Wee Ninja - Part 7

If you didn't guess this by now you'll get it when I post up some of my previous projects, I've got a bit of a knack for utilizing everyday materials in unconventional ways to build out whatever I happen to be working on. Tonights products were a good example of my creative use of materials at work.

First off, the jacket. I trimmed it using some more leftover bag straps from old laptop bags.



I also made the cod-piece for the front armor plate. This is one piece I didn't want to remotely make out of fiberglass for the simple reason that if he falls, squats, or generally moves around while wearing the uniform this part has a high probability of causing an injury on someone too small to recognize how to move around it. Rather than fiberglass, I cut up an old thin plastic school binder and used that as the base to glue the pleather to. The binder was stiff enough that it'll hold a shape, but flexible enough (even after applying the leather) that it will bend completely in half with relatively little effort. You can see some more of the bag strap that I used for the shoulder straps holding the codpiece to the breastplate.



I used this same construction method (and thought process) to construct some side plates. If you look at the BBN, the front and back are connected by yet another plate that sits under the arm and ties the two sides together. I want the armor to have at least some flexibility, so plastic here seemed like a good idea.



I'm in the process of figuring out how to make two of the more interesting pieces: the facemask, and; the boots. I've watched the scenes where Bruce Wayne is training at the monestary at least five times in the last two nights and I've yet to get a good angle on what the boots are supposed to look like. I think this just gives me some creative license to make whatever I think makes sense.

Your average set of Samurai armor (which is ostensibly what the BBN is modeled off of) has firm shin plates and some form of foot covering. I recognize there's no way I'm going to get tabai socks (the ones with the slit over the big toe) on to a three year old so I'm just going to go with boots of some sort and maybe the shin guards as well. I'll hit Target or Walmart tomorrow night and see what I can find.

In terms of the mask, I think I'm going to start out with one of my old baseball caps and see if I can't cut that down to fit the huge noggin' then add some material to cover up his neckline.

Given what I've already made (which looks awesome!) here's what I've got left in order to finish up project Wee Ninja:

1. Forearm guards.

2. A belt or sash.

3. Boots/shinguards

4. Hat/mask.

These are famous last words but it feels like I've already knocked out the hard stuff. We'll see over the next couple of nights whether that's true or not. More to come!

Wee Ninja - Part 6

Project Wee Ninja is still going ok, but it wasn't without it's challenges yesterday. Much like the pants which required me to make them twice, the jacket has now been remade twice as well.

Since they turned out well, first let's talk about the pants. In my previous post you can sort of see that I turned the fabric back on itself and then sewed it down. The point of this is so that I could insert an elastic band. I actually got the monkey to sit still for five minutes so I was able to measure out the elastic and then get it sewn up. The pants fit well, and they have the right look. Here's the finished product:



The shirt is a different story all together though. So if you look at my last post, you'll notice that the main jacket is seperate from the sleeves. I was thinking "every shirt I own has sleeves that are seperate - how hard could it be to sew them in?" As it turns out, it is rather hard.

This is a good point to mention that I don't follow plans typically when I make something. I expect to screw up. That's sort of the point for me. I expect to do something I'll later regret and then learn from it and not make the same mistake the next time. The sleves were clearly in this category. I just couldn't get them sewn in correctly and belive me I tried multiple times.

What did I do?

I cut new front pieces for the jacket that had the sleves that were all one piece. for the backside (because I ran out of fabric...again) I just sewed on the failed sleves. This time it turned out much better and was much simpler to sew together.

Typically on garments like this you have a piece of rope/twine/string that is used to tie one side to the other. Since this is for a toddler and since he basically never sits still even while sleeping, I decided to enclose the garment with velcro straps. The shirt is done - all it needs is a little trim around the collar and the front of the jacket. I'll probably get that done tonight. More to come!

Wee Ninja - Part 5

Yesterday was a pretty interesting day in project Wee Ninja. First off, I test fit the armor with the new snaps and the sword. Somebody liked the outfit a lot. He liked it so much that he proceeded to draw the sword and then whack me over the head with it while I was trying to take his picture.

WEE NINJA ATTACKS!!!!!!





After test fitting I started working on the pants and shirt. I don't have a pattern obviously. Having just tried to make two garments without a pattern I now understand the value of having something to follow. I actually ended up making the outfit twice, but that wasn't on purpose. I started off using a heavier cloth because this thing is going to be worn in October and that's not exactly a warm month in most of the country and especially not in Seattle. Before I got to the sleeves though, I ran out of cloth. Keeping in mind I was going to have to remake everything anyway I decided to just test fit the pieces I made on the little monkey then make some adjustments when I made the second set.

First off, using the Japanese style shirt I have for reference I drew and then cut out some pieces for the front and the back.





I then used a pair of pants that sort of fit him how I want the ninja pants to fit to cut out a pattern.



I then sewed everything together. As a side note for those interested, sewing a pair of pants is a rather interesting endeavor. I've been into martial arts for over 20 years now, and when I was younger my mom used to make my uniforms to save money. I didn't realize it at the time, but having seen her put a pair of kung-fu pants together was really useful today.

First you sew up the outside edge, and then along the inseam. Rinse and repeat on the other side.



Since I didn't mention it already, you're doing all the sewing for this garment (and really most garments) with theh thing inside out.

Next step is to sew the two pants legs together by folding the cloth of each leg towards the inside and then running a stitch down the middle. What you'll end up with is something like this:



And viewed from what will be the outside:



After I finished the pants and the shirt I tried them out on Wee Ninja. Total elapsed time from cutting the fabric to trying out the garments: 45 minutes. That's just friggin cool. I LOVE SEWING! Everyone should learn how to do this. What other skill can you use where you go from completely raw materials to a nearly finished item in that short of a timeframe?

Side Note: Man, do I get some weird looks and conversations in the fabric store. First off, I've been to three different ones and haven't seen a single man working in the store. It's mainly older ladies and younger girls, the latter of which seem to be primarily of the Emo variety. The older ladies are shocked that I know how to use a sewing machine. The girls are just shocked I'm not gay. Here's a good example:

Emo Girl: "So what are you making?"
Me: "You seen Batman Begins? I'm making the ninja costume from that for my three year old."
Emo Girl: "Wow you have a kid?"
Me: "Yeah...??"
Emo Girl: "Well, it's just, you know. You know how to sew."
Me: "And what implication might that have?"
Emo Girl: "Well, most guys that come in here that look like you are gay."
Me: "Great. I'll take three yards please."

I'll take the "I look gay" part as a compliment on being clean cut and slim. As for the rest I'll just say that people who are hung up on dated heterosexual notions of what's manly or not manly need to get over that BS. Straight guys should go out and buy a sewing machine and learn to use it. Tell yourself it's a survival skill or whatever you need to to make yourself happy.

Back to Wee Ninja.

Trying to use a toddler as a fashion model is a rediculous affair. He won't stand still for even ten seconds. I had to have his mother come over and grab him just to keep him somewhat contained for long enough for me to even get the clothes on.

The shirt was right on. Sweet.

Tha pants were the right lenght, the right width at the waiste, but down the legs they were too tight and didn't have the kind of baggyness above the knees that I was going for. I could have been depressed by this. Here's what I do when that happens:



I drew out a slightly different shaped set of pants and re-did everything in the lighter fabric that I have vast quantities of. I haven't test fit the new garments yet but I'll get to that later on today. More to come!

Wee Ninja - Part 4

Last night I got quite a bit done. It was also a good night to illustrate why I do this stuff. It would be easy in this format to completely gloss over any mistakes that I make because honestly - how would anyone else know? My plan is not to ignore my epic failures but highlight them in the hopes that if anyone who happens to see this blog and wants to actually go out and try and make something you'll have the benefit of my trial and error without having to screw up yourself.

Part 1 of last night involved the completed front and back armor plates. I did a test fit on the Wee Ninja - he was pretty excited which was cool. I immediately encountered a problem though. There's a reason why childbirth is a massively traumatic experience for a human woman as opposed to an animal like a Zebra (who can pop out a foal and then start running almost immediately afterwards). The reason is that human kids have massive heads. Eventually the child grows into their head, but till then they're shaped like an orange on a toothpick.

In terms of construction of the plates and how they attach together I was going for authentic and durable. This was my first mistake. Authentic is good to a point. Durable is good to a point. But the point all that falls down is when it doesn't take into account the unique issues of trying to get the outfit around a melon sized toddler head.

Here's the original way I had attached the plates. I used some more leftover bag straps and some brackets and left a lot of slack so that I could adjust how they sat. If I was making this for me this method would have worked out just fine.



The problem for the Wee Ninja though, was that the straps don't come far enough apart in this configuration for me to comfortably put the armor on. It took a little wiggling, but if something happens to him while he's wearing the thing it needs to be quickly removable.

I measured up where the plates will need to sit, then went about the process of installing snap buttons to replace the long straps. It worked out well, and should be easier and safer to put on the kid.



I also finished the sword. I recently installed a bunch of exterior motion sensor lights and I had a leftover junction box cover which I cut up with a dremel and painted to replace the broken tang. In terms of painting the blade of the sword, I first attached a piece of tape the edge side then used an exacto knife to create the wave edge that's charactaristic of true Japanese swords. The wave actually gets there during the sharpening process: you cover the edge with clay and bake it - anything not covered ends up a different color. There's multiple designs that you can do, but the wave setup was easiest for me so I went with it. I used some graphite wheel paint I had left over from one of my car projects to paint the blade. I figure it's a ninja sword - shiny probably isn't the best thing. I like how it turned out:



After all that, the next part was pretty simple, but tedious. In order to make the trim pieces for the sholder guards, I first had to attach the trim pleather and mark it up. Since this part is oddly shaped as opposed to the breastplate, the exacto knive/tracing paper method wasn't really an option. I just had to go slow and make sure that I got the design the same on both sides.



It actually worked out pretty well:



From there it was more drilling, then pushing twine through the pads.



I then attached the pads to the sholder straps, and changed out the twine I used to attach the sword for something more elastic. Here's some pics of where I'm at now. More to come!

Wee Ninja - Part 3

So that catches us up to what I got done tonight.

First off, I painted the arm guards. If you look at the BBN, the arm guards have an interesting textured look that I had no idea how to replicate. As it turned out, the regular old pattern of the fiberglass cloth I used will end up getting the job done. I used some Krylon Camo Paint. If you want to paint something and have it come out utterly and completely flat, Krylon Camo is the paint to use. The only issue I have with it is that the color palate is limited to what you'd want to paint a HUMVEE in a warzone but since the armguards are supposed to be black that wasn't really a problem.



For my sons second birthday his uncle sent him a Japanese style shirt much like the one I'm going to have to make, and a set of samurai swords. My wife is Japanese (I'm Chamorro and Irish...my son's just confused) so that gift makes more sense than you might imagine except for that fact that sending swords, even play ones, two a two year old with as much enthusiasm as my son has is a bad idea in any cultural context. To prove the point, we've recently been sparring with the sword set and he managed to break the tang (the part that guards your hand) over my head.



Given what I'm up to now, I viewed the broken sword as an opportunity to add to the costume, so I started by covering the sword sheath in more of the leftover pleather. I then covered the back plates, made a center section, and stiched everything together. It looks like a lot of work but it really only took about an hour to complete the whole backside and attach it to the breastplate.

Here's some shots of where I'm at now.





Before I go to bed I'll shoot the sword with a couple of coats of paint. I'll need to make a new tang, but that can wait till tomorrow night.

More to come!

Wee Ninja - Part 2

This past weekend I recovered the family's dining room chairs with pleather. The previous covers were cloth and were put on because the chairs are from ikea's bad-old-days of expensive furniture and poorly chosen floral patterns. A certain someone likes to get food EVERYWHERE. By everywhere I mean all eight chairs even though he only sits on one. At the time I replaced them the black cloth looked more patterned than the ugly floral job underneath.

Post re-covering, I had quite a bit of leftover material which was one of the motivators for me starting this project. It's a sunk cost - why not get some more mileage out of the scraps?

I started off last night (did I mention the first post was from Monday nights activities?) by covering the breast plate. This is simpler than it might seem. A few projects ago I discovered the beauty and power that is Elmers Craft Bond Extra Strength Spray Adhesive. Applying pleather to the plates was as simple as spray, press, cut.



God I love that stuff. I've tried at least five other spray adhesives and this kicks all of the others butts into the next dimension.

While we were at the fabric store, I looked through the returns bin and actually found a yard of a different textured pleather that was a little rougher than what I used to cover the chairs. This is important because if you look at the BBN, the trim pieces at the top of the chest plate and around the arms are more matte, rougher, and generally different than what's covering the main plate. Since it was only $10 I picked it up. This stuff is normally ~$30 a yard so there was no way I was going to pass up on a deal like that.

In order to make the surrounding trim piece I used the some tracing paper, an exacto knife, and a silver colored sharpie. Tracing paper is nice because if you get the design right on one side, you just fold it in half and draw the same thing on the other side. The exacto knife was used to cut out the tracing paper once I had the design done, and the silver sharpie was used to mark the trim piece. A black sharpie on black pleather just seemed like a bad idea.

Here's a shot of the trim all marked up and ready for cutting.



From there it was pretty quick and easy. I just cut a hole in the center of the trim, and then worked my way around the line I had drawn with a small pair of scissors:



After that came the tedious part, which was applying the trim piece with more spray glue, drilling out some holes, then running some craft twine through all the holes. This design element can clearly be seen if you pause the movie where you've got a straight shot at the armor. I cut up a bag strap that I had from a laptop bag from three jobs ago and used that as the shoulder straps. The thing turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself:

Wee Ninja - Part 1

There's nothing special about the Batman Begins Ninja costume (BBN) underneath the armor. It's just a standard Japanese style wrap around shirt and loose fitting pants, the same type you get when you buy your first Gi for Karate (only black). Clearly the armor is the unique feature here so that's what I started on first for this project.

One of the first skills I taught myself after UNplugging was working with fiberglass. I've made more than a few parts for my car (I'll post these later) so it was the obvious material choice when deciding how to construct the armor plates.

If you look closely at the BBN in the movie, you'll notice that it appears to be several plates of metal covered by multiple layers of leather. This actually makes construction a whole lot easier as I won't have to sand/apply body filler/sand/check/repeat which is the normal process when making anything out of fiberglass.

Anytime you're working with fiberglass it's a good idea to have a mold if at all possible. Whenever I need to make something I usually check two places: my house, and; the dollar store. What you want is something made out of plastic that's the rough shape of the end piece you're trying to make. You want plastic because the fiberglass resin won't stick to it so it saves you the trouble of taping up the item and applying vaseline (which you'd have to do with anything but plastic).

So, let's take a look at the pieces from the uniform that I need to make:

1. A breast plate. The plate itself looks simple enough, it's the detailed trimming that makes it complicated but we can deal with that after we get the 'glassing done.

2. Sholder plates. These are again simple but decorated.

3. A cod piece. Even in the movie this is just a flat piece of square metal.

4. A back plate. Now this one is more complicated. If you pause it in a few spots, what you'll see is that there are actually two seperate plates joined in the middle by a recessed and seperate piece of leather. After looking at it more closely, this appears to be a movement related structural choice. The middle piece (which is just leather) allows both sides of the body, and the arms, to move more naturally than if they had a single plate across the entire back.

5. Forearm guards with attached blades. These are by far the coolest part of the uniform. I'm going to have to figure out a way to make these but use blades that bend or he's going to gash the first person he comes into contact with while trick-or-treating.

6. A belt or sash. This is just a piece of fabric from the looks of it.

7. Boots. I have no idea how I'm going to do this part yet.

8. Karate uniform in black. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

My son is 95th percentile on height for his age, but 20th percentile on weight. Consequently finding appropriately sized plastic items to use as molds proved to be interesting. If he were a bit more, a-hem, rotund it would have been a lot easier because there's plenty of tupperware in my house that's round-ish.

After some spelunking through my closets, I found something that closely approximated the size and curvature of his chest. How bout a friggin trash bin:



For the sholder plates I found a water jug that had a pretty decent shape on one side.



Since I need a front plate and a back plate, I made a couple of molds off of the trash bin. One of them turned out terrible so I'll probably use the leftovers of that for the cod-plate.



I found a soda bottle that was about the right shape for the arm guards so I made a couple of molds off of that. In retrospect this is one of the last things on the uniform I should bother making but they're already done so I'll keep truckin'. I left my thumb in there for scale, not because, you know, I'm an idiot at taking pictures.



After some trimming with a dremmel and a bit of sanding around the edges, we now have a complete set of toddler sized armor plates that weigh next to nothing. Sweet.

Project Wee Ninja

I love Batman.

I loved the first two Batman movies.

And then came the crinkled crock of crap that personified every movie after Tim Burton left the project.

This was all thankfully rectified in 2005 by Christian Bale in "Batman Begins", and the subsequent and even more awesome "The Dark Night". If you haven't seen Batman Begins the construction of this project isn't going to make a whole lot of sense to you, so hop on to Netflix and add it to your queue.

I'm obsessed with the ninja costume from the first half of Batman Begins. The construction of it is unique, yet familiar enough that upon first glance you know exactly what the person wearing it is supposed to be. It's the best ninja costume I've ever seen in a movie, or at least it's my favorite.



I recently taught myself to sew, which is a sneaky skill: you don't realize just how important it is until you've already learned how to do it. Now that I know how to sew and with halloween just around the corner I decided that I had to make a copy of the ninja gear.

I could have made it for myself, but if you know me, you know I've got an (almost) three year old son that's thirty pounds of unbridled fury, so I'm going to be making this for him. Making something with a great amount of detail for someone who's head is below your beltline presents some interesting challenges so this project should be a lot of fun.

Introduction

I’ll be honest, I used to be as plugged in as anybody else. I’m a geek - I work with software. Sue me, it pays the bills. A few years ago I had an epiphany while working late on a PowerPoint presentation for a “big” meeting the next day: although I had spent the last fifteen hours working hard, I hadn’t actually created anything with a real tangible value. I created a slide deck that outlined a business concept. Even at the best of times that’s merely an abstraction. I’d spent my entire career like this. Push a button, write a line of code, draw a flow chart, create an abstraction of a real life problem.

If you stop what you’re doing for a moment and examine the situation it’s easy to question the tangible reality of anything you’re working on at any given moment. Everything I’d ever created to that point relied on a computer and a screen and maybe added up to a couple of gigs. My work was no more important than a finite quantity of 1’s and 0’s. Our society will tell you that being a knowledge worker is the way of the future and the height of professional accomplishment. I disagree. I think it sucks.

Sitting there in my lovely window facing cube at 11:45pm I decided it was time for a change. I wanted to try making real things. Stuff you can hold. I had never thought about it till that day but it finally hit me that there’s a certain futility in doing work and having hobbies that are completely reliant on microchips because when you’re done you’ve accomplished…what exactly? What can you point to and say you did with your time? When the meaning of your life or your sense of self is based on Microsoft Office documents, the number of people who “like” your status on FaceBook, how many hits your website gets, or your accumulated XBOX Live Gamer Score, you have truly reached the uppermost echelons of real world uselessness.

I made the decision then and there that away from my workplace I would begin to UNplug. UNplugging is the conscious act of stepping away from technology for some period of time for the sole purpose of making or doing something tangible in the real world. Taking a break from your normal electronic routine and experiencing life and expressing your own creativity. I got started making things about a year ago and I’ve built up a pretty interesting body of work in that time. This blog is about my trial and error, failure and success at making real stuff.

I recognize the inherent contradiction of having a blog about building things to escape the tyranny of the internet as a form of entertainment, but I’m doing it for a clear reason: it really is the easiest way to disseminate information to my friends, family, etc. who have an inkling of what I’m doing but don’t really get to see the process.

The process is actually what’s important. Since I UNplugged I’ve taught myself a number of skills to help me bring ideas in my head into the real world. If I had an idea that required sewing, I taught myself to sew. If it required welding, I taught myself to weld. The skills I learned were just the means to the end. The end was making something cool: creating a finished product from raw materials.

Since I’m starting this blog a year into the process, I’m going to start with my current project and then gradually add posts about some of the things I’ve already made. I take a lot of pictures as I go because they’re worth a thousand words and half the time they jog my memory as to how I solved a certain problem. Expect this to be a pretty pic heavy site.

Aaaaand with that...

I’m off to go make something.