| SOUNDWAVE COSTUME
PROJECT #258
CLASSIFICATION: HALLOWE'EN COSTUME
CHARACTER INSPIRATION: SOUNDWAVE (THE TRANSFORMERS)
MATERIALS USED: CARDBOARD BOXES, PACKING TAPE, SPRAY PAINT, SUNGLASSES,
WHITE GLUE
FIRST APPEARANCE: "MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE" PART 1 (G1)
"The secrets of the universe reveal themselves
to those who listen."
Preamble: I've wanted to build a Transformers
costume for a long time, and I've been talking about this thing on the
newsgroups for years. (I've been kind of self-conscious about actually
doing it, since the American side of the fandom tends to have such a low
tolerance for people celebrating the Transformers characters with costumes
that I'd be terrified to ever make a public appearance in this thing.)
I've been building robots out of cardboard boxes ever since I was a
kid, though, and just once I wanted to do a full-fledged costume that utilized
my current modeling skills, the harshness of critics be damned. My
favorite character from the original series is Soundwave, and thus was the
natural inspiration for this project.
Construction: Collecting the necessary
materials came first; I gathered up about 25 cardboard boxes in very specific
sizes to create the forearms, shoulders, legs, etc. I ended up reinforcing
some of the parts with extra layers of cardboard because I knew they would
need to hold up to a fair amount of abuse, like the bottoms of the
feet. I started with only a vague idea of how I wanted to assemble
the costume, so I ended up making lots of little improvisations in mid-project,
balancing functionality with aesthetics. I also had to frequently stop and
test-fit pieces of the costume to make sure they fit me, fit together with
the other pieces of the costume, and that I could move inside the suit reasonably
well.
The finished costume has a number of gimmicks
that makes it more than just a pile of cardboard boxes. Both the shoulder
cannon and handheld weapon are equipped with battery-powered flashing LED
lights, so not only does it make the costume safer to wear at night, but
it looks like Soundwave is equipped with some kind of intermittent laser
sights. Also, the eject button on the shoulder is made of a spongy
foam, so you can actually press the button and it will spring back into shape
afterwards.
Designing the proper articulation was very important,
since the costume would be completely useless if I couldn't move around in
it. I bolted the forearms to the upper arms to create a hinge,
designed to deliberately limit the movement of the joint so the forearms
wouldn't flop around all over the place. I did the same with the shoulders,
which are attached to the body and are designed to swivel and pivot a
little. The panels on either side of Soundwave's knees (which
are actually several layers of double-thick cardboard glued together) served
to likewise limit the movement of the upper legs. The face mask has
a large rubber band attached to it that wraps around the back of my head,
so the mask actually moves with my jaw when I speak. One element that
you don't see too often in robot costumes are the hands, built out of cardboard
with 15 moving joints apiece, with blue cotton gloves underneath. They're
surprisingly versatile; I can still open doorknobs and carry objects (like
the gun) while I'm wearing them.
Most of the colors were done with several coats
of spray paint, though I did paint some of the fine details (like the chest
window and Decepticon insignia) by hand. It took about ten cans of
spray paint to get the job done, plus a couple more cans of clear acrylic
spray to try to stop the paint flaking off the packing tape. When wearing
the costume, I put on a black sweatshirt and black pants so that any visible
clothing inside the joints would be relatively inconspicuous. I also
put on some costume make-up to cover my neck and nose, the only parts of
my skin otherwise visible in the costume.
Wearing the costume was a physical challenge unto
itself. When I'm wearing it, I can't walk very fast or take very large
steps, which also precludes me from climbing stairs. (In the two days
I wore it, dozens of people must have asked me, "How do you walk in
that thing?" I usually replied, "Very slowly.") It's also really
easy to lose my balance; I discovered this on Halloween night when I tripped
over the sidewalk curb! More than anything else, though, it disappointed
me that my vision and hearing were adversely affected with the helmet and
goggles in place, since I'm told I missed out on some very flattering comments
about my costume.
Comments: I started this costume in August,
and it took me about two months to build and paint. (I've seen lots
of other fan-made Transformers costumes, and while I've seen a handful of
other Soundwave projects, most of them seem to be based on the toy rather
than the cartoon model.) If I had to do it all over again, there are
a handful of things I'd probably do differently (I'm not really pleased with
the way some of the tape wrinkles are visible, and I've got to find a way
to stop that paint from flaking off), but for a first attempt, I'm more than
suitably pleased. This costume also won first place at the Halloween
costume contest at Wal-Mart, and I was awarded a $50 gift card. Get
down, Soundwave!
Also, in 2006 I was alerted to the fact that my
costume makes an appearance in an issue of the CSI: Dying in the Gutters
comic book by IDW Publishing. Apparently somebody was looking for
inspiration for a scene in which a person in a robot costume attends a comics
convention, and they used images of my costume from this very page for
inspiration. (The colors aren't quite right, of course, but the likeness
is unmistakable.)
As of 2009, this page pops up in the top five
search results for the keywords "soundwave costume" in a search pool of over
229,000 web sites. Thank you very much for visiting the ZMFTS!
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Photographs by Laurie Edwards
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