Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Dirty lil Icons (plague banner part 2)

Hey guys!


Sorry for the long time between post but with Dragon*Con 2012 fast approaching its been busy, busy between costuming, Con, and work! This last weekend was a great weekend I was invited to present a panel on cheap costuming at a small local Con called Sci-Fi Summer Con. I had myself, my wife and another friend all talking to a small gathering (10+ people) about ways to do very cheap costuming and still look good. The below pic is from the sixpence Costuming blog panel on Budget Costuming

Sci-fi Summer Con Atlanta 2012, Atlanta GA (John Stump, Dana Stump, Linda Voronden, and Kim McGibony)


OK so on to our topic today. I told you back in part one of the plague banner that this part would cover all the extras that I made for the banner. So away we go, I'm gonna break this into sections on each part:

PLAGUE CENSERS :
Finished censers
These were actually some of the cheapest props to make. You could use these as censers or as a flail. If you haven't figured out what they are yet......WIFFLE BALLS! You can get a bag of 4 of them at the dollar store. A word of advice here before you glue them together make sure you paint the inside of them or your gonna have a heck of a time painting it. I used a small amount of Epoxy resin to glue them together. After they were glued together i spray painted them with a hammered silver spray paint ( Krylon Fusion for plastics). After the paint dried I used a method of stressing called the Vaseline method, then I spayed with with a hammered copper color. This method is done by taking a small amount of Vaseline and tabbing it on the places you want to the see the undercoat then spraying on your next coat. When the top coat drys you take a rag and wipe off the Vaseline and it takes the top color with it showing you the base color.
After wiping off Vaseline


 On these what I did was once I wiped away the copper paint to expose the silver. Once everything dried I used the "Dirt method"


 I posted a few back to add some grunge to it. After everything was nice and dry I took it outside and splashed it with a black paint wash to make it look nasty and also to make the "dirt" stand out. When all this was done I took a large amount of the dirt mixture and rubbed it in my hands and rubbed it all over the chains to make them look nasty also. the plan later is to add a glow stick and cotton to the inside to make them glow.




SQUIGGLES THE CAGED PLAGUE DEMON:
This is another of those awesome after Halloween finds and also a Dollar store find! I know I have said it many many many times in this blog but I'm gonna say it again...... DOLLAR STORE IS YOUR FRIEND. They tend to have some of the most awesome Halloween decorations for cheap. When I bought Squiggles he was just a bony skeleton in the cage:
SQUIGGLES naked



As you can see very plain and simple. The first thing I did was free him from his cage by cutting the edges of some of the bars with an X-acto and pulling him out. then I removed his hips and legs (don't worry he didn't scream that much) after the hips and legs were removed it was a simple task of breaking out some Sculpty clay and making some tentacles for him and a horn ( yes my sculpting skill need LOTS of work):
 After the clay was dry I put Squiggles back into his cage and clued it shut with a few small dabs of Epoxy resin and tied the whole thing down with rubber bands to help it dry. After the cage dried I took a small foam pad and dry-brushed on a small amount of silver paint to make the chain a cage look worn:
SQUIGGLES the plague Demon

OK guys I'm gonna wrap this one up and start on the next installment on how I made my banner pole (very simple). SO until then thanks for reading and please keep Spreading the word about the blog!!!!


      UPCOMING ARTICLES:
  • Plague mask
  • Goggles
  • Banner pole
  • Uniform
  • Cloak