The success of the Headless Marie Antoinette costume has inspired me to create a batch of new awesome costumes for the 2007 Halloween festivities. I want to start early so I can bang off a whole bunch and hopefully offer them to the public for the season. With this goal in mind, I have weighed my options and decided to change my technique. I am now sculpting my apparatuses out of blue foam – which I acquire from the shop next door to my work. Unfortunately, they don’t throw away blocks of it, so I have to create them by gluing sheets together. I have begun work on my “Soul Collector” costume, which is a Grim Reaper of sorts. I have a funny drunken sketch of the costume, but it won’t make sense until I have finished.

I’ve carved the basic form out of a stack of glued foam sheets. I’ve used my new hot wire foam carving tools, and worn a mask which filters out the toxic fumes released from the foam. This is an outside kind of project for sure! I could buy foam which is non-toxic, but I prefer not to pay with a plethora of freebie foam available.

Here’s the final carving done, I removed the lower jaw because it was lame. Keep in mind this is all done from my head. Not meant to be anatomically correct, it’s a stylized idea and design. I discovered the awesomeness of using a flame to carve the eye sockets and concave curves. I will be getting a butane torch to start using this technique more adeptly.

I primed the foam with a couple of coats of latex paint. Again, as with previous types of foam, aerosols will eat the foam (which can work for a certain look).

Here’s a look at Andy trying out the skull for proportion. This is NOT the way the costume will look, it’s not meant to be a mask.

Here’s my first quick application of paint. I have to do quite a bit more work in this department. I will be adding the neck bone and building the rig next.
So thats the first project! So far so good. I was a little concerned when I started with the carving that I wouldn’t be able to shape the sculpture as easily as I could with clay. But after a few trials, I seem to have picked up the skills needed. The advantage to this technique is obviously the elimination of several steps when compared to the clay/plaster casting method I had utilized.
More to come………

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