GorillaProps

So I've been so hyped to write a blog post on this and now I can.

Here we go...

Back last year I was commission by the guys over at Don't believe the BS. An up and coming clothing brand. Check them out!

www.dontbelievethebs.com/ www.twitter.com/DNTBELIEVETHEBS www.facebook.com/dontbelievethebs

The commission was for 2 GIANT bear heads. So without further ado here are some work in progress images of the build and some explanations.

Firstly I started with the logo for the brand and a LOT of foam. The foam I used was just some insulation foam, nothing overly fancy.

As you can see I decided that cheeks weren't a good look and with a lot more sanding *POOF* they were gone

Ears were constructed out of MOAR FOAM!

Cardboard glasses and a foam noise for reference.

Glasses cut from some good ol' MDF

The bear was then Sealed with PVA glue watered down with... well, water and spray sealant. Then HEAVILY primed with a lovely thick grey primer. 

I then started filling certain areas with car body filler and caulking then lightly sanding it, I also got some lovely mirrored lenses in place, which were made from a 6mm acrylic with one way mirror film over it.

I do have to apologise I didn't get a picture of the silicone mould but its under that mould jacket, which it medical grade plaster bandages which are pretty strong. With car body filler mixed with fibre glass resin painted over the top to make it EXTRA STRONG.

Test fit of the first casting, which was done in Polyurethane fast cast .... Well the things massive so it wasn't not going to fit. *Spoiler* it didn't have any eye holes at that point.

Primmed grey with the finished shades and cute button nose. The glasses and nose are bolted into place.

Finally got the eye holes cut. To cut the eye hole I used a Hole Saw drill bit. (Dallas Mask photo bomb).

So after it was all finished, sanded and smoothed I took it to Thomas & Vine LTD (www.flocking.co.uk) to get flocked. Flocking (Not the thing birds do) is where you put a negative charge on the flock, glue the object being flock i.e the bear head, then the flock sticks upright to the object.... I'm sure there's a wiki page that would explain that better then I just did.

These are the two finished heads. One an off cream and the other a mixture of grey and white flock. The cream one was cast in a Polyurethane fast cast and the grey was cast in fibreglass resin, matting and a gel coat. 

Overall I and the guys at Don't believe the BS were thrilled with how these bad boys turned out.

And don't forget to go check them out...

Just thought I'd upload some pictures from this project. 

This is the 22'' Dallas mask I was commissioned to make by 505games the publishers of Payday 2 for E3 back in May of this year.

The project took roughly 3 months. Working on this, other projects and doing a night job all at the same time really slowed the build down.

A brief step by step.

So to start I use some thick insulation foam I had glued 7 sheets together and started carving. The gents over at 505games sent  me some nice reference images. I used a combination of files, rasps, varying grades of sand paper,power sanders, knifes and saw blades.

The mask was then covered in a mixture of PVA glue and water, then added blue tissue to and PVA'd that. It was roughly 3 layers. I didn't need it thick because I was going to cover the thing in clay after and this was just so the dust from the foam didn't dirty the clay.

I used an Oil based clay called newplast, heated it up and applied a thin layer over the entire mask, then went back adding more where detail and creases were needed.

Once that was done and I was happy I posed for a quick snap and made the silicone mould. I guessed the amount of silicone that I would need by using the weight of the clay used. I knew it wouldn't be spot on but gave me a rough idea.

Fibreglass was then applied into the mould. I used 4 layers of fibreglass matt and then applied another layer around the rim of the mask for added strength.

Painting was done with aerosols and an airbrush and a vinyl sticker was stuck on.

Voila! Done, this was by far the biggest thing I had ever done and I learnt a lot from it. One my  favorite projects of 2013