It’s always an appropriate time to make a dwarven helmet, esp now that Punished Props Academy put this helpful build on YouTube:
On their quest to build everything from EVA foam they teamed up to create a LotR dwarf style helmet from just a few sheets of EVA foam. Follow along as they use simple tools and materials to transform this humble material into an epic, wearable piece of art.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Halloween is just around the corner. Everyone is a little anxious this year – with Covid 19 still threatening our neighborhoods and cities, we want to keep each other as safe as possible. But we all desperately need a little fun and connection, and Halloween really brings neighborhoods together.
So we’re happy to present this new tutorial from Erin St. Blaine: Sew a costume face mask over your real face mask, and keep those trick-or-treaters safe this year. This tutorial has three free downloadable sewing patterns to make an animal face or a spooky Plague Doctor mask, all of which can transform your look into something silly that will make the kids laugh when they come to your door. Or make one for your young trick-or-treater that will make her want to keep her mask on all night long.
From the guide:
Halloween is such a fun holiday, and traditionally includes mask-wearing to complete your costume. This year, face masks have been a daily fashion choice for many of us, so here’s a guide that focuses on making that face mask a little extra special for the spookiest day of the year.
Use colored felt to add a bird beak or monkey face to any face mask. Or create a “plague-doctor” style mask from
scratch to bring a bit of historical authenticity to your costume this year.
We’ve included printable patterns and sewing directions. You’ll need fabric and interfacing or craft felt, scissors, pins, and a sewing machine (or a needle and thread and some patience).
In this informative and fun Make: video, Caleb Kraft carves a pair of goat horns out of EVA foam. The video is a decent introduction of EVA foam-working, freeform sculpting with EVA, detailing, painting, weathering, and finishing this commonly-used cosplay and crafting material.
With two full moons this October — the second on Halloween proper — everyone’s got werewolves on the brain. Award-winning Dutch cosplayer Willow Creative is celebrating the occasion with an no-holds-barred, head-to-toebeans werewolf costume build, and you can follow her progress on social media.
Keeping the rest in proportion, 3D-printed finger extensions provide the framework for a correspondingly massive set of hand paws. STL files for the finger extensions came from Thingiverse…so again, we can all benefit from this work, no “behind the curtain” secrets in this costume build.
The torso, head and skin remain to be done. With just three weeks before Halloween, this will be an intense build! You can follow along with Willow Creative’s progress and cosplay insights on Instagram and Twitter.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Caeley Looney from Reinvented Magazine reached out to let us know all about their latest issue which features Erin St. Blaine, Adafruit tutorials and more!
Reinvented Magazine is proud to present its latest issue, and guess what? It’s maker themed! Issue No. 5, their most recent publication, features a wide variety of makers, innovators, and electronics aficionados. Here is a more in-depth look at the content you’ll find in this season’s magazine:
An exclusive interview with Svetlana from Kamui Cosplay, showing off her extraordinary maker-centric cosplay designs just in time for some Halloween inspiration;
A story highlighting the Maker Movement, including an exclusive interview with the founder of Maker Faire, Sherry Huss;
Their ‘Meet the Makers’ series featuring interviews with Julielynn Wong, MD; Maker and Nonprofit Founder, Xyla Foxlin; Ashley Awalt; Erin St. Blaine; and Lorraine Underwood; An interview with the Host of Mythbusters Jr., Allie Weber;
Articles providing an introduction to electronics, 3D printing, and hackathons; Do it yourself (DIY) article featuring one of Adafruit’s tutorials;
You can find all of this (and much more) in their latest issue, which is officially in stock on their website!
Reinvented Magazine is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to empower and inspire the next generation of young girls to pursue their passions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Through their One-for-One Program, for every magazine bought, they donate up to one magazine to a girl in a low-income or rural area without access to STEM education resources.
Get inspired with the latest tutorial from the magical workshop of Erin St Blaine: how to make an LED necklace insert that’s small, light, and compact with a USB-rechargeable battery and up to 23 addressable NeoPixels — all within a very low profile, 2″ wide package. Combined with a colorful resin “stone” and a gorgeous wire wrapped setting, this necklace would make a stunning addition to your cosplay (it looks like a magical amulet!) or can be classy enough to wear on the red carpet with a fancy evening dress. It’s versatile enough to slip into a top hat or belt buckle too, and we think it would also work for Iron Man or Steven Universe with a few mods.
From the guide:
Sometimes you want to add animated lights to your costume or project and you’re really limited on space. Necklaces are a great example of this – a glowing pendant can be so striking, but if it’s too big and bulky it can cross the line to “gaudy” pretty quickly.
This tutorial aims to make the smallest possible NeoPixel module or insert for your project. We’ve worked to make it super small, at around 1/2″ thick and about 2″ across.
This tiny package still contains all the niceties:
7-12 addressable NeoPixel lights
A compact on/off switch
A rechargeable battery with 4+ hours of battery life
Onboard USB charging capability
We’re using an ItsyBitsy M0 microcontroller, which can be programmed with CircuitPython, MakeCode or Arduino, so you’ve got lots of options, and we’ve included an easy-to-customize code sample as well.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
NYCC doesn’t stop just because we can’t do what we’ve done in the past. Instead, we look to the future: We may not be meeting in the queue hall each morning, but we’re excited to join forces with our sister event, MCM Comic Con in London, to bring you New York Comic Con’s Metaverse, our new online portal dedicated to delivering pop culture experiences, right into your homes NYCC weekend, October 8-11. We are partnering with YouTube to bring to life four days of incredible content from the biggest studios, publishers and creators in the business. This is your chance to interact with your favorite creators and celebrity guests, and most importantly, the opportunity to engage with other members of this vibrant community of ours. Metaverse October guest announcements, exhibitor profiles, and other information will be available at findthemetaverse.com.
Cosplayers might dress up elaborately for Halloween or Comic Con, and there are so many amazing costumes out there. Some have built towering costumes like Hulkbuster from the “Avengers” movies and Reinhardt from “Overwatch.” A dad turned his kids into convincing Transformers. Meanwhile, a man from Indiana made a terrifying Demogorgon from “Stranger Things” costume with a face that opens. Here are some of the best cosplays taking playing dress up to serious new heights.
Swing into summer with our latest tutorial from Erin St. Blaine: make a light-up, sound and motion reactive ukulele with NeoPixel strips and a Feather NRF52840 Sense microcontroller. The onboard microphone and accelerometer in the Feather Sense pick up the volume of your strumming, for a seamless sound reactive mode that works with all the different customizable LED animations.
This ukulele also has a motion-reactive mode and uses FFT technology for note-sensing. Pluck a high A note and the ukulele will cycle between animation modes. We think that’s pretty neat!
From the guide:
Ukuleles are little joy machines. They’re easy to play, portable, light, and really inexpensive – you can get a fairly good sounding one for around $40-$50.
This clear plastic ukulele from Kala simply begs to be upgraded with rainbow lights. Engineer an over-the top tacky Tiki musical experience for your audience at your next luau.
This LED ukulele goes even further, with loads of customizable animations and a sound reactive mode. Match your animation playlist with your song repertoire, and bring the music to life as your uke pulses along with your strumming.
We’ve also used the FFT capabilities of our hardware to add note-sensing to this project. Change animation modes or turn sound reactive mode on or off just by plucking a particular note on your fretboard.
And just for giggles, we’ve added a Guitar-Hero-style “Rockstar tilt” mode — tilt the neck of your ukulele up during your big finish to trigger a colorful lightning animation.
This ukulele is maika’i loa! (That’s Hawaiian for awesome..)
Cosplay wigs make your character come to life, Arda Wigs shared this video on Youtube!
Follow Victoria Bane as she creates this super fluffy texture!
Hot Tools Tip: Our CLASSIC fiber is heat-resistant up to 420°F / 215°C, and SILKY to 350°F / 175°C. We suggest using styling tools in the 250-300°F /120-150°C range to extend the lifespan of your wig.
This week we’re saddened to learn of the death of Ennio Morricone. Morricone was an Italian composer, most famous for his work on Western movie soundtracks. His Spaghetti Western scores are iconic and unique, and really defined the genre. That lonely cowboy music that plays in your head whenever you think of a Western — that was Morricone. The world has lost a fabulous artist. We would love to dedicate our newest project tutorial to his legacy.
Complete your Cowboy (or Space Cowboy) cosplay with this interactive LED Bullwhip build from Erin St. Blaine. This build uses a Feather nRF52840 Sense board and PropMaker Wing attached to a 6 foot leather whip. Two strands of sturdy NeoPixel dots provide the light. This is a fully usable, crack-able whip that fires animations both when the whip cracks (sound reactive) and when the whip swings (motion reactive).
From the guide:
This whip is made from a Feather NRF32840 Sense board soldered to a PropMaker wing. It’s got sound reactivity – whenever the whip cracks, a bright animation lights up the whole length of the whip.
But we can do you one better n’ that. This whip’s also got motion sensitivity, with two levels of swing-based animations, triggered by the motion of your arm. Choose your own custom colors and speeds to truly make it yours.
This project requires a bit of tricky solderin’ and a bit of patience. But the end result will complete you, and feed that little outlaw in your soul.
This new guide from John Park presents a fully modernized prop blaster hardware and software combo!
This guide is an overhaul of the Lucio Blaster project from 2017. You can use this as a leaping off point for any prop or cosplay element that requires lights, music, and triggered sound effects.
A lot has changed in three years, and the project has been greatly simplified, thanks to advances in hardware and software! We’ll now use the Feather M4 Express running CircuitPython and a Prop-Maker FeatherWing.
Thanks to dual-stream, native .mp3 playback in CircuitPython, we can eliminate the need for multiple pieces of hardware previously required to play music and sound effects at the same time, and the power, amplification, and NeoPixel driving circuits have been similarly simplified.
And speaking of NeoPixels — the LED animation library makes it astonishingly simpler to create highly awesome lighting effects!
Here’s a glorious chance to see Mermaid Glimmer, played by Adafruit’s staff writer Erin St. Blaine, performing live online at the California Mermaid Convention! The show is Friday July 10 at 3pm PDT (that’s 12pm EDT for you east-coasters).
Erin St Blaine, AKA Mermaid Glimmer, is the founder and owner of Fire Pixie Entertainment. She’s dedicated more than 15 years of her life to making kids laugh, smile, and believe in magic. Erin is an artist and maker, and the Mermaid Glimmer tail is a world-class marvel: it runs on a Circuit Playground Express and has over 180 NeoPixel lights onboard that change color and animate as she swims.
Mermaid Glimmer will sing and play her ukulele, tell stories, do magic tricks, and bring the world of mermaids and magic to life while encouraging creativity and a passion for science and nature. She’ll also do underwater tricks during her live show. Your kids will be glued to the screen.
There’s a lot going on, and since it’s online, you can attend from anywhere in the world! Score.
We hope to see you all there. Please tell your friends! The more the merrier, and we Mermaids are so grateful for all your help and support during this challenging time.
More about Erin and her Electronics Wizardry can be found at Erinstblaine.com
Join maker John Park in his workshop each week as he builds, demos, hacks, and mods projects live on air! “John Park’s Workshop — LIVE” is the place to see creative projects come to life, as John uses a wide variety of tools and techniques to make everything from mystery boxes to pinball controllers to drink robots, using digital fabrication, hand and power tools, microcontrollers, and more. Come on into the chat to participate in the fun! Every Thursday @ 4pm ET/1pm PT!
Most fans of video games and the cyberpunk genre are excited by the upcoming release in September of Cyberpunk 2077. This epic open-world game has been in the works for 8 long years.
Even though the game doesn’t even exist yet, it has already won numerous awards (mainly for most anticipated game) and has spawned a entire YouTube sub-genre of channels offering news, rumors, trailers, and gameplay analysis.
And cosplay. There’s always cosplay.
One of the cool aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 (and the original Mike Poundsmith tabletop RPG upon which it’s based) is that, in that fictional world, the genre of science fiction we know in the real world as cyberpunk from the 1980s, happened in that world, too. Then, in the near-future of that fictional world, as tech (and dystopianism) caught up with the ideas of the 80s fiction, the “high-tech low-life” world embraced cyberpunk as a culture, as a style. The fictional “dress” of cyberpunk was put on as reality.
So, in the world of Poundsmith’s Cyberpunk (and Cyberpunk 2077), style is everything. You get points in the gamne, street cred, for looking cool. The game will have tons of options for designing the look and style of your character.
This, of course, has been a boon already to cosplayers who’ve been pouring over game preview footage and re-creating some of the outfits and weapons. One of the most iconic images from the preview has been the neon-lit “Samurai” jacket.
In this serious of videos, cosplayer Andy Valentine creates his own version of the jacket.
And here is a video exploring the role of fashion in Cyberpunk 2077.
You can now play MP3 files directly in CircuitPython with no dedicated decoding hardware! You’ll be able to use this new capability in all sorts of projects, including this creepy Lars the Sloth voice box project!
Learn how to playback .mp3 files in CircuitPython on the Feather M4 or nRF52840, and how to use the Propmaker FeatherWing for tap detection sound triggering and audio amplification to a small speaker embedded right inside your adorable murder puppet.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
