

Also the new vacuum degassing chamber is complete and running! I had my phone on me when I first ran it up, so got a little bit of footage.
Excuse the stilted tone of voice, I’d been up for a little while!

And what am I currently making in that chamber? Claws!

The Regular Claws Colour Selection

Special Order Claws

Pricing is as follows:

Small has a base price of £1, Medium is £1.10 and Long is £1.20.
For stripes add 50p per claw per extra colour.
For glow in the dark add 75p per claw (this premium quality glow powder is expensive. Supply of Green is in stock, other colours will need time to order in, may require minimum order and may not glow as brightly as the green).
To have an LED mounted add 50p per claw. Can be clear or translucent. Add 10p extra per for translucent colour (advised, diffuses colour better).
To have the claws made in rubber (good for footpaws) add 50p per claw.
Clear or translucent claws with other fillings are negotiable.

I’ve also got some lucky person getting a set of the pre-production sets of rubber paw pads. Muahaha. 😉

Other things acheived have included some forrays into robotics, but for the most part the rest of the time has been some minor commission work, knocking down walls and fixing coffee machines.

Oh, if you’ve bought items from me before, I’d love to see some pictures of them in action! Just email them to me at sci@starborneworks.com

Also, RBW is less than 2 weeks away now! Time to get busy!

Posted in Costuming, Developments, Equipment, Progress Reports | No Comments »

Clawing into the new year

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Happy new year everyone!

While there’s been a few delays, I’m very happy to say that the first pre-ordered claws shipped before new years! With only a few left to go, the rest should ship within the next few days!

I’m also glad to say the pre-orders also included my first special-order batch; a set of 16 instead of ten and in a nice light green.

Like a pale green forest.. of claws.

Packed neatly together for a safe journey

Pre-orders are now over though, so prices from here on will require additional shipping cost.

For a set of Ten sew-on claws; small is £10, Medium is £11, Large is £12.

All claws are cast in sets of 10 to ensure uniform colour across the set, the backs are then sanded flat and hand-drilled.

Postage to the UK is £1.75, £6.40 to the USA, and about £5.40 for Europe (please ask for specific quote). All postage is signed-delivery wherever possible to ensure receipt.

Custom numbers and colours are available on request, though cost and production time may vary. Please email me to discuss it.

I accept paypal but prefer Google Checkout. Until the shop is running, I can provide you with an invoice for any order manually.

One of the other items produced before xmas was my first commission for jewellery. And now the new year has passed I’m allowed to mention it.

I was commissioned to produce a set of modern sterling-silver cufflinks containing blinking LEDs. For my first foray into silverwork, I think they came out rather nicely, and I’m expecting to hear back from the commissioner soon as to what the person they were given to would like engraved on the rear of the cufflinks. Then they can be given their final polishing too!

Caught in-step

A brief video of them is here: Cufflinks flashing (1730Kb – 13s)

Posted in Commissions, Costuming, Creations | 1 Comment »

Mecha Ear Demonstrator

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

For those who didn’t get to see these at Confuzzled, I brought with me a concept demonstrator. This concept shows the mechanical range required to get basic emotive movements in a set of anthro ears.