Cosplay - Witch Doctor Blizzcon 2014
So I want to make a post eventually to a craft site or something about how this cosplay I'm working on for my BF goes. So to keep track I'm going to be writing this entry to eventually copy over. I'll be editing and adding along the way.
I have till November 7th to finish this ... which as cosplay goes is not a long time! so I'll be working on it a lot.
so this isn't the actual costume we are making but it is the mask that we are going for and the basic look overall. Were doing some different armor and weapon; but I don't have the screen shots at the moment.
this is the first time I'm making a costume like this. In the past I've only made things that required some sewing, and never really tried making any big or nice looking props so I figured the dagger was a good place to start. After watching a lot of online tutorials I felt pretty confident!
So the dagger my boyfriend picked is "Manajuma's Carving Knife" Lucky for me it basically looks like stone so imperfections won't be a big deal.
I started by drawing out the basic shape on cardboard and used a nice thick ardboard tube we had as the handle. Cut notches in the cardboard and hot-glued (I like the low temp hot glue guns, no reason to burn yourself on the normal ones) the 'blade' in place.
Then using "Great Stuff Big Gap Filler" insulation foam I sprayed a good layer on one side. Be liberal with it and make sure you fill in the gaps, because even though it expands there will be some air pockets. I used a spray bottle and sprayed some water on the foam which is suppose to help it set a bit faster, waited about 20 mins then came back to do the other side. It will be basically dry to the touch on the outside but it takes a lot longer for the inside to dry.
Also, do not get the insullation foam meant for doors and windows, its softer and more flexible which is not what we are going for here.
Also note that this stuck to the wood board around the edges, so don't do this on any surface that you don't want to sacrifice to the foam.
Here's what it looked like after I sprayed the second side. This took about one and a half cans of insulation foam.
A note on the straws for the foam, if you don't clean it out before the foam sets they will be unusable. I suggest as soon as you are done spraying (if there's still some left in the can) blow the extra out of the straw so it doesn't get clogged and do not screw it back on the can until you are going to use it again. The can will get some foam on the top but that is easy to pick/cut off where the foam in the straw once hard is impossible to get out.
Also if the straw is clogged, and you try and spray foam... it will build up pressure and blow the straw off and foam will go everywhere... trust me.. I know... and if like me you end up with it all over you, you will find it is very sticky and hard to get off. I used some nail polish remover with acetone in it and that helped get most of it off :\ just try and avoid getting it on you if you can XD
This was after I let it dry for 24 hours. It grew in size quite a lot, pretty neat!
So I started carving it! I used a basic box cutter, make sure you get the kind that the blade extends out pretty far and get replacements because they go dull fairly fast.
I found as I was carving that the expanding of the foam actually caused the cardboard inside to bend to one side. It wasn't a huge deal, but it meant carving off some of the cardboard near the end instead of carving around it.
(picture of it carved out?)
Now while I was carving I noticed that it was kinda making a Rice Crispies sound (snap crackle and pop) when I started carving in near the middle. I'm pretty sure this was an indicator that it wasn't completely dry so sadly after I carved it out the next day it was kinda sunken in. But not to worry! I just added more on the part that looked weird and also sprayed on the handle.
Once it was all carved out like I wanted it I covered the whole thing in masking tape (this covers all the little holes and stuff that are inevitable. Then I painted a thin layer of Mod Podge over over the tape and let it dry over night.
The next thing to do was add something to harden the surface. I chose Celluclay.
At first I was really unsure of this stuff. I got it pretty watery so I could smooth a thin layer over the top and it seemed kinda weird. I doubted if it would be hard or not, but man was I wrong. that stuff sets up SUPER hard. like rock hard. Like... going it be very hard to sand down hard. So make sure you smooth it out as much as you can before it dries.
I did about an 1/8 of an inch layer over the whole thing. I didn't take a photo of it wet, but here's what it looked like dry:
it turned out pretty ruff on the surface. I just mixed the clay by hand and not that well to be honest. I've read since that if you use a blender or put it in a bag and really kneed the clay till its smooth that you can get a better surface. Maybe next time.
Also something I learned the hard way; as the clay drys it shrinks a bit so because I plastered one whole side with the stuff it kinda warped the end of the blade. In the future I think I will try and do smaller sections at a time so the shrinkage doesn't pull on the prop.
I also was kinda impatient and wanted to see if I could speed up the drying process with my heat gun. I'm going to go ahead and say don't do this. It dried a little bit but i also found that it was actually heating the prop all the way though! I'm not sure if this contributed to the warping or not, but honestly it's best if you just set it up in front of a fan and leave it over night. If its a relatively thin layer it will be dry in the morning.
Using some pretty ruff sandpaper and a lot of effort i did a pretty good sanding of the whole thing. I also added a ring around the end of the hilt with some clay i mixed a little thicker. It took about 3 days for that to really dry and set because it is so much thicker.
you can see even after quite a bit of sanding its still not smooth, which for this project is fine. If i wanted a really smooth surface I think I'd have to add another layer of celluclay and get some more sandpaper!
the gesso did a pretty good job of smoothing some of it out though.
I did about 4 layers on each side and sanded between a few of them. The end result was at least free of sharp edges/snags.
Time for primer! real painting should begin soon.
... the saga continues...
So the mask! This is clearly the focal of the whole costume so I need it to look good! The in game mask is a little different than the official art for it. So figured I could kinda meld the two where desired.
^ In game
^art.
So I've never worked with Worbla before so I was kinda unsure where to start with a mask. I'd seen a number of videos but no one was really making the kind of thing I wanted. I saw one girl lay her Worbla over a clay form and get the shape, so I figured that would be a good way to start so I got a huge ball of tin-foil about the size of my boyfriend's head and sculpted the base of the mask out of Crayola Model Magic (because it was the cheapest I could get for something this big).
Let it dry overnight then I covered the mask in tinfoil so the Worbla wouldn't stick to the mask itself then laid the heated Worbla over it and tried to mold it to the shape... Now in retrospect the softness of the Model Magic probably made it a poor choice for something I wanted to get that much detail out of. As you can see most of it was lost, and some of the shape was kinda smooshed.
After that I peeled the Model Magic off the back, which effectively destroyed my 'mold' but I only needed it once so no big deal. If you need to replicate somthing more than once I would deff say that a hard oven bake clay is the way to go, just make sure the shape can be pulled off because the Worbla has some flex when cool but not a whole lot.
Now I didn't super like the shape of the eye ridges and some of the other things so I re-heated the mask a little at a time and molded it with my fingers int a slightly better shape. This was pretty tricky because I didn't want to warp the whole shape of the mask; but it looks a little more defined now.
Then I started adding the rest. I cut a pattern out of paper then cut two layers of craft foam (because I wanted the panels to be kinda thick) and hot-glued the two foam pieces together then covered those in Worbla.
Once covered I shaped them by re-heating and molding with my hands until i got the right shape then I heated both the mask and the panels and smooshed um together and they stuck really well.
then I added the chin peice the same way, and sticking the side panels to it helped keep them have a better shape
Really bad Selfie ha! looks better on my BF hes bigger than me by a lot.
Time to create some horns!
now unfortunately as you can see from the horn that's not covered in celluclay yet that there was significant shrinking of the foam! I'm still not sure what causes this. It was for sure dry all the way though when I carved it yet some spots seem to have collapsed.
This basically just meant I need a thicker layer of celluclay to even out the surface which is ok but kinda bad for additional weight.
Mike when ahead and carved in the 'wood grain' while it was still wet.
Here they are the next morning so after about 10 hours or so. You can see its not drying super even because the layer thickness is pretty varied, but it should be ok. I'll be working the other side soon. They are actually looking pretty good though i'm starting to worry about the total weight of the mask.
I've started on some feathers but they are proving challenging.