“I am Magneto, master of magnet.” – X-Men arcade game

Welcome back to Panzers Costume Corner! If you read my last blog – you knew I was attempting to build a SWTOR Panzer costume. After accessing the costs and the time involved in pursuing that project … well, let’s just say I would hate to have to sell the house to pull it off. So, I decided with Halloween just around the corner that I would return back to my Magneto build from a few months back.

If you failed to see my Helmet build when it was happening here is a couple of picture to show you the end results.

The helmet itself is flawed, and due to the horrible dust that the bond was covering my house from the sanding – I needed to stop the smoothing process early. However, it still looks passable and for a Halloween costume it will be perfect. With the helmet done – the next iconic piece that needs to be tackled is the Collar.

The Magneto Collar serves two main purposes: Firstly it holds the cape down in place and secondly it changes the direction that the martial flows. In the comic book world hero/villain capes tend to defy gravity with physics not even being a factor in the way they flow. However, in the real world, capes always flow one way… down. This tends to make capes extremely difficult to represent.

Anyways, the cape is for another day. Let’s get cracking at the collar! First things first. We need a template. After screwing around getting all the materials ready and planting my poor bat-mannequin (without his arms and legs) on my kitchens island I am ready to begin!

Using anti-fatigue mats or Eva foam Pieces are cut…

Pieces are laid out on the bat-mannequin whom we will name “Bob” (as that will be his civilian name) and held down with duct tape…

Heat gun is prepared. And used to shape the collar. Once the heat has shaped the pieces into the look I’m going for.

Pieces of trim are cut out of foamies and laid on the collar.

Next its time to make some Styrofoam balls my bitch. All glued onto the collar.

Now to bring out the Plastidip! Plastidip is a rubberized spray that can be used to seal the foam. Without it you cannot paint Eva foam as the foam will absorb all of the paint. This creates a rubber cover that can be painted!

Too be continued…