How to Make an Arc Reactor
Nov. 8th, 2013 06:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asterrocSo I made an "arc reactor" for my second Halloween costume, and per request by calzephyr, here's how.
Instructions, ingredients, and images
Click on any images for larger.
The most important part was this string of battery-powered blue LED lights. They require 3 AA (double-A) batteries, and the Amazon brand ones I picked up lasted me through testing and through a night of wearing the finished arc reactor, and probably have a bunch more time in them. I brought a set of spare batteries with me to the party I wore it to just in case, but they weren't needed. (The description of them says the battery lasts 48 hrs, I think I used mine for 12 hrs max.)
Next I wanted something round and crisp edged for the shape, so I took the metal band and lid of an approximately 1.5-2" diameter mason jar.
I mocked it up first by scotch-taping the LEDs into the jar lid. I found that in order to have the wire to the battery box be able to reach my pocket, I had to have one LED outside the lid, so I put black electrical tape over it, but I need to replace it with duct tape, since the electrical tape keeps wanting to come off. The wire leading out to the power box is sandwiched between the lid and the band, so I reinforced the wire with electrical tape to be safe - I really didn't want the wire snapping in the middle of the night, ruining all my hard work, and having Toni drop dead.
A couple shots of the mock-up turned on.
Then I redid it, glueing the LEDs in using hot glue. I made sure to let the glue cool between additional applications, as I didn't want the coating on the wire to melt. I tried to place the LEDs evenly so the light would be uniform in the end. I also glued in/on a ribbon which (when finished) I used to tie the arc reactor to my bra. In the images below I have a bit of seran wrap over it because I was still trying to figure out how to make the light uniform, and in the end I did put seran wrap as the last layer to protect the tissue paper from any sweat or tearing due to friction.
What eventually ended doing the trick for making the light uniform was a few layers of white tissue paper. Here's a mockup of the tissue paper with a rubber band (from veggies) holding it in place. (Also shown is the battery pack.) I had to experiment for a while to get the right number of tissue paper layers to wrap around it. You could probably use white printer paper and do fewer layers (but I didn't want to have to worry about sharp corners that would result from folding the paper around to the back), or white fabric (but I didn't have any and didn't think of it in time to buy).
Then on the very top layer of tissue paper, I penciled in the arc reactor pattern, went over it in black Sharpie, went over that in silver Sharpie, flipped over, and repeated (black then silver). As you can see in the first image, the ink bled through to the clip board I was using as a backer. Once it was fully dry I erased the pencil markings. This part is really key to the final appearance, so take the time to do it right.
Then I used the ribbons to tie the arc reactor to my bra - if you're a guy doing this, you'll have to come up with some other way to attach, like a longer ribbon to tie around your chest, or velcro (though make sure to have the hooks point the less painful way), or a strap with a buckle. I put on the bra first, tied the arc reactor on, then put the battery pack in my jeans' front pocket (I kinda want to rearrange it a bit and figure out how to get an extra inch so the battery pack can reach to my back pocket). Then I put on a black tank top, and voila!, Toni Stark in her workshop outfit!
And here's a few selfies of the final product.
This was inspired by the fanfic Loki and Toni's Excellent Adventure in World Saving, which has a female Toni Stark. pprfaith (author) and reena_jenkins (podficcer and editor) write an amazing Toni - she's got so much depth to her reactions to the world and to what has happened to her. She's completely consistent with the Tony Stark in the films, but with the added complexity possible in writing, and add on top of that all the struggles of a woman in the normal world, let alone the business/engineering/superhero world that she's made her own, and on top of that she was born the wrong gender for what her father Howard Stark wanted, and you have an amazingly broken but still REAL Toni Stark. She is all bluster and bravado, and even she never knows how much of it is real and how much is a show intended to throw other people off track. And all of it is entirely believable.
Go read it.
Originally posted on Dreamwidth.
comments there. Comment here or there.
calzephyr, here's how. Instructions, ingredients, and images
Click on any images for larger.
The most important part was this string of battery-powered blue LED lights. They require 3 AA (double-A) batteries, and the Amazon brand ones I picked up lasted me through testing and through a night of wearing the finished arc reactor, and probably have a bunch more time in them. I brought a set of spare batteries with me to the party I wore it to just in case, but they weren't needed. (The description of them says the battery lasts 48 hrs, I think I used mine for 12 hrs max.)
Next I wanted something round and crisp edged for the shape, so I took the metal band and lid of an approximately 1.5-2" diameter mason jar.
I mocked it up first by scotch-taping the LEDs into the jar lid. I found that in order to have the wire to the battery box be able to reach my pocket, I had to have one LED outside the lid, so I put black electrical tape over it, but I need to replace it with duct tape, since the electrical tape keeps wanting to come off. The wire leading out to the power box is sandwiched between the lid and the band, so I reinforced the wire with electrical tape to be safe - I really didn't want the wire snapping in the middle of the night, ruining all my hard work, and having Toni drop dead.
A couple shots of the mock-up turned on.
Then I redid it, glueing the LEDs in using hot glue. I made sure to let the glue cool between additional applications, as I didn't want the coating on the wire to melt. I tried to place the LEDs evenly so the light would be uniform in the end. I also glued in/on a ribbon which (when finished) I used to tie the arc reactor to my bra. In the images below I have a bit of seran wrap over it because I was still trying to figure out how to make the light uniform, and in the end I did put seran wrap as the last layer to protect the tissue paper from any sweat or tearing due to friction.
What eventually ended doing the trick for making the light uniform was a few layers of white tissue paper. Here's a mockup of the tissue paper with a rubber band (from veggies) holding it in place. (Also shown is the battery pack.) I had to experiment for a while to get the right number of tissue paper layers to wrap around it. You could probably use white printer paper and do fewer layers (but I didn't want to have to worry about sharp corners that would result from folding the paper around to the back), or white fabric (but I didn't have any and didn't think of it in time to buy).
Then on the very top layer of tissue paper, I penciled in the arc reactor pattern, went over it in black Sharpie, went over that in silver Sharpie, flipped over, and repeated (black then silver). As you can see in the first image, the ink bled through to the clip board I was using as a backer. Once it was fully dry I erased the pencil markings. This part is really key to the final appearance, so take the time to do it right.
Then I used the ribbons to tie the arc reactor to my bra - if you're a guy doing this, you'll have to come up with some other way to attach, like a longer ribbon to tie around your chest, or velcro (though make sure to have the hooks point the less painful way), or a strap with a buckle. I put on the bra first, tied the arc reactor on, then put the battery pack in my jeans' front pocket (I kinda want to rearrange it a bit and figure out how to get an extra inch so the battery pack can reach to my back pocket). Then I put on a black tank top, and voila!, Toni Stark in her workshop outfit!
And here's a few selfies of the final product.
This was inspired by the fanfic Loki and Toni's Excellent Adventure in World Saving, which has a female Toni Stark. pprfaith (author) and reena_jenkins (podficcer and editor) write an amazing Toni - she's got so much depth to her reactions to the world and to what has happened to her. She's completely consistent with the Tony Stark in the films, but with the added complexity possible in writing, and add on top of that all the struggles of a woman in the normal world, let alone the business/engineering/superhero world that she's made her own, and on top of that she was born the wrong gender for what her father Howard Stark wanted, and you have an amazingly broken but still REAL Toni Stark. She is all bluster and bravado, and even she never knows how much of it is real and how much is a show intended to throw other people off track. And all of it is entirely believable.
Go read it.
Originally posted on Dreamwidth.
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no subject
Date: 2013-11-09 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-09 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-09 04:13 am (UTC)Edit: Well, to be clear many people were confused about the idea of crossplay / genderswap, but whatevs. Technically I was doing a genderswap and not a crossplay: I was a woman playing a female version of an originally male character, as was indicated by visible bra straps, no attempt to minimize my boobs, and bright red lipstick. I didn't particularly expect people to get that though. (The Jack Frost costume on the other hand was crossplay and not genderswap.)
I *was* disappointed though when I went up to the guy wearing Hulk hands and told him I was a big fan of how he turned into a huge green rage monster, and he didn't get the reference at all (quote from when Tony first meets Bruce in "The Avengers").
no subject
Date: 2013-11-09 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-09 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-11 06:33 am (UTC)That fanfic you linked to is interesting. I don't buy all the relationships in it--ironically, some of them feel forced by a perceived necessity to link all the Avengers together in relationships somehow--but I think that the authors did a good job in thinking about what Toni might be like, and the connection to Loki was well-done, I thought. (And I liked what they did with Thor and with Bruce.)