Blow Up to Heaven
Blow Up To Heaven is a fictitious bomb vest designed for a scene for the The Terror Drill.
The actor who wears it is a relatable twenty-something young man. The scene is artist research for an actor role-playing a bombing while a recorded interview with an actual jihadist plays in the background.
The scene explores the inner psychological state of a brainwashed teenage jihadist. The halo attached to the vest signifies the promise of heaven sought by extremist jihadists.
Watch The Terror Drill Film
Link to original news report /
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“It was like revenge and you wanted to be, like acknowledged by the Islamic state and you wanted to be looked at as, like a hero.
I wanted to be remembered, you know?”
“We believed everything they said, and we really honestly believed they are right and that they’re good people.”
“They promised me I will go straightly to heaven.”
“You were fully prepared to kill women, and children as well as men?”
“Yes,” he says.
Link to original report / Captured Islamic State suicide bomber: 'I'm so sorry'
Making the vest
prototype
With a concept already in mind, I first wanted to know how big the vest should be. I attached an LED strip to a soft iron wire as a quick model. This prepared me to enter the right proportions into a 3D model.
2.rendering
The initial idea is to divide the vest into four parts: (1) the halo, (2) the bomb; (3) the backpack to provide power for the LEDs and (4) the metal skeleton which connects the former three.
3. technical drawing
I created a drawing with details on each piece needed to make the vest. The drawing called for the the halo to be 3D printed with clear resin, allowing light to propagate throughout the halo. The vest was to be both handmade and machine-made.
4 hand bending & welding / skeleton
Now, it was time to create the part of the vest that held the bomb and halo onto the body. This part of the skeleton contains curves in multiple planes, so I bent it by hand from multiple perspectives. After welding, the part was polished.
I then created a detailed rendering of the bomb to prepare for build it.
I stayed at the metal workshop for a week to make the metal ends (14 all together) of each stick of dynamite. To add more detail to each stick, I used a lathe machine to make a knurling texture at the ends.
(knurling)
To add a countdown timer to the vest, I attached a white-label countdown module online. I then connected it to a battery pack.
The vest was then assembled and ready to be worn by the actor.
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