Upgrades, Modifications, and New Additions.

It’s been many a year since I’ve added any posts about the misc updates I’ve done to these costumes! With 2022/2023 being the return of SDCC after the Covid lock downs I was able to make some minor updates to the uniforms (and make a whole new one for Co-Host Ian, see that build in the 3 part posts for the Star Tours Deck Crew).

San Diego Comic Con 2022

1) Head Phones
2) Correlian Blood Stripes
3) Sound FX
4) Pictures and What Not

Only a couple things changed with the costumes for 2022. I changed the headset (which will be a running theme) and added a bit to my pants.

New Headset

I wanted to swap out the headset I wore previously to something a little more ‘in theme’. I decided to create something close to what The OG Captain Rex wore/made of as a way to reference the original pilot.

The easiest things to try to convert would be Rex’s “ear covers” and the mouth piece. I created a 3d rendering of these pieces and sent them to the printer (RIP my 3d printer, this was the last project before it died).

With the ears and mouth piece printed (as well as an arm to connect the two), I painted and attached them both to the head piece from the old headset. It wasn’t easy to see, but there is a flickering Tea Light in the mouth piece, so it would be be flickering when I wore it, like how it reacts to Rex’s voice.

The only other modification for this years was adding Correlian Blood Stripes to the pants and the skirt, which didn’t happen, because I lost the skirt causing my friend to have to find a new one…
I made a trip over to my buddy at TrooperBay/Poway Sign and got the striped printed on different colors as I wasn’t sure which one would look best on the actual pants/skirt.

*as an update, I found the skirt in a pile of scrap clothing in 2023*

A lot of pinning, sewing, and eventually a lot of gluing, I got the stripes attached (this is about where I lost the skirt somewhere). Oh, and one more edition:

I replaced the white Star Tours patch with the 35 year anniversary patch the sold at Celebration Anahiem.

Sound FX

I don’t remember when I added this feature. The first image I have of it ‘on costume’ is Celebration Anahiem 2022.

The idea with this project was to have a speaker on me that played a custom Star Tours soundscape. The audio file will consist of the ride queue’s flight announcements as well as random cockpit chatter from various space battles getting ‘intercepted’. I have no images of what it looked like before, but I can tell you I got it at FiveBelow for around $5, go figure… I added a ton of greeblies too it. Basically anything that is sticking off the side was added by me. It’s a lot of fun to make Retro-Future tech.

Once it was all painted, I glued the LED display to the top, and glued a long piece of plastic to the back of the speaker. I did this so that the mounting pin on the back of the LCD Display would help anchor the speaker to the tunic. The piece of plastic (not pictured) was placed in the Code Cylinder pocket so that the weight of the device was not only supported by the Display.

It was a fun idea, but it was never loud enough to really be heard on show floor.

Photos from SDCC 2022

@ClaudiaAmezcua_

@EdCastellanos8

San Diego Comic Con 2023

1) Headpiece
2) Droid Assistant
3) Camera and Audio Effects
4) Pix and Such

Once again I changed my headwear. The Rex inspired head set had two issues:
1. It was very uncomfortable
2. No one really got the design reference
Also it broke…so on to the next version!

I came across this 3D print file while doom-scrolling Thingiverse.com and I knew this is the direction I was going to go. It’s not technically Lobot’s headpiece, it’s actually from the Battlefront series of games.

With the files printed and glued together I gave it a quick paint job, added some greeblies and threw in some LEDs for good measure. To get it to stay on my head, I had glued a elastic strap that would go over my head, but be hidden by the hat that I normally wear.

 

Navigational Droid K-8 (Navi-Kate)

Sometime before SDCC Hasbro released and animatronic L0-LA59 (Lola) droid toy from the Obi-Wan series that had lights, sound, and could also move a bit. They also claimed it was a 1:1 scale replica (it’s not even close ie: twice the size). Despite that, Amazon had the +$80 toy for $18, so I picked one up with a real dumb plan:

I was going to need some decals made (you may have seen one on the headpiece posted above), so back to Trooperbay/Poway Sign to get some made. It was more cost effective to print a bunch of decals printer, I don’t recall why I got more name tag decals made though…

The finished product:

Originally I wanted to make a a way for Navi-K8 to sit on the shoulder, but as she is not 1:1 scale, its far too large to do that safely (or without having to damage the costume). Katherine had the great idea to mount her in her back pack where she could interact with people behind us…however she only stays on for a few minutes so we found ourselves constantly having to turn her back on.

Holocam/Sound Fx

One of the ideas for Navi-K8 was to re-program the audio to play the Star Tours flight announcements you’d hear in the queue like I had done with the bluetooth speaker mentioned above. But that wasn’t something I have the skill to do. I did play around with the idea of gutting the Bluetooth speaker to mount inside of Navi-K8, but there really wasn’t a lot of room in her without disabling a lot of the features. So I needed another avenue for this project.

Suddenly I was reminded of part of the Safety Video from the OG Star Tours Queue. One that featured an Ree-Yees tourist with a three lens camera. Making a giant rectangle out of foam board with some greeblies is going to be easy.

First thing was to create a template for the camera as a guide to where to cut out all the necessary shapes. I also found some camera lens 3D print files on line to give it that little amount of credibility.

With the foam board cut up, I attached the sides and the back and then wrapped the whole thing in a textured pleather to give it that classic “Wrapped in Leather” look of old cameras. I cut out the lens holes in the fabric and added some thin wiring to the rectangle cut outs to match the original prop.

The top and bottom were made out of plasticard. The bottom was glues on, while the top was only attached on one side with Gaffer’s Tape so that the interior was accessible. The Flash was actually made from a 3D print file for people that lost the original radar dish on their old Kenner Millennium Falcon, which i thought was a nice touch. A Cannon camera strap was attached so that it could be carried and a more different and more loader bluetooth speaker was placed inside to play the Flight Announcements.

The Flight Announcement soundscape was modified with MORE announcements. I had found the original script and had my room mate re-record a ton of them. All these announcements had a 5-10 minute gap between them starting and ending with the 5 note Star Tours chime. This was fun, ‘cuz when the the chime would play, you could see all the Disney cast members in the crowd spin around in a panic.

I think that was all for this year… I think.

San Diego Comic Con 2023 pictars!