Anti-Form Sora Glowing Eyes
From CosplayWiki
As far as wearable luminous materials are concerned, the best route to go is with Electroluminescent sheeting/strips/wire. They require a minimum of voltage, do not generate any heat, are flat, and will probably last longer than one's costume. The most reliable source for such sheeting is http://www.luminousfilm.com/
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Materials
- Luminous Film-- White sheet
- Lamination
- Inverter
- Yellow film
Procedure
Purchasing Luminous Film
Buying strips or wires that light up is relatively inexpensive, but for Sora's eyes I had to buy a 6" x 12" sheet, which cost me over 40 dollars by the time shipping was figured in. The sheets/strips come in two colors: White or Blue/green, either of which can be overlayed with sheets of transparent film to acheive the desired color. In my design, I bought a white sheet, overlayed with yellow film. Pretty simple. ^.^
The actually sheeting/strips can be purchased from this page: http://www.luminousfilm.com/catalog_lamp.htm
I've done some searching around, and this place is pretty much the most reasonable as far as prices go. ^.^ This stuff would also be ideal for Tron outfits.
The BEST PART about the sheeting is that it can be cut into pretty much whatever shape you require! There are some limitations to this, however, as I soon found out.
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When the sheet arrived, it had a very thin line down the middle. I won't go into the crazy details of why this line is there, but the very basic explanation is that an EL sheet is actually a capacitor. When electrons are travelling from the battery and through the wiring, they essentially 'gather' in the sheet. (Engineers, please forgive this explanation). If you do not cut out an approximately symetric shape around the line, then you will have too many electrons gathered on one side of the sheet, and you won't get an even glow throughout. My eyes were cut out as per the schematic shown above, and there is no discernable difference from one eye to the other. ^.^ My first test-run failed, however, and one eye was glowing significantly brighter than the other because I did not cut them out symmetrically.
When purchasing EL sheets or EL wire, you'll need to also get an inverter. Capacitors cannot run on straight DC voltage(the kind that comes out of a battery). They require AC(what comes out of your socket at home) to 'light up,' and that is what the inverter does...it takes the battery voltage and turns it into AC voltage. The inverter that you buy will depend on the total square inches of your final cut-out design. Inverters can be purchased here: http://www.luminousfilm.com/catalog_inverters.htm
You'll need to scroll down about midway to get to the affordable ones. The "9 volt DC For Split electrode FLATLITE® Lamps 5-12 sq.in" will probably be suitable for most projects. ^.^
I also encourage anyone who is attempting this to read over the luminousfilm page thoroughly. There are a lot of EL dangers that they discuss, and also how to avoid them. ^.^ The main danger that I encountered first hand is that, IMMEDIATELY following any cutting of an EL sheet, one should laminate it fully. Otherwise there will be current leakage at the edges, and anything touching them will become part of the circuit. Personally, I was initially terrified that both of my eyes would be conducting 9 volts across them if I weren't careful. ^.^; However, with proper lamination, there is no danger, and I barely even felt the eyes giving off heat, much less electricity.
Constructing
To pattern the eyes properly, I made a paper mock-up first.
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This was extremely important, as I had to be able to see enough to move around, but I also wanted the eyes to have correct placement on my head. It took a few tries, but I finally settled on a pattern.
Once I had everything cut out of the EL sheet, we bought a mask. The mask was a fluke, really. Originally I had been intending to wear the eyes over my face, which was to be painted black. However, we decided that, for kicks, we'd take a look in the mask section of Jo-Anns. Lo and Behold, there was one one the shelf that bore a close resemblance to our Sora, so we took it home, and I coated it in three layers of black to prevent it from chipping. Once we got the eyes behind it, we knew it was a success.
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Here is a photo of the exposed electronics, as per the schematic above:
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You can see the little black inverter, the cut down EL sheet, and the place where the 9V Battery attatches. The inverter does give off a high-pitched whine while opperating, which is annoying at first but quickly fades into the background. From what we've researched, this is a normal occurance. Not long after taking this picture, I hand-sewed the eyes into the mask(much like I did with attaching the zipper to the shoes, above), and we were ready for showtime!
