TwoFiveSeven

My son and I had a fun weekend at our cities comicon. He dressed up as Harry Potter and I done minimal effort with putting on a jumper reading "full time dad, part time Jedi" While there he turned to me and asked if I could make more of an effort next year... Oh! I guess he wasn't impressed with me. So I got to thinking what I could do. I hadn't originally intended to use the tauntaun head for anything but now I thought I could use it for a cosplay for next year's comicon. With this in mind I realised there was going to be a lot more work required to have a tauntaun cosplay. A frame to hold the head, the body, rider, rider clothes, legs, tail....It goes on.  Looking back on the amount of research for making it all I wasn't expecting as there is a lot I don't know on how to make various components. Hey what's the worst that can happen?! Let's give it a go.

 So the grand plan was taking shape  Before being able to progress however I needed to add some way to mount the head so it was secure and wouldn't fall over so I got some plastic pipes from a plumbing store and glued them together within the head so there was no movement and so it can be used later to connect to the neck. The head needed to be stable with little movement so this took some trial and error on how to secure it with access to areas I needed to work on. The head would connect to a frame that went down to the body of the costume, but it would need to be able to be dismantled easily enough for transport and so I can work on the head section without needing the whole body each time I wanted to add features or paint. The frame would go around me and I felt it could be secured using a backpack harness which I picked up cheaply, the harness needed some minor adjustments and fitted with extra straps to hold the frame securely with little movement but also to be comfortab...

 So the head was very clearly made from paper mache and I knew even with a lot of paint the face would still be clearly covered with paper strips so that's when I came across a method to add more detail and make it stronger by using paper mache clay. Link to what I used for a guide:  Paper mache clay Once the frame had been added I began the paper mache clay, I used shredded paper soaked in water, plaster and glue.  Mixed it all up using a hand blender and then smeared it over the head trying to cover all of it and give some shape to areas needing detail. Only a thin layer is required as it adds strength but also adds weight to it. This was all the first time for me doing this and I half expected it to fail or not do what I wanted it to do.  I was lucky that it all worked and it turned out better than I thought it would.