Side by side comparison of the cartoon with the finished cosplay.
Mr Meeseeks, Make Me Mr Meeseeks. "Ooooh yeaaah! Caaan do!"
This a quick and dirty tutorial on how I made my Mr. Meeseeks Cosplay. I made this costume for DragonCon 2016 and had a ton of fun getting in character. It's a pretty simple costume and was inexpensive to make.
Step 1: Paper mache
First Few Layers of Paper Mache Done
Blow up a 12" balloon and paper mache away! You'll want about 10 layers so that the structure isn't too flimsy. For the first 8 layers I used 1" strips of newspaper. The last 2 layers I used standard printing paper cut into 1" strips for a little extra strength/thickness. You'll want to let each layer dry before adding another one.
Step 2: Pop the balloon
After popping the balloon. It's so empty and hollow... Like my soul! :D
Now for the fun part! After the last layer of paper mache is dry, you get to pop the balloon! kinda looks like an egg sack from Aliens.
Step 3: Cutting & Prepping
A Quick Test Fit
Use a dremel to trim the neckline so that it fits over your fat head :D Then, Trim out the mouth. The mouth will be where you are going to be able to see out of, so make it big enough so you have a decent field of vision.
Spackled. Waiting for it to dry so I can sand it.
Time to smooth that shit out! No one likes a lumpy ass Meeseeks. Slather on some spackle, let it dry, and then sand it smooth. Then, seal the surface by brushing on a couple layers of mod podge.
Step 4: Paint
I'm blue, da ba dee dabba da-ee!
Paint your Meeseek with a nice light blue spray paint. You can see in the picture that there is quite a glossy shine, so to dull it a bit I brushed on a coat of mod podge to seal the paint and give a nice matte finish.
Step 5: Eyes and Teeth
"Existence is pain to a Meeseeks, Jerry!"
Add the teeth by cutting out foam board and hot gluing it to the inside of the mouth.
You want the eyes to have a little dimension to them and not be flat on the head. So, to form the eyes, I used paper clay which I pressed into a mold (the mold was just the bottom of a seasoning shaker covered in plastic wrap. Fancy stuff, I know). Once the paper clay is dry, sand it smooth, mod podge to seal the surface, and then paint it black. Once the paint is dry, hot glue the eyes into position.
Step 6: Adding Details
"Excuse me, but I'm a bit of a stickler Meeseeks."
Time to add the details that make a Meeseek so damn handsome.
Add in some expression lines for the mouth, eyebrows, and chin.
That sexy tuff of hair was made by taking orange yarn and brushing it out until is like Troll Doll hair.
Lastly, use some black pantyhose or shear material to cover the back of the mouth so that you can see out, but no one will be able to see your ugly face!
Step 7: Gotta have a body too. "Oh yeah! Can do!"
That's a fine fit looking Meeseeks.
A zentai suit is all you need for the body. A quick google search for "light blue zentai" will find you what you need. Also, if you are a guy, you absolutely need to buy and wear a "dancer belt" underneath... no one wants to see a detailed outline of your junk vacuum sealed against your body. The dancer belt won't hide your junk, but it will at least make it less disturbing.
Also, to help prevent too much wear on the bottoms of the feet, you will want to glue on some soles to your zentai suit. There are some pretty good youtube videos for this, but here's the quick and dirty: Obtain a pair of water shoes that are 2 sizes smaller than what you normally wear (prevents overhanging flaps). Cut the sole away from the fabric. while wearing the suit, use either Shoe Goo or Barge Contact Cement or any other appropriate adhesive to glue the foot of the suit to the sole of the shoe.
I'm Mr. Meeseeks! LOOK AT MEEE!!
That raps things up. Have fun with your Mr Meeseeks cosplay and don't forget that Meeseeks are created to serve a single purpose, for which we will go through any lengths to fulfill!
Brainstorming! It took me a while to decide on what I wanted my next cosplay
to be. I wanted to make something fun for my girlfriend to wear to Dragon Con this
year. I wanted it to be something really cool and fairly easy to wear around.
So, I decided to make a Deadmau5 head. I did the ol' google image search to get some inspiration for an original design. One particular pic I found, I thought looked really cool; the Deadmau5 Hellraiser from his Halloween set back in 2013 where the lighting made the head look pink. So, I decided to play off of the pink Pinhead look and I am happy to say that I think it turned out looking pretty epic! :)
Research/Design
After looking around online for a bit, I was able to find a
few different tutorials to go off of during the build. One in particular looked
especially professional and well made. Much of the build follows the Deadmau5
head tutorial created by Intrica on Instructables.com with a changes and
touches that I made to suite my project designs. I will going over my process,
but I very highly recommend you check out the original tutorial I used as it is
very well done and a great resource! http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-your-own-Deadmau5-mouse-head-helmet/?ALLSTEPS
The Build
Materials:
14” acrylic lamp post globe with 5.5” neckless opening – Amazon or www.superiorlighting.com
6” white acrylic lamp globe – Amazon or www.superiorlighting.com
4’x8’ Dow blue extruded polystyrene Styrofoam sheet 1/2” thickness - Lowes
12” fully threaded rods 10/24” diameter (4pcs) - Lowes
4/16 x 1” fender washers (4pcs) - Lowes
10/24” wing nuts - Lowes
Adjustable hard hat - Amazon
LED’s for eyes – http://lighthouseleds.com/3mm-9v-pre-wired-led-pink-ultra-bright-10-000-mcd.html
El Wire for ears and mouth - Amazon
Hot glue gun and glue sticks - Amazon and Amazon
Liquid Nails for foam adhesive and applicator gun
Dremel with bits for cutting, sanding, and drilling
Scissors
Single-edge razor blades
Metal Mesh Food Cover Dome - Amazon
Nylon tights or sheer chiffon for mouth
Electrical or duct tape
Battery connectors - Amazon
Poster board
Sharpie marker
Safety Glasses
Protective Gloves
Wire cutters
Rubbing Alcohol
Black Spray Paint
Light Pink Spray Paint
Neon Pink Spray Paint
White Primer
White Plasti-dip Marking the Globe
The first thing you’ll need to do is to mark up the globe so
you can cut out the mouth and know where to place the eyes and ears. Getting
the layout right is crucial to ensuring that the final design looks good, so be
sure to measure everything at least twice before you make any cuts.
Start off by measuring 19.25 inches from the opening at
several places to find the mid-point. Note *the “nipple” found on the top of
the globe is not a good indicator of the mid-point as it can be off center by ½
inch or more* Next, draw 2 vertical lines that will divide the globe into
quadrants. After both lines are drawn completely around the globe, measure from
the center point down 11” on all 4 lines to locate the equator midline of your
globe.
Cutting out the Mouth
The mouth opening will rise slightly above the equator line
in the center. Mark a dot 5/8” above the equator on the front center line to
determine the high point on the mouth. Measure 6 ½” down from this dot to find
the lowest point of the bottom lip and mark this point. Now place a dot on the
equator line ½” in front of the side line on each side, this will be the outer
edges of the mouth. Use your dremel to cut out the mouth. You’ll want to sand
down the edges once you are done cutting.
Be sure to wear safety glasses and a mask over your mouth when cutting. Be gentle when handling the globe after the mouth has been cut out because the structural integrity is weakened and can cause cracking at the corners of the mouth. I suggest installing the lip as soon as possible to help stabilize the structure of the globe to try and prevent any cracking. I actually had some cracking issues I had to patch up using epoxy... Trust me, it's better to avoid that problem if possible.
Building up
the Lip
To create the offset from the mouth you will need to cut out
¾ “ x 28” strips from the foam board. You’ll need to put a slight bend in the
strips to make them fit inside of the globe and to better hold its shape
against the globe. Once shaped, glue the lips inside of the mouth one at a
time, cutting off any excess (make sure you leave at least 1” on either side of
the mouth)
Cutting out
the Eyes & Eye Placement
Mark out two 5.25” circles on the 6” white globe. Use your
dremel to cut out the eyes. Same as the mouth, you’ll want to sand down the
edges once you are done cutting. If you made any marks with a sharpie, you can remove them using rubbing alcohol.
Fabricating & Placing the Ears
I went
with an oval design for the ears. You can google the PDF to stencil the ears onto your foam
board using a sharpie. Once you have stenciled the design onto the foam, use a razor blade
to cut out the shape. You should have a total of 4 ears cutout. Next, you will need to cut out small channels for the threaded rods to sit in.
This is easily done by using a razor blade at a 45 degree angle to cut a "V" shape channel in the foam. Next,
use a hot glue gun on low temp to glue the rods into place. Low temperature glue guns will keep the hot glue from melting the foam. Once the rods have been glued in place, use liquid nails to glue two of the cut-outs together. Once done, you should have 2 ears.
At this point, I used the reference picture to sculpt the cracks and missing
chunks in the ears. Once sculpted, use some fine grit sand paper to smooth
everything down to be ready for priming and painting.
Test fitting the ears
Once the ears are fully sculpted and sanded, you can go ahead
and use plasti-dip to prep the piece for painting later. The Plasti-dip will
prevent the paint from eating away at the foam when you go to paint. Plasti-dip
works best spraying 2-4 light layers and then 1 final heavier layer.
Next, you’ll want to mark out where you will need to drill the holes for the
threaded rods. The ear holes should be made 1” back from the midline with a 5”
gap in-between the two ears. When drilling the holes, make the holes slightly
larger so that the threaded rod doesn’t crack the acrylic globe when shifting
around during use. Also, use a dremel rather than a drill. I found that the higher speed of the dremel helped prevent cracking.
Paint time! After your prime the ears, they'll be ready for painting. For my Deadmau5, I sprayed the piece with light pink and then followed up with neon pink for the cuts, cracks, and missing chunks.
Finish the paint job using a couple coats of spray clear finisher "flat".
Primed & Painted & Finished
Installing the LEDs
Now is the time toprep and install
any LED’s you may want to include in your design.
I used both pink and purple LED’s for the eyes and pink El wire
to line the mouth. (links to where I got them in the materials list) I used 10 LEDs of each color for each eye.
LEDs wired and mounted
The El wire came “ready to go” with a battery pack and switch
already wired up, so all I had to do was attach some velro to the battery pack and position it inside of the globe, and then line the mouth with the El Wire. I used a small amount of hot glue to outline the mouth 3 times with it.
The LEDs came had to be sodered together prior to installation. Basically, you sodder all of the positive terminals together and then sodder all of the negative terminals together so that when connected to the battery pack, all of the LEDs light up. I
bought some switches and 9v battery clips online so that I could easily connect
everything and mount it all inside of the head. This tutorial video provides a
pretty good example on how to soder the wiring for your LED’s. https://youtu.be/TJJ4Mg8fymY
LED without wax paper
Once the LEDs are wired, you'll need to use some wax paper or tracing paper to help diffuse the light to give it a smoother overall glow. I used 2 layers of wax paper for mine.
LEDs with wax paper to disperse the light
Installing
the Hard Hat
To make sure that the Deadmau5 head sits comfortably and
doesn’t slide all over the place, you are going to want to
install a hard hat inside of the head. First, you may want to cut out knotches
on either side of the hard hat so that you can easily access the screws that hold the ears in place. Next, you'll want to prep
the surface of the helmet and the inside surface of the globe to allow for maximum bonding when glue is applied. Use rough
grit sand paper on both surfaces and drill a bunch of small holes in the top of the hard hat. This will allow the hot glue to
better adhere when you go to glue the helmet to the inside of the globe. Use a
very generous amount of hot glue to make sure that the hard hat doesn’t come loose and hold it in place long enough to let it set.
Fabricating
the Mesh Mouth Cover
Cut out the edges of the mesh food cover and take off the
handle. Next, place the mesh inside of the globe so that you can use a sharpie
and use the mouth as a stencil. NOTE *You may have a gap in-between the mesh
and the edges of the mouth, but no worries! Just leave equal spacing on each
side and we will cover up the gap when we go to attach the mouth to the globe* You’ll
want to mark an additional 1” on either side to leave room for the mesh to
adhere to the lip. Once you have the mesh stenciled, use wire cutters or sturdy kitchen sheers to cut along your stencil. To allow for better visibility through the mesh and to make the mesh blend
in better, you’ll want to spray paint the mesh black.
Next, stretch the nylon tights over the mesh and use hot glue on the backside
to keep it adhered. Make sure you leave the sides unglued so you can stretch it
out to cover up any gap you may have at the corners of the mouth.
The mouth is now ready to be attached to the lip. Use the low heat setting on the glue gun to adhere he mouth to the lips.
If you did have gaps at the edges of the mouth, now is the time where you can
cover them up. Once you have the top and bottom of the mouth secured to the
lip, you can stretch the sides of the nylon to cover up the gaps and glue them
to the inside of the globe.
Priming and
Painting the Head
At the home stretch! Now that you have the structure of the helmet finished,
you get to paint it :D
First thing you’ll want to do is to prime the globe with some white spray primer. Once primed, you
can then paint the ears and head to your design.
The original hellraiser is a black and grey color scheme, but
I decided to go with something a bit more eye catching and went with a pink and
neon pink color scheme.
After everything is painted, you’ll need to finish it off
with a layer or two of flat clear coat spray.
From mau5head to Pinhead
To finish off the Hellraiser design, you have to create the signature “pinhead”
look using nails. You’ll want to follow the lines you painted on to drill holes
where the lines intersect. You want the holes to be ever so slighty larger than
the diameter of the nails you’ll be using. (This will prevent them from
cracking the globe if they get jostled during wear) Next, you simply have to
set the nails into place using hot glue or any other fast setting adhesive from
the inside of the globe to keep the outside looking clean and free of glue
globs. Be generous with the hot glue on the inside of the globe and consider
rough sanding the small area around each hole to ensure a strong adhesion with
the globe and the nails.
Inspiration
Last year (Aug 2013) I went to my very first convention, DragonCon. It was awesome! There was so much to see and do and there were so many amazingly cool costumes! Practically everyone was dressed up as something and I, not having dressed up, felt like I was missing out on a lot of fun. I decided that I had to give it a try!
It took me quite a while to come up with something that I wanted to cosplay as for my first time. It had to be something that I was interested in. I also wanted it to be original, a fairly well known character, and just plain cool looking yet feasible for my first build. So, after many weeks of brainstorming, I came up with something that met all my criteria for my very first super awesome cosplay build. I decided on Jinno from Afro Samurai, or more specifically his rebuilt form, Kuma(http://afrosamurai.wikia.com/wiki/Jinno)
I love the Afro Samurai series and Kuma is the perfect character to cosplay; he's pretty badass looking, original, not ridiculously difficult to build, and did I mention he looks freaking badass?!
The version I decided on was the battle worn Kuma who appears at the very end of the last episode of Afro Samurai.
In the scene, Kuma looks as if he has been through hell and back to retrieve the number 2 headband as well as other headbands (people have speculated that there used to be at least 10 and somewhere along the line the others were lost) so that he can fight Afro and finally take his revenge for all the misfortune that has come upon him due to Afro's actions. BADASS.
Research
So, the first step after having decided what I wanted to cosplay as was to do some research since I have no prior experience making costumes. For reference material, I took a few screen caps, found some great fan art, and also found a really awesome cosplay that someone had already done. I also found a bunch of really good cosplaying tutorials to give me an idea of how I wanted to build the costume which I will include throughout the build instructions.
The Build
First, I want to say, it was a ton of fun building this project, and it was a great learning experience! There are parts I think I did an amazing job on and others that I learned from. It took several long months of hard work to complete due to the limited time I could put into it each day, but I am happy to say that it was worth it! That said, below is a rough idea of the processes/materials/tools used to create my Kuma cosplay.
Fabricating the Teddy Bear Head
Supplies for head:
18" (42 cm) exercise ball - ($30)
newspaper - cut into 1" strips - Free
2 things of wallpaper paste (you can get this at Lowe's or any other home improvement store) - $18
printer paper - cut into 1" strips - Free
fabric ($12 from Joann Fabric)
foam blocks for muzzle ($9)
5" foam sphere for eye ($3)
hard hat
"great-stuff" insulation foam
hot glue gun (I had one, so it was free for me)
paint (roughly $10)
panty-hose
The process is pretty simple, but it was time consuming because you have to wait for each layer to dry which takes roughly 4 hours. If you're unfamiliar with paper-mâché, there is a nice little tutorial here: INSERT TUTORIAL LINK
The gist of it is this; using the exercise ball as a base, you add a layer of newspaper, wait 4-5 hours for it to fully dry, add another layer, wait 4-5 hours, and so on and so forth until you have built up about 10 layers. Then finish it up with another 2-3 layers of copy paper for extra structural strength.
First Layer Down. 11 more to go!
So, a week and a half later, the form of the head was complete. I had to cut the hole a little bit bigger so that I could easily fit it over my head.
Paper Mache Form Finished!
Looks Cool!
Covering the Head in Fabric
The next step was to cover the head in fabric. It took me quite a bit of searching to find the perfect fabric to cover it with, but I am quite happy with the material I found at Joann Fabric. Not to mention that it was inexpensive! :)
Insert Pic Here
Covering a sphere which is a 3-D object with a 2-D material without causing it to bunch up can be a bit of a problem, but after doing some research, I found the best possible way to cover it would be to use a beach ball pattern (imagine slicing an orange into 6-8 slices and then laying the rind flat)
I just cut out the template, traced it onto my material, and then used spray fabric adhesive to glue it onto the surface of the head. It was definitely a bit tricky.
Fuzzy ball head. lol
Fabricating and Painting the Eye, Muzzle, and Ear
For the eye, I used a 5" foam sphere. I cut roughly 2/3 off and hollowed it out so that it would fit flush against the head. Once shaped, I covered it with paper-clay, allowed it to dry overnight, then sanded it down to create a nice smooth surface.
Covering the eye with paper clay
Eye: sanded and ready to be painted!
The muzzle was sculpted from 2 foam blocks glued together. I sketched the shape of the muzzle onto the foam with a marker and then cut off sections at a time. Once it was shaped, I sanded down the surface. Then, just like the eye, I covered it with paper-clay, allowed it to dry overnight, then sanded it down to create a nice smooth surface.
The nose was molded out of heat baked clay.
Muzzle before sanding
Once the pieces were shaped, I then used some white spray primer/paint to seal the surfaces and prep them for painting.
Lookin' good!
I then did a mockup to determine the proper placement of the pupil so that the eye would be looking forward and used a stencil to paint on the pupil.
I painted the muzzle using khaki colored acrylic and a golden brown to add a little weathered look.
The nose was painted black and then hot glued to the muzzle.
After the painted pieces were dry, I sealed them using a clear semi gloss.
Before I hot glued the eye to the head, I first trace the circumference onto the head so that I could cut out the missing eye hole using a dremel cutter. I then hot glued a section of the panti-hose to cover the hole from the inside which allowed me to cover the eye hole and yet maintain visibility while wearing the head.
Hot glued everything into position.
It's like he's staring into my soul. lol
The ear was fabricated using 3mm craft foam and some of the excess fabric. I first drew out a rough design and then traced it onto the craft foam which I then cut out. Next, I prepped the foam for painting with a couple light layers of plasti-dip and a layer of primer. I then painted the ear piece using the same colors I used for the muzzle and then sealed it with a quick spray of clear semi gloss. Lastly, I cut out some of the fabric to cover the ear and then glued it on using a hot glue gun. Once completed, I attached it to the head using the glue gun.
As a final touch, to keep the head from moving around and to make it more comfortable to wear, I glued a hard hat inside of the head. It took quite a bit of patients to get the helmet positioning just right so that I could see out of the empty eye socket. I had to glue the helmet to a block of foam which I glued to the inside of the head and then to secure it, I used "great-stuff" insulation foam to fill some of the void around the hardhat.
Getting ready to glue the hard hat into position
Finished product
This thing is just plain fun to wear around. lol
#Selfie #JustWokeUp #NoMakeup
Head Bands
Supplies Needed:
3 yards of white cotton cloth
red fabric marker
black fabric marker
The headbands were fairly easy to create. The first thing I did was roughly cut 2 inch strips from my 3 yards of fabric. It's supposed to look kind of battered so being choppy with it is okay. It actually improves the look :)
Once the Fabric was cut, I then weathered the material using cocoa powder, make-up, and coffee. There are a lot of different techniques and materials you can use to weather the fabric, but I think it turned out well :)
Next, it was time to add the symbols. Basically, each headband gets a red circle, the kanji symbol for "number" in black on the right, and the kanji symbol for the actual number of the headband in black on the left. I found that the quickest way to draw everything out was to print out the symbols I would need and then trace them out onto the fabric. *Note: a back light really helps out when trying to trace out your patterns*
The Armor
Torso
Supplies Needed for Torso:
black long sleeve compression shirt ($20)
Plaster Cloth
Wall Paper Paste ($9)
Strips of Newspaper
Strips of Copy Paper
paint
clear acrylic spray
Velcro
hot glue gun
Being new at this, I was very unfamiliar with how to fabricate a chest plate. But, after searching around the web, I was able to find a ton of different armor building methods (foam, cardboard, paper Mache, plastic, plaster casting, etc...) However, because I wanted to make the chest piece form fitting I decided to do a plaster-cloth casting reinforced with paper Mache. Although I am happy with the results, the process was quite time consuming and in hind site, was probably not the best method to use. Regardless, here's the process I went with:
First thing you want to do is cast your body using the plaster cloth strips. You'll need a friend (or two!) to help you out with this. Coat your chest in Vaseline to prevent the plaster cloth from sticking to your body. Get ready to stand still for a looooooong time (a really loooong time!). No seriously, this is gonna be rough! You are going to have to remain as perfectly still while your friend applies 2-3 layers of the cloth to your body. It dries fairly quickly, so the quicker you apply the layers, the better. Once you are cocooned, you wait! It'll take the plaster cast about 20-30 minutes to harden up enough to cut yourself out of it. It helps if you use fans or a hairdryer to speed things up.
Once it has dried, you have yourself a cast :) Now you just have to strengthen the form using the same paper Mache method we used for the teddy bear head. So, about 12 layers of paper Mache later (9 on the outside, 3 on the inside), you'll have a nice sturdy piece of armor. At this point in time the armor will be strong enough for you to make any necessary final cuts to shape out the armor as you'd like. Once the final cuts were made, I then added a couple more layers of paper Mache using copy paper to seal the edges and make sure the piece was solid.
After fabricating the chest piece, I primed and painted the pieces, and weathered the piece to make it look worn and old. If you are unfamiliar with weathering, a quick Google search of "weathering armor" will give you a plethora of tutorials on how to weather an object using paint :)
Here's a pretty good tutorial that I found: http://makezine.com/projects/simple-paint-weathering-in-3-easy-steps/
I then fabricated the "bolt" you can see in the middle of the piece using 6mm craft foam and paper-clay. After assembled, primed, and painted, I attached the "bolt" piece to the chest piece using hot glue and then sealed the whole thing using a clear coat.
Strapping the chest piece
In order to make the armor wearable, I had to add on some straps. I wanted the strapping to be a low key as possible so I made an internal strapping system. I glued velcro to the inside of the piece at the shoulder and side on the left of the armor so that I could put it on my slipping it over my body. I then hot glued more velcro on the right side so that I could open and close the armor as I pleased. As a final touch, I glued on some panty-hose I had cut to cover any velcro that was visibly after donning the armor.
Gluing on the straps of the armor
The Ribs/Spine
After the chest piece was complete, the next piece to the torso was the "rib" section.
I cut out four 2" x 20" 3mm strips of craft foam and glued them to a 4" x 6" rectangle of 3mm craft foam. I then glued a 3/4" x 6" to the back of the rectangle piece to give it a sort of a spinal cord look.
I then coated the piece with a couple of light coats of plasti-dip and a coat of primer and then painted it as seen below. I then weathered the piece and used watered down black acrylic to give it a dirty/ worn look.
insert pic of rib section
Robotic Arms
Materials:
plastic wrap
painters tape
plain black gloves
3mm craft foam
plasti-dip
paper-clay
primer
paint
Velcro
Once I decided on the material I was going to use, I did a little more research and came across a really good tutorial on how to create really cool looking robotic limbs. The tutorial goes into really good detail on the process, but I will give a brief overview.
There are 4 main pieces to my arm design: the hands, the forearm, the upper arm, and the shoulders.
First, I created a pattern by wrapping my arm first in plastic wrap and then with the painters tape to make a sort of cast of my arm. Next, I drew the pattern I wanted using a marker. Then I carefully cut the cast off, leaving a form fitting stencil which I then used to trace my patterns onto the foam sheets.
After cutting out all of the pieces, I applied a couple of light coats of plasti-dip spray to the craft foam and followed up with a layer of primer. When using plasti-dip, you want to do very thin layers and do 2-3 layers to keep it from coming out sloppy looking.
Once you have sealed the foam pieces, it's time to mold the foam to your arms. Using your stove-top at medium high heat, hold the piece of foam you are molding about 8" above the eye of the stove until it becomes floppy (about 10 seconds) and then quickly press it against your arm and hold it in place until it cools (around 30 seconds)
*Note: you might need a friend or maybe some tape to help hold larger pieces flush while it cools.
Once all of your pieces are formed, it's time to paint! I used silver to paint the entire surface of the piece and then did a second coat on the side that would show. After painting, I weathered the surface to make it look worn and a bit rusted (this is the battle-worn version of kuma after all. He needs to look like he's been through some shit)
After all of my pieces were painted, I sealed it using a thin coating of clear gloss and then hot glued them into position to assemble the gloves, the forearm, the upper arm, and the shoulders.
To add a bit more detail, I fabricated a few "bolt heads" using paper-clay which I attached to the joint areas at the shoulder and the elbow. After fabricating, I sanded, primed, painted, and sealed.
Once I was done assembling all the pieces, I attached Velcro to the pieces and to my black compression shirt to keep everything in place.
Katanas!
For Reference
Materials:
3 wood - 1/4" x 3" x 4'
wood glue
primer
paint
4 - 72" black shoelaces
craft foam
spray clear acrylic
Every samurai needs a sword. It just so happens that Kuma is so badass that he has 2! Using a couple of really great tutorials I found through deviant art and YouTube I was able to quickly fabricate the katanas. I highly recommend borrowing a jigsaw and a belt sander from someone because those two tools made fabricating the katanas a breeze. You can check out the reference tutorial I used here:
Based off of the tutorial, I drew out the 2 katanas and then cut them out using a jigsaw. From the pieces I cut, I then traced out 2 additional pieces that would be part of the handle. I then used a belt sander to smooth any rough cuts. Next, I used some wood glue to combine the handles with the sword and used clamps to help hold it all together while it dried. Once the piece was formed, it was time to shape it. The tutorial does a really good job explaining how to get the correct shape, but basically I flipped the belt sander over and used it in a similar fashion as a grind stone to put an edge on the blade and to shape the handle. Finally, I cut out my tsuba design, shaped it with the belt sander, and glued it into position.
In order to save time and effort, I fabricated the habaki (collar) and kashira (end cap) from 2 mm craft foam and glued them into position with a hot glue gun.
Next, it was time to sand the whole thing with fine grit sand paper and then spray prime it to prep it for painting. I used silver for the blade and handle and gold for the tsuba, habaki, and kashira. After everything was painted I used a bit of watered down black acrylic to weather the habaki, tsuba, and kashira.
Once I was done painting, I then used spray clear acrylic to seal the whole thing.
The final step was to wrap the handles. I found this great tutorial on Deviant-art which I followed to wrap the handles in no time!
Kendo Hakama
From the tutorials I was able to find, it seems to be fairly difficult fabricate a hakama due to the seven pleats which give it it's look. Therefore, I decided to just purchase a hakama rather than spend countless hours attempting to throw one together with my lack of sewing skill.
There are tons of site's out there to buy from, but be ready to dish out at least $40. I got mine through amazon:
I'm 6'3", so I went with a size 28 Kendo Hakama. You can Google a hakama sizing chart to get your fit, but when looking at sizes, the height is the most important part. Also, it's better to be slightly shorter than longer because you don't want your hakama to drag on the ground.
Kendo Hakama
Footwear
For my footwear, I decided to go with the inexpensive and comfortable route and simple use a pair of plain black flip-flops I had on hand. The other option would be to buy a pair of geta (sandals with an elevated wooden base). However, I think a pair of plain black flip-flops work fine and aren't really noticeable with the hakama mostly covering them.
DONE!
I put a lot of time and effort into making this cosplay, and had a ton of fun doing it! I showed it off at Dragon Con 2014 and it was a hit :) Here's a few pics of me wearing my completed Kuma cosplay:
Left: Me as Kuma, Right: My friend as Shadow Link
Lots of people wanted to pose with me by having me to put my swords together like I was going to cut off their heads :)
Fight!
Looking like a boss!
My friend and I were very popular at Dragon Con! It was awesome!
