Aliens Xenomorph head piece for a young man (pic heavy)

Hey everyone! This is my first official post besides my introduction post so please be gentle

I wanted to share an interesting project we're working on over at VFX Foam in Washington. We're doing things a little bit differently when it comes to making certain cosplay and props and this new Aliens Xenomorph head piece is a good example.

Project Background: There's a young man that's a huge fan of the movie Aliens, especially the Xenomorphs (yes, a kid that takes after our own hearts!). He's been wanting a full Xenomorph costume for Halloween and we teamed up with his mom and dad to create the head piece for his costume. We started with scanning a Xenomorph action figure's head, cleaned up the 3D model in 3ds Max, removed the neck so we could add a bike helmet system to strap the head piece to the young mans head and widened the neck area and shortened the overall length so it would like right on his 44 inch tall body. We're machining this out of high density EPS foam using our 4axis cnc foam router, coating the piece with a hard coat to give the foam durability and to make it last a long time, as well as prime, paint, airbrush, and clear coat once we're ready.

3D Scanning the head from the Action Figure

3D model comparison vs action figure head

First half of the head being cut out on the 4axis CNC foam router

3D rendering showing how the bike helmet will fit inside the Xenomorph head

Another view of the bike helmet attachment

Xenomorph head beside bike helmet (size comparison)

Another comparison of the helmet and head

Side view of Xenomorph head

Another side view


If you're not familiar with what hard coating a prop does, here's a quick video we made of a test piece from the Alien Xenomorph project showing the impact resistance of the coating. We know this isn't the most scientific or ASTM approved way to measure/test durability but we feel it gives a good idea of what the coating can do:


We'll post some updated pics as we continue moving along with the project. Hope you guys like what we've done with the project so far!

Here are a few updated pictures of the head piece. Please remember that this has been scaled to fit a young man that is about 44 inches tall

This shows the piece after we added a hard coat called Polyurea, same coating used in in truck bed liners from companies like Line-X and Rhino Liner. This adds a very durable impact resistant coating to make the prop last a long time. We'll be prepping the prop for paint and starting on it later this week or beginning of next week. Looking forward to showing everyone the finished prop!

Pic of one of our artists (Aaron) smoothing everything out, sanding, and then prepping it for paint


Painted (Just needs a few layers of some glossy clear coat to bring out the wet/shiny look)

looks great, that coating is wicked

gothic said:

looks great, that coating is wicked

Click to expand...

Thanks gothic! This was a really fun project for us and we can't wait to see his reaction after he receives this. He has no idea we're making it for him so it should be a pretty cool surprise for the little guy. I'll post up the final pics after it's been clear coated.

Freaking awesome.

And the coating, it is a 2PAK?

Thanks cavx The coating is polyurea, a modified two-component polyurethane system. We heat up the coating and use special pumps to pump it out of the sprayers we use. Here's another video showing what an 1/8" coating can do. Its the same type of coating as line-x/rhino liner coatings. link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR4eRpekjnY

few coats of clear coat added

Aaaand.....SHE'S DONE! We added the last few layers of clear coat and just waiting for it to cure before shipping it out. The straps at the bottom are part of a bike helmet system we installed into the base of the head so the young kid wearing it will have a way to secure it to his head

I lied. Our artist decided to add in some flakes to the paint before we ship it out Just waiting for the paint to cure and do a quick photo shoot and then it will be sent to it's final destination

Getting ready to ship this to it's final destination. We took some high res images first. This will give you a better idea of ohw it will look during low-light situations like on halloween We also created a custom box for this to ship in. I'll see if I can get some pics to post up later.