Wampa Challenge Accepted

[CadBane3]

Hello all! A few weeks ago, I shared a picture of a Wampa on the FB page and several people said that I should make one. Well, I thought about it and started researching it and decided to give it a go.

I started acquiring parts:

20181018_151906 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Bear with me on that mask, I have an idea, but it will come in a future note (after I start working on it and see if it works!).

I started working on the feet:

20181018_161034 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

And made the claws out of worbla attached to a bolt so I can remove them from the feet if they break:

20181018_173047 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181018_173250 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181018_191749 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I ran into a little roadblock. The styrofoam for the front of the feet would be lightweight but wouldn't be very durable. I'm researching options to make that part out of plastic, so I put the feet aside for now.

And moved on to the arms. I started with this pile of parts. I see two hands and forearms in there, don't you?

20181019_110208 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

So, I got to work:

20181019_113634 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Finger tips:

20181019_114350 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Fingers:

20181019_115542 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Attached to the hand:

20181019_125332 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Secured so they won't fall out:

20181019_192256 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I made claws out of worbla:

20181020_161907 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

And had the basic skeletal structure:

20181020_223037 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

I added these bars for handles. This will be where I grab them, as you can see, they will make my arms much longer, as needed for the costume.

20181021_165740 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I added PVC pipe to add stability so that the hands aren't flopping all over the place:

20181022_120302 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

But, I needed something to adhere the fur to. So, I built a "flesh" layer out of worbla:

20181022_143403 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181022_143412 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

And then used Styrofoam to build the palm and finger pads:

20181022_162752 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181022_172744 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I put worbla over that to make the final skin layer.

20181022_182026 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

I then painted the claws and the palm black, with some charcoal and grey accents, but didn't take a picture. Then, I added the fur. May need a haircut in a few places at some point, but I'm really happy with them at this time.

20181023_154313 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181023_154942 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

May start on the feet or the head next... Or maybe the lower legs... Or the upper body padding... Perhaps the under suit thing... Have a lot to do, but I'm excited by the progress I've made in the last week!

[daryldoak]

I love it, great job.

[carpe mindiem]

You're a machine! Can't wait to see how this progresses!

[DocKungFu]

You're living my dream! Once this is done, I have a galaxy of questions as this goes to the top of the save-for budget.

[CadBane3]

Thanks for checking out my progress guys! Glad to answer any questions Jared. I keep a log of all costs and expenditures of all my builds. If I ever go missing, it's because my wife found it...

I got some great feedback from the Wampa Workshop group on facebook and I'll need to lighten the palms/skin to a yellowish/orange. Figure I'll hold off on that for now until I get the face done so I can do all the exposed skin with the same batch of paint and get it all to match.

Anyway, back to my wife, she told me that this build was fine with her as long as I have a helmet on. Being that I'll be on stilts and standing at least 7 and a half feet to the top, probably more, I think this is an excellent idea. I'm likely one head injury away from using a bag to go potty for the rest of my life anyway (joking?).

So, I got this sweet Shadow Conspiracy helmet. So nice, too bad I'm going to hack it up and use it!

20181024_082158 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

What I want to do is mount the mask onto the helmet so the whole head apparatus is one piece:

20181024_082233 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Drilled a couple of holes and added some screws and bolts... I hope this doesn't alter the effectiveness of the helmet... Oh well!

20181024_113509 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181024_113513 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181024_114335 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181024_115553 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181024_115603 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Fits perfect!!!

20181024_115715 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Also, it has the added benefit of making my noggin much bigger so that it'll fit on the body of a Wampa much better:

20181024_115701 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I started working on the horns. Picked up this syrofoam from JoAnn:

20181024_120530 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Cut it, shaped it, covered it with worbla:

20181024_122700 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181024_123113 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181024_134900 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, it was time to mount them into the sides of the helmet. At this point, I decided to take the existing fur off the mask. It's shorter than the fur I want to use and isn't a perfect match and I'll need the fur to droop much further down my neck than it would have. Anyway, the real reason I wanted this mask as the base was because I liked the nose and perhaps the lips, the rest is disposable. Once the fur was taken off, I have this horrifying thing looking at me while I work all day...

20181024_144548 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

But now you can get a real good idea of how it mounts on the helmet:

20181024_144558 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then I secured the horns to the sides.

20181024_152757 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Looks kind of like a certain Jedi I remember...

Going to coat them with mod podge and then hit them with some paint. I think I'll make the ears next and then get started on the mouth and eyes. Once that's all done, I can fur the whole thing and see if it resembles a Wampa!

[CadBane3]

Got some very minor, but important, progress today. Took me about 4 hours to do the mouth, but I'm getting pretty happy with where it now stands.

First, I was worried about the horns needing to be shored up so that there isn't too much stress on the worbla that's holding the screws into place. The whole head will be covered with fur, so I added extra to hold them in place. I also built and attached the ears. These go slightly behind the horns and appear to face downward.

20181025_114253 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181025_114258 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I started on the mount. Those scary teeth had to go and now he doesn't look so harmful!

20181025_122903 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

I built a set of teeth out of worbla:

20181025_124652 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

The look I'm going for is roughly this:

20181025_124657 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

The teeth went into place pretty well but I need them to stay through the rigors of trooping. Here they are set about where I want them:

20181025_130918 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

To get them to stay where I want them, I built Wampa dentures. May have found my true calling!

20181025_131557 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

The dentures have worbla tabs added to them and they are bolted to the mask. They aren't going anywhere now.  You can also see that I cut away some of the upper lips so that the teeth can be placed higher:

20181025_135718 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

The CRL calls for a tongue, so I built one of those out of worbla as well:

20181025_142813 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

And then, I added speaker cloth behind the mouth so that I won't be visible but also so that air can come in and get out.

20181025_151521 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Now, I know that the mask has a "smile" or a "grimace" and I am not planning on keeping that. The finished product will need to have fur, so I plan to cover the corners of the mouth with fur so that it doesn't have such a comical look. Anyway, that was all I got done in 4 hours of puttering today. I need to start on the eyes and then do a few test runs to see if the fur can even be adhered to the spongy mask surface. If not, then I'll be stripping the mask completely where the fur will go, need to build up lips and around the eyes, and then I can paint all the worlba and flesh areas, and then I can add the fur.

[CadBane3]

Very small update today but I'm getting there on this head. Last night, I ran out and bought some cheap gas station sunglasses to provide me with eyes.

20181026_101322 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

20181026_103628 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Now that I had eyes in place, I wanted to do a test furring to see if they would work as placed or if I needed to cut out material and build something up with worbla. I kind of like how it looks but understand that there is a ton of work to do still and styling, cutting, primping, etc., etc.... BUT, it is nice that it is starting to look like a Wampa!

20181026_110350 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Satisfied with the test run, I plugged along and started painting the parts that would need it. No sense in putting on the fur and then ruining it with paint.

NOTE: Always coat your worbla with mod podge or gesso so that it can take the paint and will be a much smoother surface.

20181026_114218 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Got the teeth and gums painted. I'm pretty happy with how this came out. At the end, I coated them with 'Ardcoat, which is a miniature paint that gives a gloss shine.

20181026_134051 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

You can also see that the horns are black so I hit them with a charcoal drybrush. Tempted to hit them with the gloss as well as I've seen a lot of pictures that make them look like they have a shine. May continue my research on Wampa Workshop before I do anything like that.

I need to paint the lips, eyes, ears, area around the nose, and my palms/fingers. Once that's done and dry, I'll start gluing on the fur.

[daryldoak]

<slow clap> I love it.

[CadBane3]

Plugging away over here. Added the flesh tone to the areas that may be exposed and painted the lips:

20181027_104243 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then I started adding fur!

20181027_105841 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

The "cowl" area around the back will need to be trimmed down dramatically, but it's easier to take material off than to add it on.

20181027_122035 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Same goes for the wicked goatee!

20181027_123729 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

And a quick test run:

20181027_124134 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

It will need some grooming, weathering, and styling, but I think it's pretty good for now. I'll post it over on the Wampa Workshop to see what the pros think!

My office is covered in loose fur. Time to clean up!

[nukem25rs]

Mike!! you're an animal!! Cant wait to see this!! hope it snows this winter.. you can go out true wampa style!

[Jabbasdead]

Looking good so far

[CadBane3]

Did a little bit of work yesterday. Trying to build an underlayer for my legs that will make them look bulkier so that my wampa can look swole! I picked up a ton of jersey material and some corset boning with a polyester cover and started making enormous trousers!

I had gotten a little carried away here and ended up cutting them down to about half that size, but large enough that they would fit over my stilts.

20181028_114312 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

More like this:

20181028_120458 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

And voila! I have an undergarment! Thank god for vaulted ceilings!

20181028_131546 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

You can also get an idea in that picture of how tall my wampa will be. It's a bit scary up there!

Just to help them stay up, I sewed in an elastic belt. Will probably also do a suspender-type system to help keep them up.

20181028_134449 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I worked through the extremely time consuming and frustrating task of sewing in the corset boning.

20181029_181559 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Now that I have the boning in there, I have very little confidence that it will work. I have a feeling that the weight of the fur will overwhelm it and it will just collapse. I have already purchased metal boning from England that I have stashed in my work room. I was hoping to avoid using it as to not add a ton of extra weight to the costume. I think I will make the "pants" first, see how they look over this undergarment, and then decide what needs to be done.

I also am pretty lucky to know some pretty amazing friends in this garrison. Chris was able to whip me up a vacuformed set of feet that I think I will be able to make work so I can get started on that soon as well.

20181029_182926 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

I think I'll need to pour over some reference material to see how the feet look but I like how these have the rounded back so I can secure them to the stilts with hardware and I can secure my claws to them with hardware as well. I already made the claws but seeing how large the feet should be, I may remake them to be thicker and more menacing.

Anyway, that's it for today. Enjoy!

[CadBane3]

Continuing on our adventure, I made giant trousers!

20181029_213129 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

At this point, I had broken a sewing machine needle, ran out of thread and had to run to the store, said a lot of choice words and was pretty tired of this project, so the "finished" photo is a more of a "thrown across the room mess" photo:

20181030_132130 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

It was agony waiting for my son to get home from school so I could try them on and get some photos done. I think they look pretty darn good for a first effort!

20181030_155524 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

They obviously flare out a bit where the stilts are located so I'm not sure if that will be acceptable or not. I also need to permanently install a white suspender system. I can probably make that out of elastic myself, I was just DONE for today.

In my excitement to see what I have so far, I tried on everything I've done.

20181030_155617 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

And modeled a little bit...

20181030_155620 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

I'm pretty happy with them but they are so long that I step on them while walking, which is a bad thing on the stilts. I think my next step is to make the feet and to fur them, so I can see if I can raise the fur on these up a bit to make them safer. I also need to get the shoulder bulk figured out and the back hump and then I can make the "shirt" so I can see how much of these I really need to keep. I can also then cut off a lot of the extra fur that is hanging down the back of the mask once I know where it will be safe to cut. Back to the "shirt," I was thinking about the upper fur meeting at the groin, similar to a TK, so that I can cut a lot of these down and that's less weight, and less areas where there is doubled up fur. That way, maybe I can angle the fur from the sides to the groin at the hip area, which would be a more natural transition area where the fur would be moving than just having a shirt that comes down to my belly and having it look like a fur shirt. I'm also thinking about working on the mask a little more to give it more of a scowl. I dunno. Any opinions?

[CadBane3]

Darn job got in the way of too much progress today, but I started on the feet. Thanks again to Chris for making the basic shape I wanted. When I got them, I was a bit worried they would bee too long, but when I set them up with what I had so far, the size seemed appropriate for a 7'6" monster.

20181101_115437 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

So, I trimmed them up and cleaned up the sharp edges:

20181101_125802 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

I wanted these made out of plastic so that I could bolt them to the stilts, like so:

20181101_134716 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I got down to bolting on the claws that I had previously made:

20181101_150521 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

And I have a rough shape for wampa feet!

20181101_151217 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

I may need to make the claws larger but that's why I bolted them on, I can remove them to remake them if needed. I've got the claws coated in mod podge (because I couldn't remember if I had already done that). Once that's dry, I'll get them painted up and then get the feet and lower part of the stilts covered in fur. I'm hoping to have these done tomorrow or this weekend so I'll have just the upper torso to finish. Then I can look it all over with a critical eye and make adjustments/improvements.

[CadBane3]

Got the toe claws painted and furred the feet!

20181102_145306 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Then, I ran the fur up a bit so there is some overlap with the pants. I'll be able to put it all on again and maybe cut a few inches off the bottom of the pants now. I may trim some of the fur off the very bottom so it doesn't get below the stilt and create a slipping issue:

20181102_152329 by Michael Halstead, on Flickr

Curious how these will look when I suit up again. This leaves just the upper torso. Unfortunately, I am out of town for a week but the good news is I can order the parts I need mid week and they'll be waiting for me when I get back and I can finish up and see how it all looks for possible submission photos! Like I said before, I may need to bulk out the thighs but we'll see once I get some photos and can see how it all looks.