How I make stuff

A draft for the Autumn issue of Immersion magazine.

This is a pretty general overview of how I go about making gear. I make some pretty wacky stuff, so this won’t help if you’re making trousers or body armour, but if you want to make a post-apocalyptic fortress, or Cthulhu, or a giant skink costume then this approach might come in handy. This is in five (easy) steps. If the step you’re on is not working, go back a step and work it out.

  1. GET INSPIRED

Don’t let anything hold you back here. If you want to build a space ship, damn well set about building one. You can figure out all those niggles like “but you can’t go into space!” later. Figure out what you want and don’t compromise until step 4.

  1. VISUALISE

Draw what you want. Again, don’t worry about how you’ll achieve it yet. Doesn’t matter if you suck at drawing, just start imagining it in real space. You’ll thank me later.

  1. MAKE IT NATURAL FOR LARP

It seems obvious but it’s very easy to miss. Wrangle your idea until it’s just perfect for larping. Stopping the game to brief people on a piece of gear totally ruins your big surprise moment. Figure out what the requirements are for your gear to “just work” like they’re meant to.

Don’t make stuff that’s too efficient in-game. I always design heaps of IC problems into larping gear. It’s like character creation - give them big meaty issues. Design to maximise drama. Don’t design to “win” or to make everyone think you’re cool.

  1. HOW CAN I ACHIEVE THIS?

It gets real tough here. Now you have to work out how to make it happen. My design phase has a very important second step that designers often miss because it’s considered to be part of construction. I say it’s a part of design.

4.1 THEORISE
Figure out how something might work, based on what you know. How can I make a comfortable full-head mask that doesn’t come off in a fight? A gas mask hugs your head, has anchor-points and is flexible so I theorise that it will make a good base. How can I naturally walk on my hands like a terrifying animal? Crutches let you easily walk on your hands so I theorise that I can costume them and walk like a terrifying animal.

4.2 PROVE YOUR CONCEPTS
Get a gas mask and run around in it. Borrow some crutches and run about on them. They both work! Hurray!
Proving your concepts is a very important step when designing gear. When you know that each of your pieces works alone you can design gear that is merely combinations of things you know to work.

4.3 COMBINE AND DESIGN
Once you know all the pieces (and know they work individually) you can plan how you’ll put them all together. Do so.

  1. MAKE IT.

Oh finally. Get all your pieces together and go about the build process. You should have pretty much everything figured out before you start, so the actual build process should be peaceful, satasfying and theraputic. If you’re nervous or unsure at this point, go back to step 4 until you’re confident. When you finally assemble everything and take a photo, you’ll have a solid, modular piece of kit made 'specially for larp. And that is satasfying.

I reckon with these five steps you can make anything. Prove every idea you conceptualise and sooner or later you’ll have all the ingredients. I used this process to make foam weapons, a gypsy camp, a werewolf, the game May Day and stacks of stuff for Nibelungen (proof is in the pudding this February). Remember if a step not working, go back one. Good luck!

Very nice.

I’d add that if you’re not good at visualising, recruit someone to do it for you. I can’t draw worth a damn, but I got my mate Steve to do a visual design for the stone golem and the final costume looked just like the design. Likewise, Hansi did several drawings for the corrupted tree, and once we were happy with one of the drawings then we started thinking about how to build it. The end result wasn’t exactly like the drawing, but without the drawing we wouldn’t have known where to start building.

Same goes for all stages except for the inspiration part actually. If you need help, ask. The golem had a build team of three people, the tree had a team of around five or six well-coordinated crafters and got finished much faster than the golem even though it was a larger project.

I agree, this stuff divided up nicely - you don’t have to do every step yourself.

I thought the tree was a bit of an un-example for this process. I helped make it and while steps 1 and 2 were done nicely, there was very little between looking at the drawing and sawing up the materials. There wasn’t much of “how do we make this really-good-for-larp” and there wasn’t much “we know this will work because of X.” It was largely “now we have X and we need it to look like Y, so we’ll work on it until we’re close enough.” We fixed bad branch angles with lots and lots of duct tape, make a skin that could easily rip, invented techniques as we went along, and hinged the whole project on keeping the same piece of (real) tree sticking out the top. The guys inside couldn’t communicate, couldn’t move as they needed to, couldn’t quickly resume normal human functioning.

I found the process reallllly tiring and frustrating because I was constantly panicking about what comes next!

In the (first) end, it worked a treat. It was dark, the spooky lighting made wicked shadows through the grove (a last minute idea!), its sheer size was frightening beyond belief, and it was backed up by heaps of sword-fodder minions. As it crashed about, the trees shook and dropped leaves, the whole forest seemed to come to life and creep up upon the players. Best “presence of evil” in a larp game yet.

But in the (second) end, part of the core structure broke, the canopy became unusable, the skin (a LOT of work and resources there) became waste, transport was difficult, storage is far less than ideal, and re-usability is dubious at best. I think if we’d followed this approach (granted, it would take more time to achieve), we’d have something we can use again and building it wouldn’t have been so exhausting!

Agree that it should have been more durable.

I think you underestimate the planning and testing because you were roped in at the last minute. While I joked a lot about making up the design as we went, I think me and Hans had a pretty clear handle on what was to be done.

Hans had built the backpack and vertical support a week before we got you guys involved. That was our “prototype” of the only aspect I thought was really difficult, the vertical support structure for such a tall costume. Although we built it full-scale and intended it for the final job, if we had found it impractical we would have re-worked it before getting you guys involved. Given that the main issue with the project was the size, prototyping had limited value. How do you know how a vertical support or massive hanging skin will work until you try it at full scale?

The only other uncertain factor was the skin. I think the bodge job we settled on (thin foam with no backing) reflects the difficulty and potential expense more than a lack of planning. Still not sure how that could have been improved on, especially not for free/cheap. Maybe gluing a very light fabric backing to the foam. Anyway, the was we used was fast and cheap, and even though it didn’t survive the vertical support did so can be re-used with a new skin.

The big green light shining on the tree in the darkness was always the plan, not a last-minute idea at all. Likewise the small green torches shining out of the trunk, and the accompanying minions - we designed these things in right from the start knowing that the tree would not look good in daylight in a clearing with no support force.

Of everything we did, the only part we hadn’t planned very clearly before you came to help was the canopy. Maybe the whole thing seemed more unplanned to you because you were specifically working on the canopy?

Not wanting to seem too defensive, but I think the steps you outlined were followed, even if the tree wasn’t a perfect example. You just weren’t part of the planning, you were pulled in at the construction phase so the planning was hidden from you. Really, think what it would have been like if we just got a bunch of people together with a bunch of materials and said “go”, which is what happens at a lot of workshops. Wouldn’t have achieved the degree of success we did, which was plenty for the game.

Thanks for clearing some of that up. Agree that you had the hardest concepts already proven - the base was fairly solid and stable, the little lights were gonna work. Agree that it was also thought out from a larp perspective (if that stuff was planned, then ok cool) - minions to distract foes, green light and shadow all over the place. I never got that stuff at the workshop and by the time I left I was nervous that we weren’t getting a good deal for all our effort.

Backing the foam with fabric would have probably saved it. It may be worth grabbing some of that stuff, adding a cheap fabric backing then testing its durability. We can use that concept on other gear.

Yep, the tree mostly follows the steps above but I don’t think it’s a perfect example. We were definitely relying on “a bit of magic” to pull it off.

amen

Also, get it for free if you can. So much stuff can be got free which is ideal for props.