Grootsmas Tree (aka a big foam groot!)

[stormtrooperguy]

I kept meaning to make a progress thread for this, but it never quite happened. He's done now, so this is more of a recap.

Spoiler alert: The parade he was being built for? Rained out. So, no Groot float afterall

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Back in October, I was talking with some friends from Double Midnight Comics in Manchester, NH about the annual Christmas parade up there. They always have a group of costumed characters in it, and wanted to do a float this year. They thought Groot wrapped up in holiday lights would be fun, and I offered to build it.

The goal wasn't a 100% screen accurate movie Groot, but something that would look good, not cost too much, and get done in under 1 month.

It started off with a sketch in a notebook.



And some PVC pipe



I was particularly happy with his feet... A 4" toilet flange, with step down adapters to connect it to the leg. Having a heavy base that has bolt holes built in made everything easier.



The bulk of the body was made of EVA foam floor mats (the hollow cavities would be filled with spray foam later). I roughed out the basic shape of the head with a heat gun and some minor burns on my hands.



Gradually the body took shape...

 

[stormtrooperguy]

The vines were made up of pipe insulation and caulk saver (a foam tube designed to help fill gaps around windows/doors). I used a LOT of this stuff... over 200' of caulk saver and around 60' of pipe insulation.





I started carving out more face details with a dremel and assorted bits. Of course my Dremel would have to die while I was working on this, resulting in a trip to Harbor Freight to grab a cheap knock-off to finish the job.



When I got as far as I could with foam on the face, I moved on to Smooth On's Free Form Air epoxy putty to detail it. I never took a final picture of the epoxy... I ended up smoothing out the chin/mouth so that he didn't have a defined lip anymore.



Untitled by stormtrooperguy, on Flickr

I also didn't take pics of the eyes really. I had a 4" acrylic hemisphere left over from a Dianoga eye I built earlier this year. I cut it into 2 pieces and made that the eyes.



For a sense of scale, I'm 5' 9"

 

[stormtrooperguy]

Base coat of dark brown paint to even it all out. He looks like chocolate.



This is where the fun really began! Painting is my favorite part of every project. The building is a necessary step to get there.

I had 4 paints: dark brown, medium brown, white and black. All flat interior latex house paint. Colors were mixed on the fly, resulting in a nice organic inconsistency. My local artist friend Sean joined in the fun... thankfully we were on the same page with the mixing / blending, so we worked well together. We also had a big hunk of tree bark on hand to use as reference

We spent about 4 hours total on the paint:







A couple of interesting points here:

The bark plates were EVA foam mats, cut with the dremel, then blasted with a heat gun. The heat widens the carved lines, bevels the edges, and slightly textures the surface if you leave the gun there until just before the "aaah fire!" stage. I learned that trick from the Punished Props foam armorsmithing book (http://props.punishedpixels.com/shop/foam-armorsmithing-vol-1-design-templating-fabrication/)

Somewhere in the build process I made holiday cookies with the family. You can see where my brain was at:



And this is where the story gets a bit sad... Parade day was coming. Groot was done! Early even! Then the weather started saying 60% chance of rain... then 90% chance of freezing rain. We all agreed that it wasn't happening. No parade for Groot!

But all was not lost. My father in law has a big cargo van which, unlike my truck, could hold him entirely inside. So, we brought him up to the comic book store, where he will spend the holiday season greeting shoppers!







- - - Updated - - -

oh! and in the van shot you can actually see the moss highlights. I didn't take any good pics of that part of the painting. It was just green acrylics. I put 4-5 shades of green out and daubed it on with a mostly dry chip brush. The shades blended as I painted, making it slightly different all over the body.

 

[3phase]

Great Job. I bet the kids love it.

 

[Fetts.Sobriquet]

This is fantastic!

 

[lilshrt4atroopr]

I love this! Glad it got to be displayed somewhere. And yeah the paint looks great