Wildfury Greatstaff - Complete! Shoulders progress and more.

It's been another month since my last update, although I have been getting a lot done in the past week. The staff is finally finished! I may go back and add a leaf to hang with the straps, if I end up having time for that.

The straps are made of cotton strips that I sewed together to make tubes, which were ironed flat along the seams. They are attached by hand, and sewn to the unpainted green band.

The design is painted on with acrylic paint. I do not recommend painting acrylic onto cotton, it takes several coats and can be difficult to keep fluid and consistent.

There are fabric paints available at most craft stores, don't be a baddie like me.

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The next big item I have to build is the shoulder armor. I am using a similar process as the staff - build it up with a foam base and cover in paper-mache.

Here you can see them with the first layer. I'll have to go back over once or twice more just so there's enough to sand without going through to the foam underneath.

The raised area in the middle of each piece will have a gem inserted, with an LED and battery pack so it glows.

My first attempt at casting gemstones was Friday night, and they didn't turn out too badly considering the fact that the mold is made out of paper and tape. I used theproplady's resin gemmaking tutorial over on youtube, which are quite helpful. She has several videos about casting your own gems, so check them out!

The tape I used must have not been the right kind of plastic, or I must not have added enough catalyst into my resin mixture, because the resulting gems were still tacky after several hours drying.

I used 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper to sand the gems in the hopes the left over tackiness will disappear. I will probably still need to use a plastic polish to hide the sandpaper scuffs and make the gems shine.

The large gem in the middle is the only one that has been sanded so far, the other two feel like Jolly Ranchers. Ick!

I may also end up re-casting them if I can get a decent mold out of either alginate or plaster-of-paris.

Making your own mold out of paper and tape is incredibly tedious and difficult to do well if you have difficulty making patterns for geometric shapes.

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I started working on the ears I'll need to go with my costume. I could have bought a pair of ears and saved myself some time and effort, but this is something I've always wanted to try. They'll fit better this way, too (in theory).

I found the How to make Hobbit Ears tutorial and have followed their instructions up to the sculpt step.

I used alginate mold material and plaster-of-paris mix from my local Dick Blick. Both have worked well so far, although the dental-grade alginate has been damp to the touch, even after it has hardened, like it sweats. I have no idea why the alginate does this.

Regardless, I was able to get nice plaster casts from the molds I made.

I cut two lengths of wire, one for each ear, and rigged a wire support/armature to build the modeling clay around. I will likely add a wire into each finished prosthetic ear, to keep them from sagging.

There is still a bit of work to do on sculpting the ears to my satisfaction and making them as symmetrical as possible, but they are fairly evenly proportioned and decent enough for about 5 hours of work.