On Becoming Captain Barnacles - The Construction and Result

Welcome back to my story on becoming Captain Barnacles. As my previous post described, I had decided that a large paper mache head would be required. Seeing as my last paper mache creation was a rather crappy fruit bowl back in high school, I realised some assistance would be required. Thankfully this time the internet provided. Here are some helpful resources I found:

Thankyou internet.

Getting Started with Papier Mache
I used white PVA glue because I didn't want to mess around with flour and water. I would recommend buying the cheap generic version as Aquadhere gets expensive.

For hanging, not wearing

Giant Octonauts Heads
Thanks to this mom-blogger for ideas on how to create the head in a Captain Barnacles style.

Thankyou sir

Papier Mache Brush Technique
The first layer took ages. I used the traditional method of dipping strips of paper into a bucket of glue, squeegeeing them out using my fingers, then spreading them on with my hands. This was messy, slow, and left drips of glue everywhere. I quickly decided that this method was for fools and went searching for a better one. This YouTube video shows exactly that - using a brush to paint the glue on and also to pick up the paper strips. It's much faster and neater as well. Check it out!

Thankyou too.

Geek Techniques: How to Make a Big Head Costume!
This guy had a really useful tip on how to attach the big giant head to your own slightly less giant head - namely, a bicycle helmet tied to a big block of foam. This was really helpful as I was wondering how I was going to put the thing on my head without it tilting and falling off.

Tricks and Steps
Here's a brief summary of how I went about it.




1. Get a giant balloon.

Head

2. Paint on the glue with the brush, then paint on strips of paper and paint glue over them. Tips:

      - If you add a bit of food colouring to the glue, you can see where you have painted. 

      - If you alternate layers of differing types of paper, it will be easy to see where you have gone. 

      - If you make the last layer a layer of white paper it will be much easier to paint. 

      - Use a bucket to stop the thing rolling away. 

Allow each layer to dry overnight before starting the next layer. The number of layers you do should depend on how strong you will need it, however will likely more depend on how much time you have left before the item is needed. I only managed three layers, which for a giant head is probably the minimum. A few more layers would have stopped it caving in (which it did a bit) but was mostly OK.

Painting for fun and not much profit

3. As part of your last layer, cut a section out of two plastic plates and tape them to sides as ears. Mache over them.

I hear you now.

4. Cut the bottom open and peel out the balloon. It will make a cool sound as it peels and shrinks.

Thing

5. Optional step

Captain Barnacles chillin'

6. Tie your bike helmet to a block of foam. As you can see, this was a $4 off-cut from Clark Rubber. Something that was not explained on the link above was how to actually get the twine to go through the block of foam. After thinking about this for a while, I used a bike spoke. The spoke will easily punch through the foam and you can use the little hook on the end to pull the twine through. I suppose you could try with knitting needles too.

Poking through

This is a helmet attached to block of foam. What?

Looking ridiculous

7. Start packing the head with paper, put the foam block in place and then pack more paper around it. Then try it on your head. You will probably need to adjust the location and amount of paper to get it right. A helpful spouse or bystander will be useful at this point to tell you if it's on straight. An unhelpful spouse or bystander will just tell you that you look ridiculous so feel free to poke them in the ribs later. 

Helmut

8. Paint. Use a picture of Captain Barnacles from the internet to work out what goes where. I started first with a layer of white spray paint (I was in a hurry because the party was the next morning), but it's also good because it's lighter and won't make the paper as soggy.

Ask the Bunnings worker for "polar bear white" and then film their reaction.

If you are in a hurry, a hairdryer will help speed up the process

"Are you feeling like the outcome of random events will be in your favour, punk? Well, are you?"

9. To make seeing and breathing less difficult, cut out a big mouth in the front. Putting flyscreen over this hole will make it harder for people to see in, but doesn't stop you seeing out.

Mouth

10. The end result. The hat is made from some blue cardboard, and adorned with an Octonauts logo I printed out.

"Ready for action"

Then, just transport the big giant head to the event, gather the other items and you're ready to go!

"Yes occifer I acquired this legally"

To finish it off, use the boots, overalls, belt and gloves detailed here. I covered the belt in blue cardboard, which was a lot easier than painting it. I also made a collar from cardboard as well, which served to hide my neck.

Note that I have also gone around the outline of the non-black areas with a black marker, which helped them stand out a bit and look less messy.

The end result:

"Octonauts, to the launch bay!"

One happy boy

Off on an adventure

The Act

• Do your research and watch a few episodes of The Octonauts while you are making the head, to make sure you get well into character. 
• If you have an "Octo-alert" from the children's play set, it will help you make some authentic sounds
• Make sure you walk and talk in a commanding, confident way. Captain Barnacles always keeps his cool.
• If you have a treasure chest or similar and fill it with chocolate coins, you can go searching for Calico Jack's Lost Treasure.

If anyone else is mad enough to try this, please let me know how it went. 

Also, does anyone want a big giant Captain Barnacles head? I'm not sure where to put it. The pool room?

The (dis) Honest Company - A PR Disaster

I really like watching PR disasters unfold. Perhaps it's a morbid fascination, but it's interesting seeing companies get so wrapped up in themselves that they don't realise what damage they are doing.

Right now, The Honest Company (a Jessica Alba founded company selling expensive but apparently safer baby products) is taking on The Honest Toddler (a hilarious blog and twitter feed written from the perspective of an indignant toddler).

The Honest Toddler has applied for trademark protection and been given provisional approval. However the Honest Company is claiming foul because they registered honesttoddler.com before The Honest Toddler started up. However from my understanding of IP law this case is pretty flimsy since a domain name does not equal a trademark and the Honest Company have never traded commercially under this name. An unfortunate part of IP law is that if you don't aggressively defend your trademark, you will lose rights to it. Of course, that usually seems to involve aggressively attacking anyone that comes remotely close. Or at least those without the legal budget to fight back. The Honest Company is claiming they are friendly and doing what they must, and have "generously" offered to lease the Honest Toddler's name back to them for free for 1 year, after which time they must cease using it. But this doesn't seem very honest or friendly to most people.

All in all, it seems like one of those situations where the big company is listening too much to their legal team and not considering the bigger picture and what they stand to lose compared to any potential gains. The flood of comments on The Honest Company's Facebook page will give you an idea of the amount of negative publicity this has generated.  It seems like a lot of big companies still act like they did before the rise of social media, where they could just get away with ignoring negative feedback and push their positive message hard through advertising. However times and changed and consumers have a lot more choice over what treatment and advertising they will put up with. Hopefully the Honest Company will see some reason soon.

Timeline of events from The Honest Toddler
Statement of events from The Honest Company

On Becoming Captain Barnacles - The Gathering

As mentioned in my last post, my new mission is to create a Captain Barnacles costume to appear at my son's birthday party. I set about gathering materials.

Safety first

• Suit. I needed a blue jumpsuit. I initially looked at the all-embarrassing jogging onesie, but decided against these because I didn't want to spent so much money on something I would never, ever, use again, and secondly they didn't come in the right colour. So I eventually decided on these disposable overalls.
  
  Tip: I ordered 2 (in case I managed to tear one), only to find that they come in packs of 4, which is not stated on their website. Would anyone like a free one?
  
  
  
  

• 

  Grrrrrr

  Head. Probably the defining feature of the Octonauts is their giant head size. Initially I considered a giant inflatable/paper mache head, but couldn't find anything that would work and didn't want to spend time doing paper mache. So in the end, I ordered this:
  
  Tip: This turned out to be a mistake (see below)

• 

  Ni Hao!

  Paws. These were the best I could find. The head bit doesn't look like Captain Barnacles so I will just tuck that down behind my back and rely on the hands and sleeve part.

• Shoes. I managed to find some cheap blue "ugg" boots (very polyestery) at Woolies.
• Belt. $5 black fake leather belt from Red Dot. This will be spray painted.
• Everything else. I figure I can make all the extra bits (compass, hat, mustache) out of painted cardboard. 

When it all finally arrived and I assembled it, it looked rather silly. I just looked like an anorexic polar bear that had just decided to enter a sludge tank. Realising that the big head would be the most important feature, I decided to make the giant head I first imagined. This was becoming a big project...

Stay tuned for the next episode.

On Becoming Captain Barnacles

"Octonauts, to the launch bay!"

If you're a parent with young children, chances are that you've seen or at least heard of the Octonauts. For those that haven't, it's a children's TV show that's pretty much a cross between Sea Quest DSV and Roger Ramjet (now I'm showing my age).

And as all Octonauts fans will know, Captain Barnacles is biggest, strongest, and coolest of them all. He's pretty much the Chuck Norris of the entire marine-biology-adventure-children's-TV-show scene (It's not a big scene, but still). This may be unrealistic, but I hope to one day be as awesome and in-control as Captain Barnacles.

So when my eldest son decided that he wanted a Octonauts-theme for his 5th birthday, I saw my opportunity. An opportunity to totally excite him, plus indulge my inner, middle and outer nerd and make a costume. A chance to rescue two sea creatures with the one GUP. Seeing as the last time I made a costume was for the midnight preview of Star Wars Episode 2, it's been a while. (The reason why my future wife saw me in this costume and later still agreed to marry me is still up for debate. The "awe" camp has been making ground lately against the "pity" camp. But I digress).

"Octonauts, let's do this!"

Being a father of 3 and consequently lacking in the free time department, I immediately jumped on the internet and typed in "adult Captain Barnacles costume". Much to my dismay, the internet failed me terribly here and the only ready-made costumes available were child-sized. Not to be put-off by this apparent message from the universe that what I was planning was a tiny bit daft, I resolved to make my own. I'll keep this blog updated with photos and tips for anyone who might like to follow in my slightly erratic footsteps.

My wife has been helping by priming my son: "Do you think Captain Barnacles will come to your party?". Being almost 5, he responded with "No mum, they're not real". But you could just hear the slightest hint of doubt and hope in his voice.