Tarfful WIP Finished Costume On PAGE 3

Re: Tarfful WIP

Anyone know the best way to get a hold of Darth Serberus as i have sent a PM as i am getting a friend to help me with a my Tarfful mask. We were trying to figure out how Darth Serberus did he's Tarfful mask and feet as my friend went to school for SXF make up and has worked with latex foam before but not 100% sure on how Darth Serberus did his?
 
Re: Tarfful WIP

My word! It has been over a year and a half since I updated this thread so here goes...
Since my last update I have been ploughing through back orders for commissions so I didn't really get the chance to touch any personal projects.
Plus I moved into a new much bigger workshop which allowed me to stand the Wookie up for the first time to see what I had.
I was quite pleased with how the proportions worked out on the mannequin. I was really trying to avoid the long legged, short armed look that can so easily happen when using stilts. I did this by making finger extensions to make the arms appear longer and lowered the waist and crotch slightly.
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Before diving into the rather extensive hair job, I decided to get all the other bits out of the way first.
I started with the shoulder armour, which I decided to make in latex and foam. I did this for practical reasons, to keep the weight down, reduce the amount of parts and to improve flexibility. As a bonus it seams to really stay in place all by itself with little need for loads of straps.
Starting with a sculpt of clay that I then moulded and cast.
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I worked out the size of the shoulder armour and buckles from making a quick cardboard cut out and offering it up to the mannequin.
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After laying in the latex and foam I painted them up with some metallic paints and added some weathering.
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Re: Tarfful WIP

The belt boxes were made from laminating some MDF and attaching some carefully cut foamex.
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After some sanding I gave them a few thick coats of primer filler...
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...and then a glossy topcoat to help the mould detail.
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I made some silicone box moulds and started casting them up in gel coat and fibreglass. Nice and strong and super light.
A bit of chrome paint and weathering and they are starting to add up. Just a few more to cast. I'm going to need 18 in total.
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Re: Tarfful WIP

The armour that I put on the mannequin was still rough and incomplete. First I added the the quick release buckles at the front for easy access and cut out the recess sections to house the sound board and amp.
The 15w amp fits in the front section just under the chin area.
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The sound board slots nicely into the recess in the back. Finally the whole thing was covered in a few coats of black latex. this bonds it all together nicely and makes it much more durable.
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Next on the list is the under skull. I made one previously but was never totally happy with it. So i made a new MK.II version.
One of the main things I wasn't happy with was that the teeth didn't look like Tarff teeth, but rather more like MeruMeru. (I was fortunate that a buddy was making a MeruMeru at the time and bought the MK.I underskull from me. Which turned out perfect!)
So I started by casting up a new skull and making some new teeth. One of the things I noticed about Tarff is that you rarely see him with his mouth closed. So I set the jaw so that it never fully closes.
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The other thing I wanted to change was to add a little animation to the face so I added a one sided lip snarl. When the jaw opens it pulls a small armature wire that in turn raise the lip(when attached to the final skin).
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This mask has the same sound board actuator switch in the jaw. so when the wearer opens their mouth it makes a Wookie sound. I used one of Replica Props' great little sound boards and mounted it in a project box.
Here's a quick vid of it in action-
Wookie Under Skull - YouTube
 
Re: Tarfful WIP

With all the fun stuff done it was onto the dreaded hairing!!
I put the suit on the mannequin and put that on a bench and away I went.
With a bit of help and lots of encouragement from Dougie Fett I started ploughing through it. Beginning at the feet and working my way up.
Seeing the legs almost complete did help with the inspiration and it was really good to see that the muscle suit was adding to the shape of the legs. I feared any shape would be lost under the piles of hair.
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Things started to pic up speed a bit after that and got onto the top half after three days. I used a blend of a 5-6 different colours in each handful to create a more realistic overall colour. Unfortunately Kanekalon hair will never be as good as the NFT hair no matter how many different colours you blend together. The NFT stuff actually has gradients of colour through each fiber which the Kanekalon just doesn't have. So I'll just have to stick with this for now and maybe try an NFT version next.
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By the end of the second week I had it all covered.
I still need to add some of the white/grey blond to the highlights. Then the whole thing needs a good thin out as it looks just a tad too bulky.
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Of course I had to have a quick try on (play about! lol) in it just to make sure everything fitted. I found that using some DAX pomade hair wax really gave it that used rat tailed look that the screen used versions had. So I will be applying a few tins of this to it once the hair has been thinned out.
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Re: Tarfful WIP

WOW! That looks amazing. Great job, time well spent.


What's that coming over the car? Is it a monster? A Monster!
 
Re: Tarfful WIP

After thinning out the hair and giving it a good few handfuls of Dax wax the suit started looking much better.
Can't believe how much hair I took out!!!
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I then stuck it on one of the guys who works with us to see what the fit would be like on a shorter person. He is only 6' 3" and it seems to work fine on him.
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Then it was onto the head for more latching and hair punching. I started by airbrushing the skin to give me a pattern to work to and darkened down the lips so I didn't end up with that 'Al Jolson" look! lol
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I made a very rough hood from the same mesh as the body suit and fixed it to the skin with some Tech 7 flexible polymer. This will coveerr the back of the head and give me something strong to secure the dreads to. I also drilled some holes in the under skull so I can secure the dreads through that too.
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Then it was onto the hair punching, my favourite...NOT! lol
I followed the colour pattern on the skin making sure to keep the hair going in the right direction.
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As you can see from this pic the hair never lays truly flat so I will be smoothing it down afterwards and adding some shape to it. This will be where my hairdressing training finally pays off! lol
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Re: Tarfful WIP

I was nearly at the dread stage so I needed to get me some dread rings made.
I went to my friend who I turn to for any tricky machining jobs. He's great at lightsabers etc so I thought this would be a breeze for him.
He used a piece of steel billet and turned out a very pretty(but VERY heavy) dread ring for me. I made a silicone mold of this and started pouring them up in fast cast resin. Now if you are very careful with the pour you can produce these clean out of the mold with no clean up needed. Handy when you have alot to make.
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To make the dreads I used some of the hair that I took off the suit when I thinned it out. Arranged it in a line and sprayed it with carpet tile adhesive. Then I split some foam pipe lagging and rolled it in the hair. At one end I tied off some high tension fishing line ready to attach to the headpiece.
I hung them over night to allow the glue to dry properly.
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Attaching them to the head was pretty straight forward using a few knots. Then It was just a matter of teasing the hair around them to blend them in.
I attached the dread rings with hot glue to keep their position.
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As you can see the hair is now sitting in a much better shape thanks to some careful glueing and trimming.
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Re: Tarfful WIP

Now that the suit is well under way I decided to have a crack at making Tarfful's gun.
I'm trying to get this all done in time for an Invasion Dublin event that is happening on the 4th May so time is very tight. This is going to be a challenge as Tarf's gun isn't that straight forward.
I started with the barrels by bonding 2 tubes together with epoxy. While that was setting I cut out the gun chassis from 2 sheets of MDF laminated together.
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Once the chassis was roughed out I started shaping the rear cowling section from some low density foam I'll give this a coat of P-40 later to give it a good strong surface to take the paint.
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Going to use some acrylic domes for the orb structure which I will try and put together tomorrow.
 
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