The Adventure Begins - Part Two~

November 7th - It was a day like any other day, but a sun day, so I needed something to protect my face from the sun, stat. So I needed to strike an epic pose, and begin working.

Coolie Hat construction complete.
A close-up of the emblem I etched out.
A layer of stain was applied in the wee hours of the night, the color is off due to flash not giving it justice, but I'll get a daytime picture of the finished product eventually.
I love doing work after the house goes to sleep, everything is silent, and the only sounds you hear are your own breathing and your brush strokes. It's great to have uninterrupted peace time.

The Adventure Begins~

November 5th - Oh joyous joy, the funds to purchase materials wasn't there, so my plans were delayed. I received the check later in the day, and set out to purchase materials.

Here is me with the boards of pine for the coolie hat~

November 6th - The work begins after class.
This is the trusty jigsaw that will tear through my pine~
Two pieces completed.
Eight pieces completed.
All pieces completed.
At this point, I've tapered all the inner edges of the boards by 6 degrees with trusty Bertha, the precision saw you see with her feet in the shot. I've glued all the pieces together, and tomorrow I'll make the last piece for the gap, and that's where the claw icon will be dug in. The total of this portion of the project took about 4 hours to complete.

Oh, I also retrieved the bamboo staff early in the morning. Great success.

Weight loss - Ending in 11/5

Nov 2nd - 296.8
Nov 3rd - 296.6
Nov 5th - 295.4

Coolie Hat Version Paper.0 and Cad.0

Alright, so finally down to designing the actual model. I made a paper sized replica to scale to help myself build it in my mind. I found that creating the paper model eased a lot of my worries, including size, construction, cost and difficulty. I've been obsessing about how to make this hat for the past week, constantly running over my head the best way to approach it and finish the project, but actually sitting down and completing the measurements to scale, the drawings and the calculations, I was able to figure it out.

I found out that the shrinkage of radius for this hat is directly related to the height you want to go to, so the numbers crunched out evenly, and a 26'' diameter flat, will become a 5'' high hat at peak, with a 24'' diameter. I counted 11 pieces on the figurine model of the hat, and since they weren't uniform in shape, I decided to make arbitrary widths for each panel. There is some curvature to each drawing I've seen of the hat, but I figure it won't be an issue since I'll have to taper the interior edges of each panel, I can just glue it all together and sand the shit out of it until it's more rounded. Hopefully if time permits on Friday, I'll be able to start the wood construction of it, finish it, and stain it so that on Saturday, I'll be able to polyurethane it early in the morning and get to work on finishing touches like the aluminum, bolts, and fur.

The Goal

I haven't filled you guys in on what exactly I'm trying to build, so I'll post the reference images here.

Week Ending 10/31 - Weight

Oct. 25th - 302.1 lbs
Oct. 27th - 300.4 lbs
Oct. 29th - 300.0 lbs
Oct. 30th - 298.4 lbs

The Plan

10/24/2010 - The diet begins, in an effort to regain control of my weight gain, I've established an eating schedule that I will not eat out of. I am also forgoing any type of sugary drink, and only drinking water. Exercise will occur on any day that I do not work, as anything above a six hour shift is usually painful and exhausting. These exercise bouts will be 10 minutes of calisthenics, including sit-ups, push-ups, squats, leg raises, and stretching afterwards. I made the mistake of no stretching the first time, couldn't move my abs without intense pain.

11/23/2010 - The diet goes headstrong, replacing morning cereal with non-sugar substitute, and lunch with full fruit meal, dinner will be whatever mother serves.

12/22/2010 - The start of P90-x, the murderous exercise routine that has a regiment of 90 days of 1hourish workouts, the exercising will be repeated forever?

The costume!
Here comes the fun~
Bamboo Staff - 11/5/10 Purchase, stain, red-ribbon
Coolie Hat - Done by November 20th, stained, assembled, tested for headwear and attached with string and fur
Panda gloves - Done by December 30th, stuffed, tested~
Panda Feet/Barrel - January 30th/February 30th I'm not sure what project I want to take first, these will take the most time because these are the things I'm most unfamiliar with.
Panda Head - March - the make it or break it of the costume~ looking forward to new ideas.
Kimono - April - By this time i'll have the hardest and most crucial elements of the costume done, as well as hopefully most of my weight lost
Finishing touches - April/May, a lot of the small things i'll need to work on - belt, bottles sustainability and mobility.

Obviously I would like to finish everything earlier than this schedule, but time and cost restraints occur, so we'll see how it flows ^_^

Welcome

A short introduction~

I am SyF the Giver, this blog is dedicated to the ultimate goal of creating a Pandaren Brewmaster costume and losing 80 pounds, going from 300 to 220~

I will be uploading pictures, commentary, and progress updates on this project, as well as interjecting personal posts and let's play videos. So let's begin on this epic adventure.