This online walk-through is a weekly updated blog for the Winter Weekly Work In Progress Event (2016-2017) sponsored by Arda Wigs
Last Update: 2/1/2017
Last Update: 2/1/2017
Winter Weekly Work In Progress Post #1
Wednesday, December 7th
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I am lucky to be one of Arda's Master Crafters for the Winter Weekly Work In Progress (WWWIP). Every week I will be posting progress of my new cosplay, Ryuk from Death Note!
Here is my first update! I am really determined to create wings for Ryuk, so I have been playing around with different structures to hold the wings that will go under a bodysuit. I currently have a titanium plate with 3/4" PVC pipes screwed and riveted to the plate. The wings are made of 1/2" PVC pipe that lock into the 3/4" PVC pipes. This works well, except the wings tend to flap a bit without control. So, I may need to replace the base of the wings with tubes that are more square to gain more control of this movement. For the rest of the skeletal structure, I curved some PVC pipes with boiling water and hot glued Rug Canvas to them. Lastly, I have used Thibra to create a base for Ryuk's feathered shoulders. I will be adding more tiers to the shoulders for the feathers to hang off of to try and recreate the same silhouette as Ryuk. For more information on WWWIP, check out their website! http://winterweeklywip.com/… |
Winter Weekly Work In Progress Post #2
Wednesday, December 14th
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This week I have been in search for the right materials and methods to clear up the backplate business, but in the mean time I finished the skeleton structure for the wings. I created 2 horns with Pink Insulation Foam and covered them with Thibra. This is my first time using Thibra and Pink Insulation Foam together, and I must say that I was very pleased with the results :) After I attached the horns, I used pipe insulation over the PVC pipe in order to give the wings more of a 3D bone structure.
I have also been experimenting with casting skull beads out of resin. I played with some left over resin and realized in order to cast these properly, I will need a syringe to insert the resin into the small mold. I'm glad I tested that beforehand! Lastly, I bought some alginate from Smooth-On and my friend helped me make a Life Cast of my face! Now I can practice some ways to create Ryuk's iconic face, whether that be a mask or prosthetic. I'll have to try both and see which works best! |
Weekly Winter Work In Progress Post #3
Wednesday, December 21st
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This week I played around with Arda's new UV Resin, and I must say... I AM IN LOVE! This resin is so easy to use and it cures extremely quick. Not only that, but the UV Resin cures clear and transparent, even more transparent than resin I have gotten from Smooth-On! I have been casting very tiny Skull Beads that hang from Ryuk's belt. I got myself a syringe to insert the UV Resin into the mold cavities and it has been working out perfectly for me. The great thing about this material is it doesn't have Part A and Part B. You just use the resin directly from the bottle and place it under a UV lamp. Within 5-10 minutes these beads are completely cured!!! I am so used to 24 hour curing times, but now I have whipped out about 100 beads in 2 days! I have a quick time-lapse that demonstrates how EASY this process is. Great for beginners!
The other thing I have been working on this week are Ryuk's wings. I found some stretchy, Acrylic based fabric to cover the structure of the wings in, and then I started gluing on the feathers. At first I tried a couple different feather patterns to see which one looked the best, but this one seems to read Ryuk the most to me. I love the way the pheasant feathers look, I may end up using them for Ryuk's shoulders as well! If you want to get your hands on the UV Resin, check out Arda's Craft section on their website! |
Weekly Winter Work In Progress Post #4
Wednesday, December 28th
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This week my goal was to work out all the designs and to create all the little silver knick-knacks and jewelry all over Ryuk's belt and hands. The 4 items in the picture consist of a Belt Buckle, a Bracelet, a Book Sigil, and a Belt Charm. They are all created with Thibra, and the Skulls were casted using UV Resin from Arda.
My first step was to map out all the designs onto paper in order to get the correct shapes and proportions. After that I transferred those designs onto craft foam, and eventually onto Thibra! Next, I attached skulls made from UV Resin and I have to say, they are my favorite part of these pieces. I used Flexbond to prime the Thibra, but not the skulls because they would lose their detail. This is my first time using Flexbond as a primer, and I really enjoy it! Lastly, I sprayed a couple coats of gray spray paint as a base coat before I start to add silver. The picture on the top left is basically me playing with feathers and proportions for Ryuk's Feathered Shoulders. I figured shoulderpads would be the best way to approach this look. I just need to play a bit with proportion to try and achieve the allusion of Ryuk's crazy body! The base of these shoulders are made with Thibra. |
Weekly Winter Work In Progress Post #5
Wednesday, January 4th
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This week I have been working really hard to get Ryuk's bodysuit correctly patterned to fit perfectly. Not only does the bodysuit need to fit my body, but also the harness for the wings underneath as well as tailored to the cinch of a corset. That being said, I have to pattern my own bodysuit!
For the bodysuit, I decided to use Yaya Han's Super Hex Black Fabric. It is 60% Synthetic Leather which gives a great feel to the bodysuit and it even stretches! Later, I will be hand-stitching different types of black cloths and leathers as well as weathering the fabric with some paint to make it not look so perfect. The big idea I had with this bodysuit was to hide the harness underneath it, doing so will make the wings look more realistic. My idea is to put button holes in the back of the bodysuit to slip the PVC pipes of the wings into. In the picture, yo'u can see that the left side has no wing, and the right side has the wing inserted. I will be painting the PVC black to make it look more smooth! So far, this seems to be working well, the only issue I have run into is my sewing machine does not want to sew button holes into this fabric, so I will be doing it by hand. |
Weekly Winter Work In Progress Post #6
Wednesday, January 11th
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This week I wanted to finish painting the Jewelry and Knick-Knacks Ryuk wears. These items were made with Thibra and primed with FlexBond. Shading teeth on skulls is the most time consuming process I have ever done. Hopefully, I have done them justice, and sealed them with a couple coats of paint sealer so nothing chips off!
The next thing I started on was Ryuk's belt. I had to look at many different reference photos to come to a consensus on what color I wanted it to be. Some sources were black while others were brown. I felt having a brown belt would break up all the black in the rest of the costume. Then I went on to hand-stitching leather braids to the belt. I used a hidden Whip Stitch under the braid, with each stitch exactly 1cm apart. Gotta get those craftsmanship points! Lastly, this week I added sleeves and finished some of the raw edges on the bodysuit. Here, you can see a picture of the bodysuit with a single-layer mesh corset underneath. This corset is one of the easiest to hide, and gives a great silhouette to the costume! |
Weekly Winter Work In Progress Post #7
Wednesday, January 18th
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This week I was trying to finish up many of the details on Ryuk.
The first thing I worked on was the halter for the Death Note. I sewed together strips of faux leather and velcro'd them together in the back. Then I glued the skull sigil, made from Thibra, onto the faux leather. The next piece I made was the piece of metal at the end of Ryuk's belt. I also created this piece from Thibra! It's great for those 3D details, because it makes them super sharp and smooth! Also, I created gloves for Ryuk. I just traced my hand to create a pattern and sandwiched two pieces of fabric together! I like the pointed fingers, and may stuff them with foam to give them some more body. Last but not least, I started enameling, painting, and stringing the skulls beads I created from Arda's UV Resin. They do not quite match how shiny the smaller beads are, but I will try and sponge some ink and paint on all the beads to weather them. I can't wait to attach all the pieces of the belt together! |
Weekly Winter Work In Progress Post #8
Wednesday, January 25th
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This week I needed to get everything finished so I have plenty of time to mess with the wig and makeup, and a couple small things on the wings.
The first thing I needed to do was create the wispy skirt thing that Ryuk wears. How I approached that was by dying cheesecloth with natural dyes, then spraying darker inks in random spots. Doing this will break up the simple dye and make it more weathered and dingy looking. Then I cut the pieces into long triangle shapes and twisted them all up. Lastly, I just glued them onto an under-belt that was attached with Velcro. The next major part was to assemble the entire belt together. I connected the beads onto the belt using gun-metal colored grommets, which ended up matching perfectly with the paint color! I also added the beads on Ryuk's left side, but you can't see them to well in the picture. I promise they are there! Lastly, was just detail work. This included some hemming, weathering the beads, stuffing the gloves, and adding more padding into the shoulders so they stand correctly. I'm very happy with how things are coming together! I just need to remember to bend my knees in the picture next time! Haha! |
Weekly Winter Work In Progress #9
Wednesday, February 1st
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This week I wanted to get a good chunk of Ryuk's wig out of the way. I have never spiked a real wig before, so I tried.... and tried.... and tried. It is so difficult, and it was not looking as sharp as I wanted it to. So, I resorted to my back-up plan: creating a wig out of Craft Foam!
First, I created an under-structure that fits comfortably around my head, using 1/2" strips of craft foam. This is basically the skeletal structure for which I placed the cones on. Secondly, I created various sizes of cones and hot glued them onto the under-structure. You can see this best in the smaller picture on the right. Lastly, I took super thin pieces of craft foam and placed them on top of the cones to simulate hair. This is taking me a long time to do, but hopefully I will finish soon so I can plasti-dip and paint it. Also, a fun fact: this entire Craft Foam wig only took 3 sheets of craft foam! Therefore, it is a super cheap method to do, as well as extremely light! One last thing I did this week was to put more details into the bodysuit. I felt like it was a bit dull and needed something. So, I have been stitching "x" shaped stitches into the body suit with a dark grey thread. I figured some grommet patches would look creepy too! Overall, I am super excited about this wig and cannot wait to see how to turns out in the end! |
Weekly Winter Work In Progress Post #10
Wednesday, February 8th
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This week, I was trying to wrap everything up!
First thing I wanted to do was finished the hair. I finally finished adding all the small Craft Foam hairs to it. I swear there are about 1,000 separate pieces!!! Anyway, I Plasti-dip'ed the Craft Foam and painted it with Blacks and Dark Blues. After that, I took some Dark Blue and Black Sharpies and drew in separate hairs on top of everything. It is hard to see in this picture, but it is there I promise! When I wear the wig, I want to take makeup and extend the hairs onto my forehead to make them more realistic. The second thing I wanted to work on were Boot Covers. I noticed the other WWWIP Post I created, the shiny leather of the boots did not match at all! So, I created Boot Covers with the same fabric and hand-stitched some details to match the Bodysuit. I am really happy with them and they look SO much better with the rest of the costume! The last thing I worked on this week was finishing the wings. I painted the horns, finished gluing feathers on the back of the wings, and added fuzzy feathers to the base of the wing structure. I still have a couple things to do, so I may post my own WWWIP Post #11 collage to show everything the final touches! This may include some makeup posts, since things are still coming in. I'm trying to practice make-up, because it is something I am not accustomed too, so I am trying to do my best to practice! |
You can find the final costume in the Portfolio tab under Ryuk Gallery