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The Centipede and the Cardboard

Design 2 has thrown challenges at me that I honestly have not seen coming. It's one of those classes that will always surprise someone like me with something new, and to be honest, in the beginning, I was horrified by this project.

I am not very skilled at any artistic methods besides the traditional pen and paper. Others excel at digital art, clay, or even marble, but for me... Just a mediocre performance with the pencil and paper.

However, this project came off as an awakening for me, and it showed me that I could achieve anything as long as I put my mind to it and worked hard. So, here is the heartwarming (I hope) process that I have labeled as "The Centipede and the Cardboard."

This, is my design, Which we surprisingly went with.

Oh, this design made me proud (at first.) Before I did this, my mind was racing, and the pictures I had sketched before were incredibly complicated messes of sci-fi inspired bug armor. I wanted to be over the top, and I dreamed big, but when I realized I had two weeks to even make this thing, and about an hour and a half each day to do so, That's when it dawned on me.

My designs were not very good in terms of keeping good time.

So when I came back, I looked at everyone else and their pictures. Shannon, a group member and our willing model and dresses inspired by the centipede, which displayed a plethora of layers, and some of which even had physical centipede inspired designs on them. Her design was a baseline for what I began this design off of.

Other group members submitted their designs as well, which had gauntlets and a mess of legs lining the bottom of the costume. I went with little bits of each, and eventually came up with this dress, which everybody agreed on!

However, I never realized the nightmare that this would start.

First off, I made a physical model of it, which was comprised of many layers, and a large shell to accompany the back. Even as a paper model, it was incredibly complicated to assemble. However, I did not think much of it.

The same day of finalization, we began construction, which began strong, we had succeeded in cutting out a single chest-piece that would serve as the stepping stone for the project. I myself had drawn it out, using a ruler for reference. Afterwards, Jacob, another group member, started to cut it out.

And so, here is our first layer plus the back-piece. It turned out very clean, and we began to contemplate on how we were going to put this thing together.

Here is Oscar, who is putting together the gauntlets and legs for the costume, these added to the many legs factor due to the fact that he put legs on each side.

We drew our design on the board, and manipulated it to our liking. For supplies to keep the suit together, we decided on string, which worked wonders.

Here are the legs that were designed to be on the sides of the costume. Arturo was responsible for making them and did an excellent job!

At first, we fastened the legs with rivets, but they were small and did not work like we wanted them to. So for the legs we moved onto glue.

We then fastened the antennae, which began to bring out the centipede look.

As the suit came together, it began to look amazing!

Behold, the Centipede! After a grueling and fast paced 3 hours of working, it came together quite nicely! There were obstacles along the way, including a tearing part literally 2 minutes before the due time, but as a team, we rocked this assignment.

The stair test went great, and thankfully, Shannon pulled it off quite well. Overall, I was proud to see my design come to life, even with the improvisation we had to make due of. It was a beautiful project that I am glad to say that I was a part of.

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