Author Topic: Andalite costume idea  (Read 4034 times)

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Offline Dogman15

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Andalite costume idea
« on: March 16, 2011, 11:25:41 PM »
:andalite:

Most special-effects centaurs in films (like the Narnia films) are made this way: The actor is costumed from the waist up (barechested or something modest, depending on gender), plus their makeup, hairstyle, and "horse ears" added. They wear all-green (or all-blue) pants that are edited out later and replaced with a CGI horse body.

In my idea for a Andalite costume, I depart significantly from this. Since Andalite bodies are smaller than horses (closer to the flank height of a deer) this makes it easier. Centaurs are taller than humans, because of their large horse bodies, Andalites, on the whole, are just as tall as humans: five to six feet tall.

First of all, the rear, "horse" part of the Andalite costume would be entirely mechanical. The "butt" area hold a motor and computer that drives the rear legs, which can be operated remotely, but their primary mode of operation is on automatic: The user walks forward, pulling the body, and the rear legs walk automatically. Running, which would require a galloping "animation", is not supported at this time, and CGI is recommended here. The Andalite costume's tail is fully remotely operated, by someone nearby. It cannot move as fast as a real Andalite tail, but it can move fairly quickly, by the way of powerful motors and joints. The blade can be made of metal or plastic.

The majority of the rear Andalite body in this costume is hollow and empty, save for the rear legs motor and tail mechanism. There is an option for the user to disattach their main body costume from the rest of the costume, by way of hidden zippers. If they need to leave their costume for a short break, there is a support stick ("kickstand", though you don't kick it) that slides out of the body cavity on a track and hinges down to touch the ground and hold up the costume while no one is wearing it, in much the same way as the user's legs would hold up the costume while it is being worn.

The user wears shoes that resemble an Andalite's hooves, but due to the different shapes and sizes of human and Andalite feet, some "corners" must be "cut". The pant legs are very tight, like spandex, and colored like an Andalite.

Picture for a moment, if you will, a cast member at a Disney park wearing a Flik or Atta costume, or something physically similar to it. (Flik and Atta are ant characters from Pixar's A Bug's Life.) The body part they wear is stiff and resides outside their "underclothes". Their legs stick out from holes in the bottom of the "shell", as do their arms (I assume). This is how the majority of the Andalite "human" torso is constructed. The arms are covered in a thin sleeve (like pant legging material) that of course is light blue. The user wears special gloves that have seven fingers each. The sixth and seventh finger are controlled directly by the movement of the fifth finger (the pinky), by way of small sensors in the hand powered by motors attached to the inner side of the chest piece, via small electrical wires.

Retcon here: If you want moveable sixth and seventh fingers, you can't have the really thin sleeves-for-arms. The arms would have to be opaque to allow for small wires powering the extra finger motors. You can't have that much contraptional junk in the hand!

Like most professional costumes where the wearer may get overheated (or like astronauts' suits), the Andalite costume features a cooling system that works by cooled water pumped in small transparent tubes throughout the area where the user's body is. The extra "horse" body that comes as part of the Andalite costume gives an added bonus of having extra space to store the water source for such a system. This water pump can be turned off and disconnected from the pipes if the user wants to separate from the "horse" body for any reason.

Now we get to the head. The nostrils of the nose have holes in the mask, which are used for breathing from the mouth. An optional feature is a small lapel/lavalier microphone like this: http://www.alpha-music.com/productcart/pc/catalog/654566565656X.jpg, which amplifies the user's voice, as if it were thought-speak, through loudspeakers hidden in the "horse" body.

There are two options for the eyes. One is to be like most masks where there are holes for the eyes, which the user can see out of. This allows for a mask where the eye holes are right up against the user's eyes to simulate real eyes.

The other option calls for a slightly larger mask, and motorized Andalite eyes which look like real Andalite eyes. These eyes are directly in front of the user's eyes, and their motion is controlled by the motion of the user's eyes. The user wears special glasses that have sensors built into them that track eye movement, as well as displaying a 3D view of what the cameras in the Andalite eyes see. These glasses function only as virtual reality devices, and do not work like regular glasses, sunglasses, or 3D glasses which allow light through. These glasses only work with the eye/camera VR system hookup.

Optional: The ears may be motorized and controlled remotely by someone nearby.
Not optional: The stalk eyes are controlled remotely by somebody else, and fortunately, do not function as visual aids, as this would confuse the viewer if he had a Picture-In-Picture view of what those cameras see in the corners of his vision. (Though I suppose that's a possible option too, though the user wouldn't have control over what he sees, it'd be at the whim of his friend what he makes the stalk eyes look at.)

What am I missing? Uh... obviously (to me), the mask extends down the neck below the "body shell". I guess that's it.

Did I miss something? Do you have other or better ideas to add? How much do you think this would cost? Would you wear one? Am I crazy?

At some undetermined point in the future, I will work on my idea for a Hork-Bajir costume.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2011, 11:36:52 PM by Dogman15 »

Offline Blaise Zebrataur

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2011, 01:23:44 PM »
Wow I think that it is all very cool and a good idea.I like it alot.

I think you got everything in that post right there.

Offline DinosaurNothlit

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2011, 04:30:12 PM »
Yes, you are crazy . . . but in a good way, I think.

I like this idea very much, but I do think it is a little ambitious, perhaps.  Are you actually planning to do this yourself, or just hand it over to a company that does really complex costume designs?  Do you have access to the sorts of resources you'll need, like mechanical parts and latex and silicone?  Do you have friends that would help you out?

If this is something that you are actually planning to do, I'm just worried that it won't turn out as amazing as it sounds, and I don't want you to set yourself up for disappointment.  But if you're willing not to give up at the first few failures, and stick with it as long as it takes to get it right, then this could very well turn out to be an absolutely amazing costume.

Just out of curiosity, have you designed costumes before?

Offline QIfry

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2011, 05:29:56 PM »
Oh, wish I could introduce you to a guy who does special effect on bodies.

Offline Dogman15

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2011, 12:01:20 AM »
Yes, you are crazy . . . but in a good way, I think.

I like this idea very much, but I do think it is a little ambitious, perhaps.  Are you actually planning to do this yourself, or just hand it over to a company that does really complex costume designs?  Do you have access to the sorts of resources you'll need, like mechanical parts and latex and silicone?  Do you have friends that would help you out?

If this is something that you are actually planning to do, I'm just worried that it won't turn out as amazing as it sounds, and I don't want you to set yourself up for disappointment.  But if you're willing not to give up at the first few failures, and stick with it as long as it takes to get it right, then this could very well turn out to be an absolutely amazing costume.

Just out of curiosity, have you designed costumes before?

:XD: :rofl: Are you kidding? I could never do this. It's a fun idea, but I have no intention whatsoever of actually doing this, making it. It's just an idea that could hypothetically work, and I already have in my head a similar idea for a Hork-Bajir costume. (No set date for that idea's release.) I just posted it here for you guys to disseminate.

Post Merged: March 18, 2011, 12:01:58 AM
Oh, wish I could introduce you to a guy who does special effect on bodies.

That won't happen in person, but tell me more.

Offline DinosaurNothlit

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2011, 12:17:19 AM »
Haha, I feel silly.  :XD:  You just went into so much detail that I assumed that you were actually planning this.

But who knows?  Maybe some bigwig movie designer will someday see this and think "That could work."

Offline Dogman15

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #6 on: March 18, 2011, 12:33:43 AM »
Maybe some bigwig movie designer will someday see this

 :rofl: :rofl: You're just in a joking mood tonight, aren't you? IF ONLY people with power in the movie industry would pay attention to Animorphs... Chances are even slimmer that they would look here.

*psh*

(No hard feelings on you, of course.)

Offline Blaise Zebrataur

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2011, 04:53:17 AM »
The way people work on just centaurs for movies shows that they don't really work to make it seem real.Yeah Narnia was good with some shots but it needed more feel and more real look to it

So to me before they could even want to do Andalites,they would have to fix their centaur costumes and such,and after that Andalites would be a tad easy but not by much.

Offline Dogman15

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #8 on: March 21, 2011, 03:42:46 AM »
:bump: I've got my Hork-Bajir idea posted now!

Offline QIfry

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Re: Andalite costume idea (highly detailed hyopthetical write-up)
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2011, 01:55:59 PM »
Sudden thought, if you were saw The Lion King on Broadway, people that were four legged animals in the "Circle of Life" part had the backside attached to their backs, full articulated legs and feet/hooves, and thin sticks that attached from the hoof to a little wrist band around the actor's hands.

Offline Liz

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Re: Andalite costume idea (I guess you guys are done with this?)
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2011, 09:03:54 PM »
This is a really good idea!  I was researching the same thing a while ago myself, but was thinking more about a homemade deal than something that would be in a movie.  I can't imagine them not using CGI for the latter, seems like it'd be so much easier.  Not that I know anything about that.

My idea for the hind legs was to run some kind of cord from the front feet, along the body and down to the back, and move them that way.  Good luck walking in "hoof" shoes though.



And I found a picture from Lion King:



Seems like you could reverse it and have it work for an Andalite costume.

Hmm...how did they do it on the TV show, anyway?

Offline Dogman15

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Re: Andalite costume idea (Conversation revived!)
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2011, 11:36:25 PM »
If you modify those "hoof shoes", I suppose you would have something that the user could wear for the Andalite front legs. And as for that thing from The Lion King broadway musical (remember book 26 where they saw a sample performance at school?), I don't see it being easy to reverse that for an Andalite costume. See the guy operating it? He's using his hands to move the cheetah's front legs.

I still think my idea of motorized mechanical legs that can be remotely operated or work automatically work best. Think of it like front-wheel drive on a car.