Professor Pyg

It's been a while and I've been pretty busy, but since it's summer now I'm hoping to get more done and post more frequently. We'll start off with a project I was really excited to work on.

This weekend was Akon in Dallas. I made one of my favorite Batman costumes, though he is one of the less well known villains. I am of course talking about Professor Pyg. For those that don't know, this is what the costume should look like:

Here is a picture of my final costume:

I'm trying to get some other pictures from my friends, but until then this'll have to do.

So now that you've seen the costume, you might ask how I made it.

It wasn't as hard as it might seem. The pants, shoes, shirt, gloves, and bow tie are all straight from the store or my closet.

The mask is the tricky part of this costume.  I started off my sculpting the mask out of regular kiln fire clay.

 I left the ears off because it would cause the mask to be significantly harder to mold and cast.  Next I used my silicone caulk method of mold making for this mold since I wanted to get it done quickly. I added fabric to the third layer of this mold to help strengthen the mold.

The aluminium foil is to create a layer between the silicone and the plaster, and to cheat filling in deep undercuts.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of my mother mold and the mold ripped when I took it off, despite my reinforcement. I didn't put enough fabric/layers of silicone, but I was in a hurry and I did get one cast out of it so it all worked out in the end.

So this time I used Smooth-Cast Onyx, and I've never used it before. I wasn't expecting how quickly the resin set up so when I was slushing the cast the resin cured before I got even coverage. 

The yellow circle shows the edge that is thin and you can see where it actually chipped. It's hard to see, but the red square is a very thick mass of resin where it pooled while I was trying to get the resin to the edges of the mask.

Somewhere I have pictures showing this, but I drilled out the thicker parts and used Apoxie Sculpt to reinforce the thin edges. For  those who don't know Apoxie Sculpt is a two part Epoxie putty that starts soft and pliable like clay but in about 30 minutes gets very hard.

Here is a shot of the front of the mask right after demolding. This shows one of the problems with using silicone caulk. If the resin gets too hot while casting (like Onyx can) the silicone can stick to the resin casting. 

There was also some pitting in the pull that I filled with more Apoxie Sculpt but overall it came out pretty well. 

And a healthy bit of sanding later...

I need to get better about documenting, especially when I am in a hurry. You guys know how it is, the day before the con and you have a lot to finish, pictures become less important. 

Jumping ahead, the next picture is the mask primed with ears attached. I made the ears out of Apoxie Sculpt. When they were nearly hardened I put screws through the inside of the mask into the ears. I then used Apoxie Sculpt to cement the crap out of the ears and they are pretty solidly attached.

The straps are attached with waxed thread. I saddle stitched the straps on through holes I drilled in the mask and then coated the outside holes with Apoxie Sculpt to hide the stitches and reinforce the connection. The good thing about a saddle stitch is that if one of the stitches breaks the whole thing doesn't fall apart.

And a nice piggy pink...

And finally some weathering...

And that is how you make a Proffessor Pyg Costume. I still need to add some padding to the inside and sand out the nose a little more.

It fits pretty well, but is pretty hard to see out of. Kinda have tunnel vision. That made it hard to navigate the con with the mask on. 

The apron was an apron I had that I put some paint on I need to remake the apron too.

So there you have it.

As a bonus for reading this whole humongous post, here is a picture of my lovely wife as Gaige. She is so cute! I also made a bunch of her props. I'll probably do a post about those. Or not. We'll see.

Until Next Time,

-Matrix