Deadmau5 Head
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giz
Well-Known Member
superiorlighting.com
1000bulbs.com has them too, but they are always out of stock. they mentioned to me it was because "people are buying them for halloween costumes" haha
quovadis0920
Sr Member
no offense thought.. but i think its uber cute! :love
ardo191
New Member
Hey Giz,
The Flock looks Fantastic! And here I am working with Fabric.. dammit. It's what the Mau5 does, so hopefully I can get it to work. What you're doing seems so much easier though!!! No Clamps (I now have 14..) no stress on the head (that 4-way stretch keeps tension quite well)... gah!
To add to all my frustration, my eyes (domes) are stuck in customs, and even IF I finish the head for friday (I'm in grade 12, everyone wears costumes the day before H'ween weekend) I'm NOT ALLOWED to wear my head! It's technically a full face mask, which is technically forbidden. Stupid high school administration.
The Flock looks Fantastic! And here I am working with Fabric.. dammit. It's what the Mau5 does, so hopefully I can get it to work. What you're doing seems so much easier though!!! No Clamps (I now have 14..) no stress on the head (that 4-way stretch keeps tension quite well)... gah!
To add to all my frustration, my eyes (domes) are stuck in customs, and even IF I finish the head for friday (I'm in grade 12, everyone wears costumes the day before H'ween weekend) I'm NOT ALLOWED to wear my head! It's technically a full face mask, which is technically forbidden. Stupid high school administration.
giz
Well-Known Member
Thanks man. Sorry to hear about your eyes, that's a bummer.
The flock does look great, but it is a lot of prep work. Plus it's messy and needed some experimentation to get right.
Giz, I'm assuming that you used the acrylic mouth crescent cut out as backing for the fabric mouth? As well, what's the arc length between the eye holes that you used? At first the holes looked kind of far apart but now it seems they're almost perfect! Asl well, does the eyes on those heads light up at all? I tried to paint my eyes so they'd have more of a solid white look to them but I found that when the paint was back-lit with an LED that the imperfections of the coating was clearly visible.
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I was just looking at these two exact problems! On Giz's flickr, you can see a picture of his wiring inside the head (here: Giz's Flickr). He does not use the cut out, but instead it looks like he uses a separately formed piece. My best guess, and hopefully Giz can shed some light here too, is that he probably buys a sheet of acrylic and heat-forms it to the shape of the globe then cuts the mouth from that. Giz, I'd love a PM about this if you'd rather not talk openly.
EDIT: After a little research, it seems as though heat-forming an acrylic sheet like that into a dome is pretty difficult. I may be wrong, but I don't think this is how he does things.
As far as the back-lit eyes go, I'm as stumped as you are. I tested this out last night on some other globes I had ordered but am not using. As much as I tried to evenly coat the inside, I couldn't make it happen and it shows clearly when lit.
I'll be checking back often today seeing as I'm still working on mine. Wish I had some pictures to contribute!
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ardo191
New Member
I'm done my head!
A few slight issues.
The mouth is REALLY hard to do! I used interfacing. Makes for being almost invisible when you're wearing it. The lights (I spray painted the inside of two 4 1/2" domes) look really good; I thought you'd see imperfections in the paint but they're really not obvious at all! The 6 LEDs per eye works fantastically with a resistor per board (3 LEDs) on a 9v and on/off button switch. Pictures soon!
A few slight issues.
The mouth is REALLY hard to do! I used interfacing. Makes for being almost invisible when you're wearing it. The lights (I spray painted the inside of two 4 1/2" domes) look really good; I thought you'd see imperfections in the paint but they're really not obvious at all! The 6 LEDs per eye works fantastically with a resistor per board (3 LEDs) on a 9v and on/off button switch. Pictures soon!
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giz
Well-Known Member
^Nice! Looking forward to seeing them.
As for how I do my mouth - I try to use the original acrylic cutout if I can. Sometimes it's not possible because of the material lost during the cutting process, slight changes in shape during the glue/bondo stage, etc. If I can't salvage that cutout, I have extra globes on hand I can cut mouths from. I can get 4 mouths from a single globe.
I have tried to heat the acrylic in hopes of getting a bit tighter seal between the mouth and lips, but it's extremely difficult to control the temperature and amount of deformation.
As for how I do my mouth - I try to use the original acrylic cutout if I can. Sometimes it's not possible because of the material lost during the cutting process, slight changes in shape during the glue/bondo stage, etc. If I can't salvage that cutout, I have extra globes on hand I can cut mouths from. I can get 4 mouths from a single globe.
I have tried to heat the acrylic in hopes of getting a bit tighter seal between the mouth and lips, but it's extremely difficult to control the temperature and amount of deformation.
ardo191
New Member
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Well, the process of which I was considering was to take a sheet of clear acrylic and vacuform it to a desired hemisphere of radius (globe radius - lip thickness) and cut a mouth piece from that. It should form a perfect seal around the mouth assuming the foam is perfectly curved. I'm actually curious as to what dimensions, arc lengths and angles that everyone used in their construction (ie: arc length/angle between eyes, angle/arc length of mouth, etc...); seeing as how dimensioning and getting a perfect Mau5head in Solidworks was a lot of my time.
I'll upload images of my eye fixture and head fitting in a bit.
I'll upload images of my eye fixture and head fitting in a bit.
ardo191
New Member
Modeling it in an autoCAD style program? Never thought of that. Yeah that'd eat up a week of my time.. lol. (I'm still ever so slightly peeved at how far apart my eyes are.)
All done! Just in time!
Thanks to everyone on this forum for their great ideas and discussions!
hey, did you cover the head in fabric or flock it?
saves you answering everyones questions hah.
ardo191
New Member
16" Acrylic globe (Adlite Lighting and Plastics) 16" is a little larger than Deadmau5.
2m of 4-way stretch red spandex/lycra (same stuff Under Armour uses in their normal stretchy sport shirts)
one 2'x8' 1/2" sheet of Extruded Polystyrene insulation foam (Print template, cut four, sandwich the appropriate bolts in between foam. DO NOT use glues for squeaky floors that are "guaranteed" not to melt your foam. Just test different resins (the point is the glue has to SET, not DRY. The foam will seal the glue inside, the glue inside will not dry, and your bolts will not be secured. (This happened to me TWICE XD )
(4) 4 1/2" bolts and wing nuts
Dremel and various cutting/sanding heads
3/4" black rubber foam to line the lips
4 1/2" acrylic domes and white plastic paint.
Black Electrical tape.
(4) nameless taplights (dollar store, not home depot or construction place, the latter will charge you $10 apiece) disassembled and soldered into one circuit with one wire to stretch between the lights and leads to a 9v. 6 LEDs per eye (there are 3 in each tap light)
Wire from a gardening grate in my garage, just a standard grid. Use something else if you can. Use the acrylic from the mouth (Include a battery powered FAN in the back if you do! The head gets a little warm!)
LOTS of hot glue!
White interfacing (fabric) for the mouth. What fabric you used depends on how much you want to see, but the more you see the more you're seen.
12 clamps! XD
Red spandex was sewn in two halfs, the exact size of the ear, The extra needed to sew front and back fabrics together into a seam is made up for with the fact that you get a little stretch in your ear fabric. Keeps the flat sides nice and wrinkle free.
The head was two pieces, cut into two half ellipses and sewn on the straight side. Stretched, clamped and glued into the mouth with hot glue.
I used the innards of a hard hat, with the adjustable head thing inside. Glued the foam from the hard hat into the head, using pieces of EPS foam cut to the radius of the hard hat foam and globe. See my flickr link above.
The head is mounted slightly forward, with the neck hole higher at the back. When you look straight forward, the mau5's upper lip is level not up or down. You have to adjust your mouth cut and ear & eye mounting appropriately.
I painted the head white outside before covering in fabric. It gave it a little more opacity and brightened the red of the fabric. Had I not painted the clear globe, you'd see a silhouette of my head inside the mau5. Nobody wants that. The effect is all outside!
Hopefully this cleared some stuff up. YES, the fabric is tough to do, and YES it's worth doing right. I DO suggest using acrylic and a fan instead of wire mesh for the mouth. I suggest a 14" or 15" globe. Lighter on the head, probably, too.
2m of 4-way stretch red spandex/lycra (same stuff Under Armour uses in their normal stretchy sport shirts)
one 2'x8' 1/2" sheet of Extruded Polystyrene insulation foam (Print template, cut four, sandwich the appropriate bolts in between foam. DO NOT use glues for squeaky floors that are "guaranteed" not to melt your foam. Just test different resins (the point is the glue has to SET, not DRY. The foam will seal the glue inside, the glue inside will not dry, and your bolts will not be secured. (This happened to me TWICE XD )
(4) 4 1/2" bolts and wing nuts
Dremel and various cutting/sanding heads
3/4" black rubber foam to line the lips
4 1/2" acrylic domes and white plastic paint.
Black Electrical tape.
(4) nameless taplights (dollar store, not home depot or construction place, the latter will charge you $10 apiece) disassembled and soldered into one circuit with one wire to stretch between the lights and leads to a 9v. 6 LEDs per eye (there are 3 in each tap light)
Wire from a gardening grate in my garage, just a standard grid. Use something else if you can. Use the acrylic from the mouth (Include a battery powered FAN in the back if you do! The head gets a little warm!)
LOTS of hot glue!
White interfacing (fabric) for the mouth. What fabric you used depends on how much you want to see, but the more you see the more you're seen.
12 clamps! XD
Red spandex was sewn in two halfs, the exact size of the ear, The extra needed to sew front and back fabrics together into a seam is made up for with the fact that you get a little stretch in your ear fabric. Keeps the flat sides nice and wrinkle free.
The head was two pieces, cut into two half ellipses and sewn on the straight side. Stretched, clamped and glued into the mouth with hot glue.
I used the innards of a hard hat, with the adjustable head thing inside. Glued the foam from the hard hat into the head, using pieces of EPS foam cut to the radius of the hard hat foam and globe. See my flickr link above.
The head is mounted slightly forward, with the neck hole higher at the back. When you look straight forward, the mau5's upper lip is level not up or down. You have to adjust your mouth cut and ear & eye mounting appropriately.
I painted the head white outside before covering in fabric. It gave it a little more opacity and brightened the red of the fabric. Had I not painted the clear globe, you'd see a silhouette of my head inside the mau5. Nobody wants that. The effect is all outside!
Hopefully this cleared some stuff up. YES, the fabric is tough to do, and YES it's worth doing right. I DO suggest using acrylic and a fan instead of wire mesh for the mouth. I suggest a 14" or 15" globe. Lighter on the head, probably, too.
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