To Infinity and Beyond - Becoming a Better DopeyBadger (Comments Welcome)

Ms. Marvel - Fun with magnets
Previous:

-Initial Design and Working on the Bracelet

Alright, it's been too long since I updated on our progress with G's Ms. Marvel cosplay.

So we left off with the bracelet (bengal) having been carved into. The goal was to have it create a circle around G's wrist, and the plan was to accomplish that with magnets. A big lesson was learned when working with magnets. Patience. I drilled in four holes using the dremel into each of the edges of the bracelet. I paired up the magnets and then used Barge's All purpose cement into the holes with the magnet as well. I'm using 4mm x 2mm magnets which fit into the holes quite well, but they're tiny. So it was a struggle to get the magnets into the small hole and my fingers were covered with the glue. The glue is legit. Which means I really shouldn't be touching it with my fingers because it really causes issues. I let the glue dry (about 30-60 min) and then put the two bracelets together. To my horror, some of the magnets didn't match polarity and thus opposed each other instead of attracting. So despite my best efforts things went wrong there. So I had to dig some magnets out. Oh, did I mention that of the 8 pairs of magnets, I had the wrong polarity on SEVEN of them! UGH!!! Like, even just doing it randomly I probably would have had a better chance. I learned a couple of tricks though. Do one side of the magnet set first. Let the glue dry, and then place the second magnet on top. Draw sharpie on the side of the magnet you can see. Then when you place it in the opposite hole, you place it so you can't see the sharpie mark. I also used a nail cuticle cutter to place the magnets because it was small and magnetic. It worked well. So thankfully, we got this.

thumbnail_IMG_4646.jpeg

BUT, the magnets aren't strong enough to get it to hold a circle.

thumbnail_IMG_4647.jpeg

So I tried to add edges in put magnets in the other axis direction, but it's not strong enough still. So we put this on the backburner for now because this will eventually attach to the hand with magnets and maybe that'll help hold its shape. We moved to the fist/hand.

thumbnail_IMG_4639.jpeg

So along the outline I'm putting small blocks that were glued together.

thumbnail_IMG_4640.jpeg

I cut every piece in duplicate so that the top of the hand and bottom of the hand match. It'll make the connection between the two cleaner. I then drilled holes into each set of blocks and put magnets in.

thumbnail_IMG_4641.jpeg

The big question is whether this is too many or too little magnets. Unlike the bracelet the magnets are working against the foam to hold a shape. But I've got a ton of magnets because we're still working under the assumption that we're going to put a light show on the inside of the fist. So that will carry weight and thus the magnets need to be able to hold the pieces together. Once I got the four pieces finished (top/bottom and left/right side), then it was time to work on the fingers.

thumbnail_IMG_4642.jpeg

Based on the hand height, I had to do some geometry to figure out how tall, how long, and at what angle each of the fingers should be. If you look at your first you'll see that the knuckles get progressive taller and the fingers are progressively longer (until the pointer finger). So I wanted to make sure I replicated that. In the end, I went from theory, to this:

thumbnail_IMG_4643.jpeg

thumbnail_IMG_4644.jpeg

It's hard to fully capture it in the picture above, but I got the heights, angles, and lengths about where I wanted them to be. I had considered doing rounded fingers but because of the difficulty of the bracelet holding shape I decided to go with sharper angles. I then cut the piece down the middle and placed a small piece down the middle to have each adhere to.

Now that the fingers are mostly finished and the sides are coming together, I went through the process of designing the bottom half's connection with the fingers (the mid-joint of the finger).

thumbnail_IMG_4645.jpeg

I traced the pattern on paper and then cut out each piece individually. Gluing each one at a time.

That's where we'll stop for now. So like I said, this update was fun with magnets. AND LOTS of lessons learned when it comes on how to place and match them appropriately. We're happy with how it's coming together so far. Lots still left to do.

Next: Bengal Painting
 
Last edited:
Gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. Push comes to shove, I'll try and do it all at the expense of no one else if I can make it work. So sometimes that means 5 hrs of sleep and a 3am alarm clock.
We have different life philosophies 😆

(But for real one of my goals for MW training is to do early runs to get used to it, so you can be my inspiration)
 


Being able to force yourself into an early bed time and early rise is a useful runDisney skill. Especially for a multi-day event. Not necessary, but helpful.
Just lol’ing @ me reading this at 12:30 am 😆 I have a lot of work to do…

ETA: I was actually joking with my friends that maybe I should just turn the races into “night” races and go to sleep right away after them bc that better aligns with my sleep schedule haha. I won’t actually do this.
 
ETA: I was actually joking with my friends that maybe I should just turn the races into “night” races and go to sleep right away after them bc that better aligns with my sleep schedule haha. I won’t actually do this.

I briefly thought about doing this for the 2020 Princess 10K. There was an after hours event at the Magic Kingdom Friday night and I floated the crazy idea of doing the after hours, catching an hour or two of sleep in the MK parking lot and then moving over the Epcot to run the race. It was a bad idea for a whole bunch of reasons (to start I suspect that Disney would have had an issue with us staying in the parking lot), but it also didn't make sense to go back to our hotel (we were staying at Universal) for such a short time. Ultimately, we would up doing the after hours event on the Monday after the event instead, but it was an interesting "how can we make this work?" exercise.
 


16 Weeks to go - Canova General Phase - Week 4/4


200.gif


7/18/22-7/24/22
Tues (7/19): 6.5 miles @ 60-70% M Tempo (9:33 min/mile, 128 bpm)
Wed (7/20): Canova Minutes (17 sets of (2 min 80% + 2 min 100%)
Thurs (7/21): 6.5 miles @ 60-70% M Tempo (9:21 min/mile, 131 bpm)
Fri (7/22): 6.5 miles @ 60-70% M Tempo (9:21 min/mile, 128 bpm)
Sat (7/23): 10 miles @ 85% M Tempo (8:09 min/mile, 140 bpm) + LIIFT4-Chest/Tri
Sun (7/24): Canova Mona (100% M Tempo w/ 15s uphills) + LIIFT4-Back/Biceps (No HIIT)

Total Run Miles - 52.1 miles
Total Run Time - 7:42 hours
Total Strength Time - 1:04 hours
Total Training Time - 8:46 hours


Tuesday

Conditions - ☀️ Clear, Wind 17mph to 27mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 84°F + 72°F; FL - 89°F
End: Temp+Dew = 83°F + 72°F; FL - 89°F

Left glute was a little bothersome, but not too bad. A warm run at T+D 156, but tolerable. Just a nice and easy slow run. Was happy to not have a hard run today as I was still bouncing back from the 15.5 mile run. The legs felt good, but I didn't have that oomph.



Wednesday

Conditions - ☀️ Clear, Wind 17mph to 27mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 82°F + 68°F; FL - 85°F
End: Temp+Dew = 80°F + 67°F; FL - 85°F

80% M Tempo = 8:26 min/mile w/ T+D adj. = Goal 8:49 min/mile
100% M Tempo = 7:02 min/mile w/ T+D adj. = Goal 7:21 min/mile

Actual average = 8:25 and 7:13

So far I've done a 1+1 min minutes workout, and then a 40 min progression workout that averaged out to the same pace (90% M Tempo). So this was the next step up with: WU + 17 sets of (2 min 80% M Tempo + 100% M Tempo) + CD. So the length of time at average 90% M Tempo was 68 min instead of 40 min like the last two, plus the amount of time at any one pace was extended from 1+1 to 2+2. With a T+D of 150, I gave myself some leeway if I needed it, but for the most part I felt fine without needing any adjustments.

The output looks a little all over the place:

Screen Shot 2022-07-24 at 1.13.53 PM.png

But corrected for GAP shows a much different picture:

Screen Shot 2022-07-24 at 1.14.36 PM.png

I'm very clearly and slowly turning the screws through the first 10 reps. Went from GAP of 7:22 to 6:51. The end of the 10th rep was exactly where the workout had previously ended (40 min), but this time I had another 28 min to go. So you can see how my body felt like maybe I had pushed a bit too much to get to that 40 min finish spot and then I had to shake off the fatigue to continue. In practice, the first 40 min of the workout was fairly comfortable expect maybe that last 1-2 intervals. But I took a bit to recover and get back in a good M Tempo groove. Progressed from 7:30 to 6:47 over the last 7 intervals.

All in all a good workout. I maintained the original pace goal of 8:26 despite the T+D and the M Tempo didn't feel as if I needed the full adjustment to be comfortable with it. Good workout all around.



Thursday

Conditions - ☀️ Clear, Wind 12mph to 19mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 85°F + 68°F; FL - 88°F
End: Temp+Dew = 83°F + 67°F; FL - 88°F

It was either Thursday or Friday where the left glute took a positive turn and became less noticeable. HR was a touch higher than expected, but I think my body was still recovering from yesterday's hard run.



Friday

Conditions - ⛅ Partly Cloudy, Wind 13mph to 20mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 84°F + 71°F; FL - 89°F
End: Temp+Dew = 83°F + 71°F; FL - 89°F

Nice and easy. Nothing to prove with an easy day. Normally I'd be doing a moderate run today, but my body really didn't want to do it. So the double easy 60 min days where well timed.



Saturday

Conditions - ☀️ Clear, Wind 5mph to 11mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 71°F + 69°F; FL - 72°F
End: Temp+Dew = 74°F + 72°F; FL - 72°F

Early morning because Steph had to work. This run was unusually tough. It was actually cooler than any of the weekday runs, but it just felt hotter. Like out the gate, I was feeling pretty good. But the hot pace in the hot temps caught up to me late. I was able to maintain the pace, but the effort was creeping up on me. I probably should have been aiming for something in the 8:20s (or slower based on how I was feeling), but ended up at 8:09. But the HR was way off target for the desired effort (140 vs goal of around 134). I was so drenched in sweat when I came home it looked like I had jumped in the pool. I was just melting into a pool of sweat. My clothes were so water logged I had to change before the LIIFT4 workout. Based on how I was feeling, I think I was underhydrated prior to the run, and not having anything to eat caught up to me on this one. But I survived.

I bounced back in short order and completed the LIIFT4 workout with some nice increases in the last few weeks.

Saturday night was a crazy lightning storm. At one point the lightningmaps website showed us getting approximately 72 strikes per minute in the 15-ish mile radius around us. It was nuts. Loud and neither the kid or the dog enjoyed it.


Sunday

After yesterday's harder than intended moderate run, I wasn't sure what my body would tolerate for the actual hard workout. So I just planned on letting be whatever it may be. I had planned to get up at 6:30am, but based on the predicted T+D and cloud cover I opted to sacrifice a touch of sleep. So I was up at 5:00am and out the door at just before 6:30am. The workout was a scheduled repeat of the 100% M Tempo 9 min reps with 15s uphill reps between them.

4 sets of (9 min @ 100% M Tempo on hills + 4 x 15s hard on 5-7% uphill)

100% M Tempo goal pace = 7:02 min/mile
100% M Tempo T+D goal adj. = 7:17 min/mile
Actual = 6:45 min/mile

Conditions - ⛅ Mostly Cloudy, Wind 7mph to 14mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 70°F + 69°F; FL - 71°F
End: Temp+Dew = 71°F + 70°F; FL - 71°F

At a T+D of 141 it had a decent pace adjustment on it. But ultimately when I got outside in the cover of the clouds, it didn't feel nearly as bad as Saturday. Saturday just felt so stifling, and today, while warm, was tolerable.

Same as last time, I did the WU to end at the top of the hill, and then did the 9 min rep starting downhill. It's about 3.75 min downhill and 5.25 min uphill.

Screen Shot 2022-07-24 at 1.40.37 PM.png

I went too fast. The goal was 7:02 pace, or adjusted for T+D was 7:17 pace. I did 6:45 pace. But I was deadly accurate with the pace despite the massive change in elevation during the 9 minute reps. I did each of the reps in 6:48, 6:45, 6:43, and 6:46. I didn't have a strong desire to push on the uphills because I wanted to make sure I stay healthy. But I did give it a bit extra oomph. The 6:45 pace was like 6:31 pace under ideal conditions. Although admittedly that's not something I could maintain for a marathon. But with the reps being so short (9 min) it makes it easier to overrun the workout. I'm not overly concerned. I came out healthy and ready to start the next phase of training - Canova Fundamental Phase.

After this workout was done, I was covered in a pool of sweat again. The sun started to come out at the tail end of the CD, and so it confirmed that waking 90 min early was a good choice.

Like I said, next week is the start of the six week Fundamental Phase. The volume increases a little more, and the intensity increases by a significant factor. Now is where I'll start to learn whether I'm going to be able to hang with the Canova training style. There are less hard days per week, but the workouts are reasonably difficult. Next week I've got, 60 min easy days on Tues/Wed/Fri, a 3 x 2.5 mile at 105% M Tempo (6:40 pace or HM thereabouts) which makes me quite nervous, a 10.5-11 mile run on Saturday at moderate pace, and then 144 min (17 miles) at 80% M Tempo on Sunday.

This week also lined up with when I started 2021 Madison M training. Comparing my adj. T+D pace vs HR data shows I'm about 25-30 sec/mile faster right now than I was at this same point in time. I'm essentially still holding on to near peak level fitness compared to Lakefront 2017 data, but I still lack the endurance to hold the high end paces. Lastly, in the last 365 days time I've run 2,326 miles. I'm pretty proud of myself for that. I've stayed relatively injury free during the last year, but have been able to balance that with a decent level of fitness. Comparatively, my three highest yearly totals were 2582 in 2017, 2500 in 2016, and 1915 in 2015. So I'm in a good place right now. I'm liking my current balance of six days running with two strength days on Sat/Sun. I feel like it's sustainable, and I'm holding on to strength gains at the moment.
 
Just lol’ing @ me reading this at 12:30 am 😆 I have a lot of work to do…

ETA: I was actually joking with my friends that maybe I should just turn the races into “night” races and go to sleep right away after them bc that better aligns with my sleep schedule haha. I won’t actually do this.
As a late afternoon/evening runner who sometimes has to work late hours, I have run my share of finish run and go to bed shortly thereafter. I hate losing my free time, but it can be done.
 
Billy I just came here to say we just finished binging Ms Marvel (finally) and I love her so much. Kamala is just adorable. I'm even more excited to see how G's costume comes out, now that I see what you're going for. Are you going to coordinate somehow?
 
Billy I just came here to say we just finished binging Ms Marvel (finally) and I love her so much. Kamala is just adorable. I'm even more excited to see how G's costume comes out, now that I see what you're going for. Are you going to coordinate somehow?

That's been the toughest part so far. If she's Ms. Marvel, then who am I? I could cross-dress and be Captain Marvel, but it seems like Steph is leaning towards that for Halloween. And many of the other characters (Red Daggers, Clandestines, her parents (like Dad in Hulk cosplay), Bruno, Damage Control) didn't speak to me. There was a time where we considered looking towards The Marvels movie. It was originally supposed to come out in Feb 2023 (the weekend prior to Princess), but has since been moved to July 2023. So I was considered taking a stab at the rumored villain in The Marvels, but it makes less sense with it having not come out yet (it's already an extremely obscure comic book character). I could do Kang since Quantumania now comes out in Feb 2023, but he's going to be around for a while so I'll have other opportunities to be him. G and I have a feeling Shang-Chi is going to play a role in the Ms Marvel storyline based on some easter eggs in the show. So at the moment, Shang-Chi is the leading candidate. It gives me an opportunity to try and make the Ten Rings. But it's going to come down to time. We still have a lot of work left on G's costume and that takes priority over mine. So if time gets short, then I'll pivot to Moon Knight possibly because there's less involved and it's more of a straight up purchased costume. But I'd like to add my own flair, so I want to be able to make Shang-Chi work.

The Ms Marvel fist is taking a long time to make because it's a bunch of individual pieces that need time to glue together. I've tried rushing it, and it doesn't work well. So it's glue a piece, wait an hour, glue a piece, wait an hour. And when it comes to weekdays, it's glue a piece, don't have an hour so go to bed. And we haven't even gotten to the hardest part with the LED electronics and programming. With that being said, we've been doing some test painting for the bracelet and it doesn't look good when it's LED backlit with other colors other than white. So that bracelet might end up being easier than originally thought out. Remains to be seen.
 
Yeah that's why I asked about co-ordinating. Not many other recognizable outfits in that show. For a show that's about cosplayers, they could have been a little more kind to the real-world cosplayers by making the show costuming more unusual!!!
What a labor of love. It's going to be a show-stopper when it is finished I'm sure.
 
Yeah that's why I asked about co-ordinating. Not many other recognizable outfits in that show. For a show that's about cosplayers, they could have been a little more kind to the real-world cosplayers by making the show costuming more unusual!!!
What a labor of love. It's going to be a show-stopper when it is finished I'm sure.

Absolutely, it was a lot of people in clothes with no distinct item or outfit that would make them recognizable. Add that to no one really speaking to me makes for a lack of interest in them.

In hindsight, if we hadn't started on Ms Marvel, the combo of Love and Thunder would have been epic. For another time maybe. We had considered Lady Thor and Thor, but that was before we were aware of the Love character which would have fit the two of us really well. G also hasn't seen Love and Thunder yet, so she isn't aware of the character yet.
 
That's been the toughest part so far. If she's Ms. Marvel, then who am I? I could cross-dress and be Captain Marvel, but it seems like Steph is leaning towards that for Halloween. And many of the other characters (Red Daggers, Clandestines, her parents (like Dad in Hulk cosplay), Bruno, Damage Control) didn't speak to me.

Kamala's dad in hulk cosplay would be incredible though!
 
Ms. Marvel - Bengal Painting
Previous:
-Initial Design and Working on the Bracelet
-Fun with magnets

When we last left off, the bengal (bracelet) was causing issues with the magnets being able to hold in a cylindrical shape. I tried placing a magnet in the opposite plane of direction, but that didn't really help as much as I had hoped. I then tried a second approach with layering. So I would hold the bracelet in a cylindrical shape, and then I would layer a second piece of foam over the top of it in an attempt to keep it from moving as much. To accomplish this, I needed to find an object that was roughly the goal cylindrical shape. After trying several different objects, we found a bottle of mustard to be about what we were looking for. I measured a collar piece to go around the entrance/exit of the bracelet, put the cement glue on it, and then wrapped it with a hair tie to hold it in position.

thumbnail_IMG_4691.jpeg

It actually worked reasonably well. While it doesn't 100% hold it's shape, it's definitely holding it better than it was before. I think the combination of magnets on the exit portion which connects to the hand will help give it its final shape.

Once we finished the design portion it was time for painting. We first did a layer of Flexbond paint. This will keep the object flexible once painted, but it also helps fill in the majority of the pores in the foam (thus we use less actual paint). It's also translucent so it won't disrupt the ability for light to come through. For the color portions of paint, we're using Liquitex Basics Acrylic. We're using Rub'n'Buff Metallic Gold leaf to give it a golden shine and make it appear like gold instead of foam. We decided to do a test paint to determine the order of operations for the different colors found on the bracelet.

1) Black acrylic, then color acrylic, then metallic gold
2) Black acrylic, then metallic gold, then color acrylic
3) Metallic gold without a black acrylic background

thumbnail_IMG_4713.jpeg

thumbnail_IMG_4714.jpeg

This triangle was split into thirds. The left third was #1 (Black, color, gold), then right third was #2 (black, gold, color), and the top third was gold w/o black. The top was noticeably different and not the look we were going for. The bottom two portions definitely gave a fuller feeling to the gold by having the black background. The left and right were only slightly different. On the left there were hints of gold within the colored portions where there were tiny pieces of raised foam. So ultimately we decided to go with method #1.

We painted the entire bracelet black first.

thumbnail_IMG_4715.jpeg

We allowed that to dry overnight.

We then painted in what appears to be green and blue sections of the bracelet with a very small brush.

thumbnail_IMG_4721.jpeg

The middle portion underneath the rose pattern is exclusively blue. The two small valleys to the left and right are exclusively green. And then the two outer valleys of the bracelet are suppose to look like blue underneath a pattern of gold. So to accomplish that we only painted blue into the extra carved in areas in those sections, and then we'd have the gold go over the top onto the higher places.

Then came the use of the rub'n'buff metallic paint. We used a finger wrapped in paper towel, and then covered by an old sock. This would give a smooth finish and would keep brush strokes out of the final product.

The goal was for it to look like this:

ms-marvel-episode-1.png

The finished product came out like this!

thumbnail_IMG_4723.jpeg

thumbnail_IMG_4724.jpeg

We're pleased with how it came out. I did some test back-lighting on it, and I'm not quite sold on that yet. I'll have to play around with different colors and potentially something a bit dimmer. The light washes out a lot of the detail and color of what we've done thus far. So the work continues!

Next Post: Making the Top of the Fist
 
Last edited:

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!











facebook twitter
Top