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I make toys for kids who don't want to grow up. I'm on the lookout for new projects. If you're interested in commissioning me to build something ridiculous, shoot me an email.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

A Metric Butt-Ton of Pictures from Maker Faire 2011: Part One

I'm still collecting pictures from friends and family from this past weekend, but I figured I might as well go ahead and post a few of my favorites so far.


Here I am stacking things up to be loaded into the truck:
Helmet Totem Pole


Here I am with some of my crew on Sunday afternoon in front of the booth:
Me and the Crew


Lots more after the jump.  Click "read more" to see them.



I've written all about the building of the booth, but here's another shot of it getting dressed up on Friday afternoon:
Dressing the Booth


And another:
Setting up Booth


My sister Sheryl took leave to come and be a part of the show.  She was a tremendous help all along and did a lot to keep my head from exploding:
Sheryl Setting up


Here's my first UNSC Marine fire team all dressed up right before things kicked off on Saturday morning:
UNSC Marine Fire Team


I was still busy with setup when I noticed that the gates had opened and some of my guys were already posing for pictures:
Spartans Posing for Pics


One of them mentioned that so many people were asking for pictures that it often took as much as half an hour to walk three steps.  Finding one of them without a crowd was rare:



Here I am strapping Kendall into one of the marine costumes:
Dressing Kendall


My Marine support crew was tasked with keeping people from waking into the booth.  They did the trick even though they weren't the most intimidating sentries in the world:
Rose and Kendall on Post


They were also assigned to watch the Spartans' backs so they didn't get tripped up walking around in the crowd:
Seriouser


When they weren't busy keeping the Spartans out of trouble, I told the Marines to go out and have as much fun as they liked as long as they got pictures:
cookbook on a stick


Carousel Patrol


Morale Break


Meanwhile, I was behind the counter answering questions about the build process for the various costumes and props:
Shawn at the Booth


Process discussion
On the other side of the booth Matt Herman, my right hand man, was taking care of occasional wardrobe malfunctions and helping the Spartans in and out of their gear:
Beaten Alex


The booth was a big hit with small children:
More Kids with Guns


Anti-Air


That included the ones we'd brought with us:



POW cap


Still my favorite part of the display was deploying a few of my fully-armored Spartans:
Church Tex Hero Pose
Yellow Spartan


Alex Suits Up


Church and Chick


All of the folks in the Spartan armor did a great job, but the one that was the most fun to watch was Sheryl:
STOP


Dancin' Tex


Tex and the Energy Drink
Not only did she spend the whole time bopping and dancing like the armor was lightweight and comfortable (it's not) she also did a great job of stalking people:
Stalking


Tex Scaring Kid


She also had fun picking on me:
Appreciation


Here's Matt and Alex taking a moment to rest:
Matt and Alex


Matt spent almost the entire weekend elbow deep in armor repairs and modifications to keep the Spartans going:
Matt Taking a Break


At some point on Sunday I had to drag him away from the booth just to give him the bigger picture of what he'd made possible:
Booth


A lot of people helped out, but without this guy I couldn't have done it:
Talking with Matt
In fact, I probably would've just electrocuted myself along the way.


Here's a random smattering of other pics:
Tex and Trey


Geared Up


Tex and Church


With everyone coming and going, I never got a shot of all of the suits together.  This is the closest we got:
Just the Crew


I don't think I could be any more proud of these costumes:
MH Shawn Thorsson Portrait


More pics to follow sooner than later.  Stay tuned...


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3 comments:

  1. i would love to buy a marine suit from you if your interested on selling. They need some work in the chest area in other words not big enough but everything else is good.

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. trying to make an upper body duct tape dummy how much fiberglass cloth did you use so it's sturdy enough but not so thick my body dimensions are off?

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