Wednesday Update - October 30th, 2024

Good day, and welcome to another Wednesday! You know those weeks that are REALLY busy, but when you look back, there really isn't anything you got done?

Welcome to my last week.

VoltCon

Last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday was prepping for and setting up at VoltCon. VoltCon Tony was really irritated at Past Tony for all the bloody frakkin' keychains he had to unpack and set up! Saturday and Sunday were the convention, and Kat and I did pretty okay. We made a bit of money, we found some cool stuff, and we saw some people we really only see once a year. Needless to say, I'm already looking forward to next year.

We got home on Sunday, and almost everything is still packed up in trunks because I haven't had the energy to get everything unpacked. Still, the Etsy shop opened back up last night, and I'm getting some stuff printed and restocked, while prepping for the OTHER show of 2024 in a few weeks.

Ghostbuster

With the convention, I haven't had a chance to work on my Ghostbuster costume much. This past week, however, I did receive an email from Hasbro asking me to make sure my address is up to date, because the Two in the Box HasLab is getting close to shipping! With that, I'll be able to mark off a pretty big item from my costume. I've also picked up a set of Spirit Halloween Ecto Goggles, and they're now with my 3D-printed set so I can look them over, and figure out how to yank them apart and improve them with some of the 3D-printed bits, along with a new head strap. Finally, I've been looking at my gray elbow pads, and wondering what I could do to make them look a little closer to what was worn on screen. You can see photos of all of these over on the Google Photos album for this post.

Support

I've had a few people ask me how they could support what I'm working on. I'm going to be honest, the money from Troxell's Trading Post goes to keeping it running, and I'm working on paying off the debt accrued from the fight to get my kiddo last year, along with some car issues. So if you like the stuff I'm doing, like the prop building and the costuming stuff, and you have more money than you need, feel free to visit one of the following sites:

• Ko-fi - Here, you can buy me a cup of tea or three. I have a goal listed on the page, and the money will get set aside until I reach that goal. When I say "set aside," it's not like Kickstarter. I get the money, I'm just personally going to set it aside until I hit my goal.
• Throne - Wishlist website. Nice repository of items I would like. Nice for the holidays or birthday.
• Amazon - I mean, we all know what Amazon wishlists are. Here's the one full of "consumables" I keep going through, like glue, paints, sandpaper, mixing sticks, and more.
• Mailing List - This isn't financial support, it's just support for me. Visit my info page, and sign up for the Troxell Builds - The Works and Thoughts of Tony Troxell email newsletter.

Everything Else

This coming week is going to involve unpacking of VoltCon items, firing the printers back up, and seeing if I can wrap up the assembly of the Belt Gizmo for the Ghostbusters costume. This is all around catching my nephew in a musical on Friday, and helping my father sort some of Mom's things on Saturday.

Finally, next Wednesday will probably be an off-week for the blog. It's November 6th, and this whole household is going to be a nervous wreck. So look for me on BlueSky or Instagram. In the meantime, please remember that the world kinda sucks, so please try not to make it suck more. In fact, if you can, please try to make it suck less.

Be excellent to each other,
Tony

Wednesday Update - October 23rd, 2024

 Hey there, everyone. We have successfully made it to another Wednesday.

BUT AT WHAT COST?!?!?!?!

Okay, in all seriousness, I hope everyone has had a pretty decent week. I'm going to be honest, I've been in convention prep mode since I last wrote on the blog, so I really don't have much to go over this week.

I guess the one thing I DO have to go over is that I'll be at VoltCon here in Indianapolis on Saturday and Sunday. I'm tabling in the Space Mall with Troxell's Trading Post, and I'm going to have the Etsy shop shuttered over the weekend as I hopefully sell off some of the stock I've had for a bit. For those who aren't aware, VoltCon is a convention that celebrates the whole "giant robot cartoon" genre, with a focus on, of course, Voltron, which is having its 40th anniversary this year. They have guests, a good-sized vendor hall, and it's a pretty tight-knit, welcoming crew. I've been to three of the last four, first as a blogger then as a vendor, and I've had a good time at all of them. If you're in the area, and like big robots, visit their website and get your tickets now!

Anyway, prepping for the show hasn't just involved getting product around. It's also involved getting displays around for the show table. Shelving, spin racks, dang near everything is 3D printed. No, it's not for "branding," it's because printing a spin rack is cheaper and probably more stable than ordering one off Amazon. I've also been busy printing some new lower-priced items, like keyrings, and cutting some prices pretty deep on some of my larger items, like dice towers.

So, that's pretty much it. I've got some stuff on order, so next week will probably be a bit more wordy, and it'll actually have pictures again. In the meantime, please remember that the world sucks out there. Try not to make it suck any worse and, if you can, try to make it suck a little less. Get out there and vote, and I'll see you next week.

Be excellent to each other,
Tony

Wednesday Update, October 16th, 2024

 Hey there, everybody. We are back with another Wednesday, and we've got a little bit to go over. I'm back in the office/print room this week, since vacation is over and I'm back to facing real life. Facing that started on Wednesday, as the post was scheduled to go out I was out with my kiddo getting our boosters for Covid and Flu, as well as some other shots we were both in need of. That kind of threw off the rest of the week, with Lizz and I mainly leaving the house to run errands but otherwise staying home, cleaning stuff up, starting to winterize Knox, and starting to get things prepped for VoltCon which is a week from this coming Saturday. Also, today is my father's 80th birthday, so happy birthday Dad!

On the 3D printing front, everything I've been doing the past week has been to prep for that. I've been taking care of some extra product, and I've been trying to figure out my table setup and printing pieces for that. I mean, if you look around, you can find retail displays for a lot of stuff. I have a keychain rack with trays for small little critters, I have a magnet display that will also have some matching keychains, I have an earring display with space in the center for extra stock, and I have stands for wood shelving that I need to complete this week so I can sand and stain the wood this weekend.

The Twitch streaming has been on hold because of the trip, the vaccines, and this past Monday was a work holiday, so Lizz and I went and cast our ballots early. By the time this posts, I should be wrapping up my Wednesday morning stream, and things should be back to normal on the Twitch account moving forward.

Speaking of Monday, after we cast our ballots and went out for breakfast, Lizz and I took a quick swing over to Spirit Halloween where I picked up a Ghostbusters Radio because I figured, if it's the wrong model, I don't want to put a lot of work into it. This one, I can print a replacement "Motorola" label to go over the Ghostbusters markings, make a new holster for it, and call it a day. After we got that taken care of, I got settled at the dining room table, pulled out the 3D print of the "belt gizmo" for my costume, and got to work.

Rant incoming.

While the file set looks really good, the tolerances are something that my machine is not set up for, because NOTHING on this piece is fitting right. On top of that, there are absolutely no instructions. I have been slowly going through all the parts and comparing them to images I snipped out of the Etsy listing, and assembling it that way. Of course, in assembling, once I figure out where a piece goes, I then need to start trimming and sanding down the base so it actually fits on the "circuit board" body, and some of these pieces aren't much bigger than a pencil eraser. I've put many hours into it already, and I'm only about halfway done and my hands are crying foul. Oh, and once I have it almost done, I still need to figure out what wires go on it, I need to figure out how to wire some lights onto it, and I need to make the holder and clip to attach it to the belt. I'm going to be honest, without the wires and lighting, this should have been a one-day build, max. I'm a little frustrated, but it's going to get done, and it'll work until I either find the real calculator used, or I get one of the $200 replicas.

This coming week, it's more cleaning and getting ready for VoltCon. I've still got shelves to build, I need to finish assembling the displays to see if I have everything printed, and I need to tape off the size of the table onto the dining room table so I can figure out if everything I have fits! Other than that, I'm going to continue to fight this belt gizmo so I can move on to other parts of the costume, like the Ecto Goggles and figuring out how to keep the hose from falling out of the holder.

With that, I'm going to wrap this up. I've had a full day, and my hands are still screaming from the hour and a half I worked on the gizmo this morning. Don't forget to take a peek at this week's photo album to get some WIP pictures of the gizmo, along with some vaccine selfies, the radio, and some other parts to the Ghostbuster jumpsuit. In the meantime, please remember the world kinda sucks right now. Try to avoid making it worse and, if you can, see if you can make it better.

Be excellent to each other, and I'll see you next week.

Tony

1984 "Stantz" Ghostbuster Costume - An Introduction

Back on the old Geeking in Indiana blog, I had a section called the “Costume Initiative.” It was where I would post updates on costumes I happened to be working on, like a Star Wars: The Last Jedi Resistance Pilot, or a Vault 101 Vault dweller from Fallout 3. With the retiring of Geeking in Indiana and the move to Geek Building, then Troxell Builds, a special section like that wasn't necessary, because now it's all about stuff I'm making and doing. Still, I did like doing the introductions which gave a history of me and the Costume, what I was looking to make, and all that jazz. So here we are today, talking about the Costume I posted pictures of a few weeks ago, the 1984 Ghostbuster.

A History

I was around 7 years old when the original Ghostbusters film came out, and the main thing I remember was ticking my father off because I REALLY had to pee right as they turned off the containment grid. It was at Sky Vue Drive-In over in New Castle, and we never saw what happened until it started running on HBO months later. We saw Ghostbusters 2 at the Castle Theater in downtown New Castle, and of course, I watched The Real Ghostbusters every Saturday morning. Things were kinda pushed to the back burner in the early 90s, when I really fell down the Star Trek rabbit hole before getting back into Star Wars in the late 90s. Luckily, in 2002, I was fortunate to meet Sean “venkman71” Bishop. We became friends, and with some other folks we made some fiberglass proton pack shells using measurements he'd been gathering from his sources (I'm not sure what the statute of limitations on that is, so it's just sources). I had one of those pack shells until I finally got it built in 2006, and the finishing was a rush job for Halloween. That pack ended up in the Storage Unit of No Return out in California, so I didn't have anything when a group of us rented out a theater to see Ghostbusters: Afterlife during the pandemic. By this point, I had started to get back into at least looking into making a new costume. I had a new ‘’TROXELL” name badge and a new No Ghost patch. I was slowly buying bits off GBFans.com whenever I had the spare scratch, and I found the 3D Printed Ghostbusters Props group on Facebook. This is what really got me back into wanting to remake the costume.

A Plan

The interesting thing about the 3D printed proton pack files is you can print each “section” of the pack individually, much like how a bunch of resin parts got put together to make the mother mold for the fiberglass pack. Well, filament comes in different colors including, well, clear. This revelation got me on the path I am now.

While I'm not looking to cosplay Dan Ackroyd's character, I AM looking at replicating Ray's gear in the 1984 film. The reasoning for this is actually kind of simple. There's no SINGLE DEFINITIVE pack or costume to replicate. Parts on each were a little different, they didn't all carry ghost traps, PKE Meters, and Ecto Goggles, so if you're like me and enjoy making costume and prop pieces as screen-accurate as you can, you kind of have to grab one character from one scene in one movie and focus on that. I'm choosing Stantz, and specifically the Sedgwick Hotel “version” for a few reasons. First, he has the goggles and Ghost trap, both of which I really like. Second, his pack in those scenes had a broken corner up by the blue light bar, which made it look like a pair of lights were up there. I believe they replicated this with actual lights in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which I forgot about a few paragraphs up but I did, and still do, play the heck out of. I'm planning on replicating this by printing that section out of clear filament and scraping the black paint off.

Anyway, this is getting long. So, right now, the question is, where am I sitting with this costume?

A Rundown

First up, we have the “uniform.” The flight suit is a Tru-Spec, which is “close enough” for now,

and it's what a lot of the Ghostbusters cosplayers use, so it does look “uniform” in a group. You've seen what I have for that, what with the patches, the elbow pads (volleyball knee pads), and the belt. The boots are jump boots with a side zipper, so that is one of the next pieces I'll be buying, because black Doc Martens just aren't the same. The belt has a pair of key fobs that I BELIEVE match Stantz's, though I do need to double-check to make sure I haven't misplaced one. I still need to make and attach the “belt gizmo” and holster to it, as well as make a radio and holster for it, which is where I have run into an issue.

All the radios you see for the costumes, including the ones they sell at Spirit Halloween, are based on a Motorola MT-500 radio, which I have some fantastic files for that I've already printed. HOWEVER. It seems that Ray, in addition to not saying “YES” when he was asked if he was a god, carried a completely different Motorola, the HT-220, which as you can tell is making me SO HAPPY.

So, for right now, I'm sticking with “close enough.”

The Ghost Trap is going to be simple, because I have a HasLab “2 in the Box” set of Ghost Trap and PKE Meter on order, and I just can't replicate a trap for as cheap as that excellent toy runs me, so that's also “close enough.”

The Ecto Goggles are the piece I'm looking forward to making as soon as I'm done making the Belt Gizmo. I have had some 3D files printed for a while now, and I'm going to clean those up so nary a layer line will be seen before replacing some printed parts with metal, making the cushion around the frame, and making the head strap, before popping it all together with real snaps and rivets. 

This leaves the Proton Pack. The big piece. Luckily, I don't have to worry about making it vent or have an overheating effect, or anything like that. I have to replicate this piece that was built in the early 80s, made out of really thin fiberglass, that used one of those big flashlight batteries on the inside to light everything up. I've already printed one version of the Proton Pack, but it's not what I'm going to be using. As I've gotten better printers, and learned more about what it takes to print a solid replica, I'm slowly reprinting parts of it and stashing them away. I also already have actual Clippard valves, Legris elbows, and other bits that I'm not going to have to print copies of, but instead, figure out how to attach them to the 3D printed pieces. I'm going through the same with the particle thrower, except I'm also trying to figure out the mechanism to make the tip of the thrower pop out. Once I have all that figured out and together, I just need to buy a “motherboard” to mount everything to, and a reinforced Alice Pack frame from one of the Circle City Ghostbusters, and the pack is good to go, along with the rest of the costume.

A Closing

So, I'm going to start finding an hour or two every week to work on the costume, starting with the gizmo. I still need to order some wires, and I need to figure out how to light everything up. Once that's all together and figured out, I need to cut and dye the leather holder for it before I can move on to the Ecto Goggles.

So keep an eye on the Wednesday updates, where I'll be posting WIP pics. Then, when I'm finished with a part, I'll do a Ghostbusters Costume Update, with the WIP photo album and write up of where I got it, what I did, what issues I had, and so forth.

I hope this is something that interests some of you. I know it's a well-tread path, one I've even walked myself. However, I know I've learned a lot in that time, and if I write down something that helps someone down the line, then I feel it was worth my time to document it.

Wish me luck, and I hope you all enjoy the ride.

Tony

Wednesday Update, October 9th, 2024

Happy Wednesday, everybody! It's starting to look like the blog is indeed back, what with having two weekly posts in a row! We just got back yesterday from Ohio, but I was able to bring a tablet with me to read over the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition PDF. I realized that as it's nice out in the afternoon and everyone is dozing, I could just bring this to the picnic table by the bus, and start writing. So here we are, writing a blog post, my first Troxell Builds email newsletter, and starting my GB Gear plan post. But first, what were we doing in Ohio?

Kat's fall break started this past Friday. After realizing we wouldn't be able to join the family in Tennessee due to his fall break not syncing with his nephew's, we decided we'd instead hit the Ohio Renaissance Festival. Plus, we figured if we're in the area anyway, let's go ahead and check out Jungle Jim's and the Cincinnati Zoo. To save about $400 on hotel fees, we brought Knox the Bus and the Cardis with us, along with a large tent and canopy. Our “hotel” from Friday night until Tuesday morning was the Caeser Creek State Park campground, which was only about ten minutes away from the Ren Fest. I'm not going to go into too many details, but the family had a good time overall and wants to do at least the Ren Fest again.

Jumping over to Troxell's Trading Post, it has been in vacation mode while we were gone, and it just got fired back up today. I've got about a dozen new products to add, and I'm planning on getting at least one a day thrown up. I'm holding a “Back from Vacation Sale” to celebrate through Sunday, so if there is something you've had your eye on, this is the time to get 20% off pretty much everything, no code required. So go, grab those Screaming Opossum Earrings while they're still available.

I know I showed off some Ghostbusters gear last week, and it's still VERY much on my “to-do” list moving forward. I've just, you know, been in Ohio, as well as prepping for the Ohio trip, and now catching up after the Ohio trip, as well as starting final prep for VoltCon at the end of the month, and the Artisians and Authors Fair in Anderson next month. However, like I said, I've got another blog post I'm working on that'll come out, maybe Friday? In that post, I'm going to lay out what I've got, what I'm working on, and most importantly, what I'm hoping to accomplish with it. In the meantime, keep an eye on my Instagram and BlueSky feeds, because that's where I post most of my updates.

Finally, I'm back to streaming! Talking and Tea with Tired Tony on Twitch happens every Monday and Wednesday morning, and I'll sip on some tea while talking with folks in the chat while cleaning up the town in PowerWash Simulator. Feel free to join in from 9-10 AM EDT every Monday, and 8:30 to 10 AM every Wednesday.

With that, I'm going to leave you all with vacation pictures in this week's photo album, along with some teasers of items going up on the Trading Post, and what I'm working on next. In the meantime, please remember the world kinda sucks right now. Try to avoid making it worse and, if you can, see if you can make it better.

Be excellent to each other, and I'll see you next week.

Tony