My daughter wanted to go as Martin the Mouse from Redwall for Halloween. So I whipped up the head for her while she put together the rest of the costume. Anyway, this is my second fur head …. the first was the fox. Like the fox, this one is ventilated with a CPU cooling fan and has a hinged jaw that moves when the wearer talks. But unlike the fox in which the wearer looks through the tear ducts, the eyes on the mouse are “functional” clear acrylic hemispheres blackened with window tinting film that the wearer looks through.
I was on a tight schedule and didn’t have time to craft a Sculpy nose or something, so just shaped this from foam. I wasn’t happy with the pink, but that’s what the girl wanted ….
Hey this looks great! How did you make it and how much did it cost?
Thanks!
It didn’t cost me anything — I made it from scraps left over after I did the Ash Fox mask. I guess if I had to buy all the materials, it’d cost around $40 – $50, but there would be A LOT of materials left over (e.g., I’d have to buy at least a yard of 60″ fur and wouldn’t need that much; I’d have to buy a whole roll of window tinting film, but would only need a few inches).
The form is made from plastic canvas bent and curved into the shapes needed and sewn together with crochet thread, then glued with hot glue and stress points. Then glue foam, like seat cushion foam, all over it and trim that to shape with scissors. Then I covered the whole thing with masking tape and removed the tape in segments that I then stuck on scrap paper. I cut those out to use as patterns from which to cut out pieces of fur. I sewed most of the fur together as I glued it down. I only sewed it enough to pull the seams tight so there were no gaps while the glue set. After that, comb out the fur and trim it with dog trimmers.
I made the eyes from those fillable acrylic Christmas ornament balls that I lined inside with black self-adhesive window tinting film. I was running out of time, so just trimmed up some foam for the nose and painted it pinkish.
I’m still experimenting with different ways to make eyes for these. I don’t know if I’d do them with the window tint like that again. I now cast teeth and noses and claws an such from resin: I make a model with something like Sculpey, then pour a silicone mold of it, then cast in pigmented resin — there are a lot of reasons I like that better and its worth the extra effort.