ESCANABA — A local man is preparing to suit up as a life-size space ranger action figure. The goal: to journey to children’s hospitals in costume to bring joy and promote a network of emergency air transport services.

When Dan Zellar, membership sales manager for the AirMedCare Network, met Eugene Fletcher at an event over a year ago, he was fascinated by the 3D printing at the booth for Fletcher’s business, 3D Gene Designs. Zellar, seeing some small models with moveable parts, asked if Fletcher had done larger projects — for example, life-size, wearable designs.

“I am fascinated with technology and its advancement and how it can be used. So watching a printer basically create something that you can just pop out of your imagination and suddenly into reality, from concept to existence, is fascinating to me,” Zellar said.

Discussion with Fletcher revealed that while the designer hadn’t yet begun dabbling in cosplay creations — that is, producing costumes for people out of 3D-printed plastic parts — it was something he was interested in getting into.

“There’s a lot of, like, potential and money in that, and he’s been doing 3D printing for so long, that’s kind of like his next phase … because he’s got those little ones down to a science,” Zellar said.

As the two got to talking, they began to toy with the idea of Zellar commissioning a suit for himself.

As to which character to portray, it would need to be fun, relatable, and something that could be tied to Zellar’s work with AirMedCare. Zellar settled on drawing inspiration from a pop culture character that he said resonated with him — Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear.

“First of all, the technology thing — frontier technologies, somewhat in the future, so that’s cool. Space — I was one of those kids (who) always thought I was gonna spend summer camp at space camp,” said Zellar. “Buzz was a non-problematic hero. He was just himself. He was an explorer. He wasn’t that stereotypical, like, broodish kind of hero, but he was still a hero.”

When the suit is completed and donned, for copyright reasons, Zellar won’t be portraying “Buzz Lightyear,” though — he’ll just be a “space ranger.”

For designing the parts, Zellar and Fletcher found an STL file on Etsy that would serve as a starting point and purchased the file. STL is a file format which carries information about a geometric blueprint commonly used in computer-aided design and 3D printing — in this case, it was the base for a design for a space ranger suit. From there, the specs had to be “adapted, modified, resized and scaled,” Zellar explained.

Fletcher mentioned some of the challenges and distinctions that set wearable 3D printings apart from toys and models:

“If you’re 3D printing wearable items, you also have to think about structure so it can stand up to more wear and tear. So that means adding thicker walls and more infill,” Fletcher explained. “Lastly, as the printer, you have to think about object orientation when printing. With some pieces being under a lot of stress, the way it is printed matters as the layer lines can either add strength or weakness based on how you print it.”

Because of size limitations of the printer, some elements that will end up being quite large were printed in pieces and glued together with Bondo.

With those considerations in mind, a life-size plastic suit is always going to be a big undertaking. And in this particular instance, the individual the costume is sized to fit is larger than most — Zellar is six-foot-four, and his space boots need to fit over a size 15 shoe.

Zellar said he went to Dream Day Event Center, where he had his measurements taken previously for a suit for his wedding, and Lori took his measurements again.

And then the creative 3D-printing duo made a mistake.

Zellar and Fletcher moved forward with beginning to print portions of the suit — which contains dozens of parts in total — based on Zellar’s exact measurements. The problem with that move was that the parts were sized to his measurements, not sized up to allow him to actually fit inside them.

“But the thing that I loved about having the misprint is that it gave me the opportunity to figure out mechanically … how am I going to assemble this suit when I’m getting dressed in it,” Zellar said. “Like, what pieces need to be able to kind of pop off and open up if I have to use the restroom.” (To that end, the segments around the crotch are now in multiple pieces.)

“There’s a lot of weird little engineering things that have gone into figuring out not only the printing side of it, but how to make it a functional suit,” Zellar remarked.

Having learned from the misstep, they recalculated and carefully began reprinting. Now, all the parts have been produced in the adjusted size.

“When Dan first approached me, I thought the project would be fun as it was something I haven’t done before. Usually I’m just making little figurines or fidgets,” Fletcher said. “At the time I didn’t know just how big of a project it really was. As I’ve gone through this project, though, I’ve learned a lot that could potentially help me in the future on other projects.”

One thing that needed to be figured out early on was how the suit was actually going to be put together, held up, and worn. Zellar ruled out materials like spandex and neoprene for wearing underneath, as they were not strong enough and too hot, respectively; instead, he obtained a Dickies brand full-body jumpsuit, tighter than would usually be worn for working. The plan is for the costume elements to be affixed with straps and heavy-duty magnets over the jumpsuit.

Zellar said that Kate Oman, gallery director at the Bonifas Fine Arts Center, is “interested and willing to help with assembly.”

Right now, all the pieces are printed, mostly in black plastic, and are in Zellar’s office waiting to be sanded and painted. For the latter job, Ken Haswell, who has experience with automotive paint, has been enlisted.

“We’re gonna use auto-grade paint and then clear coat,” said Zellar.

He explained that the design of the suit will be close to that of “live-action Buzz” from the newest movie, “Lightyear,” because of features like a free knee joint, but that the colors will mimic that of the toy.

Zellar intends to don the suit and visit pediatric hospitals to greet and hand out coloring books to sick children.

“Everybody on my team has been really supportive; the flight crew has been really supportive,” Zellar said. “They’re helping me put together (a list of) different hospitals that they know of that it might be cool for us to go to — and different events that we already do for PR and stuff that I could go to as the space ranger.”

Since the endeavor serves as promotion for AirMedCare, much of the funding for the steps thus far has come from Zellar’s marketing budget. However, with access to only so much money at a time and still needing to pay for the paint and last steps, he’s also asking for assistance from local businesses and organizations who may be willing to donate or sponsor him.

Zellar views this as a “community project,” as a number of parties have already helped him along the way. He said he wants to help those who support him in return, and is offering to show up in costume at other events for sponsoring businesses if they pitch in.

“St. Vinnie’s, for instance, they donated a torso mannequin to me. It helped me line stuff up when I was first gluing,” Zellar said. “Part of the trade off was when the suit’s all said and done, I’ll go there and do like an appreciation day, where (people) bring their kids and we’ll take pictures.”

As Zellar already attends trade shows with an AirMedCare booth, a concept he’s considering is to make a space-themed backdrop for photos at such events, with QR codes that look like clusters of stars for directing people to the websites of the space ranger’s sponsors.

Zellar doesn’t want to muck up the appearance of the suit by putting any logos on the costume itself, but said that he’ll add one QR code subtly somewhere on it as promotion for the one major player that made this undertaking possible — 3D Gene Designs.

Fletcher, having also gained from the experience, said, “I want to thank Dan for giving me the opportunity to work with him on this project. I feel like we’ve both learned a lot on this project. I can’t wait to see it completed now that my part is done.”

With an aim to debut the completed suit at Bay-Con on May 3, Zellar is hoping to get together the final resources to bring the space ranger to life before then. Anyone interested in supporting the project can contact Zellar at 906-553-9589 or largerthanlightyear@yahoo.com.