The conference is two months away … there really is time to make a costume … going to the masquerade without one would be so dull and no one remembers dull.  Well, if I'm going to do this, I should do it big … go for the Holy Grail of Sci-Fi costumes: A Vorlon Ambassador! The Vorlon Encounter Suit!

Hmm … do I dare?  Maybe I can just buy one on the internet.  Lets see (the sound of googling “Vorlon Encounter Suit” in the background) no, nothing there.  How about “Kosh Suit?”  What the heck?  Toddler clothes?!

Someone has to have done this before … Ah, here's a page about making a Vorlon Encounter suit.  Okay … nice write up … kind of funny … lets skip to the results … sorry, but lame.

Looks like I'm on my own.  Well then To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before!  Well ... someone had to build the original Kosh suit ... then there was that other Volron later in the series.  So ... To Boldly Go Where ... Few ... Have Gone Before!

Please note, what follows is not step by step instructions.  Building a V.E.S. is not for the faint of heart and there is no single way to do it.  The V.E.S.  is not a destination ... it is a journey!  (Yes ... through your own personal hell)  Many may begin ... few will finish.  All will be tested to the limits of their endurance and creativity. (And the patience of their spouse.)  But is is worth it in the long run! (As long as you come up with a working costume.)  Will You Shut Up!  (No, Never!)

This web page is in no way affiliated with the creators or producers of Babylon 5. (Although I tried to make something JMS would approve.)  Construction involving the use of sharp objects and power tools should be supervised by an adult.  Do not try this at home.  Vorlon Encounter Suits should not be worn in traffic or around livestock (cows are nervous about aliens.)  This activity may not be suitable for the mentally stable.  Void where prohibited by law.
 

What's the hardest thing about a V.E.S. (Vorlon Encounter Suit)?  It has to be the head with that eye.  It glows and it has that iris thing.  If I can't make it with that, there is no point in making it at all.

Lucky for me, I used to work at a company that contracted with NASA; I have an idea how to do this.  After a little work on my CAD system and a paper cutout trail run, I came up with this.

Click on the patterns above for a full size image.  Using the left image you can cut out all the parts to make the iris.  The right image shows how to put them together.

The primary goal in making any costume is ... to make it look great ... but also to make it Cheap and Easy.  I used materials that I had on hand and could find at the hardware store.
 
 

    I didn't want to be blind so I designed the head with a grill in front and a slot in each side.  I planned to place heavy black screen inside the grill and over the slots as you will see below.  This provides ventilation and visibility so you can actually navigate a room full of people.

    To make the eye and face, I used a translucent piece of thick plastic that was a separator in a three ring binder.  For the iris parts, I cut them from black plastic sheets taken from some large planting pots.  I attached the inner ring to the iris petals and the face plate using plastic flat head automotive panel fasteners (the plastic zip kind found at the hardware store).  The outer ring gets attached to the iris petals with the same type fasteners but turned around the other way and snipped off.  The 2" pipe will hold the glow stick for the eye and it is fastened with plastic strips which go over the end of the panel fastener stubs.  I also hot glued the pipe to the face plate all around the outside.

    One of the hardest things is getting the head to be symmetrical.  Measure and mark the helmet and cut equal lengths of tubing for each side.  I bent the copper tubing into shape and fastened it together with pop rivets and I used screws and hot glue to attach it to the helmet.  Make sure that the screws are shorter than the thickness of the helmet foam!

    The next step was to rivet and glue on the skin sheets.  It was hard to form 3D contours from flat sheet.  I put the sheet on in strips running fore and aft but this made the head rather angular.  For the next one, I would probably skin the head in rings working from back to front.  At this point the head was ready to be balanced.  It was very nose heavy and would be difficult to wear for long periods without neck strain and it would constantly be slipping down.  Lead wire ballast (found in the fishing tackle section) added at the back of the head solved this problem.

    Once skinned, I located the position for the upper grill and attached it.  Then it was time to cover the seams with bondo.  I ended up using automotive flexible body filler because that's what my painter knew how to work with.  It was expensive so if you know of a cheaper craft option go ahead and use it.
 

    The Frame is the foundation of the entire costume.  I built mine from steel tubing taken from the lawn seed spreader.  I used flex conduit to form the horse collar and foam from an old life jacket for the shoulder pads.  If you have access to a set of old football shoulder pads it might make a better starting point.

    The flex conduit alone was not stiff enough to work with so I slid some 1/2 inch copper tubing inside.  It was tricky to bend without kinking and you will need a good workbench and a vise.  Once I had the two rings of flex conduit shaped, I cut and formed the black drain pipe to connect them and complete the horse collar.  The drain pipe was very very hard to work with and I almost gave up.  I used a heat lamp to form it and sheet metal screws to secure it to the frame.
 

    Making the body was a ot of work!  The frame sat in my garage for a week before I came up with the inspiration for the ribs.  I ended up using what was laying around; scraps from the black corrugated drain pipe.  I built these in pairs to ensure symmetry.  If you look close, you can see that I used screws to hold these together and to attach them to the frame.  It wouldn't do to have hot glue joints coming apart on the finished suit (a lot of hot glue went in as well though).

    Once the ribs were in place, I attached the final piece of aluminum flex conduit around the outside and this time I used it plain without any copper tubing inside.  Next came the skin.  I cut strips from the sides of the wading pool that were wide enough to span between two ribs with a bit to spare.  It was tricky getting the contour right and the fish all pointing the same way.  I got pretty good at cutting darts in the material to get the shape right.  The strips were first attached with hot glue and then riveted to the flex conduit at the top an bottom.  I used the ribbed sections cut from water bottles for the clear parts above the shoulders and used rivets to hold these in place.  At this point it was starting to look like a vorlon.

    Several juice bottles supplied the material for the front nozzles.  I hot glued them on and then used a small propane torch to slightly melt them for a more organic look.  Next I fitted in the PVC pipe and cut the spa tubing for the side pipes.  I cut two eight inch section of the spa tubing for internal flex joints and then cut the rest into six equal lengths.  Getting it all in place took some work but after several removals for trimming, everything fit.  I used large cable ties to lock everything in place and I did not glue any of the joints.  Press fit is fine for this application.  A tip for getting the spa tube over the PVC pipe is to use liquid dishwashing soap as a lubricant.

    The last piece was the wing for the back.  I pieced this together with scraps from the bottom of the wading pool.  I thought the fish pattern was nice and added a texture similar to feathers.  This part took a lot of bondo in the painting operation.
 

Painting took a long time and was pretty expensive.  I have a nephew that does auto body so I talked him into helping.  There may be a cheaper way to do this but it turned out looking great and I know the finish will hold up under highway conditions.  The pictures don't really do justice to the color changing pearl we used.  I went with a purple to sea green pearl that goes along well with the fish theme.
 
 

For the cape, I went to Value Village (choose your own favorite second hand store) and looked for black bed sheets to use for the inner liner.  I found some black satin queen size that provided just enough material.  For the outer cape, I had to go with new material from a fabric store and this ended up being one of the more expensive parts of the costume.  I knew attaching the cape to the suit body would be a problem, especially getting it cut to the proper length.  What I did was buy about fifty large snaps and the swaging tool, eight yards of black sequin fabric and two yards of gold sequin fabric and some 4 inch wide stiffener strip.  See the pictures below.  The cape would be made in four segments: A two foot wide swath for the front; A six foot wide piece for the back; and two tapered pieces to go on the sides between the pipes and the gold front piece.

With this in mind, I installed the snap hardware onto the lower ring of flex conduit with snap rivets.  I then folded the stiffener strip in half and marked the location for the corresponding snap heads for the cape.  I installed the snaps and put the stiffener strip in place.  Now I had something to pin the cape panels to.  I put on the body and had my assistants pin on the cape.  We then unsnapped the stiffener and did the sewing.

Now it was really looking like a Vorlon!  To cover the neck and head, I used a large black turtleneck shirt (also obtained from Value Village).  I cut the shirt into an oval around the neck that fit the opening of the horse collar.  Time for more snaps.  I installed the snaps into the inner ring of flex conduit and put the heads into corresponding locations on the turtleneck.  I ended up using two rows of snaps to prevent gaps from opening in the chest piece.
 

Now for the special effects.  I searched the internet for glow stick and found Nicaboyne where you can get a lot of glow sticks for a low price.  I use a one blue six inch stick in the head for the eye and four green sticks inside the clear ribbed segments behind the pipes.  These segments are made from water bottles and the cut out is trimmed with 3/8 tubing smoothed in with bondo.  See the photos below.  I also clip on the flashers to parts of the bottle section that extend inside the body.

To make the pipes smoke, I got a medium sized ice bag from the local drug store, drilled a couple of holes in the lid and attached a section of PVC pipe with hot glue.  Fill the ice bag with about half a pound of dry ice and thread in apiece of 3/8 plastic tubing that leads up into the head.  Blow through the tube and you have smoke!  I though of rigging up some sort of bellows with a little raft pump, but blowing works best and provides moisture to make better smoke.

To keep the glow sticks from being too obvious, I filled the clear sections with an unraveled bath sponge.  I think it look sort of like a filter or a digestive track although I don't know the actual function of these parts on the B5 suit.  Time now for a dress rehearsal!

The Head:
1 old bicycle helmet.
20 ft. 3/8 OD copper tubing (find salvaged if possible.)
Two Dozen or so 1/8 in. pop rivets.
Several #8 or #10 sheet metal screws. 1/4 in. to 1 in. in length.
Plastic sheet from planting pots.
7" piece of 2" Dia. PVC pipe with cap.  (This tube is heavy so feel free to improvise if you have something better.)
1 control lever and cable from hand pushed lawn spreader. (find salvaged if possible.)
1 pkg. of lead wire for balance.
2 ft 1/2 in Dia. plastic tubing.
1 heater grill plate.

The Body:
25 ft electrical flex conduit
20 ft. 1/2 in OD copper tubing (find salvaged if possible)
10 ft. 4" or 6" Diameter black corrugated drain pipe - non perforated.
3 ft. 3" or 4" Diameter black corrugated drain pipe - non perforated.
1 eight ft. Diameter kiddy wading pool - the pressed sheet kind - not inflatable.
Some steel tubing from the lawn spreader.
The padding from a child's life jacket.
2 dozen (or more) sheet metal screws.
Lots of 1/8 in pop rivets 1/4 to 3/8 long - some longer.
10 ft. 1" ID spa tubing with ribs.
6 ft. 3/4" ID schedule 40 PVC pipe. (make sure the spa tubing fits over this pipe!)
5 T joints for PVC pipe.
8 90 degree elbows for PVC pipe.
assorted zip type cable ties.
 

The Cape:
8 yards black sequined fabric.
2 yards gold sequined fabric.
1 king size black silk bed sheet. (I found this at Value Village.)
About 50 large, heavy duty stainless steel snaps.
2 feet of 1" wide velcro - hook and loop - non adhesive back.
10 feet of 4" wide curtain stiffening strip.
1 foot of 1/2 inch wide elastic strip.

Cordless drill with assorted screwdriver and drill bits; 1/8 in. most often used.
Hot Glue gun - large and small - several packages of glue sticks for each size.
Various workshop clamps and a vice.
Razor knife.
Hacksaw with blade tooth for cutting metal.
Duct Tape for temporary placement of parts.
Locking pliers, needle nose pliers.
Tape measure.  (Remember ... measure twice and cut once!)
One or more pairs of good heavy duty scissors.
A work bench and modeling stand.  (I used an easel - see photographs.)
A sewing machine and operator.

4 green six in glow sticks
1 blue six inch glow stick
4 blue and yellow flashing ear rings.
2 lb. dry ice.

I was determined not to get too high tech about this so I kept things simple.  No wires or electronics, no batteries, and no sloppy fluids.  What I ended up using was off the shelf six inch glow sticks, dry ice,  and those little flashing clip-on ear rings or holiday decorations.  (OK the glow sticks contain fluids and the flashers have batteries but they are CONTAINED and ready made.)