ChristianNZ
New Member
After seeing the amazing Groot costume put together by Calen Hoffman, I felt inspired to give it a go. I have never done anything like this before. So I sketched out a template from what I had seen of Calens' and then drew it up in CorelDraw, scaled it to size and printed it, and transferred it onto some EVA foam sheets I had, and cut it out using an xacto blade. I then tried it out for size against my head, and of course, it was too small, (or my head is too big), this is where I point out, that had I been smart, I would have tried the paper template on for size, but, I didn't, so I needed to add a little spacer in the back to enlarge it slightly. I used Ados F2 (which is a contact adhesive, I'm guessing it's like barge cement, but being in NZ we don't have barge). Once the glue had set, I pushed the pieces together and ended up with a nice little blank mask.
Now comes the fun part. I sketched onto the foam where I wanted to cut using a pencil, I just pushed hard and it left nice little track lines I could follow later with my Dremel. Out to the garage and on with a face mask, and ear protection, and putting one of the orange grinding stones that came with my set into the wand head. I had experimented earlier and found that so long as I'm gentle I get a nice line with the orange stone bit, and I tend to take a little too much out with the sanding bits. A tip I picked up from watching EvilFX is that if you run the bit in the direction the bit is spinning you get a nice soft cut, as opposed to a deeper cut when pulling against the spin (this is great for removing more material or if you're in a hurry) So, now we're about up to when I thought why don't I take some photos.
Over the next couple of days, when I could find some time, I would go out and carve. One of the first things I wanted to do was hide the extension I'd made, that turned out easier than I'd thought. Once I was happy with the carve, I turned my attention to lenses for the eyes. I found an old pair of sunglasses, popped out the lenses and trimmed them to size with my trusty Dremel. I made sure they were a nice snug fit with the holes I'd carved, and then once they are in place, I hot glued them in place from the back, I tried to keep glue away from the areas I knew would be still visible once the lids were on the eyes.
Speaking of eyelids, this was probably the hardest part of the build. Trimming some excess foam to the right size and then carefully carving it to make upper and lower lids, and making sure they kinda looked like each other (not too much, after all I wasn't going for symmetry) Once I'd got them to where I wanted design wise (I spent a lot of time, as I'd get one lid looking good, and that would make the other look less good, so I'd have to work on that again.. vicious cycle) I coated the areas on the face where I wanted them to sit with contact glue, push the lids on, and then pull them off ( I made sure to put a heap of glue on) that way the glue was in the right place, if there were any holes in the glue I'd go back in and fill them. Again, once the glue was dry, it was a nice fast job of aligning and then pushing them in (I really took my time here cause the last thing I wanted was to have to sand out the messed up lids and go through the process again).
Now it was time for painting. The foam gives a good old grey weathered wood look, and I guess I could have worked a little on that, but I felt Groot would look more green and alive. I had a few test pots of acrylic paint laying around so I thought I'd play with those. A few years ago I watched a really talented muralist at work, and one of his tricks was to mix the paints live on the artwork, that way you can slightly change the colours giving a more realistic effect, then one flat colour. I had hoped to copy this idea, but I think I ended up with too much of a similar shade without the realism I was looking for.
Next stage will be adding in some shading, and then adding in some moss at the top.
Hopefully, you've enjoyed reading my first post, if you have any suggestions please free to make them, I would love some feedback.
I will post updated photos when I get the chance.
Now comes the fun part. I sketched onto the foam where I wanted to cut using a pencil, I just pushed hard and it left nice little track lines I could follow later with my Dremel. Out to the garage and on with a face mask, and ear protection, and putting one of the orange grinding stones that came with my set into the wand head. I had experimented earlier and found that so long as I'm gentle I get a nice line with the orange stone bit, and I tend to take a little too much out with the sanding bits. A tip I picked up from watching EvilFX is that if you run the bit in the direction the bit is spinning you get a nice soft cut, as opposed to a deeper cut when pulling against the spin (this is great for removing more material or if you're in a hurry) So, now we're about up to when I thought why don't I take some photos.
Over the next couple of days, when I could find some time, I would go out and carve. One of the first things I wanted to do was hide the extension I'd made, that turned out easier than I'd thought. Once I was happy with the carve, I turned my attention to lenses for the eyes. I found an old pair of sunglasses, popped out the lenses and trimmed them to size with my trusty Dremel. I made sure they were a nice snug fit with the holes I'd carved, and then once they are in place, I hot glued them in place from the back, I tried to keep glue away from the areas I knew would be still visible once the lids were on the eyes.
Speaking of eyelids, this was probably the hardest part of the build. Trimming some excess foam to the right size and then carefully carving it to make upper and lower lids, and making sure they kinda looked like each other (not too much, after all I wasn't going for symmetry) Once I'd got them to where I wanted design wise (I spent a lot of time, as I'd get one lid looking good, and that would make the other look less good, so I'd have to work on that again.. vicious cycle) I coated the areas on the face where I wanted them to sit with contact glue, push the lids on, and then pull them off ( I made sure to put a heap of glue on) that way the glue was in the right place, if there were any holes in the glue I'd go back in and fill them. Again, once the glue was dry, it was a nice fast job of aligning and then pushing them in (I really took my time here cause the last thing I wanted was to have to sand out the messed up lids and go through the process again).
Now it was time for painting. The foam gives a good old grey weathered wood look, and I guess I could have worked a little on that, but I felt Groot would look more green and alive. I had a few test pots of acrylic paint laying around so I thought I'd play with those. A few years ago I watched a really talented muralist at work, and one of his tricks was to mix the paints live on the artwork, that way you can slightly change the colours giving a more realistic effect, then one flat colour. I had hoped to copy this idea, but I think I ended up with too much of a similar shade without the realism I was looking for.
Next stage will be adding in some shading, and then adding in some moss at the top.
Hopefully, you've enjoyed reading my first post, if you have any suggestions please free to make them, I would love some feedback.
I will post updated photos when I get the chance.
