Some progress. Here's the finished missile now awaiting paint:
With this completed, I started work on the thrusters. Using the metal curtain rail ends as a base, I doubled up spare sintra for the cones and used greeblies I found in my bits box to create the inner circle detail. Since I can't cut into the metal balls with the tools I have, I'm having to stick them on top of it which isn't ideal and will require bondo to give the illusion that the detail is sunken in. I used small slices of sintra to use as support for this.
I'm not sure how sturdy these will be. Ever since I started this costume, I was concerned that the thrusters would be the most vulnerable part of the costume. Using the screw attached to the curtain balls, I built the connector out of 5mm PVC pipe (layered messily to the correct thickness) with a nut inside that the ball can screw onto (nuts, balls, screwing; if I was a lesser man, I stoop to making a joke
).
Essentially, the connector slots in to the fuel tanks. The two wooden dowels inside the pipe slot into an oval shaped hole on the far side of the tank, the 5mm PVC pipe slots through the centre of the tank and the overlapping pipe sits flush with the outer side of the tank. If that makes sense. Then, I'll epoxy the thrusters in their washers and bondo over the gap. This means they won't turn, but that's a sacrifice I'm happy to make. Especially since I'm sure people will love fiddling with them behind my back and I'm one of those people who'll be upset if there's a picture of me with random thruster directions.
In addition, I put together the jet pack stabilizer really quickly. Again, not terribly screen accurate, but it does it's job for free. A retired scalpel handle (my very first in fact) and two layers of sintra. Nothing has ben glued yet.
And finally, the keys for bolting the armour. Just regular keyboard keys (again free) sanded flat and gratuitous epoxy to attach the nuts inside. I'll bondo over the nuts just to be safe.
What I don't have pictures of are the gauntlets, which I finished painting after I enlarged them, and the interior of the helmet, which is now painted black to neaten things up.