MEHUJÄÄ

Oh damn, Frostbite is coming and fast!! 

We started to plan our Hakkenden cosplays, but Dalin called quits for it. She realized she couldn’t fit out of her apartments door with the costume. In case if you’re wondering what the hell did she planned on making if it couldn’t fit out of the door; well, look down to last post. See that huge black fur ball? Yes, that one. That’s the one she was planning on making. That's the one that she will make when her doors give in!

So now about the other costume Dalin has in store for Frostbite!

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Last year when I was studying in Holland, I visited Elfia Fantasy Fair -event in Haarzuilens. There were some incredibly awesome and gorgeous costumes and the whole area of kasteel de Haar was really magical place. If you are ever planning to go and visit some other European events I really recommend going there. Couple costumes caught my eye and I really wanted to try and make something similar myself.

These two little furry cuties are my inspiration for Frostbite. I proposed the idea for Ennah and she was excited about the costumes. I’m not 100% sure, but I think these costumes that I saw there were made by ClockworkCreature. 

I’m designing a wolf hybrid costume and trying to make it as realistic looking as I possibly can. Considering the other ,and the only, one with an unhuman anatomy structure was Cherubimon cosplay, and that was an easy job.  I have most of the materials ready and the next step would be patterns, planning and sculpturing the wolfish body shape. Ennah wanted to make a sheep costume and our third companion “S” is making a dragon hybrid costume. So little time, so much work.

Anyways, I started to make my wolf costume about two weeks ago. I’ll show you some pictures and tell a little bit what I did.

I’m not so good at writing tutorials or what you should do and how, but you probably get the gist of what I am doing here! If there are some parts you want more details put us some messages!

After many sketches and planning I started to build the head out of chicken wire. When the head was cut and molded to the shape I wanted the next phase was to cover it inside out with paper mache. I used the same technique with Mitsuhides armor parts so I have already written the detailed process of this technique. The reason why I use this instead of worbla or some other plastics is that this is the cheaper method.

So, when the head was covered and still wet it weighted ridiculously, but when the paper mache dried up it got lighter. The most essential part is to keep it in the right position when it dries. It’s pain in the ass to try and break it and mold back after the paper mache is dry. It’s like playing surgery and your patient broke their jaw and you as a surgeon need to break it even more to rearrange it back to it original shape so it heals properly. I had to do this couple of times because I wasn’t satisfied of how some parts just wouldn’t work. Like the jaw. Especially the joint part which holds the jaw connected to the head and allows it to move up and down was a pain to get on the right place. 

After that was done, tested and working I sculptured the nose by using clay. This was easy part with the help of some reference pictures of wolfs. The teeth’s are made out of Fimo clay (or Cernit clay, same thing).

I also made the lips and gums from hot glue. Yes, that was the most brilliant idea I had that actually worked. After playing couple of hours dentist with gluing the teeth’s on their right places I was ready to paint.

When everything was painted the next phase was to cover the whole thing with fur. Cutting the fake fur is a nightmare. There’s fur and hairs everywhere in my apartment and I don’t even bother to vacuum anymore because it would be on the same condition the next day. Oh, how badly I would like to have another room as a work space.

The horns were molded from chicken wire and tinfoil and covered with paper mache to get the structure and to harden it. (Yes, I’m too broke and stingy to even use worbla to make the horns.) Also I destroyed one silver-white wig for this project to get fabulous hair for my hybrid wolf creature.

The eyes were interesting to make. I bought this clear resin from Paperilohikäärme-shop in Tampere. It’s really fantastic material and I was excited to try it out. To put it simply, it’s two liquid components that you mix 1:1. I poured it on these molds and let it dry and harden about three days before smashing them out of their molds. And I really mean smashing. They were so difficult to get out that I had to hit them with hammer and break the mold around them. The resin took this considerably well and didn’t break no matter how much I had to hit them. The surface was quite dim and wasn’t as see-through as I wanted, so I mixed a bit more resin and with paintbrush added a thin layer of resin on the surface. After it hardened it cleared the whole piece and was like glass.

My first idea was to paint on paper the eye and then cut and glue it to the resin eye. I tried this and it didn’t bring the color and the essence of an eye as clearly as I would have liked. So, I painted it straight to the resin eye with acrylics. This came up really well and now the eyes are just perfect ;DD

I have really tight schedule with this project. We are leaving to New York with my class on February and we are coming back on Friday 14^th morning. Yeah, cutting close with Desucon Frostbite. Good thing I live in Lahti so I just need to come straight from the airport and leave the stuff home, change clothes and walk to Sibeliustalo!!  I will be wearing this wolf costume on Saturday, because I’m probably too tired on Friday to even think about putting something as complex as this on me.

See you at Frostbite!!!
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