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Vinyl, EVA and craft foam, plastic tubing, thermoplastic, polyester fabric, a urethane visor,
EL wire, LEDs, clear casting resin, and a boatload of hot glue
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So, the most recent version of the cyber demon costume debuted at the 2016 Portsmouth Halloween Parade. I finally got around to making a more complete look versus the usual slap on a mask and go technique. Not that it's anywhere near finished, (I have so many eyes to attach) but it's good enough for a nighttime romp. The arm is
leftover from two Halloweens ago but matched well enough to be worn. Most people seemed to think I was Predalien, which upon googling now I do bear an uncanny resemblance to which is unintentional (never seen the movie). The body is actually three separate parts: a cropped jacket upper, a corset like middle piece with an attached skirt, and the rib cage which is strapped over the top.
Get ready for some picture spamming.
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The visor is hard to photograph accurately - with a flash it seems more transparent, and without it seems more opaque.
It's actually somewhere halfway inbetween the two. |
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| Brain texture details that nobody is ever going to see |
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| More obscure brain details - look how deep it appears to go! |
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| Little tentacles around the mouthpiece |
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| The shiny skin-like texture of the painted pleather |
The mask is built using a clear urethane visor (originally sold for Daft Punk cosplay helmets) as a base, which was tinted using green polyester fabric dye. To make the brain I made a simple paper mache cap which fit under the visor with about an inch of free space. I then coiled up some foam tubing to resemble the wrinkles and folds in the brain and coated the entire thing in layers of glossy Mod Podge, which gave it a wet and gooey look. The outer details are a combination of of EVA and craft foam, the upper jaw being covered in the same vinyl fabric as the jacket. Drilled some holes, added some flickering LED's and my eternal favorite plastic tubing, and molded some teeth using thermoplastic. The mouth is one of those sound reactive mini lightning disks as always.
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| The tubing on the left side would normally tuck under the fabric to mirror the right, I was just impatient for pictures. |
The rib cage was made from two joined pieces of EVA foam. I used a heat gun to warp it to an appropriately curved shape and glued rows of thin rope to the underside for some texture. The top details are bits of craft foam, foam tubing, and more of that plastic tubing cut in half. The eyes are clear resin cast into domes with an eye decal glued on with clear nail polish to the back. I glued EL wire along all the gaps in the rib cage to give it the glow.
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| Eventually, the spine will have eyeballs in each vertebra to match the ribcage. And probably light up too, we'll see. |
The spine is carved foam glued to a fabric base for flexibility as well as durability. It is sewn down directly to the corset and attaches to the upper jacket with some Velcro, which helps hold the entire thing together. The armored plates on the corset are craft foam covered in pleather and painted to look like metal.
This stuff was fun. I saw a
tutorial on YouTube about using a heat gun to partially melt synthetic fabrics into this weird bubbly scarred mess and fell in love with the texture immediately. There are some small pieces of this melted fabric around the edge of the mask and neck, but the real display is down the front of the corset piece. The raised areas I highlighted with silver paint to really make the texture pop.
So with three layers of thermals on underneath to combat the frigid cold and a pair of platform boots I was good to go! Expect to see further additions to this costume in the future - like a proper arm and some armored boots.
