OBJECTION!- waaaaaiiiitasec....

Because it’s gonna be a robot! Every year I try and make one BIG cosplay build. 2014 was Rocket Raccoon, 2015/16 was Ratchet and Clank (though I actually 3-d printed a new Clank this past summer). 2017 is the year of my best boi, K1-b0 (or Kiibo, or Keebo... don’t ask) from Danganronpa v3.




I’ll update this build log regularly, as I’ve already had at least 30 people message/email/yell at me for instructions on how to make their own. Below I’ll list what’s in the current version:

Still a few minor fixes (needs some lights on the belt, etc) but he’s basically done,


official key art, not mine

Collar

Mask

Wig

Headphones/Ears (though not worn in final costume)

Body

In other words, the costume is now wearable, and complete if you’re looking to make the regular back-of-the-box version of Kiibo!


THAT BEING SAID I will update this tutorial one more time to do a more complex version with additional parts, and THAT SPECIFIC VERSION I’M BUILDING IS HYPER SPOILERY. LIKE ENDGAME SPOILERY. If you haven’t reached the final chapter of v3 and don’t want spoilers, I highly suggest you turn back as there be dragons here.

THAT BEING SAID, if you’re just building regular old Keebs, everything in this current build is what you’ll need to make Kiibo.. There’s just a few changes or additions to do my later specific version of Miu’s Playground K1-b0 that aren’t going to apply to your version.


Last chance to back out now.

OK, here goes.

For most of you, the top version is the version of K1-b0 (Kiibo, Keebo, whatever) you’re planning on building.


Bodysuit (though of the heavy powersuit variety, not the skintight Spidey suit type), gloves, boots, collar, wig, and probably face makeup/contacts.

I can’t wear contacts, due to my eye disease, and his piercing blue eyes (which can have emotes on them, like an actual >-< face when he’s confused) are so plot important that I wanted to be able to mimic them. That, and I suck at wigs.


So, I decided to go full bonanza electronics on this guy. He’s an artificial AI android after all. And if you’ve stayed this far, you know exactly which variant I’m striving to complete- his death-robot form from Chapter 6. It looks mostly the same with three key differences.

official key art, not mine


His arm is replaced with an arm cannon, he’s got a jetpack, slightly larger shoulder armor, and despite what this reference image shows, his antennae hair is gone (as he’s no longer being controlled by the audience). Other than that, he’s the same. I’ve decided to make both the jetpack and arm cannon removable (the jetpack is even canonically just that- a backpack of sorts), as well as his antennae so I can use the same wig for both. Since all the armor components snap onto the bodysuit, swapping out the shoulder armor is easy too.

Let’s begin, shall we?

K1-b0's Collar (Animated!)


K1-b0's collar is a bit hard to pin down, as most of the time, the messages displayed on it are denoted with squigglys. I used the only image I could find (from the end of chapter 6 when you play as him VERY briefly) and worked out my collar from there. Yes, it really does cycle through messages, and no, you don’t need any programming or electronics skills. It’s actually a very old animation trick (like late 1800's zoetrope old).



HARDWARE (tools)

x-acto knife



Strong scissors/box cutter/saw



Masking Tape



Heat Gun



Ruler

optional- die cutter machine like a Cricut (you can also do this with an xacto and a very steady hand)


SOFTWARE (consumed materials)

Half a sheet of EVA foam, aka anti-fatigue floor mats



Kids craft foam (any color, about 5-10 sheets depending on size, 2 MM thick)



Contact Cement



2 strips of green EL Ribbon (plus a third to do the strip of light going down the back, might as well get them all together.) I bought these



1 can of PlastiDip, spray type (black is probably best, but any color would work)



Dark grey spray paint



Light grey spray paint



Clear Coat spray



Clear piece of acetate, 26 inches long by 2 inches high (check art supply shops, it comes on rolls)



Black peel and stick vinyl (check scrapbooking, most art stores have a section of this)




The first thing you need to do is cut out your main collar part. I have access to a makerspace so I used a band saw, but, scissors or an xacto will do the trick.


I then marked out the part of the back collar that has the additional ridge in the reference image above (the one without the jetpack on).


FROM HERE ON OUT, I DID THIS WRONG ON PURPOSE. For the sake of showing you proportions, I made the next set of items flat. DO NOT DO THIS. Before you proceed, take a heat gun to your piece (once you’ve made sure its a good size) and carefully heat and bend it into a collar shape. If you try and do this after, everything will be misaligned.

Good?

Good.


With a straightedge, split the collar horizontally in thirds, and cut out foam to fit. Apply contact cement to both the smaller piece of craft foam and the collar and let it dry, then smack ‘em together. It’s a permanent seal.

ASSUME FOR THE REST OF THE PROJECT THAT WHEN I SAY GLUE, I SPECIFICALLY MEAN PAINT WITH CEMENT ON BOTH SIDES TO BE ATTACHED, LET DRY, AND THEN STICK TOGETHER. Contact cement works best, oddly, when dry!


And no, you don’t need to heat up the craft foam, it’s so thin, it’ll stick in shape, so long as the bigger eva piece was heated to your cylinder shape.


Add in another layer, but cut out a space in the middle, the size of the part you marked.


Make a piece that fits that whole back section.DO NOT GLUE THIS DOWN YET.


Use that middle part you cut out and glue it to the bottom of that piece.


Now glue that back center peiece down, dry contact cement to dry cement, but LEAVE THE TOP SECTION UNGLUED. See below for what I mean.


Glue on the upper thinner collar part with some more craft foam, with a hole cut out for the wires to be threaded through later.


Glue the additional “teeth” on the aides, as well as the lower collar portion.


Spray an even layer of plasti-dip down, then spray on your paint colors (use masking tape if needed). Plastidip first provides a good seal, and an even layer for the paint to stick to. Skip this step, and your paint will crack. I went for more of a “beat up” look, given K1-b0's in battle when he has the jetpack on. Feel free to make it as clean or messy as you want.


Thread the EL tape through the holes, leave enough wire so you can hide the battery packs in a chest pocket or clip to the inside of the costume.Cut the tape, so it stretches around the collar once you’ve lined it all up.Glue it down, but make sure that that loose tab of foam in the back center is ABOVE the tape. You’ll need two strips, one above the other, for the animation effect.


Make an overlay. Carefully etch out the messages you want on the black vinyl, then attach it to the strip of clear acetate like so. I followed the reference as well as I could see,and then added my own errors. like “wifi not found” yes, K1-b0 has a 11307 error on one side (it was a typo of the 11037, but I decided to just keep it)

I etched mine on a Cricut, but a steady hand will also do the trick.


Here’s my base file if you have your own Cricut, just import it with a height of 4 inches and let the machine do the work for you. I attached velcro to the acetate strp, and more to the collar, so I can swap out the strips if I want.


Velcro the strip in place (remember to go under that back tab in the back middle!) and test out the lights.


I made a small square of K1-b0's school logo, cutting the black on my Cricut and gluing it right to the acetate strip. If I made a new overlay, I’ll just make another school badge. it’s like 10 cents worth of foam and vinyl.

So how does the animation work? That’s just a matter of timing the pulse function on the battery packs themselves! Time them right (just keep fiddling with turning them on and off) until you get the flashing you like. Or just leave it at a constant glow!


K1-b0's Mask (Animated/Glowing)


If you’re going the makeup-and-contacts route, skip this part completely. If not, stay with me. You’ll need some minor soldering skills, but I’ve got you covered on the program. I’ve attached just solid blue below, but if you’re looking for a specific effect, poke me in the comments and I’ll write code for you.

HARDWARE (tools)

Soldering iron/helping hands/ sponge (the link below when I get to the actual process will give you some greater detail)



Strong scissors

A computer and a MicroB cable

SOFTWARE (consumed materials)

a cheap plastic white mask (got mine for less than $5 from AC Moore, unfortunately they DO NOT sell online)



Black paint marker, medium fine point or a steady hand and some black paint



Solder (rosin core)



Duct tape

Triple-A Batteries



Wax Paper

E6000 or similar permanent adhesive

Two black balaclava (I got these

The parts list from this this AAA battery pack option a JST extender


I bought a crap plastic mask from AC Moore, painted two lines down it, and cut out wicked big eyeholes.


You’re not going to see through most of them, just the space under (the bottom third or so). I also cut off the chin, so the bottom of these holes sits at eye level, the mask’s motuh is actually where my nose is. The black balaclava hides the fact that my natural face shape sits differently. This is the same mask as up top, before i shaved off the chin. I wear the first balaclava UNDER the mask, so that my eyes aren’t visible, and the second one goes over it, the elastic keeps the mask in place since it has no chin.

Swap out the Li battery for a 3AAA battery pack. Trust me. It’s way easier to deal with


As for the eyes themselves, build them following Adafruit’s tutorial.

When it comes time to program them, for all blue, load in the following code instead of their test program. If you want other options (such as “blinking”), I’m working on it.


#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

#ifdef __AVR_ATtiny85__

#include <avr/power.h>

#endif

#define PIN 0

Adafruit_NeoPixel pixels = Adafruit_NeoPixel(32, PIN);

uint8_t mode = 0,

offset = 0;

uint32_t color = 0x0000FF;

uint32_t prevTime;

void setup() {

#ifdef __AVR_ATtiny85__

if(F_CPU == 16000000) clock_prescale_set(clock_div_1);

#endif

pixels.begin();

pixels.setBrightness(85);

prevTime = millis();

}

void loop() {

uint8_t i;

uint32_t t;

switch(mode) {

case 0:

for(i=0; i<16; i++) {

uint32_t c = 0;

if(((offset + i) & 4) < 2) c = color;

pixels.setPixelColor( i, 0x0000FF);

pixels.setPixelColor(31-i, 0x0000FF);

}

pixels.show();

offset++;

delay(50);

break;

}

t = millis();

if((t - prevTime) > 8000) {

mode++;

if(mode > 0) {

mode = 0;

color >>= 8;

if(!color) color = 0xFFFFFF;

}

for(i=0; i<32; i++) pixels.setPixelColor(i, 0);

prevTime = t;

}

}


If the light is too bright, you can adjust it by changing pixels.setBrightness(85); to some lower number. I wouldn’t suggest below 60.

This gives a nice constant blue. It’s seriously kludged, but it does work without controlling each neopixel individually.


Glue the darker of the two lenses from the goggles the kit comes with directly in front of the neopixels, then glue wax paper on that as a diffuser (see left). DO NOT SEE OUT FROM THE CENTER OF THESE.

Someone order a bada$$?


Duct tape them inside the mask. Because they’re inside, and then your actual eyes are underneath, seeing out of the black part (its actually decent visibility, think what you’d get with a halloween mask with the stretchy black fabric like those Scream masks), you get what’s known in the furry community as “follow me eyes”- the depth gives the illusion that the eyes can actually track and follow, when they’re fixed in place.

K1-b0's Wig (Foam)


If you’re going to use a fiber wig (which I considered), skip this part completely, and look up anime wigs with what’s known as an “ahoge”. If not, stay with me. This is stupidly simple, and looks way more impressive than it is.



HARDWARE (tools)

Scissors

Wire cutter

A wig head (optional, tbh, it’s just a place to store it, I never needed it in construction)


SOFTWARE (consumed materials)

A couple sheets of white foam (I think I went through 5 large ones and 5-10 smaller ones)



Contact cement

Armature wire

Notice the wig head is WAY smaller than mine. Don’t assume becuse its a head that fitting it to the wig head means it will fit you. It won’t.


As you may have noticed, its easy to tell whats an earlier shot of my work, since I wear a fiber wig for testing. I realized I wanted something way more stiff and robotic, and saw what some Borderlands cosplayers did.



This is by far the cheapest thing I made for my costume, but I already owned wire cutters and a tiny bit of wire from an earlier project. This cost less than $10 given that!


Start by cutting 2 inch strips of white foam out of the largest sheet of foam you have. Wrap around your head like a headband, and paint with contact cement, sticking it together when dry, then do the same over your head.

ASSUME FOR THE REST OF THE PROJECT THAT WHEN I SAY GLUE, I SPECIFICALLY MEAN PAINT WITH CEMENT ON BOTH SIDES TO BE ATTACHED, LET DRY, AND THEN STICK TOGETHER. Contact cement works best, oddly, when dry!


Start cutting long strips of what looks like the way little kids do grass, sticking them in layers going up and around the band.


A WIG IS FORMING!

Just keep cutting, gluing, and sticking these strips, keeping in mind that Kiibo has a sweep over his left eye.


When you get close to the top, start sticking down individual “strands” to hide any seams.


For the cowlick (ahoge, his antenna), cut two pieces of foam into lightning bolt shapes, and glue with a piece of wire sandwiched between. Punch a hole into the top of the wig, and curl the wire back around to keep it secured.


Weeb level over 9000. This kind of wig REALLY looks terrible with skin, and yet works so well with the mask...

It looks absolutely stupid with a human face, though, so I’d only suggest this route if you’re also doing a mask.


K1-b0's Ears

Na-na-nanananananana-nananananana KATAMARI DAMACYYYYY


Thanks to how tight the collar is, I didn’t actually use these in my cosplay, but I still made them and they’re cool! These would also work well as Katamari ears too!

HARDWARE (tools)

Scissors

Box cutter

Staple gun/heavy duty stapler

SOFTWARE (consumed materials)

Thicker craft foam



The same black and grey spraypaint used on the collar

Plastidip

Clearcoat

EL Wire in green

Contact cement

Staples

Elastic headband


ASSUME FOR THE REST OF THE PROJECT THAT WHEN I SAY GLUE, I SPECIFICALLY MEAN PAINT WITH CEMENT ON BOTH SIDES TO BE ATTACHED, LET DRY, AND THEN STICK TOGETHER. Contact cement works best, oddly, when dry!

This was super simple- I just glued loops of foam to make this shape, making sure there was a hole cut to wire through the EL wire. Mine runs on two AA batteries, same as what the EL tape needed. I took out the wire, and like with the collar, plasti-dipped, painted, and sealed the ears, then threaded it back through, then stapled them to an elastic headband. Easy peasy!


K1-b0's Body

See? The wig looks amazing with everything else. It’s so weird.


There’s sadly not much to say about the body- it’s the same plastidip-paint-clear coat over cut foam. So I’ve really just listed my references below and some photos of the work in progress. It’s not difficult, and there’s no sewing involved (except some hand sewing), but it’s just a LOT of pieces.

HARDWARE (tools)

x-acto knife



Strong scissors/box cutter/saw



Masking Tape



Heat Gun



Ruler

SOFTWARE (consumed materials)


Here’s the reference I used from WolvZephyr to figure out where my pieces should go. Every piece is backed with snap tape, to snap to the jumpsuit so the suit can be cleaned.
















All the pieces are attached to the jumpsuit via snap tape, which I adhered with the peel and stick tape (the snaps attached to the jumpsuit I also sewed on for extra reinforcement, by hand).

And really, that’s it.

Finished product (ignore the bit of orange, I realized I hadn’t glued something properly):


Thanks for following along!