Re-Post: How to make Deathwing Costume
Saw this in person. It was very impressive.
I love to see the method for this creation. May one day I can make something Nerd-Awesome.
Taken from: Blizzard Website
BlizzCon presents an incentive for real-life tailors and engineers to take up their needle and thread and their cardboard and spray paint, in order to fashion amazingly realistic recreations of their favorite Blizzard characters and creatures. After this year’s costume contest, we invited the winners to write articles on the art of costume-craft for us to share with the community. Here’s the third entry in the series, written by Justin, who won third place for his take on Deathwing.
Pain!…
Agony!…
My name is Justin Floyd, and I am Deathwing. Rather, I was Deathwing. This costume started at the insistence of my wife, who decided I would fit the character of the deranged former Earth Warder quite well, which I’m not sure is a compliment. Without her help, this costume would not have been possible (mainly because my artistic ability is confined to stick figures and shadow puppets).
Let me start off by saying that I have a deep fondness for the Blizzard community. I met my wife at BlizzCon 2005 and many guildies at other BlizzCons along the way, some of whom I consider close friends. I’ve played Blizzard games since Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was released, and it is the community and storytelling that always brings me back. Getting to be a Warcraft character for a day was awesome and the support from fellow BlizzCon attendees was amazing.
We started planning and working on the costume in April and literally finished it an hour before I had to be backstage. Of course this means I missed a lot of the cosplay meet-ups, but considering some of the mishaps we had, we’re lucky we got it finished!
The costume was constructed from a variety of materials including green Styrofoam, papier mâché, paper clay, leather, Wonderflex (a thermoplastic — just heat and bend!), fabric, and foam rubber mats (interlocking squares usually used for the garage or kids’ playrooms).
Styrofoam was carved and covered in paper clay for the shoulders and various spikes. Foam rubber mats were used for the bracers, boots, and chest. Leather was used in a variety of areas, including the chest and loincloth. The legplates and belt were created with Wonderflex, which is truly wonderful!
Question: How did I keep everything on?
Answer: Lots of Velcro.
Walking around in costume is harder than it looks. To start, I didn’t realize I needed a spotter until I walked straight into a fire hydrant and dented one of my boot spikes. This wasn’t a big deal, since we packed some extra black paint. While waiting for my wife to get the paint from our room, I was striking a few poses for several nice people who wanted a picture. Apparently, range of motion is very limited when you’re wearing two feet of badassery on your shoulders, and to my horror, I felt my pauldrons slipping off! I went to grab for one but it was too late and the other shoulder crashed to the sidewalk. A few of the foam/paper spikes broke off. We had to trek all the way back to the hotel room, glue everything back together, and march… well, waddle back to the Anaheim Convention Center.
After my initial walk across the stage during the costume contest, I was ready to exit the area and try my hand as a fuzzy, lovable Pandaren. Needless to say, I was completely dumbfounded when I was pulled aside and asked to “wait right here.” It was a little nerve-wracking going on stage a second time, but it made for a good YouTube video to show the family. All in all, I learned more about costume construction than I bargained for, but I also learned how fun it can be. I’ll never forget the experience — and how could I, when I now have a huge mace that lights up hanging on my wall?
In case you were wondering, I did go to Disneyland.
Okay, maybe I didn’t go dressed as Deathwing, but I was able to treat my guild to an unforgettable day at the park after winning third place. Two of my guildies had never been to California, let alone Disneyland, so it was nice to be able to do something special for them after BlizzCon.
I think my boss is awesome, so I decided to create a custom toy for her. I had no idea if she’d like it or not, but decided to shoot for it anyways. So my boss is notorious for having an uncanny ability to just zone in and hyper focus for a few hours – earning her the nickname “Cyborg”. I used that for the inspiration for this toy-mod. I decided to color it bright red (poppy, really) because I found her name meant Poppy in Farsi – which was also the color for Persia, which she is very proud of.
PHASE 1: Concept:
So to start, I downloaded the basic munny image and mocked up my design:
PHASE 2: Modeling
I used Sculpey to create the details.
I used a Dremel to cut a door open in his chest, and created a handle and a frame with Sculpey
PHASE 3: Baking
After I was content with my design, I finished the clay with turpenoid to remove my fingerprints. I baked it in a toaster oven (which is ONLY used for toy projects). It burnt a little, but I’m going to paint over it anyways.
PHASE 4: Taping and Priming
I taped off all areas that I wanted to Glow in the dark. So the eyes, and the designs I planned out before. I didn’t follow them to a tee, and let the designs take their own shape. I went outside and primed it with some Krylon base paint I had left over.
PHASE 5: Painting
The airbrush I was planning to use broke, so I just used the airbrush paint and a brush. I just had to do a lot of layers to get the smooth even coat. The metallic paint was actually gold mixed in with the red paint. I used old clay to hold the body and head.
PHASE 6: Finishing touches.
After carefully peeling off the tape, and cleaning it up with q-tips and acetone. I finished it with a Krylon prism color coat (which didn’t really show through) and a matte top coat. I make the inside plush, by actually destroying a stuffed animal I found and garage sale for a quarter. I used apoxy sculpt to make the heart.
In the end, she really enjoyed the gift and I really enjoyed making it.
Painting an iPad ZAGG keyboard case
So i picked up a iPad 2 Logitech ZAGG keyboard case off of craigslist yesterday. I got a good deal on it but the back was pretty scuffed up. I decided to give it a paint job.
I decided to try out Krylon X-Metal Spray Paint. You figured it be cheaper online, but my local Ace Hardware was a better deal. I bought the base coat and blue anodize paint.
It took me less than 2 hours to get it done. My exact steps:
- Prepping the case with saran wrap, painters tape, and soft clay to protect the usb port
- 2 layers of the base coat waiting 10 minutes in between
- wait 30 minutes
- 2 layers of the anodize blue paint, also with 10 minutes in between(this was challenging to get an even coat. In hindsight, I should have used more layers)
It turned out better than I feared. Maybe I will do a better job next time.
3 year Anniversary/Blizzcon 2011
This year Allen and I booked our flight and hotel 6 months in advance! We got to stay and the Hilton right next to the convention center. It was fantastic. Except for the fact that there was a line for the elevators every evening, and random drunk nerd should “For the Horde” down the halls at ungodly hours. I am horde, but this is just downright shameful. Overall, Blizzcon was better than last year. Costume contests were better than ever and the GSL and Invitational Starcraft matches were some of the best I’ve ever seen.
Blizzcon definitely came and went too quickly. We even decided to stay an extra day to enjoy Disneyland. I highly recommend checking out World of Color, Toy Story Midway Mania, and the new Star Tours. Those were new experiences, and the mouse still has it!(although he never lost it) The Disney Parade near brought me to tears it was so amazing.
Just wanted to post some Blizzcon highlights enjoy!
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150897276155265.757242.757445264&type=1&l=c7c17f145a
Also, for some reason I was inspired to concept a Starcraft Terran Tea set on my iPad. I kind of want to make it now o_O.
Repurposing Netbook into NanoArcade
I don’t have the time to do this now…but it is definitely on my to do list. I’m intrested in trying this out in laser cut wood instead of acrylic though.
Checkout the step by step instructions – http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/stepnanocade.htm
Street Fighter Fun
Thought it would be fun to share this. This photo was taken in the Ubisoft San Francisco lunch room. I wish I could take credit for it. However, it was my friend on the left’s idea. That’s what happens when you give a bunch of adult nerd a black wall and a bucket of chalk.
Good times.
Tron Costume
Haven’t made one, but it sure has piqued my interest. 
Maybe I’ll do something for next halloweeen. It might be to advanced for my skill level, but this looks like a pretty good tutorial:
Toy Mod: My First Boxhead
This is my very first Toy Mod that I completely in November 2009.
A co-worker bought a lot of Dunnys from the kidrobot forums and sold a couple to me for 2 dollars each. They seemed simple enough to start my first project on so i bought 5.
Since Allen’s handle is Boxhead, I decided he was going to be the subject of my first toy. I will be honest, I didn’t have a strong sense of what I was doing. I just knew I wants the face to be diagonal, and not on the flat surface. I was pleasantly surprised with my sculpting work though! You know when your a kid, and clay just seems like a platform of endless possibilities…until you find out your not very dexterous with your hands… Well, it turn out, you can grow into it! So from this day forward, I discovered I don’t suck with clay.
PHASE 1: Sanded and Sculpted
First, I dismantled the Dunny. That arms are easy, but the head was a bit of a challenge. I used a blow dryer to the area to soften the plastic before I yanked it out. It should pop right out. Same process when it goes in as well. After dismantling, I sanded down the surface(wasn’t perfect, just took off most of the paint). After I sculpted what I wanted, I smoothed it all over using turpenoid, which is a natural paint thinner. It makes the surface really goopy and hard to work with, so I noted to get the details I wanted before using it!
PHASE 2/FINAL PHASE: Bake and Paint
I borrowed my friends oven, who only uses it for toys. The plastic has fumes, and I didn’t want any residue on the inside of where I toasted my breakfast o_O.
After baking, I painted. It was pretty basic. I used cheap acrylic – which might have gone bad, because the blue paint smelled god awful and had this weird gelatinous substance in it…I would like to note that I learned you are suppose to prime the toy before using acrylic paint. I found out afterwards that there is a chemical reaction that happens with the vinyl parts that makes the surface sticky. All in all, everything turned out okay.
Poor Allen. I was so engulfed in this project for him, that I ignored him for a week. I think he thought I was going to break up with him. Well didn’t this turn out to be a pleasant surprise!
Last Minute Nerd Birthday Party
About 2 or 3 times a year, Allen and I throw Nerd Parties. What are nerd parties you ask?
I throw a nerd out in my cousin’s vacation rental mansion, hook up 4 xboxes for a LAN, a Dance station, rockband station, and a buttload of Papa Murphy’s pizzas. I wasn’t sure I was gonna do it this year, but decided last minute to do so. We had Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood in a four player LAN. It was a huge hit! I brought other games as well, but people were dead set some throat slashing action. The multiplayer was pretty addictive.
It was a 12+ hour endeavor, and both Allen and I were completely exhausted afterwards. But overall, we had a great time and I got to share my birthday with some nerdy friends.
Blizzcon 2010 so goes another year…
Allen an I pretty much started dating Blizzcon 2008. Although our anniversary is 10/12/2008, Blizzcon is the actual marker. We gave up on our traditional yearly Blizzcon, and pretty much didn’t know we were going till about 2 days before. We managed to get press passes again, and drove down Thursday evening.
So our general opinion of Blizzcon is that it simply wasn’t as good as last years. They actually made quite a few improvements staging wise, and adding new panels and such. However the lack of decent announcements was just a disappointment. To add insult to injury, the goodie bags are getting less epic. I know… I know…they lose money every year on Blizzcon. But simply put compared to previous years that just blew us away, it really didn’t stand up. It also didn’t help that at closing ceremonies they tempted us about the unannounced mmo, and just decided they were going to jerk our chain – bad play blizzard. Funny for you, but really leaves a bad taste in our mouths.
Game wise -
-I’m definitely looking for Diablo 3, whenever it comes out.
-I’m think I’m going to get addicted to the new mod Star Jeweled
-Contemplating making my own custom game 
-REALLY contemplating returning back to WoW for cataclysm. It’s a really tough decision.
All in all, this last minute Blizzcon Adventure was a well needed vacation for me and Allen. Good times were had.