Another deadmau5 head...

soapberry

New Member
This thread will be documenting my build of a replica deadmau5 head. I know this has been done a few thousand times but I've figured I'll make one that's all pretty with lots of lights and such.

I began researching this in September (2011), and have only recently begun the actual construction so here's the little that I have so far done.

Any feedback is welcome. :)

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These are the drawings I have been using as reference along with some of the many pictures of the heads.
 
First off I made the ears. To do this I made a drawing of them on Illustrator and printed it out, this was so the ears would be symmetrical.

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I used this as the base to make the masters for the ears from MDF.

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The little squares at the bottom are so the ears can slip into the head.

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Yes, they do look like toilet seats.

Fibreglass moulds have since been made but I've not got photos, I'll upload them soon.
 
Next I started work on the main piece of the head. I wanted to get a perfect sphere so I ordered in a hemisphere that was the exact size from the drawings.

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I filled this with plaster so when I vacuum formed it it wouldn't warp with the heat, and if it did I would still have something to work from. It did warp with the heat, so I've been working on it with car body filler (bondo) to make it nice and smooth.

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Since these photos were taken I've vac-formed over the hemispheres to make up the thickness lost. More updates coming soon.
 
Not as much progress has been made in the past week due to being busy with other projects, but I got the molds for the ears finished and the first mold from hemisphere has been made as well.

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Fibre glass mold with MDF supports on the back.

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Mold released from the former, hoping to take casts early next week.
 
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The hemisphere with PVA release agent on it ready for molding.

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First gel coat of resin, not a pretty sight.

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Second gel coat of resin, definitely not a pretty sight.

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Fibre glass applied with a support on the back, finished fibre glassing the hemisphere since this picture was taken. Ready for round 2 tomorrow.
 
Wow nice. I had a similar thought of going this approach for my mau5 head but it's definitely more work as opposed to the hamster ball/ acrylic globe method. I'm excited to see the end result to this. Good Luck!
 
Thanks, I was looking into using an acrylic globe but the cost of importing it was huge, and I saw that quite a number of folk had been complaining about them cracking after a few weeks.
 
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One cast, coated with PVA release agent.

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First fibre-glass ear cast. I heat bent some acrylic to make handles and fibre-glassed them onto the back of the casts to help release them.

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The two sides of one of the ears complete, really happy with the result. Just need to tidy them up, trim off the excess and drill out some holes for LEDs before they'll be ready to join.
 
Oh, wow! That's going to be super lightweight, and nice and strong. When I saw the MDF ears, I thought you were crazy!

Subscribed to see the finished results.
 
*Pictures taken on my phone, not great quality.

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Released the mold from the master, was an interesting process to get it off.

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The mold wasn't coming off without a fight, so it was drilled onto this and hit off with a mallet and a scrap of timber.

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Sadly plasterhead smashed in two. :(

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But it''ll all be fine, applied the gel coat and fibre-glass backing, hoping to get it off at some point tomorrow.

More to come.
 
Haha, wearing one with MDF ears would certainly build up your neck muscles. But yeah, the casts are superlight. Hoping that it will be able to be worn out without injury. :)
 
Im assuming you are making a hard shell mau5head like the newer ones Joel wears? Looking good so far. I really like the ears.

For the head, is there a reason you did not go with a acrylic sphere? I've had really good luck with them in the past so Im curious about your choice of materials.

What is you plan for the visor?
 
For the head, is there a reason you did not go with a acrylic sphere? I've had really good luck with them in the past so Im curious about your choice of materials.

Thanks, I was looking into using an acrylic globe but the cost of importing it was huge, and I saw that quite a number of folk had been complaining about them cracking after a few weeks.

I believe that should answer the question.
 
Yeah I'm making one from fibre-glass so that it's light and strong.

There are three main reasons for avoiding the spheres, I'd seen a few folk saying that they started to crack after a few weeks, and from my experience with acrylic it that makes sense because it is pretty brittle, it was looking like it would cost me over £100 to import one, and I wanted molds that I could keep so if I ever wanted to make another I wouldn't need to order a lot of materials.

I'm undecided what I want to do with the visor, but I think I'll probaby end up drilling a pattern into some styrene and bending it around to shape.
 
There's been quite a bit of progress since my last update, been really busy so only just getting around to this now.

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First hemisphere cast, added some handles to be able to move the cast slightly and shot in some comressed air and the cast popped right out.

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Repeated the process for the other half, annoyingly the gel coat of resin started to release in a few areas while I was applying the glass-fibre matting, but it's turned out to not be as big an issue as I worried it might be.

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After both the casts were made I trimmed them down with a dremel.* I also trimmed the ear casts along with the hemispheres.

*Trimming/sanding fibreglass is horrible, not to be done without a respirator, safety specs, thick gloves, a strong extraction unit and preferably a hoover to get any excess dust that the extraction doesn't get.
 
The eyes were made pretty quickly in a few hours. I started by making a template with laser cut acrylic to get the exact shape and size I wanted.

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This was then packed out with some blue foam and then carved into shape.

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I left some extra space between the foam and upper edge of the acrylic for the filler.

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Filler was then applied...

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...and sanded back with a long strip of sand paper to get an even finish.

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This master was then vacuum formed (twice, obviously) in 2mm styrene. I'm using blue styrene because it illuminates nicely with LEDs behind it.

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These vacuum forms were then trimmed and sanded, the result being to lovely eyes. :)
 
I forgot to take pictures of the stage where I was making the hole for the head, but to do it I used a compass a few cm back from the top of a hemisphere to mark out the space, and then trimmed it away using a dremel cutting tool. I've still to tidy it up more with the sanding tool.

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To make the space for the smile/visor I cut some strips of 1/2mm styrene and taped them in place at first. I used a fabric measure tape to get the smile even and referenced between the drawings and pictures to see what looked best. After I was happy I taped the styrene into place so that it wouldn't move and sprayed around it to mark out the smile, and then cut it out with a dremel.

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After I had cut out the smile I attached this to the other hemisphere. I used super glued large strips of styrene to the inside of one half and then positioned it into the other to get as even a join as possible. Someone else had to hold the hemisphere in place while I applied the super glue and zip kicker because the styrene was causing it to shift slightly. After the strips were applied and the two halves were joined I fibre-glassed over the inside join to give extra strength to the join.

Note- The smile is still to be further refined, that as well as the lip should be completed next week.

That's all for now. :)
 
Looking good. It's nice to see people go all out and take their time on projects like these instead of half assing it.

Keep up the good work, looking forward to the eyes lit up.
 
Not updated for a while because I've been insanely busy, so the last three weeks of work is all going up now...

After joining the two hemispheres together the join had to be filled in and smoothed over to look like a lovely sphere. To do this I used large amounts of car body filler. It took about two days solid of applying filler and sanding back with the occasional coat of primer to get the head to a satisfactory smoothness. Filler was applied all over the head because I wasn't happy with some small divots on the top. To smooth it off I used long strips of folded sand paper and worked through the grits, in a similar fashion to how the eye pattern was smoothed off.

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After doing a load of filling I used a red filler primer to fill in any small holes that were left.

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Redmau5

Next post coming shortly...
 
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