Following on from a discussion that started about Poll Question 013 but moved onto “Fancy Dress Parties” I want to talk about licensed products. The idea was that Valve license the design of the major costumes in Half-Life 2 to be made into costumes that people can wear. Personally I would love to see a Combine Elite uniform.
Taking a general view for a moment, I’m surprised that people haven’t begun to explore the possibilities in the same way that Staw Wars fans have. You often see costumes, fan-made films, toys etc. I know that Unreal Tournament toys are available but what about products for adults?
Last year, or was it the year before?, saw the introduction of fluffy headcrabs which was cool but there must be many other possibilities. I remember seeing a photograph of a person who created his own hazard suit and of course I can’t find it now!
Now is the time to let you imagination run wild! Lets see if we can think of some cool products that Valve could license or perhaps could be made by individuals for special events or gifts. The first part of this post was serious but this part is just for fun, go crazy and give me your wildest (But Safe For Work) ideas.
Okay I’ll start with a silly but more than possible one:
Cut-out paper faces. They were popular on the BBC website for a while. Just a simple pdf page with holes near the ears for the string to go through.
I’d love to see an HEV suit costume. Think of the fan films!
Also, there are a great deal of collectors figures for games. Final Fantasy items (figureines, replica jewelry, etc) are pretty popular, and I know there are others I can’t think of off the top of my head, but they are out there!
How about a mouse that looks like a headcrab, especially if it had a speaker in it that screamed like the real (!) version every time you click a button. Yes,of course there should be an off switch but would be fun for guests who used you mouse. 🙂
Hum… The ideas seen nice but heck… Who to build? I have minimal ideas of electrical parts and my knowledge is limited because so far I didn’t need to get used to it. But Certainly so I would like to have a Valve HEV Suit Mark V with voices, or maybe even a combine uniform, sure. I would give more valor to the second item, damn always wanted to be inside one. But maybe it can be even easier to pick some simple material, buy a separated whiny white gas mask, and build up a simple Civil Protection uniform. I think you can find this item in a hardware store. (?)
The AR-2 Paintball gun!
The Robotic Headcrab!
The Barney action figure with the kung-fu grip!
A wide array of Rebellion and Combine flags!
The Administrator Breen Alarm Clock! (Comes with an enlightening speech, every day!)
The Stunstick Baseball Bat!
The Gordon Freeman Breakfast cereal!(Comes with marshmellow headcrabs, vortigaunts and GMans)
The Combine Ball lava lamp.
Alyx pin-ups.
The Dr. Breen Self-help book (Includes the top ten tips on how to commit mass genocide. The important aspects to look for in choosing a loyal army and how to fight time-travelling invincible humanoids.)
The Dr. Kleiner Do-It-Yourself Teleportation Kit.
That being said. I’d definetely buy a combine outfit. Hell, i’d buy the MP-7 to go with it.
Some very cool ideas there. IS it possible to extract all of Breen’s speeches from Hl2? I think I’d actually like to listen to them.
Has anybody seen the new photoframes? They have a small TFT screen and you upload images via USB and they simply rotate the images. If they had sound you could upload the speeches and have ever changing face poses.
How about car stickers?
Xen or Bust
Combine Shit Happens
Just found this: Action Figures Petition
The Elite suit isn’t that far fetched. The designers did a good job of making the suits fairly realistic.
To start with the easy and move to the hard
1. Some white pants (of the same material for cargo pants but without the extra pockets). These could be found at a department store.
2. A pair of black boots that reach three quarters of the way up the shin. Leather boots aren’t hard to find either, department store again.
3. Black gloves to match the black boots. Again, leather, might prove a bit difficult to find gloves without many seems, but possible. Hooray for the department store.
4. White long sleeve shirt. Will be hard to get the material to look just right because it can’t be a dress shirt. Not impossible. Department store galore.
5. Black leather belt. Again, real easy.
Now it starts to get difficult.
6. The straps for the armor plates on the arms and legs can be taken off of knee pads or shin guards.
7. The armor plates themselves can be any number of things. You could take corrugated plastic (the stuff they use for model airplanes and stitch fabric around it. You could also hunt through shin guards, elbow guards and knee pads and see if any of the backing material (the material behind the hard plastic that saves your ass) matches.
7a. Then you just cut them to the right shape, clean them up to look pretty, put holes where required and attach.
8. The Kevlar vest and Kevlar arm guards aren’t an easy task either. Best bet would be to go to a fabric store and hunt for fabric that would match in appearance. Then take that fabric, cut it to match the front and cut another identical piece for the back of the front (the part of the vest that hits your chest). Then stitch the top and sides together, stuff it with some material (soft or not), and stitch it closed. Then stitch in appropriate straps and what not.
9. Same idea as above for the black collar.
10. And finally, the helmet. I truly haven’t got a clue. If you were inventive and very talented perhaps an old motorcycle helmet, gas mask, and a whole lot of skill could make something similar.
That’s the best I can come up with for an elite suit, hope it sparks some ideas!
Cheers,
David
I would love somebody to create something like that and post images here.
What I’d love to see is someone create the Elite suit but make it fully functional.
The colar and the armour pads on the arms, chest and legs made out of Dyneema (or some other vest material like Zylon or Kevlar).
The Boots made out of a thicker leather with steel toes.
The helmet made from the same material as a Spectra ballistic helmet. The red-eye in the helmet be a CCD camera with switchable modes between normal vision, night vision and thermal. Plus a built in gas mask.
If I were rich thats what I’d do. A genuine Half Life 2 Combine Elite Battle Suit.
Next step is to figure out how to make a Functioning AR-2 rifle to accompany it.
Have you the seen the Vortigaunt for sale at the Valve store? It can be yours for only $29.95!
I’d love to see a zombie suit with a fluufy headcrab mask. Great for scaring people in the dark!!
If anyone makes an elite costume, can they post an instructions and materials list? i’m frustrated with my own attempts, and I haven’t even tried the helmet yet.