OK, let's see here. What do we got.
The theme today is Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones. christopher amritsch wants to know
what is the single essential piece for an indie cosplay hat whip gun jacket etc which pieces
can you get by with cheaper ones and knock offs well that's a really good question uh
hang on just a second i'll be right back
you knew that i was gonna come back with this guy
yeah so this is my adventure built hat company raiders hat uh this one is made by mark kidder
and the thing is is that as more and more people enter the indie fray um todd's costumes has my
favorite jacket even though it's definitely one of the less expensive jackets todd
costumes jackets are fantastic their weight is great and that's the jacket that i was wearing
when i did the mythbusters raiders episode um the whip you can totally go less expensive on
the trick is and there i think my main takeaway from talking about indie cosplay
is going to be etsy because etsy has become a really important powerhouse of
uh artisans applying their wares in an affordable fashion at multiple tiers so one of the things i
love about etsy not only do i love being able to communicate and commission and talk to people and
maybe even commission them to build things they didn't even have in their store but i also love
the fact that people will include like well you could buy this version or this person you could
buy it finished or unfinished you could buy it in these pieces and you supply these others
so you might find and i haven't even looked but there might be someone on etsy who's making hats
that they block to look right so you know this is i actually my hats were bouncing around here
for a long time so i went through a thing early on in covid where i re-steamed them
unshaped them and then put the crown and the folds back in to my and it's not 100 correct
like my my indie hat crown is not necessarily perfectly screen accurate but it works for me
it's like the way i like it um so if you're going to look for a whip on etsy
you don't necessarily have to buy the most expensive one what you're going to notice the
difference between in general the difference between expensive whips and inexpensive whips
is the more expensive they are the more they look like a kind of a piece of flesh the more they that
taper is really really like smooth but there are sellers on etsy selling whips for like 100 bucks
that are absolutely great i think i have one for one of my for one of my kind of trooping
indie cosplays um you can definitely get by with less expensive boots you can go you don't have to
get the aldens there are lots of different pairs of like red wings and other great boots like that
you could find on ebay even used versions on ebay or craigslist that would work just great
it's a much bigger question than i have time for here and i really should have like props and talk
about it but um look on etsy etsy is fantastic and again the best part about etsy over most other
purchasing platforms for me is that when i have specific questions i'll get really specific and
wonderful answers from the seller i just bought a hellboy pouch because i wanted an extra one
for my belt from a etsy seller in kazakhstan yes in kazakhstan apparently the most cosmopolitan of
the stands stands stones i don't know eddie rate etsy jack fair wants to know how how do you feel
about the fact that raiders would have turned out the same whether indy was involved or not yeah i
definitely know that nazis would have found the ark bellick would have opened it everybody died um
it's not entirely true that the movie would have turned out exactly the same
with or without indy's participation while that is true for most of the narrative
it becomes really important that indian marian indy and marion are the two survivors of the death
scene in which the ark kills all the nazis um and the fact that indy was witness to this whole thing
first commissioned by the government to go find the ark find tennis
which by the way tennis was found by my friend sarah parker i'm going to name drop that every
time someone says tannis i want to be like my friend sarah the space archaeologist found it
he was charged to find tennis and find the ark and keep it from hitler he didn't
succeed at the last part but it turned out he didn't need to because the ark already
knew what good and evil was and decided to take care of evil itself which is awesome
but then you've got this island full of dead nazis and a very dangerous ark of the covenant
is it safe there and i don't think the answer is yes i think that the fact that indy was the
survivor there and indy was the one who was able to i don't know presumably get it back
to the united states they didn't walk you through that part of the narrative
it's important that he's that he is there that he is that witness
i mean if you're really going to start to pick apart the problems with raiders
of the lost ark indy is a terrible archaeologist like there are bigger
problems with the plot than the fact that indy is somewhat inconsequential to its progression
he's a terrible archaeologist he's like putting stuff in his pockets
i mean you know it's a romanticized version of the whole thing the whole thing is romanticized
so i don't mind i still harrison ford's interpretation of that character is still
deeply moving to me as it was when at first when i first saw it at the age of 13 or 14
there is still a a weary game willingness to do the thing that has to get done that indy carries
in his whole persona that i find moving and inspiring so i i stand on it that i don't mind
i agree that he's mostly inconsequential to the plot it doesn't bother me at all
todd corley asks your maltese falcon video from years ago was when i really started
appreciating you outside of mythbusters have you ever done an indiana jones idol in that fashion
no i have not um i will say that having worked at ilm i possess a
hyper accurate one of the more accurate castings of a stunt idol and i had it gold-plated a few
years ago would you like to see it yeah i think you would hold on just a second um and
just as a note just occupy yourselves for 30 seconds because i have to pee and i won't be
able to hold it for much longer so i'm going to pee and quickly get my idol and i'll be right back
okay hi thank you for waiting that was i'm sure i was thinking about this
that's the most people that have ever thought about me peeing at one moment
there that happened um i couldn't find my super accurate idol it's probably in my house some of
the most important pieces to me they move back and forth as i need to have them near me but here's
my second favorite idol this one is actually made of bronze it is beat up it is it rattles
because i lost something inside of it and since i only have this tiny little quarter inch hole in
its bung hole here i can't get that thing out sadly it rattles so i may actually pour some glue
in there at some point but this came about from an rpf front a few years ago it is it's bronze
but it's heavy it's probably like five six pounds ah it's great um but you had a specific question
have you done an indiana jones idol in that fashion no and part of that reason is because
you know i looked at the maltese falcon and there were no copies that came close as far
as i was concerned close in the way that i needed those copies to be close
and that's exactly the kind of position in which i get kind of uh cranky enough about the lack
of access to the one that i want that i start to realize i should make the one that i want hence um
you know this guy hence the blade runner pistol hence the maltese falcon um with the idol um
that casting that i had from it came from a molded ilm that we bounced around i mean most of us who
work there ended up um spoiler this happens in the film industry as things fall into rub fall into
rubber and they come out in plastic but because i have one that's cast from a screen lineage i don't
feel the burning need to like figure out all the details and make it exactly perfect uh i i have
several copies that some wonderful rpfers have done runs of and they're they satisfy so much of
what i want out of out of out of the idol that uh it's it's not a candidate really for that um
maybe even a more uh a more viable candidate would be sankara stones since i famously lost
one of mine at a party i threw a comic-con a few years ago and a lot of people have made
beautiful sankhara stones out of clear amber colored resin with gold leaf flakes inside
and i have ideas about how to do that that might be different or yield one that i really like but
that's also a whole kind of wrapping your head through the casting process because
casting large amounts of clear resin is always a nightmare it's always a nightmare clear resins
are they they they are the death by a million cuts because they react with different kinds
of silicones they react with different kinds of release agents they don't set they get gummy they
just oh the number of specific and weird problems you can run into with crystal clear resins is just
like make you go nuts so i'm not like chomping at the bit to go back into that but is there another
uh i do actually have a really beautiful smith and wesson uh five shot i think five i can't remember
um that india is carrying in the very beginning of raiders and i have a d milled version of that
which means actually it's been welded you could never make it even loadable it let alone fire but
it looks perfect and i recently was sent i i did a a a front sight on it because the one that i got
had a longer barrel i had to chop the barrel down and then i machined my own front sight and then
my kids were here playing pool and that front sight went missing and just dropped off the gun
and we never found it and then an rpfer who did a beautiful run of frontside sent me one i still
have to do that so the raider's gun might be the next one i i kind of do a deep dive show and tell
on and it's not like i did a ton of work on it but it's perfect like when i finally put
this site on it will be perfect and so if i put it next to the blade runner gun it's like i've
got two of harrison ford's most iconic sidearms that's awesome yeah that would be really neat