RED KELLY PICTURE 1
Better Red than Ned?
Strewth!
Well now, this costume was inspired by all kinds of things!
1) I've always wanted to make a brightly coloured Manga type power-armour costume.
Why? Uh....yeah...right.
2) As an Aussie armourer I've always been fascinated by Oz's own metal clad bushranger bandit, Ned Kelly. Me, and just about everyone else in our sunburnt country. The Kelly Gang has a lot of mythology attached to it, and, rather like Arthur, Robin Hood and similar iconistic subjects, continues to inspire new interpretations. Some folks take the subject quite personally; fair enough I reckon. Me, I'll settle for just having fun with it!
3) I'm a fan of Keith Laumer's "Bolo" series of science fiction novels, which revolve around futuristic, gargantuan sentient tanks. I got to wondering what kind of infantry (if any!) Bolos might operate in tandem with. So, I thought it might be possible that they could perhaps carry and deploy auxiliary armoured troopers who could, for example, go into places that a Bolo tank just wouldn't fit without breaking things and causing tears all round.
Yer, there's also a Heinleinesque Mobile Infantry "Starship Trooper" 'fluence in the mix. Perhaps especially in the fact that this costume is so cumbersome that any damned ape could walk up behind me and dong me on the head with a rock whilst I was mucking around deciding which bit of hi-tech frightfulness to use on him.
4) The kind of cossie I had in mind would have lots of potential for space-dominating wings, ridiculous weapons and other foolish but beaut looking clobber.
5) I'm also a fan of Bert Chandler's S.F book, "Kelly Country", which postulates an alternate history where Kelly won the Battle Of Glenrowan and went on to found an Australian Republic! An amusingly clever conceit. Perhaps the Aussie Republican Army would eventually develop something like this armour...
'N razorbacks might fly.
Then again, this is Sci-Fi, anything's possible.
6) I'm a mad keen Iron Man fan, the comic book character that is, which helped decide me on the colour, partly.
So, anyway, this was the Mark I Red Kelly costume I built. "Red" Kelly, incidentally, was Ned's old Dad. Seemed appropriate given the colour I chose, which was
also dictated by the colour of the ski-boots that I converted for the costume.
The bulk of the costume is made from corflute, a double walled cardboard like plastic. They make advertising signs, point of sale displays and retail dump boxes from it. Also, art folios! I started out using salvaged signs, then began buying new sheets of it from art shops, the 'clean' corflute being much easier to paint.
The helmet though, was made from sheet aluminium.
Original costume photo by Adrian Maiolla. All other elements taken or created by me.
Actually, it's worth going into the latter.
The grey concrete 'deck' is an exterior wall of the National Gallery Of Victoria. The three octagonal structures come from the interior of the dome in Melbourne's Block Arcade. The solar panel arrays are from the light standards found along Melbourne's Merri Creek parklands. The structure in the background was just a City building under construction.
There ya go mateys, it pays to be a shutterbug, you never know what will come in handy!
More costume photosets at:
www.flickr.com/photos/83287853@N00/sets/
Please proceed to picture 2
RED KELLY PICTURE 1
Better Red than Ned?
Strewth!
Well now, this costume was inspired by all kinds of things!
1) I've always wanted to make a brightly coloured Manga type power-armour costume.
Why? Uh....yeah...right.
2) As an Aussie armourer I've always been fascinated by Oz's own metal clad bushranger bandit, Ned Kelly. Me, and just about everyone else in our sunburnt country. The Kelly Gang has a lot of mythology attached to it, and, rather like Arthur, Robin Hood and similar iconistic subjects, continues to inspire new interpretations. Some folks take the subject quite personally; fair enough I reckon. Me, I'll settle for just having fun with it!
3) I'm a fan of Keith Laumer's "Bolo" series of science fiction novels, which revolve around futuristic, gargantuan sentient tanks. I got to wondering what kind of infantry (if any!) Bolos might operate in tandem with. So, I thought it might be possible that they could perhaps carry and deploy auxiliary armoured troopers who could, for example, go into places that a Bolo tank just wouldn't fit without breaking things and causing tears all round.
Yer, there's also a Heinleinesque Mobile Infantry "Starship Trooper" 'fluence in the mix. Perhaps especially in the fact that this costume is so cumbersome that any damned ape could walk up behind me and dong me on the head with a rock whilst I was mucking around deciding which bit of hi-tech frightfulness to use on him.
4) The kind of cossie I had in mind would have lots of potential for space-dominating wings, ridiculous weapons and other foolish but beaut looking clobber.
5) I'm also a fan of Bert Chandler's S.F book, "Kelly Country", which postulates an alternate history where Kelly won the Battle Of Glenrowan and went on to found an Australian Republic! An amusingly clever conceit. Perhaps the Aussie Republican Army would eventually develop something like this armour...
'N razorbacks might fly.
Then again, this is Sci-Fi, anything's possible.
6) I'm a mad keen Iron Man fan, the comic book character that is, which helped decide me on the colour, partly.
So, anyway, this was the Mark I Red Kelly costume I built. "Red" Kelly, incidentally, was Ned's old Dad. Seemed appropriate given the colour I chose, which was
also dictated by the colour of the ski-boots that I converted for the costume.
The bulk of the costume is made from corflute, a double walled cardboard like plastic. They make advertising signs, point of sale displays and retail dump boxes from it. Also, art folios! I started out using salvaged signs, then began buying new sheets of it from art shops, the 'clean' corflute being much easier to paint.
The helmet though, was made from sheet aluminium.
Original costume photo by Adrian Maiolla. All other elements taken or created by me.
Actually, it's worth going into the latter.
The grey concrete 'deck' is an exterior wall of the National Gallery Of Victoria. The three octagonal structures come from the interior of the dome in Melbourne's Block Arcade. The solar panel arrays are from the light standards found along Melbourne's Merri Creek parklands. The structure in the background was just a City building under construction.
There ya go mateys, it pays to be a shutterbug, you never know what will come in handy!
More costume photosets at:
www.flickr.com/photos/83287853@N00/sets/
Please proceed to picture 2