Plague belt

Hello once again readers,

 Sorry things have been so quiet here on the blog been a busy last few weeks and month. I just started college for the first time (wish me luck) also have been working on a lot of projects getting ready for Dragon*Con 2012.

 Also got some awesome new on Wednesday (7-18-12) I have been invited to speak on a costuming panel at Dragon*Con! This is my second appearance at a Con as a costuming panelist,  and my first (hope not my last one) one at Dragon*Con so wish me luck. The panel I have been asked to set on is Creating on a Shoestring Budget and is Friday august 31st at 1 pm. So enough about me tooting my own horn on to the costuming:

Ok so the project we are gonna cover is the very cheap plague belt I made for my costume. This is pretty much the total bits I used for the costume:

2 empty water bottles-- $2.00
7 containers of neon green slime-- $7.00
1 foot plastic tube-- free from work
 1 Thick cardboard shipping tube -- Free
4 popsicle sticks-- Free (just ate the popsicles)
1 web gear belt-- Free ( my collection of military gear)
1 box carpet tacks-- .89
assorted paints
modge podge
Gauze
total cost= $9.89 

The first thing I did was cut the cardboard tube down to the size of the water bottles. I cut it just the size to hide the water bottles.

I actually had to use my Dremal to cut this cardboard tube due to how thick it was. Lots and lots of cardboard fluff flying around. Once we got them cut down we had to decided on the design that we wanted so that you could see the holder and also see the bottles inside. so here is the design we went with:

After everything was cut I started to reinforce the cardboard with what I had laying around the house.......DUCT-TAPE!!! I decided to support the neck of the design with a few popsicle sticks to make it a little stronger. After I glued in the sticks I added a layer of tap of them to lock them into place:

The water bottles had nothing special done to them except that I drilled a small hole in the top to insert the plastic tubing in. I filled each of the bottles with 4 bottles of slime each:

After I made sure the water bottles fit in the holders I spray-painted them with black paint. After the paint dried I noticed that the paint was not sticking to the tape so I decided to use a little gauze and glue to mimic the skin look I have used on my mask hoses:

After looking at how they looked I realized they looked a little plain so I took some carpet tacks I had laying around the house and used them to look like rivets. I had to use a small pair of wire cutters to trim off most of the pin back to make them fit without poking into the water bottles:

I know a few people are wondering how I got the green goo into the tubes and also got it to stay. Well the way I did that was that actually had to suck the goo into the tube (yes it taste horrible). Once I got the amount i wanted in the tubes I took small pieces of tape and rolled them and stuffed them in the end and then put a layer of Epoxy resin over the top. This was about the time I realized that I could not clue the hoses in the bottle or the skull because it would gut down on a lot of my movement. So what I did to fix this problem was I still drilled the holes to insert the hoses and once the holes we glued shut I took a small zip-tie and pulled it as tight as I could around the end of the tube. When you cut off the extra it leaves the small locking piece and it keeps the hoses from pulling all the way out:

Please pardon how rough my thumb looks; many years of biting my fingernails and hard work!
Ok sooo here we are with the complete mask layout with the belt attached to the skull. I will tell you now that the belt will be changed in the future. The web belt just does not fit into the total costume:

Just to give you an idea of how everything looks on me here is a quick picture:

The goggles and the mask are 2 separate pieces so that its not one whole mask. The only issues I have seen so far with the mask is that it kills all my side vision and limits my movement just a bit. Well ladies and gents I'm gonna close this up and get back to work. I am going to try and get a few more post out before Dragon*Con. If you see me walking around the Convention in the costume come by and say hello... I have goodies to give out: