Bending is my Middle Name | Bender Cosplay Part 2
Hello, there! In this week’s video I wrapped up my test-fit cardboard build of the Bender costume. Next time we will be working on modeling the 3D printed parts! I actually decided in the middle of this stream that I had gotten as much information as I needed, and switched to the 3D modeling. The main goal of this stage of the project was to build out a shoulder plate and chest section. The hope is to get an idea of how much room I would have inside the costume and what the dimensions and angles would need to be in order for it to fit me, but still look accurate to the character. I decided to stop before the arms and legs as I have a plan for them that can’t really be accurately recreated in the medium of cardboard. I already had the head built, so the next step was to make a ring for it to seat into. I rolled a thin strip of cardboard up so that it took on a curved shape, then cut the whole thing lengthwise to create two strips with the same curve.
When wrapped around to make a ring, they were not anywhere close to perfectly circular. At the time, I was thinking that was why they needed to have a matching curve. It hadn’t occurred to me that the helmet which would be fitting into it was nearly perfectly circular, and that tension from attaching the two rings to each other would make them perfect circles anyway. At this point, I was more concerned about eliminating the overlap you can see in the photo below. I was worried that the extra thickness could cause issues with shape while the helmet was being seated and result in a less-than-perfect fit. Fortunately it was easy to cut the strips to meet evenly and tape them at the ends without any overlap so this problem was completely avoided.
I fit the rings individually based on the helmet. One to the outside, and the other to the inside. Then, taking strips of painter’s tape, I taped them to each other as evenly as possible, leaving a groove for the edge of the helmet to fit into. Normally, blue tape would be exactly the wrong thing for a cosplay project, as it’s not very sticky, but for my purposes it was perfect. I wanted to be able to undo and change things with minimal commitment. For some of the connections that needed to be more permanent for strength, I re-used industrial staples from one of the larger boxes, as well as some zipties. I was really pleased with the neck ring, though, which felt surprisingly rigid after the two were taped together.
The test fit was mostly successful. I did run into a small issue, which was the mouth plate just inside the helmet. The bottom edge of it reached just low enough to get in the way of the fit I had worked so hard to achieve, so at the end of the day I ended up cutting a notch out of the inner ring to accommodate the plate. After that was done, the helmet seated into the ring perfectly.
Next, I moved on to the shoulder plate. In hindsight, the ring did not need to be anywhere near as large as it ended up being. I figured more was more, because I wanted to be sure that it was large enough to take on the angle at Bender’s shoulders and still be big enough around. I definitely overdid it a bit. If I were to do it again, though, I would go just as big. Always better to leave room for mistakes.
To introduce the angle to the shoulder plate, I cut a slit through half of it and overlapped it on itself. It… kind of worked. As you can see in the photo below I did end up with mostly just a crease where I overlapped, and then a matching one on the opposite side. Sit’s nicely on my shoulders like some kind of Elizabethan ruff, but doesn’t really look like Bender. Shortening it and increasing the angle will definitely help in the final build. I am struggling with what I want to build the main body section out of, I suspect that foam will not have enough structural integrity. The whole costume will be hanging from this shoulder plate, which will be mounted to a chest harness that I will be wearing underneath the costume to save my back from the weight. So far, my best guess is that I will cut and bend a piece of sheet metal, or make a buck out of sand or something and heat-form a sheet of acrylic. Neither sounds too appealing to me at the moment, but I will keep thinking on it.
The final step was fairly easy. I sliced one of the cardboard boxes all the way up, making it into a single flat sheet, and attached it around the edge of the — now shortened — shoulder plate to make a tube, and pulled it together on the bottom after cutting a number of slits to achieve the trademark taper of Bender’s barrel chest. I fit into the costume just fine, but the armpits are pretty far away from mine. Even if I shrink the top shoulder plate a little more, I am going to be hard-pressed to reach all the way down to the fingers on the arms, so I expect I will be operating those with some simple puppeteering.
I’ve now moved on to 3D modeling the helmet. This Wednesday, I will be continuing that and testing out some small printed pieces that will confirm dimensions and assembly fit. I will also be playing around with the internal mechanics for the hands, and a couple of other expressive features over the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for that very soon! If you would like to support this project, or anything else I am working on, check out the Patreon page! No matter what project you choose to support, you get access to all the same perks and behind-the-scenes streams. If that isn’t your cup of tea, it would mean the world to me for you to share this post and anything else you like with your fellow creatives! Thanks for reading, it’s been a blast as always. I’ll see you in the next one!
