www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/TRONcostume -> www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/TRONcostume/
I fumbled around for a while trying to figure out how to make this stuff green, and finally ran across Krylons Fusion paint, in the shade of light green they call Honeydew color 2355. I painted up the Frisbee that came with the armor not shown here, because itd already been painted when I took the picture, and sent it off to Renaissance Dancewear , who I buy all of my tights for Renfaire clothing from. Its really comfortable to wear, and fits perfectly except for the arms, which are just a little too long, leading to wrinkles. I got lots of helpful advice from Avril Bronxelf Korman, who is working as an interior designer NOT decorator, and knows a lot about art. She helped me pick out fabric paint and regular acrylic paint, and gave me some instruction on how to use both, since Id never done anything of the sort before. I wanted to be as close to the original as possible, but lets face it: Im not the same shape as either Bruce Boxleitner or Jeff Bridges the actors who played Tron and Flynn, respectively. Im somewhat overweight, as you see one drawback of wearing spandex is that it does nothing to hide ones obesity. Therefore, I decided to make myself a character in the same universe, but not one of the known characters, which gave me much more latitude in what I could do with paint and other design items. I decided not to use the chest/back armor, both because I did not like the strap arrangement that it used, and because it did not fit me well see the preceding paragraph. This left me with no place to attach the Frisbee, a problem which I managed to solve, but not without difficulty. I did away with the characters belt because I could see no way to keep it up if I were to, say, stretch my arms overhead. I also did away with the drape that some but not all characters had, and the fabric boot tops, because I could see no way to get plain fabric dyed to match the unitard and armor.
I simplified the circuitry patterns in acknowledgement of the fact that my skill with a brush is not equal to that of Disneys costume designers. I debated whether to leave the el-wire in place or, more correctly, to re-add it after repainting the armor. I finally decided that the coolness factor outweighed the consistency considerations. There was simply no way to attach the el-wire to the unitard and have it survive being washed, so I could not make all of the patterns that way. The construction I stripped all of the electroluminescent wire off of the armor. The guy must have used some sort of clear thick epoxy or superglue, because I had to use a knife to remove it, and wound up sacrificing the el-wire. I finally got to bare plastic, though: Next, I started painting the circuit lines on the unitard: The next morning, I wound up having to do some work on other things that paid money. I did manage to order more el-wire and inverters from the folks the guy Id bought the armor from originally used, Being Seen Technologies . First, I painted the armor pieces, and a pair of white canvas boat shoes, green: I managed to run out of the first can of paint, so I had to drive to the next town over to buy more. I got two cans this time, although I didnt expect to use up even one; When I got back, I finished up the coat of paint: I also used masking tape to set the borders on the back of the unitard: Heres where I ran out of the first of two bottles of fabric paint. The edges of the upper part are ragged because I havent removed the masking tape: This is the finished back design, and where I knocked off for the night. The Frisbee and shoe are there to show the color match - which, unfortunately, didnt quite look exact to me, but it was far too late to do anything about it then and has since proven to be unnecessary;
I submitted the costume for judging in the workmanship category, thinking Id get some really constructive comments from the judges. After that, we went out, one by one, and showed off to the audience, and optionally gave a presentation; I spoke for a few moments about how I wasnt Tron, but a simple payroll withholding calculation program that had gotten overweight by changes in the laws. The judges went off and decided while the MC entertained us and the audience. The awards were by area things like presentation, theme, and so on. I won an award for workmanship - and the judges said, afterward, that it wasnt even close. The following pictures were taken by Leland Kesler, the Penguicon photographer. At the Masquerade: and afterwards, a very nice portrait: Lessons learned Fabric paint is a pain in the ass to deal with, and must be applied with a heavy hand if sharp edges on lines are desired. It would have probably helped if I had not worn and washed the unitard before painting, as that caused the fabric to pill somewhat, making it much harder to get the paint down into the fabric. If you superglue something to a painted surface, youre not gluing to the item itself, but to the paint. I should have waited the specified 7 days for maximum chip resistance which means maximum hardness and curing before trying to glue the el-wire to it.
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