We Can ‘Harley’ Believe That It’s Been 30 Years Since Ms Quinn’s Debut…

That’s right, it’s been three dynamic decades since the psychedelic psychopath of print was first unleashed onto an unsuspecting comic book universe, much to the chagrin of The Batman, but conversely to the delight of millions of comic book fans, for Harley truly is… one of the greatest comic-book characters ever conceived, and if you don’t agree, then her beloved mallet would like to have a word with you!

Former psychiatrist, Dr Harleen Quinzel was originally an Arkham Asylum intern who, after prolonged psychology sessions with crazed clown The Joker, was coerced into thinking that Batman was the ultimate cause of Joker’s insanely murderous high jinks. Slowly falling in love with the irascible psychotic, Harleen eventually aided the mirthful murderer to escape the asylum and joined him on his insane crusade to dispense madness, murder and mayhem on the populace of Gotham City.

Ms Quinn was created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm and actually made her first ever appearance outside of the comic book format, on the critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series, in an episode titled “Joker’s Favour” which aired on the 11th September 1992.

Actress Arleen Sorkin was Paul Dini’s original inspiration for the clown princess of crime, after he caught her appearance in an episode of Days Of Our Lives, in which she appeared in a dream sequence wearing a Jester outfit. Dini and Sorkin had been friends since college, and he even incorporated certain facets of Arleen’s personality into the character (and, of course – Arleen/Harleen)

Though initially brought in as a throw away character, Harley proved so massively popular with the DC fanbase that she was ultimately ushered into DC Universe continuity in the 1994 graphic novel “Batman Adventures: Mad Love” which recounted her wild and wacky origin tale, written and drawn by her original co-creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm.

Harley of course has, since that time, become a fantabulously fun force to be reckoned with both on and off the comic-book page, starring in both animated and live action movies, and is also without a shadow of a doubt, THE most most popular choice for depiction amongst cos-players across the globe. 

Harley and Ivy Discuss… erm, Beavers!

Enough Already! My Ribs are Beginning To Ache!!

And So, Happy 30th Anniversary To That Marvellously Maniacal Mistress Of Mayhem – Harley Quinn!

*Please Note: No beavers were hurt during the production of this post, just tossed, stuffed, kidnapped (beaver-napped?) and made fun of… so that’s alright then!*

Happy Wonder Woman Day!

Great Hera! Today marks the official celebration of everyone’s favourite feisty fictional female, the Themysciran Titan – Wonder Woman!

That’s right fellow fans of fantastic female fiction, October 21st commemorates Diana’s first ever appearance in ‘All Star Comics #8’ which released in October of 1941 courtesy of her celebrated creator William Moulton Marston, and DC Comics. That’s a sensational seventy eight years in her illuminating presence!

We love Wonder Woman here in Precinct1313, she’s actually our favourite comic-book creation of all time (sorry Batsy!) and I personally have been reading and collecting Wondy comics, movies and memorabilia since I was a mere nine years of age, she has always been an inspiration to me. Unlike her superheroic peers, Diana doesn’t necessarily rely on her fists… her strength lies within her power to understand, and forgive, to first extend a hand of friendship rather than wield her sword. Diana’s mantra is love and compassion, and in the rather unpredictable world we live in today, she is very much the hero we need…

So, to honour the dynamic daughter of Queen Hippolyta and the pantheon of Greek Gods that bestowed the wondrous one upon us, let’s share in some inspirational, enlightening and quintessential quotes courtesy of the Princess of Themyscira. Happy Wonder Woman day, my astoundingly awesome Amazonian associates!

My Cosplay: Part 2

Greetings one and all…

OK, so I have been a little bit lazy, or a lot lazy in fact. It’s been 9 months since I first posted part one of, My Cosplay with the intention of bringing updates often, but sometimes life just gets in the way! So, in recognition of Precinct1313’s one year anniversary, I return with part two!!

In case anyone needs a reminder of the first part, it can be; found here.

At the end of my last post I was thinking about the best way of making the Terminus Assault Armour (from Mass Effect 2 and 3) using EVA foam, and that is still the case, and it seems that  was a good call, as it’s so easy to use! I posted a picture of a friend of mine testing a part of it for his Blood Dragon Armour (from Mass Effect 2).

Well, his final outfit came out very well indeed:

During the building of the costume we discovered that the EVA Foam came in many different sizes, at the time we made the costume we didn’t know this, and so we ended up using 10mm foam. This has the problem that in places where the foam overlapped it ended up VERY thick, in some places there are as many as three layers totalling up to 30mm, in fact when wearing this costume you are unable to bring your arms down to your side and end up walking around a little like a gorilla with your arms out! We have since found out that there is a 6mm EVA Foam, which would be much better for making costumes overall.

The building process is fairly straightforward, the hardest part is sizing yourself for the Pepakura files, otherwise your outfit is not going to be a good fit. Once this is done all you have to do is print it out on paper and cut out the shapes:

You will need a very sharp knife, beware the blade will blunt very quickly. Using a blunt blade will cause very rough edges which means you will have to spend more time having to smooth them off later on. Once cut out you will need a heat gun, you use the heat gun to blow hot air over the foam, this will help the foam to bend to shape, just hold it in the shape you want until it cools off and it will hold its new shape.

BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THE HEAT GUN! Oddly it gets VERY HOT, who would have thought!?

When you have it in the shape you want then you can use a hot glue gun to stick all the parts of foam together, again the HOT glue gun is VERY HOT!!!.

Just remember to number the left and right side parts, you don’t want to make half your helmet only to find that you put a left side part on the right, and find out nothing fits once finished!

The helmet it more or less finished at this stage, or the shape of it anyway. What needs to be done now is to sand it down smooth, and get rid of any hot glue that is still visible, then give it a good coat of filler to cover any gaps, and then paint! job done! The base shape here only took a few hours on a Sunday to do, so not overly long. Next I need to use a motorbike visor for the eyepiece in the centre.

That’s it for now! I’ll post more at some point soon(ish)!

My Cosplay…

Greetings friends, as I said in my last post about the London Film and Comic-con, I was inspired to cosplay at next years event. So, did I choose some thing nice and easy?… of course not! I have chosen to make a full set of Terminus Assault Armour from the game –  Mass Effect 3 (It was also in ME2 as a pre-order unlock).

So what does it look like you might ask, well….

I have been thinking that the best way to make this armour set would be by using Pepakura, this is a program that has a vast community of people supporting it and lets you print out on card (paper not recommended)  all sorts of models, including armour sets from most games/films. You just print out the patterns, stick them together and you have your armour.

There are many ways to go about making the set, one way is to use Fibreglass mesh, on top of the card shapes you make using Pepakura, and sticking the mesh on with Fibreglass resin, which when it eventually sets will leave you with a rock hard but very light set of armour.

I have however chosen to use EVA Foam, this is the same stuff they use to the make interlocking foam mats that you see at the gym. It’s very light, but tough, also its nice and flexible when heated using a heat gun and when it cools it retains it shape. The plan is to use Pepakura to print out the parts of the armour then trace around the parts on the foam and cut them out, and so far testing has been going well…

This is just a little test a friend and I did on a helmet for Mass Effect’s Blood Dragon Armour, the eye shield is part of a motorcycle visor. A Dremel tool can be used to smooth off edges and seams.

That’s all for now, I will post more as the project advances…