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I was approached by Robert Blackman to construct the Doctor Satan Robot character costume for Star Trek: Voyager "The Adventures of Captain Proton." I was given a photograph of an old Sci-Fi robot character and told to build "something like this" and i only have a week to build it. (Sorry, I couldn't locate the photograph - if i find it, i will include it)
I took measurements of the actor and immediately began acquiring materials, on my way home from Paramount.
I had my friends over at Warner Brothers Tin Shop roll me about four 1" wide, 1/8" thick aluminum rings, with which i would attach strip aluminum stock to build a frame.
I laid out the body on Sheet Styrene, and attached it to the frame using pop rivets. I used Strap (aka piano) hinges, cut to appropriate size and with the pin removed, to join the ends of the Styrene down the back side, as well as for the control box on the front, as well as to attach the arms, at the shoulders (the shoulders also had an aluminum frame, for support.)
It was necessary to make the shoulders detachable, in order to get the costume on the actor. (The actor would have to put his arms straight up, and we would lower the costume down, over his head, and he would stick his arms through the arm holes. Once he was all buckled in, the shoulders would be attached by simply aligning the piano hinge segments, and a thin wire dropped into the hinge, holding the shoulder securely onto the body of the costume.)
The cone, at the top of the body, was made out of L200 foam, and painted to match. it was capped off with a piece of open-cell foam, for ventilation. The shoes were made of the same material, for comfort and safety of the actor.
For the legs and arms, I used lengths of industrial air ducting (like you might see hooked up to an aircraft, or pumping air down into a sewer) of appropriate diameters. The diameters of these hoses informed the sizes of the shoulders and openings, as well as forearms and legs, so these had to be locked down as soon as the hose arrived.
The forearms and hands were made quickly, by cutting up a couple of restaurant grade, quart-sized food containers, with a dowel mounted inside, for the actor to grip and control the arms/hands.***
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***Being a HUGE Lost in Space (the TV series), I thought it would be a funny omage to the B9 Robot, if this robot could have his arms drop to the ground, when he was disabled. I suggested it to the director, and he loved it!
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My company was approached by Robert Blackman to create dozens of Borg Character Costumes for ST: The Next Generation, ST: Voyager, ST: The Experience, and Paramount Parks. We manufactured the various assets using a self-skinning, flexible, polyurethane foam system.
The parts were cast and trimmed, and subsequently delivered to the Star Trek Costume Department, where they were assembled by their staff.
