DragonCon 2014 Part 3: The Costume

     Halloween is in a few days, and what better way to begin the holiday than to get some great ideas for costuming. Although it may be too late for some of you to start something as intricate as a full body costume, I felt waiting until now to release my final DragonCon 2014 blog, was appropriately timed. Among other things, I have been busy starting a new job, which I am happy to announce is in the same field that I had went to school for, and is pretty awesome. Before it's too late, Happy Halloween!

     A while back when I was trying to find ways to make a full body Steampunk Darunia costume, I ran across another blog that really intrigued me. Volpin props is a costume/prop creator who specializes, professionally, in character creation. With a lot of free time in between calls at work, I read most of his blog and came across some pretty cool costume hacks that I felt would be valuable while starting this process. Another helpful video I found was from the Youtube channel 2DayWithPatrickJ who explains in great detail how to use EVA foam and big gap filler. I felt these two sources needed a shout out, and I highly recommend watching their videos if you are planning a large scale project such as this.

     Why do this project and from where did I get most of my inspiration?

     As I had mentioned in a previous blog entry, the idea to do Zelda was forced onto me, but the idea of making a Darunia costume was really what sparked my interest. The steampunk rendition was chosen as a group with my friends, who respectively went as Zelda, Gannon, Link, and Saria. The steampunk variations allowed for an easy way to customize the character but still remain faithful to the original content. Because of the way the costume turned out, and also because mistakes were made, I allowed the character of Darunia to be more rock like than skin. Below you will see just a few pieces I found on the internet that I tried to implement into the costume. I thought it was really cool that with the recent reveal of Darunia in the Hyrule Warriors game, my costume would be a little more known to younger people, and thought it interesting that the character too, had a Mega-Ton hammer weapon.

     The first part of the costume was the head piece. Without a head, there was no costume, it was as simple as that. I had no idea what to make the head out of, but after researching the internet, I concluded that Big Gap Filler was what I needed. Without the sculpt of my head, I was crafting blind, but ended up using a wrestler's head guard with a football in it as the original frame. The problem I ran into with this, was that I had assumed I would still be able to fit my head into the head guard after the foam was put on top. However, what I had not expected was that the foam would continue to expand inward and implode on the head piece. After about a week, I was content that the foam needed to be carved out of the inside, which I did at a later time. I ripped out the head gear and was pleased with the room it had allowed for me to try it on. The next few coats of foam would be all exterior, and I would expand upon the depth of the helmet as well as the width of it.

     Carving the face went through a lot of trial and error. Sometimes you think you know what the character looks like, and others you realize you have no idea what you are doing. luckily, Big Gap Filler is forgiving when it comes to being carved. If you mess up, you can spray more on and try again. Here are a few transitions I went through till I got to the completed carving.

Once I found the shape I was looking for, I decided that if any part of the costume would be bonded with Bondo, it would be the helmet. It took 2 small cans of the stuff, but since I had never used it before and was on a time constraint, I had to make due with how it turned out. The Bondo didn't come out as smooth as I would have liked, and since I was working out of my apartment, I had to leave it inside of my car on hot days. A word of advice: when leaving Bondo in heated areas, it may crack. There were a few cracks and it was only layered once, but since it added to the rock like effect I was looking for, I felt the end product was pretty good.

     I wasn't sure at first how I wanted the body to fit together, but decided later on that I was going to be making a shoulder pad with a front and back piece. The rest of the lower torso would be covered by a loin cloth. For most of this costume I started with something from a thrift store, and for the chest and shoulder piece, I took an old sleeping pad you would use under a sleeping bag as the frame work. It was sturdy, but pliable, and was easy to cut. Having someone make the cuts is necessary for this part, and so I was able to make some shoulders that would bend when tied with string on the hinges, and I was able to get a chest that was still in one solid piece. This is a photo of the foamed piece.

     I apologize for the lack of photos here, but my next step was creating a chest that was later glued under the front of the shoulder chest piece. it was just a big piece of cardboard that had articulation points and light foam that I was able to make look like muscles. Another shoulder pad was made from cardboard and placed on top of each existing one that added to the bulk of the costume and hid the gap that you see above. At one point I tried to use some old hockey gloves and some of the padded foam to make gloves, but because the foam imploded when expanding, the idea was scrapped last minute and I bought some gloves without tips and attached some pvc pipes that looked like fingertips on them. I did keep the foam wrists that are pictured below and turned one into a steampunk mechanical arm with a light up Goron Ruby in it with some steampunk style furnishings. The other arm remained natural with a Goron Bracelet around the wrist.

     The feet for this project were all built around some Nike knee pads and shin guards I found at a thrift store. They didn't have feet on them, so I ended up bending and measuring cardboard around the shoes I thought I might be wearing to get the frame. The tape and foam did the rest to hold it together. A final touch was some EVA foam that I cut and glued to the bottoms; this allowed me to walk around with only socks on. It was quite comfortable.

The back piece was quite crude. i simply made a backpack out of the shell and once I carved the foam, I put some random slices of padding, you find in cushions, on the back in a rock like formation.

The final part of the main costume was the Mega-Ton hammer. I knew I wanted more lights on the costume and something original, and so I decided to make the hammer look like flowing molten lava with the Fire Seal as the head piece. The frame for the hammer was actually a metal frame lamp shade that had the glass pieces removed. With a few zip strips to fill in the gaps, I was able to make the foam stick to it well enough to harden. I put 2 push lights inside the larger side of the hammer which I made holes to reach in and push them. The back piece was separate and has one light inside of it. It was simple enough and didn't require a lot of wiring.

     The final part of the costume was the cosmetics. I had purchased some PVC flanges and various piping to make the goggles. The vinyl straps around the goggles house the 9 volt batteries on the sides of the head to power 4 LEDs on each flange. Plexiglass was custom cut to make the goggles as well. PVC pipe was also used to make the handle for the hammer and gloves. The hammer handle didn't withstand the weight of the hammer head, which was ok, because it made it easier to carry while walking around.

     The hair for this project was all 1 inch thick pieces of carpentry foam. I manually painted it with whites and browns, and the green from the foam gave it a mossy look.

I wore a desert color Under Armor shirt and tights under the costume to get the full effect. I had created a Bombchu as a throw in, but I never got around to showing it off. The following images are of the finished project.

     Well, that about raps it up. I hope you guys learned something from my experience, and please, if you have any questions (I know this was rushed) just submit a comment below and I will try to facilitate the best I can. Happy Halloween!