For whatever reason, I’ve always been intrigued by Jellyfish.  There is something about the way they gently swash through the ocean, their different sizes and vibrant colors.  Did you know that the turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish is the only immortal animal known to man?

So with this longstanding interest, you could imagine my excitement a couple years back find this instructable for an LED Jellyfish Costume.

The instructable was written by a member named deadinsect, and remains my favorite instructable to date.  I originally made my own Jellyfish helmet for Halloween in 2008, but later decided it would be fun to start taking it with with me festivals and shows.  I’ve probably worn it to around a dozen or so shows and as you can imagine it always garners a great deal of attention.   I even met another Jellyfish who had implemented the same instructable at Phish’s Festival 8.  I also made a little miniature jellyfish following the same process described in the instructable, just using a smaller bowl and EL Wire.

If anyone plans on building their own Jellyfish helmet and needs some advice, please feel free to contact me.  I can tell you where I found certain materials, or help with any questions you might have regarding the construction process.  Just leave a comment here, or shoot me an email.  And if anyone else out there has already built their own jellyfish costume or has seen one at a show/festival, please contact me, I’d love to hear from you

Links

• Jellyfish Helmet Instructable by deadinsect
• Video of deadinsect’s original jellyfish helmet
• Video of my eletro-jellyfish-man costume (Halloween 2008)
• Video of some jellies other’s made following the instructable

I saw a pretty cool piece of art at Coachella a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to share with you guys.   It was a rotating circle, half of which contained a mirror, and the other half of which was left empty.  I wasn’t able to snap a photo of the piece at a standstill, but to better illustrate what I’m describing I’ve created this very accurate rendering of what I recall it looking like

At a standstill this wasn’t anything special, but when the circle was spun it had the effect of showing whoever was staring into it rapid flashes of their own reflection followed by whatever was on the other side of the circle.  Again not so easy to explain, luckily I shot a quick video on my iPhone of Flowerhorn and I each standing on either side of the circle and messing around.  Check it out.

Its hard to fully appreciate the effect on video but you get the idea.  I’m thinking about making a miniature one to keep around the house…

For New Years Eve my friends and I decided to head up to San Francisco for a party called Sea of Dreams.  It was the type of event where everyone dresses up, so a few weeks before the new year we all went to work on our costumes.  I decided to go classy and wear a full tuxedo, so I just needed to come up with a way to dress it up a bit.

What I ended up doing was buying an old tux from a thrift store and outlining the jacket with blue EL Wire.  At the same store I was able to find a pretty snazzy blue ruffled shirt to wear with it.  I had already ordered an LED walking cane online, so the final touch was my
hat.

The disco ball hat was an idea I’d been toying around with for a while.  It was a pretty simple idea.  I basically just attached a tiny motorized disco ball to the top of a hat.  To make things a little more interesting added an EL Badge to the front with musical notes, and I covered the hat with silver glitter.   Check out the video below.

Note that the lasers aren’t part of the hat; I just added them to show some of the cool things you could do with it.  I had thought about permanently adding lasers or LEDs but in the end, I liked the simplicity.  If you are interested in detailed instructions on how to make one, check out this insctructable I wrote for it.

Sea of Dream turned out to be a lot of fun.  Really great music and good vibes all around.  I’ll probably go back next year, and would definitely recommend checking it out to anyone who has the opportunity.

If anyone’s got a question about the outfit or Sea of Dreams, be sure to leave a comment, or send me an email, doc@docstoyland.com.

When I’m at a show or festival, carrying a backpack is a must.  How else am I going to haul around my lasers, bubbles, camera, firework glasses, frisbee, glow sticks, gum, head lamp, batteries… you get the idea…

In my opinion, anything worth wearing that often is worth lighting up.  So I decided that lighting up my backpack was going to be my first EL Wire project.

To learn how best to sew the wire into my backpack I followed an instructable on sewing EL Wire into garments.   The most important thing I learned from the instructable was the importance of having a plan, and mapping out where the EL Wire would go before sewing it in.  I actually attached all of the wire to the backpack with pins before I began sewing.

All and all, I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out.  The back pack always receives a lot of compliments whenever I wear it and it also makes it easy for my friends to find me in a crowd.  If I were to do it over again (which I probably will), I would have added more wire to the center of the backpack, as apposed to just along the edges.  I also would have used two different colored wires side by aside, to make the effect more pronounced.

Please post any questions or comments you may have.  Or email me doc@docstoyland.com.  I’d love to hear about similar projects people have worked on.