Feathered Velociraptor Costume (Zoo Tycoon 2)

SO! An update!
I've been working on fixing up my sculpt (it's been sitting around on this cart and has some dinges in it as well as some other flaws I want to fix up). We currently plan to make a very tough paper mache head and then use some rigid expanding foam inside of it to basically use the paper mache as a mold for it. Has anyone tried this before? I think it'll work really well, actually because earlier I was testing our last paper mache head (which we won't be using because it has pieces inside of it to make sure parts don't cave in) and it's REALLY solid. I don't think the expanding foam will push on it or anything, we basically dunked it in plasti-dip and modpodge lol.

Looking at this foam to use: http://www.industrialpolymers.com/category/product-list/rigid-expanding-foams/
It's 3 lbs. per cubic foot (and we estimate the head to be around that? way over or under estimating likely, but) and since the last paper mache head was 6.5 lbs. we're halving it again. Should be light enough this time, if we can get it to sit on my own head without any major weight.
Still though, I'm really proud of my sculpt because it just looks really awesome.

My next costume after this? Something wayyyy easier. I'm thinking sequins.

Long time no touch...MegaCon is nearing and I got busy involved in two plays so I didn't get time to work on the costume. Once again putting myself under major duress to finish the costume. We bought our tickets this morning so I'll be there no matter what, but, yeah. The head is still incomplete. Still working towards it. Still...stressing about it. When I have something to show for it, I'll be sure to share.

At any rate, current update on the costume ASIDE from the head is in this picture! Yay! Drew over it to crop out some of my neighborhood (can't hardly fit inside in the costume) as well as my goofy expression since I was talking to my mom while she was taking the photos.

Some disclaimers, if you will, to this image:
- I started this costume early 2013 when I was just turned fourteen...somehow still fit it. Hooray!
- Where you see the bottom of the "feet" transition from the leg onto the shoes will be fixed. It's sort of hideous right now.
- I do have plans to airbrush more but I'm not skilled at it and I don't know for certain.
- I tried this on yesterday I think it was for this picture (took others but I'm saving them for myself) and promptly stood in it for 4 hours watching The X-Files while my mom sewed and tacked down the feathers that moved around a lot/were facing the wrong way. So the feathers are still also being fixed.
- Yeah, I wish the spandex that was glued wasn't so wrinkly. My dad keeps saying my raptor has cellulite.

In the meantime, I have a massive list of things left to do on this costume. Most of my questions are answered but I've got 11 showings left of the current play before I can put 100% focus into this.

Currently for the head we're trying a paper mache mold and using a two-part urethane expanding foam. Yeouch. Hoping to get that done early next week.




If the image embedded isn't showing for you: http://i.imgur.com/EKKIicd.jpg?1

Just did some tests with the foam with what release agent to use against the paper mache. I'm using the two pound foam on this page: http://www.uscomposites.com/foam.html

Vaseline was the obvious winner out of vaseline, nothing, canola oil cooking spray and sunflower oil. So I suppose I can mix some more up for the mold just about any time! It's above eighty right now, we may have enough vaseline in my dad's boat cabinet and so on. Maybe tomorrow morning. Progress! I think I made the right choice with the foam, though.

First image is just the two pieces taped together so I could get a good look at them. We've constructed a mold to actually put the face onto my own head as well but I guess it's not photographed. We've run into some issues with the top jaw that I don't want to go into right now, haha. Jeeze this thing is stressing me out more than it should be.

We had two ideas for how to get the paper mache mold off the mold when it was complete -- the first of which was to just cut and peel it off, the original plan. I don't think I put enough vaseline on it though. I put a pretty thin coat on it. We didn't try that, though. Instead we submerged it in water and I've been peeling the paper off slowly. I worked at it a while today, maybe 2-3 hours. It's awfully slow and tedious, but it's working. For the top piece (not yet poured due to mistakes) I'm tempted to try and just peel it off or cut it away. Sigh.

you are making good progress!

I appreciate the sentiment, ahaha. Sure doesn't feel like I am. 20 days to the con and I'm in sort of terrible shape. That leaves me ten days to be DONE with the head leaving me enough time to paint the eyes, work on the inside of the mouth and see about finding an airbrush pro in my area. With that said, images... Also to pack and not panic about deadlines and make sure I have a feasible way to drink in this costume.

That said:
Image 1-The top jaw piece, which is connected to how we'll somehow put it on my own goshdarn head (I've accepted this uncertainty not very well). The paper mache mold worked pretty well overall, but it has its downsides. There were cracks that were not sealed well enough on the head and it oozed in so now there is permanent newspaper affixed to the head, which is okay since fabric will cover it. But also annoying. Also, the bottom jaw I thought it'd be easier to remove the mold itself by dunking it in the bathtub and the paper would just melt right off in the water. Nope. It came off okay, but took way longer than the top jaw and some pieces basically became one WITH the foam in the water.

Image 2-Yeah, so, there are certain places that the foam didn't expand all the way to in the mold (let's face it, it's a weird shape with a lot of crevices) so we bought some cheap-o expanding spray foam from the hardware store because we ran out of the other stuff and didn't have enough time to ship it. It's actually working pretty okay. We'll see.

Image 4-Showing where the foam is sprayed on, before carving it down.

Image 5-After a lot of bits have been carved down. My mom wants to carve and shave more of it down and I'm usually more inclined to say no, you'll ruin it but at this point I just said go right ahead lol.

Image 6-Yeah, you can see the newspaper on the bottom jaw there. Quite a bit. I'm annoyed but not bothered overly.



Major issues for me currently:
Hinging the two jaws together (I know how to make it open and shut with my own, but getting them together is an issue, there's currently no room on the neck-foam bit for the bottom jaw to open so I'm going to have to cut away at something)
Keeping the head attached well enough on my own (Thought it'd be easy because so many people just make Owens Corning Foam, which is about as heavy/durable as the foam I have, perhaps less so, but we ran out of the expanding 2-part foam so we didn't have enough so there's not really any room to carve away at and make room for my head. Basically the bottom jaw comes to the bottom of the neck foam piece, so there's no room to flatten or carve out a slight shape to support my skull)


Those are the *main* big issues. I've got other little problems (will the clay for the teeth sculpt well, be light enough, dry in time? Will the eyes have the follow effect like I anticipated and intended? Will this thing be done in time? Will the stress ever end?) but eh.

I was able to hold the top jaw on top of my head today and walk around the house for a bit...I'm excited! It's really light; I can feel the way it pulls forward but I don't really feel the weight itself. Hopefully the strap down the back of the costume will counterbalance the weight some. My dad isn't confident in that, but it worked for Monoyasha's raptor so I can only hope it will for me too. At any rate, right now, attaching the two mouthpieces together is the primary stress.

So...plenty of updates luckily, yay!
The first four pictures are after I cut down and worked with the neck piece on the back of the face, which I used one of my dad's grater tool things for. Meant to take a picture, but overall I'm just proud of all smooth and nice it looks.
After that, I attached some green foam at the sides to fill in the space more (luckily it doesn't need a whole lot of smoothing because it's going to be covered by the feathers) and glued in black fabric at the back of the throat.
After that, plenty of pictures of teeth and gums and the sculpting of the tongue. The teeth I used that Premier paperclay instead of ModelMagic because ModelMagic to me wouldn't hold the shape of the teeth like I wanted it to.
I spent the entire day today from 10-7 sculpting all that. Some of the teeth were sculpted and painted the other day, though. All the gums and tongue and the roof of the mouth though are ModelMagic. You may notice that the teeth are crooked on the top jaw...yeah, 'cause that's the only way I can make them fit into the mouth together and shut. Oops. I couldn't really figure out another way to do it, so I did that. I don't think anyone will notice enough anyway though; the mouth details I'm a) very proud of, b) nobody will hardly see them and c) took forever.

Tomorrow more assembly.

EDIT: The teeth are not permanently affixed, I have to remove them to paint the gums. Also, there's the freezer paper on there taped down because the modelmagic sticks to everything.

That is a lot of hard work! You are making great progress.

Unfortunately I've had to quit for a while; the stress and it overwhelmed me completely was too much. I'll share info about the progress I have probably after MegaCon. I'll still be there all three days, likely dressed as Emily Elizabeth from Clifford The Big Red Dog (my Halloween costume). Next year, for sure.

I'll tell you though, it feels pretty awful lol. Since Friday I've basically sat around like a pathetic lump.

I went through the same thing last year. It is a bit heart breaking to work towards a goal for so long and just not make it in time. On the bright side this gives you plenty of time to make the costume better for next year.

It seriously is. I didn't want to rush the last few steps and I was too stressed and exhausted and overwhelmed to continue, though. It was beyond even being close to fun; I need a short break before I can continue with it.

Image 3: I used E6000 to glue down my 2inch wide knitted elastic down across the bottom of the jaw. Tentatively, I think the jaw moving mechanism plans that I currently have are going to work very well. When I hold it up above my head and pull on the elastic with my jaw, it opens. Yay!
Image 4: Gluing in black fabric in the eye sockets and using foam scraps to hold it in place. I just used an old t-shirt.
Image 5: The cotton batting that got glued down on top of the elastic is shown on the table, which doesn't seem to effect the stretch at all and hides it under the spandex.
The rest: Pictures of the fabric on the bottom jaw as it got glued down. We tried a lot of different glues to try and avoid hot glue, but gluing a stretchy fabric tightly down just doesn't work with anything that takes too long to try. I was afraid of it gooping up and looking lumpy but when I flattened it with a popsicle stick, the issue didn't really come up.

I'll be making another post with more progress images. I have more than a year now to finish it (and intend to finish it by fall at the latest) and hopefully I can start working on another costume for the con by next year. It's going to be in May, and four days. Which is neat because more time for different costumes, but also I hope they can fill in the time more. Currently with MegaCon we attend all three days (the only con we attend right now, as we go all out for it) and feel content with the time spent there. Not too long, not feeling like we're missing out on too much or anything.

Image 1: The complicated maneuver it was to put the mouth edge flaps and the brown elastic together in the back of the upper jaw. I plan to go into the jaw connecting mechanism completely when it's all successful.
Image 2: The fabric glued down on the foam top jaw. I intend to paint over where the glue seeped through. My mom keeps saying she likes it (and it didn't happen in many places) but I'm not favorable of it, lol.
Image 3: Showing how the mouth flap will come down and glue into the bottom jaw.
Image 4: The gum and teeth detail inside the mouth.
Image 5: The teeth are quite small, but I ended up having to entirely redo the bottom jaw to make them fit together. They aren't big, but I still feel like they fit pretty well and are about the right size. Still really unsure about it though, and I just kinda have to deal with it.
Image 6: Front view.

Remade teeth are shown in the last image: I had to fill out the outside edges with the model magic and they have been painted (but I guess not photographed, because I don't see any images anywhere). The second image is some of the gums I peeled away from the teeth.
I'm really happy and proud for the most part with how the spandex rolled on; we didn't make a duct tape pattern for the head like I thought we would originally (my mom was convinced we could do it without it, instead we just sewed the pink to it and we turned the head around in a circle while hot gluing it on sort of like a sock). Overall it's looking really nice and I look forward to finishing it. After a short break, I'll likely resume next month. I haven't lost motivation for it yet, but the four days between quitting it and MegaCon I was just a pathetic lump...lol.

So much so of a pathetic lump that I couldn't even convince myself to pack enough clothes for the con; I ended up freezing the entire time because I didn't think to take a jacket or jeans or anything with me. Also, my other costume (Emily Elizabeth) was left at home due to some confusion between my mom and I. I had an awesome time, but we had booked the Rosen Centre that had the street overpass connection and was right on-site and everything was perfect for me to be a velociraptor...except for me actually being able to BE a velociraptor.

Also, yeah, the RoosterTeeth podcast kept me in a cheerful mood while I worked.

I'm trying to get rid of this costume now--unfortunately it was (obviously!) a giant undertaking and I've outgrown the costume. I'd love for someone to finish it or even just use the pieces for something new. I don't have a shipping estimate for it, but that'd be the only price to get this, I live in central FL. I invested a lot of money in this (probably $1000+).

Free to Good Home


Fits someone who is around 5'2-5'5, slim build. Made for someone around 110-120 lbs., around a 32" chest, under 37" around hips. Shoe size can accommodate probably up to a Women's 9, smaller would be more comfortable


Check out the blog: http://velociraptortutorials.blogspot.com/ or Replica Prop Forum posting: https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=200609&


Includes more feathers to finish plus leftover fabric and the resin-cast globes intended for the eyes. I ordered 250 feathers to create this costume, plenty left to replace as they may become damaged with wear.


Costume has an athletic mesh lining with couch cushion foam glued on using 3M's Foam Fast 74. Tail is close to 6t long and has nylon ribbing glued on to maintain its shape, holds onto your body via a strong belt (not included). The intention was to create a head that goes above your own (sits on top) with an extended neck, however the weight and size made this an issue. I made two or three attempts that were too heavy.
Shouldn't be hard to follow fursuit tutorials to make a smaller head (attaching to your own face, like a mask) it just isn't worth it for me since I don't fit anymore.


Total number of pieces included in the costume itself: Pair of glove hands (2), bodysuit (1), tail (1), modified Croc brand shoes with claws (2)

Incredible build Emma! Well done and also well done with the documentation! It's hard work to keep a record of each build (lord knows there are plenty of builds I wish I had pictures of) you have the stamina and skill of a seasoned cosplayer! I can't wait to see your next build! Keep it up!!!

I'm so inspired by this build.