
Nova – A Cosplay that took me two Years - pierrec
https://www.kamuicosplay.com/2017/10/17/nova/
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iamdave
I genuinely applaud and love reading about the cosplay community and how tech
like 3D printers is making it easier and easier for these young men and women
to get really creative with their craft, it's so much fun watching these build
projects.

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StavrosK
I kind of dislike the "misleading" title of "took me two years" which implies
"because I didn't touch it for a whole year".

By that metric, I have thirty-year projects to replace a light bulb.

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StavrosK
Fantastic idea about the plastic packing material to diffuse light, I've been
looking for a solution like that for one of my projects. Does anyone know what
kind of packing material it is?

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dogma1138
In the lightsaber building community rolled cellophane sheets are used to
diffuse the light emitted form the LED evenly the refractive index changes
between all the layers creates an even distribution of light this isn’t that
different than how the diffusers in early LCDs work modern ones still use the
same principle but they use a single patterned sheet or a very thin fused
multilayer sheet.

You’ll have to play around to find exactly what fits your specific use case
since there isn’t a single material that would work for every scenario.

For your use case I would hunt for old LCD monitors or TVs because they use a
backlight, modern LCDs use edge illumination and the diffuser is a fresnel
lease like sheet which might not work for a backlight.

So if you find an LCD TV which is 3-5 years old or older you’ll likely have a
diffuser huge sheet to use for your lighting setup.

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StavrosK
Sounds great, I'll try that, thank you. My project uses WS2818 LEDs as sort of
pixels, so I want them to blend into each other a bit but not too much (I
don't want them to look like points of light, but I also don't want them to
bleed into neighboring LEDs).

I'll try cellophane, thank you!

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dogma1138
If you need fine control and resolution which form the sounds of it you do you
likely want to look at commercial diffuser sheets they cost about $10 per
sheet and should be available on amazon, eBay and the likes.

[https://dzevsq2emy08i.cloudfront.net/paperclip/technology_at...](https://dzevsq2emy08i.cloudfront.net/paperclip/technology_attachment_uploaded_files/11/original/Light%20Diffuser%20Datasheet%20Matte%202%20sided%20\(DFMM\).pdf)

These should be readily available and for fairly cheap.

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StavrosK
That's exactly what I want, thank you! Fantastic.

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erik_landerholm
Omg, I wish I had like 1/10 of her talent.

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billrobertson42
Practicing works better than wishing.

You can do it. :)

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merb
> Practicing works better than wishing.

well this might be true for a lot of traits. but not for drawing and probably
not for making "good" cosplay costumes. you at least need a steady hand and a
lot of dedication.

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misnome
This is plain wrong. Of course there are people who have a natural talent, but
that’s a tiny minority and most people have to do with practice - it’s just
the people with many more years of practice that you end up comparing yourself
to.

You wouldn’t expect to sit down at a piano for the first time and have the
dexterity and coordination to play, without any kind of practice, would you?

Almost everyone draws as a child. Then, they stop, try as an adult and then
give up when they end up making a picture that looks “like a child’s drawing”
- of course it does - that’s the point at which you stopped learning to draw.

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wiz21c
I observed my kids and at age of 5 or 6, they drew super well (I mean,
incredibly well for their age). Then they stopped practicing and the apparent
talent faded away.

Personally, I decided that I wanted to draw in my early twenties. I may have
had some natural talent so I was able to draw complicated things. But even if
I consider this natural talent I can assure you that 99% of drawing is
practice (which I don't have time to, unfortunately). Just look at the
classical masters (Caravage, Rubens, whatever).

Drawing is first and foremost, observing, looking and watching. Watching with
the eyes first, and the heart after. I can assure you than when I look at
something to draw it, I "feel" that something inside of me. Drawing is an act
of communion for me.

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WWLink
That's amazing! Nicely done! Kudos to having enough drive to finish a costume
2 years down the road!

