When the first previews of ReCore started popping up on the internet, I got a bit excited. Not necessarily because I thought I’d enjoy the game – I rarely have time to play – but rather because I thought it would be a really fun costume to build. Sadly I had to put my plans on hold as other, more important, things had to be done. Then, Xbox came along and offered to sponsor a video of ours, but also offered free reign on what we built! Well, isn’t that awesome. My mind immediately went to ReCore and this project was born.

My main goal initially was to just build my version of the arm brace that Joule wears in the preview you can see above. I wanted it to actually shoot a grabbing mechanism too.

I did end up building my version of the arm brace and grabber, but also the helmet and shirt as well!

The arm brace and launcher

The design was done by Keiji Inafune, the guy who designed Megaman. I loved Mega Man and the similar aesthetics can be seen here. While I thought it was awesome, I wanted to take my own approach to the idea. I wanted to do the same costume, but in a style which fit my skills better. So I went with Deiselpunk, or more like something you’d see in Mad Max.

The first part I built was the launcher. It is steel pipe with dual springs for power. I thought about doing compressed air, as many have done. The problem with that, is that many people have already done it. I wanted something more rugged, less common, and cooler looking.

For the arm brace itself, I shredded up a steel file cabinet and cut the bits to match a cardboard template I had constructed. The steel was thin enough to be forgiving, I could shape it by hand. If I layered it and welded bits together I could get it pretty rigid though. My edges were pretty sharp, so I lined the whole thing with nice soft leather attached with rivets.

The grabber

I really wanted to be able to shoot out a grabbing hand thingy like in the video and have it latch on to something. I slapped together a basic design that closed via a spring. Then I rigged a simple pin to trigger it.

Everything worked beautifully when I tossed it at things by hand. However, when being launched from the actual arm launcher, the forward momentum (and probably brushing against the pipe) triggers the grabber immediately. It looks cool though!

The helmet and shirt

After completing the arm brace, everything just felt a bit unfinished. I have to give credit to Ryan Fitzpatrick here (aka platinumfungi). He has suggested I go all out and do costumes for things in the past, and helped me do exactly that on the Flame sword, or shishkebab, we built together. After slapping a zipper on a shirt and rearranging a hard hat, the whole thing came together.

The shirt was super simple. It is just a cheap zipper sewn onto a cheap shirt with the sleeves cut off. The helmet was a bit more complicated. I knew I wasn’t going to take the time or effort to completely replicate Joule’s helmet from the video, so I again took some liberties. My design is just a hard hat that has been cut to pieces and then some of those pieces were re-attached to change the shape.

After getting the shape to a decent look, I used black spray paint to age it a bit. I simply sprayed it on and wiped it off immediately, leaving paint in the crevices.

I’m a horrible shot

Oh man, I’m not a good shot with this. It is incredibly difficult to aim. Part of the problem is that I didn’t line it up with my arm very well, it angles off to my right. Even attempting to compensate for that is difficult though, because my raggedy construction means that it doesn’t fire with consistent force. Not to mention the projectiles aren’t really made for precision. None of those are excuses though, even if everything was perfect, I doubt I’d be a great shot.

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