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Archive: November 2007

Grasshopper Manufacture Email

Thursday, November 8, 2007 5:48:59 PM

manufacture, email, Wii, no more heroes ...

Naoko from Grasshopper Manufacture emailed me about my costume.

My Blood Berry Beam Katana and Travis Touchdown Costume

Thursday, November 8, 2007 5:25:00 PM

travis, custom, mod, katana ...

[/IMG]It looks like no one else wanted to be Travis Touchdown for Halloween. Despite me saying for nearly a year that that's who I was going to go as, work became so time cosuming that I only had time to even begin working on my costume on November 5th. Why did I even bother? Two reasons: I really wanted to go as Travis Touchdown, and there was still 2 days to enter pictures in the N+ Halloween Costume CoN+est.
+ Click here to Digg this sweetness and support tinkering/honest fun.
+ I was just informed this is the Opera Community top news story, here. _{- Thanks, Espen}
+ Naoko from Grasshopper Manufacture sent me a message.
+ Nintendo Wii Fanboy likes it, too.
+ GoNintendo likes it.
+ Well, now when you search Google for Beam Katana or Travis Touchdown, there's a bunch of first page results about this.
+ Kotaku really likes it.
[/LIST]_{Wait, who is Travis Touchdown?
The main character (characters page) in No More Heroes, a game coming out for Wii in Japan in December and the US in February. Travis, an otaku, buys a Beam Katana in an online auction and ends up battling assassins in the town in which he resides, Santa Destroy, CA. (gallery)}[/align]

[/IMG]I decided to make the Blood Berry Beam Katana because it's far more complicated and looks a lot less like a traditional light saber. I used a Star Wars Force FX Light Saber as the base, among other supplies. The best part is that the prop retains all of it's original durability. That means that just like a normal Force FX light saber, you can swing and smash this thing into anything and the sounds and durablity aren't sacrificed.

It still rests on the Force FX base as well, but I think I'm going to make a special wall mount. And if I can figure out how to get it to not turn off after a minute of not being used, I'm going to turn it into a powered lamp by taking out the battery/speaker unit that is politely designed as a single piece and just wiring it up and adding a plug. This way it won't make noise as a lamp and I can always put the battery pack back in for portable fun/death dealing.

The handle-looking things I later realized aren't handles at all, but I had already made them super sturdy, enough that you can swing this thing around by them if you wish. And yes, there are two, it takes a lot of screen shot analysis to say that with conficence.

[/IMG]There's a bright red master switch located within prime thumbing area, and that glows pretty bright thanks to an LED from my box of LEDs I ripped out of stuff.

In the video game, Travis needs to re-charge his Beam Katana every now and then by shaking it. So for fun I decided to include a Battery Meter. (larger pictures here) It really is a nice touch, and when you shake the Beam Katana, the needle moves.

There's already a million things I want to do differently, like not to forget putting on the orange piping before I took all these pictures. And I'm not satisfied with the tip, I had no way of making it gold under the time constraints. But for only 2 days worth of off-and-on work, and very little planning, I think it came out pretty sweet.

The total cost was around $150-160, with $120 of that being the original light saber purchased specifically for this task. No, I didn't just use one I had. If that makes you angry, I'm sorry. I spent 2 hours in Home Depot, 1 hour in a craft store, a quick stop at a Radio Shack, and went to 7 stores looking for Travis glasses, and I ended up using glasses I had. Had the jacket, too. Made the shirt from two shirts I got at a thrift store and a lot of sharpie markers and sewing. I think I spent the least ammount of time on my hair, ironically/considerably less than I spend on it before I go out. I haven't sat around and worked on something in a loooong time. This was totally worth the cost and effort.

Capt Seagull (1:46:35 AM): what would be so fitting (but dont do) is to sell it on ebay! hahaha
Battle Happen (1:51:00 AM): haha i know
Battle Happen (1:51:05 AM): i should add that to my post