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I have not forgotten about these pictures! Did you? Remember my Halloween costume from 2011, when I was going as a Tree? No? Remember, I made the whole thing out of paper grocery bags? This really isn't ringing any bells? Well, I don't blame you, it's been like four months since Halloween, and I'm sure nobody cares about that grand old time anymore. Now that we're huddled in our houses trying not to either freeze to death or drown, depending on what crazy weather Chicago is throwing at us, let's kill time by just thinking back to when we were still thinking about the Halloween episode of the Office.

Ok, so let's get down to business, with the torso component of my costume. Better look up the Wikipedia page for Cuirass now, because I'm going to be using it a lot.

This is a picture of more paper bags. Hooray!

The torso would need a much larger piece, though, so I had to glue two pieces together.

Bam!

I used a T-shirt (or teeshirt?) as a template. Soon I would have my own custom-made paper t-shirt (teashirt?).

I loosely traced the shape, and cut it out.

The back was slightly different than the front. It had a different collar and arm holes. They were both instantiated from the same tshirt (t . . . shirt?) pattern, though.

Then I did a good old crinkle-crankle-up on them both to give them my patent-pending faux-bark (foe bark?) texture.

I glued the two pieces together just like a real t-shirt (tishirt?). One whole side (the right side in this picture) was un-connected from arpit to waist, to allow me to actually put the thing on. Paper is not nearly as flexible as shirt fabric.

Which was quickly made apparent when I tried it on and it ripped in several places. I didn't want to be some sort of weird Tree / the Hulk costume, so I decided to reinforce the torso's various orifices (I'm sorry about this sentence).

Some rolled / crumpled up paper glued to the neck hole and the two arm holes stemmed the tears. Ooh, I mean dried up my tears. Yes, that's a much better joke on the word "tears."

Here it is on my body! The look on my face is due to the concentration it took to take this picture without using my hands.

But yes, it was sort of more of a paper apron (papron!) at this point.

Anyway, I asynchronously worked on the shoulder structure. I have now used programming terms more than the promised "cuirass." Sorry about that.

Ok, so here's the idea. I built a framework out of folded-up bag bottoms (they are much more sturdy than the regular parts of bags). The two branches I decided on for the shoulders were well glued to the center piece. My idea was that this would allow the flexibility to move with my body, while still being sturdy enough to keep the branches from having erectile dysfunction.

But oh yeah, how would I be able to put it on with everything else? I sawed the branches off, so they wouldn't get in the way of working on the thing.

Here we have the structure finished. the hexagon shape would go around my head, and the branch-connector would go behind my neck.

I lined it up inside the papron, to make sure all of my measurement were correct. That's not a typo, the only thing I measured was the gap between my shoulders.

Some slits in the shoulders would let the branches stick out through the papron.

Then I devised a brilliant scheme to connect the shoulder branches on the spot, after the neck truss and papron were donned. I'm really knocking the crazy word count out of the park on this one.

Here's the big idea. The shorter PVC pipe would be attached to the branch end sticking out of the truss, with the elbow permanently attached to that. The longer PVC part would be attached to the branch. Just with friction, the PVC pipe jammed into the elbow would hopefully be enough to hold the branch up, while still allowing the convenience of quick ass-/dissembly. Woah, I probably shouldn't use that term anymore, because it makes it seem like I want to dissemble my ass.

This process involved lots of glue. Ignore the wire sticking out of the end, though. I thought having a wire in the middle would add to the stability of it, but that was pretty dumb. It only made it more awkward.

For added strength, I drilled a hole in the connection.

And jammed a skewer in it, sawing off the excess. That puppy was pretty secure.

Gratuitous. Seriously, though, the cutest cat.

Here I am taking a look at the connection. Again, the wire was just getting in the way. Just imagine it isn't there, and that I'm great.

Here I am trying it on. The placement was pretty perfect, and the shoulder truss structure actually seemed pretty good, for a thing made out of paper and glue. Also, we have Facebook on the TV (TEEvee?)

Here's a closeup of how it sticks out of the papron. This allowed me to put the costume on pretty easily, by putting on the shoulder truss, then the papron - sticking the PVC elbows through the shoulders - and finally sticking the branches on. This method of donning made things much easier. Well, everything was easier except for the grammar needed to describe it.

Well, I have to get to bed. That's all for part 4. Hopefully I can get the rest posted without too many more parts! Thanks for sticking it out with me on this saga which will probably end up taking us to Halloween, 2012.