MajorDanvers14
New Member
Hey everyone!
Still pretty new to the RPF. I've been hanging around on the Star Wars forums mostly, getting advice on the Captain Phasma costume I'm building, but I figured I'd pop in here and show off what I was working on this weekend!
I'm a huge fan of Captain Marvel and I've been wanting to cosplay her for years now, since her new costume was revealed in 2012. I finally got her costume last year but wasn't able to go to a lot of cons. Finally figured out which cons we're going to this year (C2E2, Wizard World Philly, Indiana Comic Con, Wizard World Chicago, possibly NYCC if I can get passes so say hi if you see me!) and decided CM's going to be the character of the year.
Which led to the "wig or not" discussion. If you've read Carol's books lately you'll know her hairstyle changes, like, every second panel. Which is fun but kind of hard to replicate. And me being dark haired, dark eyed and with an olive skin tone, it's hard to find a blonde wig that looks somewhat natural on me.
And then I got an idea from one of my friends on tumblr. She made an AMAZING cowl for her version of Carol out of a Flash mask! She just extended the nose a bit, filled in the cheeks and got rid of the lightning bolts.
It looks great and since I'm by no means a professional costumer, capable of building masks out of Worbla or silicone, I thought I'd give it a try!
I found the mask on Amazon-I got the black version because it was a good $20 cheaper than the red version-and it was pretty close to what Carol's looks like in the books. The lightning bolts are removable. I turned them into Christmas ornaments.
View attachment 581769View attachment 581770
Pretty damn close, right?
View attachment 581771
ANYWAY!
Back to our build. This is usually how my friends and I go about cosplay-we find items that are already pretty close to what we need and then we modify them. It works like a charm and has given us some good costumes in the past.
Carol's mask was fairly simple. We knew we had to build the nose and cheekbones out. So that was our first step. We tried Worbla but that didn't work very well.
Cue our old friend craft foam!
Using strips of craft foam that were heat molded to my cheekbones and nose, my friend attached them to the inner ridges of the helmet using hot glue. It's not exactly the most high end method but we figured, there won't be as much movement on my face as say, an arm (we built my Winter Soldier arm in 2014 using craft foam and it was pretty good looking) so it was worth a shot. So far, so good!
I don't have pictures of this step, I'm sorry.
I tried the helmet on, we heated the foam a little bit more to get the shape of my poor nose just right and it was great.
We ultimately added a second layer of foam to build the cheeks and nose up because there was such a huge gap, I worried even Bondo wouldn't do a good enough job of getting it filled in.
The top of the helmet was cut out in a small V, so that the woahawk can be added later (also made this weekend). Those fins are craft foam as well and do a good job of hiding the edge and giving the helmet a more definite look.
View attachment 581775
(Carol's on the left. Kylo and Ms. Marvel were also worked on this weekend but that's for another post)
View attachment 581776
Then came the woahawk. This is constructed out of a cheap wig I bought on Amazon last minute for a charity event I went to as Captain Marvel back in October. It was the right shade of blonde and because it was so cheap, we didn't feel too bad about taking it apart. I tore the wefts out, arranging them by size, and they were then hot glued on a strip of beige foam that fits in place under the v. I love this because it means I can take the hair out easily for traveling and even change the style (I still don't know if I want to do her horse mane look from her earlier books or the actual hawk from the 2014 run. Either way, I have a choice here and it's great!)
In this photo you can kind of see what the "beak" looks like.
Final step for this weekend was filling in the Flash details and coating the craft foam in hopes of making it a bit stronger and taking those small gaps out as well.
Our initial plan was to use Bondo All Purpose Putty but that seemed like overkill, especially once we built up the nose. That led to a debate about silicone caulk or wood filler.
Wood filler we had, silicone, not so much.
Cue slathering the helmet in wood filler and hoping it works!
It looks like we gave it really strange racing stripes...
The nice thing (so far) about wood filler is that it's really easy to use and you don't have to use a respirator. And that we didn't have to go outside to do it.
Next weekend we'll sand it down and see how it looks!
Just a word of caution about the original helmet-it's mass produced so the casting isn't the greatest. Mine had a crooked chin piece and excess plastic along the jaw. We had to do a fair amount of cutting into it, so it sat on my face the way it's supposed to.
Here's what it looks like on!
I'll be adding the wedge panel details to the side of the helmet next weekend. Once I get it primed and painted I'll also add white scrim fabric to the eyes to make it super legit.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!
Still pretty new to the RPF. I've been hanging around on the Star Wars forums mostly, getting advice on the Captain Phasma costume I'm building, but I figured I'd pop in here and show off what I was working on this weekend!
I'm a huge fan of Captain Marvel and I've been wanting to cosplay her for years now, since her new costume was revealed in 2012. I finally got her costume last year but wasn't able to go to a lot of cons. Finally figured out which cons we're going to this year (C2E2, Wizard World Philly, Indiana Comic Con, Wizard World Chicago, possibly NYCC if I can get passes so say hi if you see me!) and decided CM's going to be the character of the year.
Which led to the "wig or not" discussion. If you've read Carol's books lately you'll know her hairstyle changes, like, every second panel. Which is fun but kind of hard to replicate. And me being dark haired, dark eyed and with an olive skin tone, it's hard to find a blonde wig that looks somewhat natural on me.
And then I got an idea from one of my friends on tumblr. She made an AMAZING cowl for her version of Carol out of a Flash mask! She just extended the nose a bit, filled in the cheeks and got rid of the lightning bolts.
It looks great and since I'm by no means a professional costumer, capable of building masks out of Worbla or silicone, I thought I'd give it a try!
I found the mask on Amazon-I got the black version because it was a good $20 cheaper than the red version-and it was pretty close to what Carol's looks like in the books. The lightning bolts are removable. I turned them into Christmas ornaments.
View attachment 581769View attachment 581770
Pretty damn close, right?
View attachment 581771
ANYWAY!
Back to our build. This is usually how my friends and I go about cosplay-we find items that are already pretty close to what we need and then we modify them. It works like a charm and has given us some good costumes in the past.
Carol's mask was fairly simple. We knew we had to build the nose and cheekbones out. So that was our first step. We tried Worbla but that didn't work very well.
Cue our old friend craft foam!
Using strips of craft foam that were heat molded to my cheekbones and nose, my friend attached them to the inner ridges of the helmet using hot glue. It's not exactly the most high end method but we figured, there won't be as much movement on my face as say, an arm (we built my Winter Soldier arm in 2014 using craft foam and it was pretty good looking) so it was worth a shot. So far, so good!
I don't have pictures of this step, I'm sorry.
I tried the helmet on, we heated the foam a little bit more to get the shape of my poor nose just right and it was great.
We ultimately added a second layer of foam to build the cheeks and nose up because there was such a huge gap, I worried even Bondo wouldn't do a good enough job of getting it filled in.
The top of the helmet was cut out in a small V, so that the woahawk can be added later (also made this weekend). Those fins are craft foam as well and do a good job of hiding the edge and giving the helmet a more definite look.
View attachment 581775
(Carol's on the left. Kylo and Ms. Marvel were also worked on this weekend but that's for another post)
View attachment 581776
Then came the woahawk. This is constructed out of a cheap wig I bought on Amazon last minute for a charity event I went to as Captain Marvel back in October. It was the right shade of blonde and because it was so cheap, we didn't feel too bad about taking it apart. I tore the wefts out, arranging them by size, and they were then hot glued on a strip of beige foam that fits in place under the v. I love this because it means I can take the hair out easily for traveling and even change the style (I still don't know if I want to do her horse mane look from her earlier books or the actual hawk from the 2014 run. Either way, I have a choice here and it's great!)
In this photo you can kind of see what the "beak" looks like.
Final step for this weekend was filling in the Flash details and coating the craft foam in hopes of making it a bit stronger and taking those small gaps out as well.
Our initial plan was to use Bondo All Purpose Putty but that seemed like overkill, especially once we built up the nose. That led to a debate about silicone caulk or wood filler.
Wood filler we had, silicone, not so much.
Cue slathering the helmet in wood filler and hoping it works!
It looks like we gave it really strange racing stripes...
The nice thing (so far) about wood filler is that it's really easy to use and you don't have to use a respirator. And that we didn't have to go outside to do it.
Next weekend we'll sand it down and see how it looks!
Just a word of caution about the original helmet-it's mass produced so the casting isn't the greatest. Mine had a crooked chin piece and excess plastic along the jaw. We had to do a fair amount of cutting into it, so it sat on my face the way it's supposed to.
Here's what it looks like on!
I'll be adding the wedge panel details to the side of the helmet next weekend. Once I get it primed and painted I'll also add white scrim fabric to the eyes to make it super legit.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!
