Propr

Mazing Man Helmet

For my dad's Dragon-con costume This was one of my first full cradle to grave 3D printed pieces and I learned a lot doing it.

It started in Fusion 360, where I built the 3D model of the helmet. It was basically just a hollow dome with an extruded bottom and some holes punched in it. The real struggle is the bed of my 3D printers are not large enough to print the whole thing at once. So I had to make some strategic cuts in the model to make smaller pieces to print that both maximized space but also mitigated needing additional supports

With all the pieces printed, I connected them with a small amount of super glue and reinforced that with some painters tape. Once it was all together and the glue had dried I took the tape off and then coated the whole thing in a layer of Mod Podge. The seam lines were still very visible so I tried something new and I mixed up a little bit of Durham's water putty. Traditionally that is for woodworking, but it has the incredible benefit that it can be sanded. So after a couple attempts to find the right ratio between the powder and water, I covered the outside in a fairly thick layer of this putty and waited for it to dry. After that I got my electric hand sander out with a low grit and went to work. I then polished it off hand sanding at a higher grit.

On the inside, after Mod Podge, I spray painted the whole thing black, and cut a couple scraps of foam to make a comfortable head shape. Most notably I put a large block in the top so the hole would fall right above the nose. And then put some smaller pieces on the back and around the temples to hold the helmet steady. This gave the appearance that the helmet was sitting on your nose, like in the comics, while actually sparing your nose that weight.

For the eyes, I had to get a little creative. What I did was model a mold of the bulb shape I wanted the eyes to be: an oval half dome. I then made a made a simple mesh model laying flat. I printed both of those out, and using a heat gun to warm the mesh and make it pliable, formed the mesh over the eye shape. I got a little too close on attempt and melted it, you can see in the photos, so it took a couple tries to get it right, but I was very happy with the results.

Luigi Cowboy Hat

This was for myself

The hat itself is just a party store felt hat. I removed the original cheap looking ribbon band that was going around it and replaced it with a length of a thrifted leather belt. That alone immediately improved look of it.

The "L" logo is made from two scraps of leather I had on hand. Luckily, I have a Luigi baseball cap, and so I just copied those measurements, and made a sketch of it on paper.

Using the diameter from that, I cut the circle out with a compass cutter. And before moving anything, I lowered the radius on the compass a couple millimeters and made a shallow cut just inside. This was to mimic the seam on the real hat.

For the "L" I copied my sketch onto leather and cut that out. I wasn't totally satisfied with the way the raw edge of the darker leather looked on top of the lighter leather, so after some research I devised a makeshift finishing. First I submerged the whole thing until it was saturated, and then I took a torch to the edges, and then dried it fully with a heat gun. Using a black permanent marker and a smooth wooden cylinder made a pseudo burnish. I traced the edges of the "L" with the marker and then rubbed them very quickly with the wood. I repeated that a handful of times until I was satisfied.

I didn't do this with the lighter leather because 1) I didn't mind how the light raw edge looked, and 2) I didn't think the black marker would look as good on the light as it did the dark.

Korok Costume

Made for my best friend

The Mask is ultimately just two layers of Dollar Store foam board. The leaf shape is copied roughly from one of the BotW masks, but we wanted the face itself to be unique. I sketched a couple variations before the final design. I used an craft knife for most of the cuts, and then a low speed rotary tool for finer bits. I added some black mesh on the inside. Finally a little bit of foam above the eyes for comfort and stability, and the elastic to hold it up.

For the Hand Puzzle I made a small acorn out of air dry clay and left a metal hoop in it. I tied some thin leather cord to the hoop and drilled the other side into a short wooden cylinder. I took a small cardboard tube, painted it black, and then covered it in moss. I threaded the acorn through the moss tube and glued it down to the wood. To finish it just some leather wrap on the handle.