Candydome Warrior

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This ensemble was created for a client attending Burning Man in 2010. The design vision was somewhere in the neighborhood of "Mad Max goes to a rave."

For the torso, the foundation is a set of athletic pads that cover the shoulders, chest, and back. We covered these with a variety of shiny and furry fabrics, and lit up the abdominal area with horizontal RGB LED strips. The shoulders are decorated with soft padded rainbow spikes, emerging from a shaggy fur base.

The gloves are also built onto athletic gear (probably hockey gloves in this case). We added furry wrist cuffs with more RGB LEDs.

The headpiece is a silver metallic skateboarding helmet, adorned with a large furry mohawk with internal RGB LED lighting. A pair of goggles with lighted eyes is mounted on the front of the helmet, so it looks like the character has a face even if it is worn over a black zentai hood (as shown in the photos on this page).

This project is a good example of one way we created RGB color changing effects before individually addressable pixels were available (or affordable). The chest piece has 3 separate LED drivers, connected to the red, green, and blue portions of the embedded RGB LEDS. Each color can be animated separately, with a steady glow, random twinkle, or a few speeds of chasing effects. The colors you see are the result of three effects overlapping, in real time.

video

The clip below demonstrates some of the flashing patterns. The model is pressing the mode buttons on the lower torso, which allow selection of different patterns for the red, green, and blue parts of the circuit.