Awesome & Cheap Cyborg Costume

Have you ever wanted to be a cyborg?  Well, that technology is still a long time away, but using some current and older technology, you can at least dress like one!

The plan for this costume is for a home movie my brothers and I are making.  It is a sequel to one of our previous works.  This character actually died in the earlier work I mentioned, but we decided to bring him back as a cyborg.

I got lucky with my supplies, because the company I work for was recently updating their computers, so I inherited an old computer system along with several old components, like outdated modems, keyboards, etc.

The materials and construction were both pretty cheap and easy.  I've been stockpiling broken computer stuff, radios, and anything else electronic I could get my hands on.  So, since I didn't pay for most of the parts, this project only really cost me about $20.

The materials for this project are:
Cardboard
Various computer parts
Hot Glue
Spray Paint
A few of those zip ties

That's about it really.  I have one step dedicated to each body part to show some more detail on what I did to make all this work.  This instructable is designed to make things easy to understand.  I did not do this project in any easily followed order, so I had to organize my methods after I was finished.

Step 1 Cut Out Your Basic Shapes & Paint

Pretty much what I did was lay some cardboard down and trace my body parts onto it.  While cutting the parts, I was placing them on me to make sure everything fit together correctly.  At first everything was held together by duct tape, because I wanted to paint the parts before I glued them together.

One thing I tried to keep in mind through the entire process of building this was to avoid being symmetrical.  A cyborg always seems to look cooler when both sides look different.

To get a good metallic look to my cardboard I put a base coat of black spray paint on everything. Then I dusted it with silver spray paint. I tried to let some of the black show through, so it ended up with a dirty metal/gun metal type look to it. I like the way it turned out.

Later on after bringing all the parts back inside, I noticed the silver spray paint was rubbing off on my hands. So I used some Krylon Crystal Clear spray to put a protective layer over everything.

After everything was dry, I used Hot Glue and put the parts together. I was putting the parts on my body to test and make sure everything still fit well. (Please don't burn yourself if you try this. I waited for the glue to harden first before putting anything on.)

I had to make a few minor adjustments as things got glued together to make sure everything functioned correctly. For example, if your foot/leg part doesn't bend well, it's going to be much harder to walk while wearing it.

Comments

[007dna]

Why does this not have more views? This is epic. Nice job.

[skittlespider]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. I have thought this was one of my under the radar instructables for a while now. I'm glad someone else agrees.

[albhednomad]

This is really well done and very creative. Also, I'd like to thank you. After seeing how you did the design for your arm gun, I think I just solved a problem I had finishing the miniature one for my costume.

[skittlespider]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. I'm glad I was of some help too.