The Rag and Bolt Man

Happy New Year meatbags!

So, nw that the winter is here, and planning for the next Humanity Ascendant LARP event is something for the future, I have the time to get on with a project I’ve wanted to do for some time but simply not had the capacity to undertake; a wasteland knight.

So this last week I’ve finally started this long imagined costume, and it’s been great! It’s also meant I’ve had an excuse to break out a new tool, an angle grinder. I’ve had it in its box for a couple of months, but at last I got it out to cut some metal pieces, of which there will be a great many for this wasteland knight costume.

I also intend to upcycle a metal traffic sign that was discarded and rescued, so that I can incorporate some colour into the build, and that’s mostly what I was cutting with my new angle grinder.

Anyway, I’ve been working on the sword arm armour, as that’s what inspiration struck me. It’s taken me a bit over a week of plodding along with the project to complete the whole arm, putting about 2 ish hours a day into it.

So here is my progress so far. Let me know what you think! I intend to give regular updates on my progress for the whole build over the winter, so you’ll get to see the project evolve with me.

Do any of you have any burning kit projects you want to start but just don’t have the time you’d like to share?

The Rag and Bolt Man
Or Chris, if you’d prefer.

Wow, what a fantastic weekend I had at Humanity Ascendant LARP Event 13, helping to run what was hopefully a successful and enjoyable LARP event for the attendees.

So, I hinted at some costume I was making earlier in the year but could not reveal it due to it being a secret revelation at Event 12, and I forgot to post about it in the mean time (d’oh!). Well, a new enemy revealed to the players has been Super Mutants, inspired by Fallout, and I got to create a whole wardrobe for them, from muscle tops and t-shirts to armour harnesses and even war skirts (using a load of the previously covered safety harnesses that were kindly donated by Ian). This meant that from the get go the Super Mutants had a much more coherent look as a group, which helps with LARPing.

I also got to develop a costume for a recurring NPC called the Hybrid, a super soldier infected with rogue nanites, turning him into something…… new. Unlike other npc costume I make, like the previous Super Mutants, this is one I will continually get to tinker with and adapt, whereas normally I get it to a decent standard and then leave it in the group kit storage (I’ve made so much costume for Humanity Ascendant I couldn’t possibly store it all myself).

So, here are a few pics of some of my costumes from over the weekend, as well as a few environmental props that were thrown out to be interactive. I will post more pics as they are discovered.

If you were at the event, let me know what you thought of the costumes up close and personal. Anyone else, please also comment on what you think of what I’ve made and where I can take it, maybe any future projects.

Thank you

The Rag and Bone Man (otherwise known as Chris the GM)

Well, today was a very productive day all round, especially with regards to kit making. Now, as I will always continue to mention I help to run Humanity Ascendant LARP, and with our next event just 34 days away, I needed to make a push on some kit that we will be needing for the next event for ….. reasons. (As an aside if anyone is interested in Humanity Ascendant Larp then come along and crew for the weekend, or even just a day, and see what we’re about)

So, today I made a push on some armour harnesses for…. reasons, with gear provided very kindly in the past by Ian Waz Wyatt, who may come to regret his generosity at Humanity Ascendant Event 12 - Salvo.

So, below are some progress pics of grunging up the harnesses, using techniques learnt from, in this instance, Nuclear Snail Studios, an absolute legend for learning a vast variety of weathering techniques and kit making theory. I literally wouldn’t be able to do what I have done without his tutorials.

Although retreading old ground for some, I will go over the technique I used. The base harness, in this case a safety harness, had already been distressed, using the ever useful shredder (any questions do let me know). I then used some concrete coloured waterproof paint and smeared it onto the harness in sections, then ground some sand into the paint, going over it several times until the sand was really smushed in there. I then took some matt spray varnish and gave the area a good coat, before taking some ash, acquired from a nice fire previously, and applied that as a contrast, before a giving the whole thing a second coat of varnish to seal the whole thing. Again, not my technique, just a very effective one.

So, my progress pics are below, detailing everything I’ve done with with the 5 harnesses I was working on, with a pic of a near final product.

If anyone has any questions about the techniques used, or any questions about Humanity Ascendant or Larp in general, do please get in touch.

Thanks for looking!

So, I’m finally doing what I originally created this page for, keeping track of the progress of my costume builds.

So, with the next event for Humanity Ascendant LARP looming at the end of September, I’m getting started on some of the kit I’ll need for the missions I’ll be running. This rig is the start of a wasteland priest style kit. How will it evolve? I haven’t a clue!

Hopefully I’ll get more work done on it today! Has anyone else out these recently started and new kit making projects?

Currently it’s made from an, I think, Swedish army “yoke” style thing, and the severed chest cover from safety harnesses I’ve previously harvested.