akootbascomb's Arkham Knight Scarecrow - 2015 Halloween Costume Contest Entry

Wassup guys? So first a little backstory on this project! A couple years ago I made the decision to go to my first con, New York Comicon. And where I knew that cosplay was a huge part of it, and felt I wanted the "full experience" of going to one of these things, I threw caution to the wind and started building a Scarecrow cosplay after his design in the first Arkham game, which I am still a HUGE fan of. I absolutely loved his design, the syringe fingers, the hooded mask...whats not to like? Especially being a huge Halloween and horror guy it felt very fitting that this be my first cosplay. I had a blast, met some really cool people, got a ton of positive feedback for the suit, and immediately became addicted to building props and costumes! I even discovered therpf in the first place by following another member's build for his version. So when they released the teaser trailer for Arkham Knight like a year ago, and I realized they were bringing back my favorite character...well here we are! Now I'm going to NYCC again this year and am cramming away trying to finish this updated incarnation. Lots still to do but I'm pleased with how its coming along.

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Thats the old one. I had way too much fun in that thing...


So Far finished sewing the trench coat body. Still have to line it, add the hood, weather and hand stitch the crap out of it...tonight I started messing with some wonderflex I ordered to coat the fear gas canisters. Still experimental but I think I know what I need to do as far as shaping. The semi sphere portion of the bottles is kind of annoying to get a smooth layer of the wonderflex on. Mask prototypes in in the works but I think my goal for this week will be to get the canisters done. Not sure how to treat the bubbly orange fear toxin showing through the window. Someone here suggested gel wax but we'll see.
 

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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

IcedJem- Thanks dude. I too am curious as to how this turns out haha

First prototype of the mask. I've learned to love plaster bandages. Honestly the 2 mask bases of my face I made looked very scarecrow-ish with the texture to begin with. One of the things I really wanted to be able to do was speak and be heard since last time the gas mask I wore as a base prevented most everything I said in the crowd from being heard without me yelling. So going with an opposable jaw for this. Just cut along where my own jaw is (roughly) and glued some elastic fabric for the hinge. Completely new territory but despite the roughness of what it I really enjoyed it. I'm too broke at the moment to buy casting supplies and latex (mask making and proper facial prosthetics has long been something I want to delve into), so plaster and Paperclay with some acrylic teeth will suffice. But I do like that I can remove this easily, it's not hot, very light weight, and with the watered down wood glue I used for the linen this thing is very strong, which are all things I prefer to have in a con setting.

Though a successful test, I'm not 100% happy with the under sculpt. The teeth are too low on the face and it's perhaps a little too skeletal. I also had trouble making them look less like they were stuck to my own face on a mask and more receded beneath a pair of missing gums, but without having the area protrude too much. It gets a bit Neanderthalic or apish when I open my mouth at the moment. Paintjob was quick and dirty acrylics just to see how things looked. Last pic was with the old hood in light of not having gotten to the new one yet.

My goal for the weekend is to get all of the fear tanks finished up and ready for fitting onto the vest which I'll start next week. I'm refraining from painting anything until I can treat everything simultaneously. I feel theres more for uniformity in doing it that way.


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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

Nice mask! Personally I found it the most challenging part of the costume. It has to be organic, but still look like a mask. It took me several attempts before I was happy with mine.
 
Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

I'm far too tired to be concerned with why the uploader refuses to upload my pics properly...but got the layout for the flak jacket done. I've never done something this complex sewing wise so we'll see how it goes. Probably gonna go with pleather or vinyl for the final with foam as a core.

God I'm terrible at keeping up with updates. I JUST WANNA BUILD THINGS!! If I wasn't always wrestling with the uploader I'd probably be more inclined to drop updates more regularly

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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

Foam rough that will soon be encased in fabric good and proper! I found 1/4" craft foam sheets that maintain their stiffness a lot better than the usual thickness. The belt uses the thinner foam as a base with pleather stitched over it, then nylon strapping to hold the tanks (it's pretty much done save for the weathering). I'm really happy with the the way it came out, so hopefully I can give the rest of the vest the same treatment and have it come out correctly.

On a side note, I'm tempted to omit the trench coat in place of the Soup Nazi t-shirt...

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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

So the good news is that I essentially finished the 2 parts of the back of the vest and the straps. I still need to add a few small details like the gray nylon straps that run along the shoulder straps and in a few other spots. But the majority is done. As I said, I basically sewed a pillowcase out of pleather then slid in thick craft foam in and stitched up the opening.

The bad news is that I finished sewing the front of the vest, but with the zipper, it's become a bit too wide, and coupled with the stiffness and thickness of the foam, it now steeples significantly when strapped to my chest, and frankly doesn't look that great. So I think I'm going to spend an hour with the seam ripper (fun times...), pull it apart, and either use a thinner foam, or just stitch the pleather to itself. From what I can see the front of the vest seems fairly thin in the reference, but then again, I'm trying to not go crazy with trying to make everything perfectly screen accurate. Well, I AM but I guess I keep trying to remind myself that at the end of the day, this character is a render in a physics engine, and so the developers can make fabric and whatnot fold, fall, and act any way they please, even if it isn't 100% accurate or possible in reality. Plus, if you think about it, Crane probably scrounged all of his costume from old junk he found after hauling his broken and half eaten body out of the ocean...something tells me he is not going for a professional tailored job...but I figure better to make the sewing strong and sturdy and roughen it up later than the reverse...

I'm all for learning a new skill, especially one as beneficial as sewing, but I admit...not as much fun as prop building...then again, I don't really know what I'm doing with sewing sooooo that might have something to do with it.

Anyone else find themselves concocting narratives in their head while they work of how their character got/made their gear?

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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

This looks amazing. I like that you're going for the moving jaw. With that, have you found a good way to mount the ventilators?
 
Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

draden77 - ​Thanks dude! I haven't tried mounting the respirators (though I'v started building them) but I have a general idea. The current plan is currently to just glue large washers on the end of the connection point of the respirator (currently half in PVC) on the inside of the mask. Maybe putting another washer beneath the fabric effectively wedging the mask between them and hopefully holding the respirators in place. They're both cardboard and wonderflex so they should be lightweight enough. We'll see how it goes.
 
Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

Well I'm calling the vest done. Quite pleased with it, considering sewing is a very new art form to me. Both the belt and the strip of vials are velcro'd for easy removal and storage. Still need to add the pressure gauges on the back side but I'm trying to get ALL the sewing done before moving on to the props, then finally the LEDs. Personally I'd prefer to be back in the shop building the prop side of this endeavor but for now, I shall continue getting the sewing done. Only 37 days to NYCC (minus a couple days for whatever contingency will come up...) and a HELL of a lot to do...but nothing else to do but buckle down and get this thing done!
 

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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

Final version of the mask is well underway. Finished up the respirators. First time using wonderflex which was rather interesting. Though I'm not 100% sure if it's adhesion to other surfaces initially is maintained after it cools. It worked on the plastic bottles, but one had a piece of it's wonderflex fall off a few days later which makes me wonder if I need to remove the rest of it from the bottles and put some glue on it...we'll see.

As for the mask I sculpted some paperclay over the plaster facecast I took and threw some resin on for good measure. I'll add the teeth after I add the fabric and paint it tomorrow, but I like their placement a lot more this time around. It actually looks like a lipless face when I'm wearing it since it hides my own devious smile a lot better than it did the first time :)

25 days to go! So much crap still left to do...but I WILL get it DONE!

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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

You are doing a brilliant job! Looking at reference, I keep doing battle with myself about what the top of his costume is under the vest. some pics make it look like he is in kind of a trench coat looking thing with the vest over it, some it almost looks like he is wearing a stitched together shirt and the coat part just flares from the belt. What is your interpretation?
 
Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

Thanks! From what I can see (and assume) it's just his trench coat. But the front of it is stitched up to keep it closed. Rather widely at the top and bottom. I have the DC collectable figure too and thats pretty much how they have it too.
 
Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

Getting there. Jaw articulates pretty well but I think I can improve it with a few more straps in the back. Ignore the few missing teeth...

Goal for the weekend: Finish mask, and get rough start on cutting out foam pieces for gauntlet.

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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

I'm doing a quick and dirty version that I wanna clean up later. I got the mask formed, textured and a coat of some rotting flesh-like paint on it last night. I got the respirators rigged up. I am worrying that the bottom jaw is getting a tad heavy. That is making me re-think how I may do the moving jaw. You mentioned adding straps to yours. Did you do thick elastic like the kind from a sweat pants waist band? Did you add a hinge at all?

I am looking into adding a hinge, but I've never done one...

I know you're busy, so I'd love to hear thoughts whenever you get a min. THX!
 
Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

So I dropped off the face of the earth with this thread because TIME WAS OF THE ESSENCE!! But now I'm back from NYCC, I had a blast, the costume went over GREAT with people, and I'm slowly catching up on sleep, so I can finally finish up this thread!

Continuing on with the mask! After sanding down the sculpt I threw some paint on it. Literally. Just some acrylic. Lots of watered down thin washes. Initially I felt that the skin was coming out too flat and uniform so I added some splatters and washes to give it more of a translucent and imperfect feel that skin (especially rotting skin...) usually possesses. Colors that one usually doesn't associate with skin (like blue, yellow, and green for example) add a lot when used sparingly with splatters. My go to example is if you stare at your palm. There are so many more colors beyond the usual pinkish tones and they are all very sporadic and non uniform. If it were all a single tone you'd look like one of those people thats applies FAR too much makeup and wind up looking like a mannequin.

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As for the teeth, the back of each one was sanded down with my trusty Dremel tool and then individually painted with more washes of acrylic. Because clean teeth are just far too boring...and stand out from a dead looking face waaaaay too much. I discovered a subtle trick to make them look even more rotten was taking a black sharpie and coloring in the back of the tooth towards the root. The acrylic was slightly translucent towards the edges especially after sanding, so it allowed the black to show through kind of like an old school filling. Afterwards each was glued in place, given a few more washes to make the rot of the tooth and gums seem a little more unified, and finally, a few coats of gloss varnish gave it that lovely, moist, decayed look. Can you tell I enjoy painting dead things?

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In hindsight I painted far more up the face than necessary since I was covering it all with cloth but I got really into it, plus it was a great exercise as I've never done anything like this before. But after all of the painting was said and done and the teeth were in place I started slathering on some watered down eva glue and sticking scraps of fabric to the surface; shredding and fraying it as I went. Clearly this looks a bit too pristine for the good doctor who's dredged himself up from a watery grave and performed his own facial surgery...And so MORE GRIME! Grabbed a sea sponge and some more acrylic and gave it some appropriate wear and tear, and hollowed out the cheeks and eyes to make it look a bit more skeletal. At first I thought I added too much and went too dark, but with acrylic, it usually dries lighter than it goes on, so by the next day things had evened out a lot better. Added the finished respirators, stitched the mouth closed, and viola. Dr. Crane's got a face.

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Re: Scarecrow :: Arkham Knight edition

Since in progress sewing is a bit less interesting than prop update, I only have a few shots of the cloak. The majority of it is lined with muslin after I made the mistake of grabbing and completing a lining made of 100% Polyester. Needless to say I learned quite quickly this is not a good lining...at all...FAR too hot by itself let alone with the actual coat over it. I left a large triangle at the bottom unlined (a suggestion from a friend who is a far better seamster than I), as I wanted to shred and distress it without the lining showing through or getting in the way. I also sandwiched some undyed linen along the seams that I would later trim down and fray All the fraying I did I coated with Fray Check so that after the normal con wear and tear set in my rips and holes would not get any bigger. After running everything on my sewing machine and a great deal of hand stitching I weathered the whole thing with a dusting of black spray paint. In hindsight I want to go back in and use shoe polish as well because I feel like a lot of the spraypaint weathering is too subtle to be picked up on a lot of cameras based on the shots I have of the finished suit. It certainly looks dirtier but not enough in my eyes.

After all is said and done this thing is actually very comfortable!

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