Captain America: Brigade Blaster Review

I was surprised to see these on shelves so soon after the Toy Fair, but my curiosity simply couldn't be stopped.  As a Captain America fan, I was interested in seeing how this "Brigade Blaster" would hold up, especially with the dismal 20 Ft range listed on the box.  I had higher hopes for something that would be labeled as the Captain's blaster.  Soon after opening it and checking it out, I realize now why Captain America is more fond of his shield if he is supposed to defend our country with this dismal blaster.  If anyone should've been able to give this blaster a great review, one would think that my bias towards the Cap would've prevailed, but even a hero knows when something just isn't right.  Watch my review and you'll see why I'm convinced this blaster was developed by the Axis powers.

Cap: Back in Black

April 4th, 2014, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, duuuude.  Yeah, if you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm a big fan of Steve Rogers.  In 2011, I was the First Avenger for Halloween, and for our Halloween Laser Tag game.  The next year I did his Avengers variant.  Now usually I get to work on a Halloween costume in September as that holiday approaches, but when The Avengers movie came out, I wore my Captian America: The First Avenger costume to opening night and got quite a few compliments on it (as well as a few photos with fans).  It was neat feeling like a superstar and, although Captain America is using both this new S.H.I.E.L.D. issue uniform for most of the movie, he is also shown wearing his World War II era costume, too.  I could get away with just wearing my old costume again, but I'd still make this one for a couple of reasons.

The first being... well, you guys know I'm a completionist.  It'd be wrong to have just the two costumes and not bother with the third.  Also, this new costume is based off of probably my favorite comic-book variation.  Steve Rogers, when he was working for S.H.I.E.L.D. initially, had a costume almost identical to what we see in the movie trailers for The Winter Soldier.  It's not nearly as "Star Spangled" as his normal geddups and is just a little more practical.  He still uses the iconic shield to look 'Muricah enough for fans.

Also, if this is to be a costume to be used eventually for our Halloween Laser Tag game, it'll be a little more stealth than wearing a flag on my torso.  The Dark Blue/Black covers much of the uniform, the dark brown leather straps are just as dark, and the silver Stars and Stripes contrast enough to bring some "pop" to an admittedly darker setup than Cap is usually known for.

The trouble with building a costume BEFORE the movie is out is trying to find enough shots that give clues and cues as to what features this uniform has.  To the left, you can clearly see how this costume (seen in "Heroic Age" and "Super Soldier" comics) is pretty darned close to the 2014 Movie version except that the red stripe along the side of the pants has been left out.  The Star in the middle as well as the logos on his shoulders are slightly different too, but clearly based off of this version.  However, all the details in the movie version are lost in this more form-fitting spandex-esque version seen in the comics, so I'll have to rely on the screenshots from the movie to see those.

In my "Avengers" costume, I made it lightweight enough to use easily for indoor use, whereas the First Avenger version was full-on leather and quite heavy and hot to wear.  I wished I had taken more time to get as detailed with the Avengers version as I had the WW2 version, so I'm hoping this costume will find a good middleground.  While the costume preparation is mostly for the upcoming movie, I'm certainly planning ahead for our Annual Halloween Laser Tag game 10 months from now.  I'd also like to do a costume Nerf game as well, so making a costume that is indoor and outdoor friendly that won't get in my way is going to be the challenge here.  I've thought about using a Dark Blue/Navy Combat Shirt as the basis for the upper portion.  The nice part about using that is it's actual function in a laser tag or Nerf game.  Breathable, easy storage, and it's already got the "Tacti-cool" look we see in the costume.  The gloves, tactical belt, and boots I can actually reuse from the First Avenger costume (as well as the iconic shield), so it's nice to already have some items on-hand.

I've still got plenty of time before the movie, and TONS of time before Halloween, so we'll see if something significant can come together.  Who knows, maybe at an upcoming indoor or outdoor game I can test out some components of it to make sure it can hold up!

Image1, Image2, Image3

Updating the Captain

Broke a lot of ground this morning getting things ready for Captain America's modernization.  There are a lot of different parts from his World War II-era combat suit seen in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and the new revamped uniform in The Avengers (2012).  Since I'm using this in a laser tagging event on October 28th, I wanted to make the costume accurate but also keep mobility in mind.  That being said, the heavy leather jacket used in my costume from last year has been replaced with a lightweight track jacket.  I also don't have to worry about mounting any sensors on my costume since we're using LTX and LTAR blasters for this match.  The white blaster above is what I'm working with.  I've already swapped the orange reload paddle for a white one off of the other Orange/yellow LTAR I had.  I have a few mods in mind for this blaster, both aesthetic and electronic in mind.  Those will likely get hammered out next week. 

 

The big parts I'm trying to finish before that is the jacket and gloves/gauntlets.  Here you can see a shin guard that I'll be re-appropriating as an armored gauntlet for Cap's gloves.  It'll be painted red and should work nicely for that solid armored look that I love about them.  Major work still needs to be done on the jacket, but I'll post some progress pictures for the build on it.

The only elements getting directly re-used from last year's costume is the shield and the pants.  I tried looking for new blue long athletic pants, that might match the texture on my jacket a little more, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to track blue pants down!!

Happy Halloween, Everybody!

To those who celebrate it, Happy Halloween!  To those who don't, Happy Watch-people-dress-up-in-silly-outfits-ween!  We had our Halloween Laser Tag game last night from 5-9pm with our good ol' Laser Challenge gear.  Despite the cooler temperatures, we managed about 5 games in that time, which is pretty good considering it was LC gear (LTX games tend to go a lot faster).  Pictures will be up soon from that event.  In the meantime, a few pictures have been surfacing of my Captain America costume that I wore during the laser tag game, so here's one with me, a Female Captain America, and some Watchmen at a party held a few days ago.

More pictures later!

Independence Eve Blast: the Tradition

Since I started a laser tagging group back in 2006, we've made an annual event that's unique in that there's really only one good time of year to do something like this.  When we first planned this event 6 years ago, we had no idea it would be so much fun that we'd look forward to it each year.  I'm talking about the "Independence Eve Blast", or "IEB" as some of our veteran players have come to call it.  This is a laser tag event that is scheduled just before July 4th, Independence Day (US) and takes advantage of this... explosive... holiday and the effect that it creates for a laser tag game at nightfall.

The park where we hold our regular summer season games lies in the center of a residential area.  These folks commonly go out and purchase fireworks (legal in this state) and light them off in celebration of Independence Day.  As rockets, balls of light, and other explosions light up the night sky, the park is illuminated in a war-like setting that is a real joy to play in.

This year marks the 7th time we've done this, and it's always something folks look forward to.  Most people also have the 4th of July off from work too, so it's usually one of our events that nearly everyone can come to!  This year is also likely to be the most "explosive" since Fireworks are now able to be legally sold at local stores for a limited time.  Because they're even MORE available and easy to get ahold of, I'm expecting this Tuesday's event to be very... explody.  Obviously, for safety reasons, we don't use fireworks in our actual games.  They're just going off overhead, as utilizing explosives and such during a game like this would be dangerous.  We've thought of using smoke bombs, but with the dry and hot conditions we've had, I don't want any fires getting started from a smoke bomb in some dry grass.  Safety first, kids!

It's also been part of the tradition to have a "Captain America" themed image for the Facebook event.  Every year I've found some kinda patriotic Captain America shot (this obviously goes back much further than the recent movies), but since I've actually got a Cap costume, I decided to take a little time to pose for this year's photo, featuring my beloved CTDYNE LTX.

Either way, celebrating this country's Independence has always been one of my favorite holidays in general.  Ever since we started this tagging tradition 7 years ago, it's been even more fun!  I also may have a bit of a surprise come July 3rd too, so keep it here for that!

Ready to Roll - Captain America

Weather for our annual Halloween Laser Tag game looks to be a bit cold.  I specifically designed my Captain America costume to be more lightweight this year which, on the surface, seems like a bad idea.  But underneath I'll be armed with my trusty UnderArmour Cold Gear that should keep me more than warm for the evening's festivities. 

On the plus side, it means that for the indoor parties I'll use this costume for in the coming days, I won't be getting cooked inside a thick leather jacket (like I was last year).  I'm really excited to do this game tomorrow not just because I look forward to seeing everyone in costume having a good time, but because I'm anxious to see if my efforts to make this year's costume more "agile" will work in my favor.  Last year, even though I was plenty warm tucked away inside the motorcycle jacket-based costume, it was tough to move around in. 

What I'm most worried about is the durability of the new lightweight "Avengers" version of this costume, as I fear that the materials might snag on the bare branches at the park we'll play at.  The leather jacket from last year not only negated any snags, but gave me a little more confidence to rush through cover that I would otherwise think twice about jetting through.  On Monday, expect a full report on the game, how the costume held up, and an announcement that Tactical Tag faithful should be psyched about.

TWS Update #1

Most folks interested in Costume building are interested mostly with screen accuracy and getting all the details right.  While I'm certainly picky when it comes to that stuff, the work I did on previous costumes for Captain America were important to keep usability in mind for games.  There is, especially in this case, a tactical element to this build.  I'm literally using BDU-style clothing to build the rest of this uniform off of.

If you've missed it, I'm aiming for the latest version of Captain America's costume seen in The Winter Soldier, coming out in April.  While initially, the goal is to have the costume ready for the premier, I need to keep the Halloween Laser Tag game in mind as it will get used again then.

It's fun blending the art of costume building with the practical approach to have this latest rendition work FOR me, not against me.  First up in this build is getting the shield harness together.  It mounts to the back of a modified leather shoulder holster.  Normally, the belts would connect to a belt.  Instead, Cap has it set up to go underneath the arms and meet back in the middle of the back to mount the shield.  While the bracket at the back isn't the metal belt system (which would probably be pretty uncomfortable in actual application) it does mount the shield on my back, as seen in the previews.

The rest of the pieces are on the way already.  The uniform will be built based off of a Rapid Assault Combat Shirt made by 511 Tactical.  There's also combat pants in the same Navy Blue as the shirt.  Not only will it be an excellent match for the colors needed for this build, but this is essentially the same kind of gear I run with for our outdoor laser tag games.  Both my Desert and Woodland MARPAT camouflage setups have a combat shirt base and they're incredibly comfortable.  My "Avengers" version focused on being lightweight and it was nice to use indoors and outdoors, but it was pretty much impossible to hide with, tough to carry much of anything with me.  No spare batteries, no screwdriver, not even a phone.  This new version is already darker (which should make me a little less obvious) and gives me the ability to store the shield on my back.  It can easily get out of my way when I don't want the flag on my shield to give me away.  Not only that, but I won't be limited to using a single-hand use blaster for the games.  With two hands free and the shield on my back, I can use a rifle like I normally do.  The LTAR-AR that I have in the works now should be more than complete by the time this game comes around!  I'll likely combat test the uniform before the Halloween Game anyways!

I really think that's what I'm most excited about with this one.  The ability to build a great costume but also to have it work a little more WITH me than simply serving the purpose of an iconic badass superhero.

Halloween Tagging

If there's one thing that my laser tagging group, the OLCA, doesn't do much of, it's themed games.  Role Playing doesn't find it's way into our games much since we usually just try to play the game and have fun with it.  I have a few friends who are into LARP (Live Action Role Play) who have approached me about doing themed games, and while the concept is neat, I've yet to really try it out for fear that it wouldn't fly well with some of our players who just come out to enjoy the game.  I think at some point I might actually try a LARP game, but so far we've yet to do one.  The Middle Georgia League (MGL) has been known for their LARP games, especially their themed Halloween and Christmas games, but they're not very public about it.

The closest we have come have been a few Halloween games that have occurred in recent years.  As an active student at my University, I've been approached by several student groups to lead laser tag games on campus that have been a BLAST to organize and play.  Some of those games are for parties, like for Halloween, and the clash of Costumes and Combat was really fun for me to be a part of.  Last year, for instance, I used some of my tactical gear, put some "GI Joe" patches on my rig, and went as GI Joe.  It was pretty fun and, with Halloween around the corner again, I couldn't help but think what I could do to step up from last year.

Several of my friends are into costuming.  You may have seen some shots of our resident Stormtrooper playing laser tag with us in our park or caught a glimpse of a guy wearing a Bandanna a la Snake from the Metal Gear series.  So this year, I'm holding a Halloween Laser Tagging event for the OLCA with costumes required and I'm working up something that I think will be a big hit:  Captain America.  It's been fun to start work on this costume trying to track down parts to use to replicate his geddup as closely as possible.  I may even try to use left over parts from my M41A Pulse Rifle, which is based off of a Thomson M1A1 Airsoft gun, to build a quick laser tag Thompson (a WWII era machinegun that was even seen used in the film).  Not sure if I'll go with a shield when I play laser tag in costume, but I think it's probably a good idea to have the iconic shield if I'm going as Captain America.  Especially since I'm thinking of doing away with the helmet/mask.

I'm excited just to get the costume itself together, let alone to play games in it.  I'm hosting a game with the University's Choir for their annual Halloween Party on Saturday, October 29th and then holding the OLCA's Halloween Laser Tag Game the following Sunday.  Not to mention, using the costume on Halloween itself when I have two gigs in the local music scene here in town.  I'll post pictures when it's done, with appropriate laser tag blasters to go with it too!

Wrapping it all up... in Primary Colors

Stark did some nice work on this, eh?

As I move steps closer to finally completing my costume for Halloween this year, I thought I'd share a few more details I've worked out.  I just got done making better patches on each of the shoulders (and used a neat effect to give it that 1950s Magazine Catalog look on purpose).  I've also been using a Rivet gun to bolster a few parts of the jacket.  There are a few exposed rivet points, mainly on the red straps/buckles on the front.  It's been tricky trying to figure it out, but I like how they turned out.  Another point that'll likely get riveted to the jacket is the utility belt.

Testing the Rivets

Dying the Utility Belt

I purchased an OD Green WW2-era ammo belt and dyed it dark brown.  This is to mimic the look of the belt Captain America has, but his is leather .45 Cal ammo pouches, unlike my cotton-dyed ammo belt.  The belt will be mounted to the bottom of the jacket via 5mm Rivets (larger than the 3mm ones I've been using on the belts and straps).  The buckle will be painted Aluminum to look more like the actual belt buckle.  You can see the two tests I ran on these Rivets in Leather on this extra piece that I had from the brown straps I cut off of the original jacket.

I realized after building the pistol for this that Captain America uses a Colt .45 pistol in the movie, not the 9mm Beretta pistol I picked up for $6.  Still, I moved forward with the project and painted it with silver top and black bottom.  Looks pretty slick.  While I still wish it were a .45, this will work just fine. I'm quite pleased with how quickly something like this came together.

Other bits will be finished tonight.  The costume will make it's debut tomorrow at a party and again on Sunday for Laser Tag.  It's been really fun working on this, but it'll be nice to focus on my blasters again after this is all said and done.  I'll be finishing up Part 3 of that Recasing Tutorial, I promise!

Building a Hero

It's starting to come together!  Plans for parties, getting ready for the Halloween Laser Tag game on the 30th, and this costume of mine.  For the next week, I'll be making and receiving the finishing touches to my costume that'll debut at a party on the 28th, play laser tag the next Sunday, and perform in two different venues on All Hallows Eve.  I'm stoked!

The costume, if you missed it earlier, is Captain America, as seen in "The First Avenger" which hit the box office this past summer and will hit shelves in Blu Ray and DVD on October 25th.  It's probably my favorite superhero costume to date because it turns away from that "Men in Tights" look that Captain America (an most other superheroes) usually has and became much more practical and realistic.  It's more of a Biker suit than a superhero geddup and has a neat rugged and unpolished look to it that I dig.

Making the costume has been no easy feat.  Thanks to the help of a friend who knows a leatherworker, the jacket that the Cap dons will be arriving within the week (I've seen pictures and I'm really excited to see it).  The shield I just picked up at a local costume shop.  It looks the part and is nice and lightweight.  I messed with the straps on the inside a little so it fits in my hand easier.  The Helmet is being built from one of those kids "Hero" masks.  I'm giving it a bit of a facelift and making it a full helmet and cutting down a lot of the useless plastic and rubber inside the mask to make it fit better.  We'll see how that turns out... so far it's been a little tricky.

The next big battle? Trying to figure out what system to go with for this Halloween Laser Tag game.  Originally I had announced it as an LTX/LTTO game so that we wouldn't have to worry about vests interfering with costumes/getting covered up  by said costumes, but after a talk with one of my veterans, I'm considering going old school with Laser Challenge.  We've got exactly a week to figure that one out.  I'll post more progress as the costume and game details come together throughout the week.

Halloween Laser Tag: Recap

Just finished up our annual Halloween Laser Tag game and, despite the cold, we had great turnout and played for a little over 3 hours!  Thanks to a full moon, the park was well lit even at full nightfall and we made good use of this to get lots of great games in before calling it a night.

What an awesome set of games, though!  We experimented with a few different settings for team, zombie, and Alpha Zombie games that were all a lot of fun.  We also got to debut a lot of newer customized gear.  From a sight mounted on an LTAR to the Tactical Tag 200,000 Pageviews blaster to my Captain America LTAR, there were quite a few new ones running around.  Costumes ranged from Mass Effect to Dr. Who.  While we had our usual "I'm in camo" costumes that don't quite count in my books, it was still a fun time.  Actually, I was probably one of the more easily spotted players in the whole group thanks to my primary colors.  To the left are a few of my favorite shots taken during the games.  14 total players made it out and we didn't have any gear malfunctions thanks to the Mod Night held the week before to prepare the battered LTX armory.

My costume held up quite well too, and it was really easy to move around in.  The UnderArmour kept me plenty warm and I didn't get any snags at all!  The Shield kinda helped me power through some tough branches and bushes and I kinda wish I had worked on my blaster a little more (could've used a better iron sight) but in the end, Captain America did pretty well considering how easy I was to spot during the games!  I'm looking forward to getting some more use out of this costume in the days to come.

So I'd say the whole evening was a huge success.  Fun costumes, great games, no problems, and some decent photos to prove it all!  On November 1st I'll have an announcement that most of my readers should enjoy.  Until then, I've got a few busy days ahead, so I'll probably take it easy on the hobby side until then. 

Captain America: Stealth Suit, Rollout!

At the beginning of the year, I started building my next Costume in anticipation of the April 4th release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Most of the stuff came together quite easily, but then one thing led to another and I ended up running out of time to REALLY dig in and make this suit look screen-accurate.  We still managed to get things together by the premier of the latest installment by Marvel, and I'm still happy with how it turned out.

It worked awesome for the premier!  Got some compliments, saw others in costume, took some pictures, it was fun!  Then I got to see Cap sling that shield like never before in what turned out to be a spectacular film!  I had my expectations high, but the actual movie made those seem LOW.  The fight scenes, the plot, the one-liners, did I mention the fight scenes??  Holy cow was it a RIDE to watch!!  I won't spoil it for you.  Go see it!  Marvel really nailed this one and you'll enjoy every second of it.

As for the future for this costume, this is really just the first Phase.  There was more planned for it, but amidst everything else going on in my life right now, I just ran short on time to really do this Stealth Suit justice.  The majority of that work will be on the shirt, as everything else is pretty much set.  I'll be getting this thing more detailed, more accurate, and have it all awesome by the Halloween Game this fall.

In the meantime, GO SEE THE MOVIE!

Captain America: 70% Complete

So today I went to my local Wal-Mart and picked up my copy of Captain America:  The First Avenger, on Blu-Ray/DVD in a familiar jacket and shield.  As I approached the cashier at the register, I told her "I feel like I shouldn't have to pay for something I was in."  We laughed and, alas, I was forced to pay for it.  Oh well!  The fact of the matter is that 70% of my costume is good to go!  Been working on details on the jacket and now am moving on to accessories and the pants.

Speaking of those darned pants, do you have any idea how tough it is to find a pair of blue sweatpants?  Not navy blue.  Just blue.  There's a serious drought in the stores I've been checking in my area for this and it's driving me nerts!  That, and trying to find accessories that match color is a bit tricky too when your color is dark brown.  If it were black, I'd have no problem!  Still, things are coming along.

Here's one of the changes I made to the jacket.  The maker had the straps in the front in brown leather, which is all wrong.  Those are supposed to be red to look like the stripes on the American flag!  So I got me some red suspenders and replaced them,  I used the same buckles on the jacket, just looped through them with the red straps which were wider than the brown ones.  I then integrated the red straps into the jacket's "belt" to secure them.

There have been other tweaks to details on this.  The jacket kind of smelled like a gas station attendant and had some metallic specs all over it.  After a good wipe down, vacuuming, and use of some diluted soap, I got it all spiffed up and good to go.  Next up is getting my accessories all together and the pants.  It'll make it's complete debut on Friday for a party before I take it out for laser tag on Sunday, so that should be a good indicator of how durable this costume really is.

Costume Changes

Well, I'm about 95% certain that my window to work on my Colonial Marine costume has run out.  Without the help of my programming genius friend, I can't get the Pulse Rifle operational.  Which means I fall back to Plan B:  Captain America.  I'll be making a new jacket to match that of the one used in The Avengers.  Not only that, but I'll be painting up an LTAR "Captain America Style" as well as having a few friends go as the other members of the team.  One of them might even have a "bow" laser tag blaster for his Hawkeye costume, so I hope we can complete the team in the little time we have left.  In any case, it should be a fun game!

I have time on Thursday that I plan on devoting to much of this costume's construction.  It's a lot to get together, but I've already got the shield and blue pans for this.  My focus will be the jacket and gloves/gauntlets for this.  If all else fails, I can always just re-use last year's costume, but I'd rather not do that if I don't have to.  Wish me luck!

Halloweeneth Approacheth

Last year I covered a bit of the progress I made on my costume for our Halloween Laser Tag game: Captain America.  I still haven't settled on whether I want to reuse this for the game this year or if I should try something else.  Figured it'd run the idea past my favorite people ever: this blog's readers.

I wouldn't be opposed to using the costume again, maybe tweaking a few things that I just didn't have time to really devote attention to last year.  But I've got a few other options I've been considering and wanted to gauge your opinion on them.

• Use parts of my Cap costume to make the "Avengers" version of Captain America
• Use items from my tactical gear to recreate a character from GI Joe
• Finish the Pulse Rifle and go as a Colonial Marine

Any preferences?  I'm open to suggestions too, but I've only got a month and a half to put something together, so I'd rather do one of the options I've listed since it'll be quicker to put together.

MLTA Recap 10-14-12

It's been awhile since I've had time for a good solid outdoor game during the Midwest Laser Tag Association's off season, but we finally got one in.  With the leaves crunchy, the cover thinning, and the space limited, long-range really had a leg up on this match.  Blasters like my LTX-EF5, Sundawg's Ultimate LTX, and the CTDYNE LTX, matches came down to who was more accurate.

Having good cover was tough to come by.  Almost everyone was in some form of camouflage so utilizing what cover we had was imperative to surviving in these games.  It was difficult getting reads on where you were getting hit from, which made for some extremely unorganized attacks for some teams during the course of the evening.

We had 12 people total show up for this game, which wasn't bad considering the RSVP for the Facebook event was only sitting at 6 the day before the match.  It was a great evening and my LTX-EF5 got some good kills during the course of the 4 matches we played.  I'll be finishing it up now that I've got a little more spare time ahead of me.

Next up is our Halloween Game, which means I've got some major work to do on my costume.  I'm about 90% certain that the Pulse Rifle will not be ready for the match since my programming guy is busy.  I'll likely be revamping my Captain America costume and a few of us will go as the Avengers for the game.  Either way, I've got plenty of costume stuff to get either my Colonial Marine or Cap together for it.

"You here with a mission, sir?"

When I began looking for a place to start with the new "jacket" for the Captain America costume for The Avengers, I couldn't help but remember how heavy my previous costume was.  It was a leather jacket with plenty of other parts sewn on and it was kinda tough to do indoor parties with since it got so hot.  I decided to base this new costume off of a lightweight sports pullover.  I'll be making alterations and adding the iconic silver star to turn this fella into a much more breathable costume.  The best part about making a lightweight variant is that if I do need it to be warmer, I can layer underneath with my UnderArmour Cold Gear that I already own.  During games, having this more flexible and mobile jacket to work with will be much easier to get around in for our Halloween Laser Tag game.

Arm Guards Progress

Captain America's gloves have an armored gauntlet on the forearms that I really like.  At first, I attempted to repaint an old pair of shin guards and adapt them for being worn on the forearm.  As it turns out, the plastic doesn't like to hold paint very evenly (has lots of spots and such show up, regardless of the exterior finish). 

I've resorted to covering one of the shin guards in some left-over fabric I have from making the jacket.  Turned out pretty nice, so I'll be doing the same to the other one.  Should be ready to rock next Sunday.  Next up is my blaster, a modified LTAR.  Gonna try a few things like disabling the Beacon in the dome and perhaps a stock.  We'll see!

Laser Tag Prop Pistol

So I've been focusing the past few days on something that's not quite so "Tactical", nor very "Tag"ish.  However, I DO have a laser tag game on Sunday that will be in costume and since my Captain America geddup is what I'm using, I thought it'd be fun to fill you all in.  But to keep you Taggers interested, here's a quick recasing I just built tonight to aide the Cap in taking down his enemies... as long as they're wearing a Laser Challenge sensor, that is!

The pistol is unique in the sense that nearly all of it's "Toy" features, like the recoil effect and the sound effects have been retained.  We did this by having both the toy gun sound board and the Laser Challenge Radar Extreme board run off the same power supply.  Both systems need 3 Volts to function, so it was a match made in ... well... my workshop.  To the left, you can see the Laser Challenge board getting prepped to install into the toy gun.  It actually rests on top of that battery box.

And here's the full layout of the blaster!  The trigger and reload button are wired into the LC board and function normally.  However, when they're pressed, they also activate their respective sounds via the sound board being wired into these buttons as well.  The only down side to using the toy blaster's sound effects is that I can't tell when I'm out of ammo.  But thanks to the fact that the board has 25 shots, it's unlikely that I'll run out as long as I reload frequently.  25 single round shots take a LONG time to burn through.

Below is a video showing how this guy works.  I'll be painting it tomorrow and using it as part of my equipment on Sunday for the Laser Tag game we're having, but I'll probably also use it as a prop for the costume even if it's not a laser tag event.