New werewolf head!

Well with the costume season over, I had to have my fix of werewolf art. So I decided to make a wall mounted werewolf head. I used a taxiidermy form for the base and modified to into what you see here! The yellow part is the pre bought form, and the grey/pink is sculpey clay. I also painted a set of blank glass eyes for this project.

Check it out! Click the photo to go to my flickr account for more.












It's not finished yet but I will post more photos as it progresses. :D

Costume updates!

Awesome!

The costume won two online halloween contests...one over at Deviantart ( I dont know the link to the winners list, sorry! But it's awesome to have won!) and one at the awesome INSTRUCTABLES site. I won the grand prize! Check it out:
over here... I get to go to the Maker Faire in San Mateo! I really almost feel out of my chair when i saw I had won. Wow. I'm really looking forward to meeting the Instructables/Make mag peeps in the near future. I'll be bringing the costume to the Faire, of course ;)

Seriously happy. I may make a demon head that is interchangable with the wolf head...same body, different heads. I just really want to make more stuff!
Have some photos! We had a halloween party!All photos taken by Matt:

Our bloody murder room!


Captain Spaulding and werewolf in the kitchen...


Having a deep conversation with Princess Leia. I can't really drink beer while wolfed up :(


Serene Jesus turns the other cheek when attacked by stair-wolves.

Latest news!

Well guys i got some solid attention this last week with this costume. I was linked on boing boing:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/24/howto-make-a-killer.html

Because someone submitted my Instructable that i posted:
http://www.instructables.com/id/realistic-werewolf-costume/

That Instructable has over 21,000 hits! Pretty awesome. I'm amazed at how well recieved it has been by both online people and people i see out in public. I have gotten such positive smiling reactions from just about everyone that sees it...and that makes me smile. What a great halloween!

I was also interviewed for Chicago Public Radio. The interview was played in three states and set to go national on NPR but I'm not sure if it did NPR or not. Here's the link to that interview:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/content.aspx?audioID=14372

Besides that i have been giving the wolf a run for his money...wore it to a party, a costume contest ( i lost to a guy in a store bought mask), handing out candy to kids on halloween and even did the Zoo Boo at the Brookfield! I made alot of kids cry and smile this past week and it's been alot of fun. This weekend the wolf has one last run for the year to my Halloween party ( squeezing as much halloween out as possible, as it falls in the middle of the week) and then a local convention called Reactor if i am still alive enough to make it. Werewolfing is pretty tiring! After that I'll probably wear it to a few comventions like San Diego Comic-Con.

So a huge thank you to the people that have followed the progress of this suit and offered encouragement or just stopped by to check things out. Knowing other people care about this makes me all the more excited to do bigger and better costumes. The werewolf suit still needs just a few little tweaks and i know I'll have more photos to post from events this past week. So please check back...I'm not done yet!


Now the question is...what to do for NEXT year?

new photos!

Jason Chalker manlyart.com took videos and pictures last night! YAYYYYY thank you!!

CLICK THE PHOTO to see the whole picture!











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there is also VIDEOOOOOOOOOO click here to go to YouTube!

wolf is DONE!

I broke my promise and worked on it some more...finished just in time for the Revolution Tattoo art opening. The cool thing is that my boyfriends family and two close friends got to see it the very first time it all came together, as they had come over to hang out.... so that was awesome. I got a great reaction from them, but the true test was to see what total strangers thought.

So i got my pal Sarah to escort me to Revolution. It's close enough to walk but, wolf suit alone in a city might not be very smart. Jason ( Manlyart) also came by to check things out!

I drove:


Is there a problem , officer?



ok ok, i didnt actually drive. I had to ride in the passengers seat and could barley fit my fat wolf ass in it.


So we drove down, my arm hanging out the window. Crossing the street some guy passing in his car "HEY WOLF!" and there were alot of stares. It was great.

Outside the gallery.


Getting photos of this is really frustrating. The flash just messes everything up and you can't see much. The fur relflects to much light and the teeth look ivory white and flat. It looks so much cooler in real life!



See, you can barely tell where my arm is in front and the tail just looks blobby. Daaaaaamn.


The gallery was great, the people there dug the costume. When i first walked up, people reacted with the best thing a costumer can hear: "WOAH!!" Sweet relief, people dig it. I had just finished it hours before the event and was a little anxious to see if it all worked well.

I got poked in the breasts alot, people not realizing i have boobs behind the big foam chest, LOL. I thought it was funny. Alot of people asked about how it was made and wanted to touch it or get photos with it. A few people got really close to my face and stared at the mouth and eyes..haha! I had a good time and was so happy it was well recieved!

So i celebrated with some Guitar Hero. Isnt there a band called Guitar Wolf?



Sorry, i really couldnt resist.


So this test run helped me figure out what needs to be fixed and how long i can last in it. Which is not long. It's deadly hot in that thing. I did cool down quickly when a breeze came by since my suit is made up of many pieces and the seams let in some air, but this will require some kind of cooling system. A neck cooler or a vest or something. Pretty hot! I'd also like to add some grey fur to parts, as several people have suggested. A stripe down the head,back, some on the back of the arms, chest and maybe legs. It will break up the shapes a little and not be so blotch solid black. So back to National Fiber Technology for me!
Besides that, sewing up some seams, loosening the head elastics and maybe a new tail. Over all im really happy with it and REALLY relieved it's more or less completed. I feel like i have my life back, haha!

I'm going to get Jason to take a few decent photos of the costume this week, so more soon!

werewolf art!

People are awesome. I have been given some really sweet gifts lately...art of my werewolf costume!


First from Emmy! Clicky to see her other stunning artwork But here's what she made for me!



Then one from the always loved Neogeen This girl does some awesome monster designs... But here's the quicky sketch she hit me with over on livejournal, best comment ever:



And here's one from a blogger watcher, Max! Some sweet looking photoshop. What a nice suprise to find in my comments!




Thank you! It's awesome people are watching and it really makes my day to receive such kind things :D HAPPY HALLOWEEN (almost)

-mel

National Fiber Technology fur is awesome.

It's actually VERY close to being completed. I did a bunch of boring stuff that isnt all that exciting for photos...like installing the velcro around the waist for the undersuit/over shirt to connect to each other and the velcro in the elbows that will attach the upper arms/paw section to the overshirt. Bo-ring!

I also received my National Fiber Technology hair! It's ridiculous. This stuff is so perfect. I dyed it black with some leather dye this weekend, a very messy smelly process. Buy LOTS of rubber gloves! I got the whole head completed and covered...i did about half of the hunch of the back until i ran out of dye. The longer hair will run along the middle of the back to about it's buttcrack and then some will be added to the back of the arms and maybe legs if i have enough left over. I may try out making some sections dark brown or even red. Anyway have pictures...the hair needs to be trimmed a little:


Again, the website that I found this hair is http://www.nftech.com/. Nice people, great service, wonderful products! I will be using them again for upcoming life size head sculpture projects ;)

Oh yeah..another mistake i made. The multiple coats of resin on the teeth got too thick and the jaw had trouble opening and closing smoothly as the teeth began to touch and rub too much. It's easily fixed with a dremel tool bu now i have to repaint the bottom canines. Just a heads up to other folks trying this out :)

Roadkill. Not much to see but this is the front of the body. Kind of a black blob, sorry. But i really like the shape of the chest and legs now that the foam has been fixed up. Not that you can tell here.



A few finished pieces! Head, jaw, feet, arms and the ninja hood that goes underneath the face. The chin of the hood has velcro glued on...which matches to the velcro inside the wolf's jaw. This makes the jaw movement a little tighter and more realistic, i think.




So what's left? Sewing together the dozens of pieces of fur to each other to hide seams when the costume flexes. Dying the rest of the long hair and gluing that on. Velcro to the bottom of the pant legs to match into the shoes. Making a tail ( i really want to boobytrap it for people that will pull on it..but id feel awful if a little kid grabbed it, so no dice... i like kids.) Picking up the white contact lens. Painting the left hands claws and sealing them, painting the fixed teeth.

Um, what else? Wow...nothing. That's IT! I'm on schedule to finish it this week like i had hoped thanks to NFT pulling through for me.

Oh more boring stuff only a few people will care about: I did pop a jaw hinge this weekend while showing it off to freinds after a few beers and that had to be fixed...it's good it happened at home instead of out somewhere. So i went ahead and strengthened a few other parts. Yawn..sorry, yeah it's boring. But hey if you are building a suit and using this as a tutorial keep that in mind...get things super strengthened before you go out. Nothing will give you costume blue balls faster than getting somewhere to have fun and finding you forgot a piece of the costume or something broke. Boo!

orange contacts!

Got my contacts today! They look really cool without the mask but with the mask on they just look good...not great. They don't pop like i hoped they would, they sort of look like mildly freaky brown eyes. I did have a thought to buy a pair of yellow ones since i got them for so cheap anyway..but i think i may just buy one yellow lens and have different colored eyes..one yellow one orange. i thought it would be a cool way to give this costume a little more personality and make it a little freakier. If it looks dumb, I'll just buy another yellow lens.

one arm finished!

Taken in front of the mirror so excuse angles, wierd crops or crappiness! I used an opera glove to make the base for the fur and foam to glue on to. There is a little bit of foam in there to beef up my skinny forearms.The paw is now permanetly attached to the arm fur, making it all one piece that pulls off. It will attach to the body's arm via velcro.



Har, har. That sign is on our bathroom mirror. I also have one over the toilet that says " safety first:wear googles" because god knows what i do to that toilet requires eye protection.








So there you have it, one arm done. The fur pieces still need some trimming to line up and blend together better...but it's pretty much done. Now to do the other paw!

I also found an event to debut the suit at. The tattoo shop that i started getting work done at is having an art opening with "costumes encouraged" on the 13th. If the werewolf isnt ready by then, i may just wear the demon....but i'll be shooting for then!
http://www.revolutiontattoo.net/home.html

Next, refining the suit and adding some different fur lengths :D