Fanboys

[Ginger Tea]

Aside from the helmet, nothing in the outfit says "I'm a building." to me, even less so with the light sabre, so TBH you could be seen an expanded univers character who never got a full written discription, or one seen for one pannel in a crowded scene in a 5 year old graphic novel.

[Amanita]

I need to photoshop that blade (it wasn't done very well, somebody else added the glow), but the saber is a stand-in for a psionic weapon, until I can build my own (need to learn metalwork- I want a handle that looks like a cross between Art Deco and living metal).
I also need to figure out how to simulate an energy blade that looks more "alive" than the straight beam of a lightsaber. I imagine a psionic weapon would pulse and flicker more erratically, and might look a little more jagged, almost like a bolt of lightning, as opposed to a perfectly straight beam. Unfortunately simulating that in real life just isn't possible, at least not if you want something that's safe to carry around and sturdy enough for sparring and dancing with. (I suppose one could use plasma or electricity, but those would be hella expensive, fragile, and hella dangerous)

Why not use a metal blade? Security. Carrying even a blunt metal prop sword at a con is just too much drama and hassle, and you're not allowed to do anything with it, even pose for photos, even if it's duller than a butterknife. That is, if it's allowed into the con at all. So I usually don't bother.

Basically, this is extreme personification- what would the Avatar of the building wear as everyday dress? Look up some pics of the actual One Penn Plaza, and note the black and grey coloring, and the silver pinstripes, all of which are woven into the costume in one way or another. Pics of the lobby interior are hard to find due to security restrictions on photography, but there are red and white elements worked into the decor, not to mention the building's roof signs are also red and white. I just brought the red out more, so the costume would not appear drab.

Why not wear a suit? for one thing, suits are boring. I'm sure the skyscraper would look at his tenants and wonder why they insist on dressing so alike, and so drably. That, and in all the writing a few of my friends and I have done about these beings, they have their own culture, with their own style of dress. Many of them tend to favor robes, for a dignified and graceful appearance. And even modernist skyscrapers will weave bits of Beaux-Arts or Art Deco into the ornament of their robes sometimes, as respectful tribute to their elders.

In the new year, I'm also hoping to get into latex prosthetic makeup, so my next headdress will look like it's actually a part of me, as opposed to an architectural model for my head.
I can't have done too crappy a job on this costume though- I got a ton of pics taken of me, lots of compliments, and an honorable mention in the Master's category in the costume contest

[blas87]

My Brown Noser coworker.......don't ever tell him you like Star Wars, Family Guy, American Dad (ANY of the Fox cartoons) or any kind of anime. He will go on and on and on and on for HOURS about it.

And he also has all the stats for nearly every Packer on the team. No shit they are the best there is, but good Lord...

And bonus points, he'll go on and on and on and on and on about every. single. scene from a SW movie or whatever, and I'm the one who gets in trouble for talking.

[Amanita]

^Don't you hate those types? The ones who get away with doing something in spades, while you get chewed out for a fraction of the same thing.

I remember one job I worked, where we had a TV in one of the workrooms. I would have my head down over whatever I was doing, looking away from the TV. All of a sudden, the entire room would bust up laughing over something. I would look up to ask what was so funny, and one bitchy supervisor without fail would yell at me that I wasn't paid to watch TV.
I wish I had thought of the comeback "If I were watching TV instead of working, I wouldn't need to ask everyone who was just laughing what was so funny, now would I?"

[siead_lietrathua]

I imagine a psionic weapon would pulse and flicker more erratically, and might look a little more jagged, almost like a bolt of lightning, as opposed to a perfectly straight beam. Unfortunately simulating that in real life just isn't possible, at least not if you want something that's safe to carry around and sturdy enough for sparring and dancing with. (I suppose one could use plasma or electricity, but those would be hella expensive, fragile, and hella dangerous)

the only thing i can think of is a clear plastic cut to form and embedded with leds along the blade to randomly flicker :/ would be a p.i.t.a to make though.

[Dreamstalker]

That would be cool, you could also use EL wire.

[Amanita]

I've built lightsabers using EL wire, before switching to LED. Compared to LEDs, the brightness of EL flat out sucks. It might work for lighting up the triangular windows in Chrysler Building's crown, but it can't hold a candle to an LED illuminated saber blade. And the problem with a clear piece of plastic with LEDs embedded all along it is two-fold. One is all the wires needed to connect the LEDs- all that wiring would look like crap (it would be hard to hide on such a blade, if not impossible), and the resulting piece would be too fragile to do anything with. The flat plastic blade would be quite fragile, prone to bending and breaking. Even more so with all the holes drilled to put the LEDs and wiring into. And that wiring? All those connections are prone to breakage when subjected to any force at all. It's why sparring with those official movie replica lightsabers out there is a bad idea- inside those blades, you will find a string of LEDs connected with wires, and those have a habit of breaking when used even for light sparring, leaving dark spots in the blade.

I've been a part of the lightsaber building community for a while, and there's been a lot of research done on various methods of simulating energy-based blades. Currently about the best thing out there that combines both brightness and durability is to have a single high powered LED in the hilt of the weapon, and a tubular polycarbonate blade with some sort of material inside for light diffusion. That way, the blade is sturdy enough to spar with, and there's nothing inside it to get broken. I might find some success in that diffuser material though- instead of rolling clear plastic film up into several layers and sliding it into the tube, I might experiment with twisting it into a sort of helix pattern that runs the length of the tube. And the flickering, heartbeat-like pulse effect might be achievable with the right kind of LED driver board.

I've got a saber now that I recently bought- it has a couple of neat features. One is the USB customizable sound board, which allows custom sound fonts to be loaded onto it. I plan to purchase a fan-made CD with a load of alternative sounds, one of which is a phoenix-blade. Namely, it crackles like fire when activated, instead of the standard saber sound. And it's got a cool feature built in- flash on clash, where it flashes a different color when struck against something. In this case, it's orange, but flashes purple. If I can get the saber builder who made it to retrofit it with the driver board I mentioned earlier, it will be a pretty sweet simulation of psionic fire, quite appropriate for the skyscraper cosplay I plan to use it with- One New York Plaza, who IRL has been touched by fire a few times during her life.

Edit- Here's a quick photoshop mock-up of a few psi-blades:
http://ladyamanita.deviantart.com/#/d4ixktp
Currently, I know of no way to simulate these in a real-world prop. About the only way to get a look like this would be photoshop or CGI, pretty much.

[Andara Bledin]

Maybe line the inside of the clear tube of the blade with crinkly semi-transparent foil or the like? That could give the outside a crazed sort of appearance and it would help to hide the wiring. Also, there is the option of wrapping the wires themselves in something crinkled and reflective for added effect.

As for the pulsing light, I know there are LED boards that do just that, usually used for candlelight effects.

As for your mockups, I think the best you could do would be to use some form of fiber optic material for the blade itself with a powerful LED in the base to light it up. I have no idea how strong that would end up being, however.

^-.-^

[Amanita]

What we use for lining lightsaber blades now is actually clear cellophane, no word of a lie! The same stuff you can buy in rolls for gift wrapping. Just take a length (careful not to get dust on it!) and roll it up several times around a dowel rod smaller than the inside diameter of a polycarb tube. Then shove it up inside the tube, and remove the dowel. Several layers of this stuff make a clear blade look almost metallic and serve to diffuse the light. I'm considering combining this with another length of the stuff, twisted into a helix pattern and shoved up inside there.

I don't want to get into having arrays of LEDs inside of a blade- that's the technology used in those "Force FX official" replicas that I mentioned earlier. Those are very prone to damage when used for sparring, thanks to the vulnerability of the wire connections to shock.

I know about those LED boards Trouble is, the ones used to drive the powerful LEDs in lightsabers are very expensive, about $50. So I only plan to install those in a few of my sabers.
An LED (seoul P4 or Rebel Star) in the blade handle is what a lot of the best lightsaber replicas currently use- it's a lot sturdier than having them inside the blade. As for fiber optic material, I've seen that used. But only for lightwhips, due to its flexibility.

I was thinking the only way to get a true representation of those mockups I did would be some sort of holographic technology. I'm not sure what the current state of the art regarding holograms is, if there are projectors capable of creating an image like that, which appears as bright as a true energy blade. And if it does, I'm guessing the projector and power supply would be too large to be crammed into a sword hilt of any description. And if it were small enough, I'm guessing the cost would be a barrier to anyone who wasn't a lawyer, doctor, or CEO in their spare time.

[mikoyan29]

I probably know more about Star Wars than the average person. But I didn't really get into the Expanded Universe stuff. Nor do I really get into the costume stuff but I do have a lightsaber on my wall.

[Amanita]

I've got a basketful Let's face it, they're fun to play with! And now that ultrasabers.com has released a saber inspired by Obi Wan's episode 1 saber for under $200, I sense my collection is gonna grow again