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saxikath(For those of you who weren't on this filter for the first post: This is my filter for the Insane Costuming Project I'm doing for Prophecy. If you want off, let me know.)
Progress! I've successfully made the first of the three headpieces. I've discovered the joys and glitches of spray adhesive and glue guns along the way. Smelly stuff, spray adhesive, but it works pretty well.
So this is where I started:
The fabric:
The shiny silver is for the big one; the black and silver/white are for the two smaller ones.
The foam attack!
The first step was gluing together a stack of foam into a block high enough to make the headpiece. Spray adhesive worked for this, though I had to add a little dose of glue gun to reinforce some layers. I started with one of the two smaller pieces, and used six layers of foam.
Next up was carving the foam into the right shape. As I was advised by an experienced boffercrafter, an electric carving knife is indeed a great tool for this.
This is how it looked after the first carving session.
I later did some additional carving that made it a steeper cone. (My cousin has been visiting me, and that extra set of eyes has been very helpful!)
The bottom layer is higher-density foam than the others. I figured that would help give it a little more structural integrity.
Another piece of foam carving was cutting a hole for the bike helmet that the whole thing sits on. It took a few tries to get the shape right, but this was the end result.
This is the helmet itself (this one was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oakenguy's), with a fabric drape glued on to hide the bits that would stick out below the foam.
After carving the foam, the next step was making the fabric cover. This was relatively easy -- cut three pieces and sew them into a cone. Then I made nine fabric tentacles to hang from it.
My cousin models the work in progress. The fabric cone was sewed, but the tentacles weren't sewed on yet. She's got it balanced on the helmet, but it's not glued yet.
The final touch was adding some crinkled-up videotape to be kind of seaweedish. It doesn't show very well in this final photo, but it does add to the overall creepiness effect. Then there was more gluing. Glue-gun glue didn't work for holding the helmet to the foam, so I went back to the spray adhesive (which I also used for gluing the fabric to the foam).
I'm quite pleased with the result so far. I'm feeling the time pressure -- two weeks to go -- but I think I have the sense now for how to do this, so the other two headpieces should, knock on wood, go fairly smoothly. I still need to make the tunics, too, but those should be relatively straightforward.
Progress! I've successfully made the first of the three headpieces. I've discovered the joys and glitches of spray adhesive and glue guns along the way. Smelly stuff, spray adhesive, but it works pretty well.
So this is where I started:
The fabric:
The shiny silver is for the big one; the black and silver/white are for the two smaller ones.
The foam attack!
The first step was gluing together a stack of foam into a block high enough to make the headpiece. Spray adhesive worked for this, though I had to add a little dose of glue gun to reinforce some layers. I started with one of the two smaller pieces, and used six layers of foam.
Next up was carving the foam into the right shape. As I was advised by an experienced boffercrafter, an electric carving knife is indeed a great tool for this.
This is how it looked after the first carving session.
I later did some additional carving that made it a steeper cone. (My cousin has been visiting me, and that extra set of eyes has been very helpful!)
The bottom layer is higher-density foam than the others. I figured that would help give it a little more structural integrity.
Another piece of foam carving was cutting a hole for the bike helmet that the whole thing sits on. It took a few tries to get the shape right, but this was the end result.
This is the helmet itself (this one was
oakenguy's), with a fabric drape glued on to hide the bits that would stick out below the foam.After carving the foam, the next step was making the fabric cover. This was relatively easy -- cut three pieces and sew them into a cone. Then I made nine fabric tentacles to hang from it.
My cousin models the work in progress. The fabric cone was sewed, but the tentacles weren't sewed on yet. She's got it balanced on the helmet, but it's not glued yet.
The final touch was adding some crinkled-up videotape to be kind of seaweedish. It doesn't show very well in this final photo, but it does add to the overall creepiness effect. Then there was more gluing. Glue-gun glue didn't work for holding the helmet to the foam, so I went back to the spray adhesive (which I also used for gluing the fabric to the foam).
I'm quite pleased with the result so far. I'm feeling the time pressure -- two weeks to go -- but I think I have the sense now for how to do this, so the other two headpieces should, knock on wood, go fairly smoothly. I still need to make the tunics, too, but those should be relatively straightforward.
