Cthulhu Pendant

I’m back after a rather long hiatus. Had to attend to matters of consequence – and oh, ye, I learned a lot of new things during that hiatus. Maybe I’ll share them here one of these days. Today, I’m sharing my very first Cthulhu project.

Curiosity is what usually drives my creativity. I’m always curious how something will come out. I said, “I’d like to try making a Cthulhu pendant. Let’s see what happens.”

Using my favorite creativity medium, polymer clay, I mixed a few colors to form a dark greenish glob. Without a specific design to work with, other than the mental collage of various image renditions of the Lovecraft creature that I saw online, I let my fingers bring the clay to life.

Head shape here, tentacles there, texturing here, and... Oh look! I’ve created a monster!

After baking the clay, I used dark acrylic paint to add shades to the texture. When the paint dried, I coated the piece with Mod Podge to seal the colors in. Then I glued a pendant hanger to the back.

  

 And here’s my Cthulhu necklace #1! 

 

I took the project a little further by molding a silicone cast of the pendant, for if I become curious about what else I can make from it. My first try at using the silicone cast was with plaster, which was a fail because the tips of the tentacles broke off.

Next time I’ll try resin. Just curious.

Hobbit Costuming for Desolation of Smaug Premiere in Manila

All the hard work crafting the Hobbit-themed costumes come down to this: the Manila premiere screenings (Dec 9 & 10, 2013) of The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. I present the attires and costume elements that passed through my production worktables. [Click on the images for higher resolution.]

Lord Elrond's full costume worn by my son, Dante.

These next photos were taken at the advance screening for the New Zealand Embassy in Manila.

Here are the costumes that incorporate my contributions: Thorin's scalemail armor, belt buckle, and toecaps; Fili's leather vest; and Kili's accent (collar/vambrace/baldric) scales.

My bragging rights:

The Hobbit: Thorin Oakenshield Belt Buckle

It only made sense that after building Thorin’s armor vest for Oneal, as well as the scales that decorated his massive belt, I should also make the belt buckle. It shouldn’t be difficult. Or so I thought.

Because I used polymer clay in building the scale mail, I decided to also use clay in building the buckle. Just make it look like metal, just like the scales.

So, I asked Oneal (from halfway across the planet), to give me the width of his belt, which would be the basis for my design dimensions for the buckle. And this is what I came up with.

Following the design, I formed and cut my metallic silver clay. It was looking good but I had a tough time keeping the clay’s sharp corners. Every time I add something, my fingers nudge what’s already in place and I have to go back and do damage control.

Then I tried to make the clay surface look rough by texturing with a crochet doily. It worked to some extent.

I guess I was too excited to put the whole thing together, including the jewels, that it was only after I had baked the clay that I noticed that the entire thing was off-kilter. The angles were wrong, the depths were wrong, everything was wrong! And crooked! And it was just horrendous! It looked like an Autobot emblem that melted under the sun. I junked it.

Not to be discouraged, I thought of using a different medium. The clay was just too malleable. I needed a medium that keeps its shape. Cork!

I adjusted the design a little bit, incorporated the backing, and used a 45-degree cutter (tool for picture frame matting) to make the sharp-edged shapes in the center of the buckle. It took a bit of practice (and a lot of cork) to perfect the triangular-edge forms.

Next, the jewels. I didn’t like how the clay ones came out -- even after I tried to make them shine with a couple of coats of Mod Podge.

It was time to employ my resin casting skills! I cut the jewel shapes on hard (black) foam, then I pressed each one on a silicone mold. When the mold cured, I poured some resin, which I tried to color with blue food color. The food color didn’t blend well with the resin because there are tiny blue spots in the cast, but it turned blue enough to pass for Thorin's buckle's precious jewels (you won’t see the spots unless you look really close).

My next challenge was to design a way for Oneal to attach the buckle to the belt that he has out there, twelve time zones away. I thought of suggesting superglue (he won’t really have to remove the buckle from the belt, right?). But what if he wants to change the buckle to one that says “Elvis”? So I thought of just screwing an aluminum sheet plate to the back of the cork buckle, with tabs that he can bend and fold around his belt for a perfect fit. (Note that I had to insert/glue onto the cork a set of dowels to screw the plate on.)

Adding a few shades of metallic silver acrylic paint made the cork look very close to the movie version Thorin buckle. Glue the jewels on and… done! Now doesn't that look so much better than my clay *fail* attempt? But hey, you never know until you try.

Yes, I know, it's still not an exact match to the movie version, but I bet if I try a third time, I'll get it just right! 

The Hobbit: Lord Elrond Costume: Boot Armor

The boot armor that I made is actually a cheat. On the stock photo of Elrond, I couldn’t tell if the armor was actually overlapped bands with silver edgings. For my purpose, I decided to just use a flat piece of vinyl, backed with heat-curved foam, and accented with silver polymer clay crisscrossed stripes. Then I used loops (same system as the back of the vest), to wrap the “armor” (more like a shield) onto the boot.

So that’s what I did.

I punched holes where I would attach the loops for the back laces, brushed on some Mod Podge, and attached Velcro to the bottom tabs to anchor the armor to the sole of the boot. Easy as pie.

[Go back to Lord Elrond Costume Summary]

The Hobbit: Lord Elrond Costume: Chest Armor

The chest armor, which is the highlight of the costume, was actually the biggest challenge for me. It took me a long while to adjust the lames to fit the measurements of my son. I stared at the Elrond photo for hours, trying to figure out how to make the lames look that way.

I was just glad I had the time, and the craft paper, to do so many revisions and adjustments to make it right. Until finally, I got it right. Almost.

Notice that my original paper pattern had seven lames on each side. At the last minute, I decided to have only six because my son does not share the 6’4” height of Hugo Weaving. When I took out the bottom lame, the chest armor actually looked better.

So, I taped the final lame patterns to the vest and drew all the overlap lines. Then I punched the holes through the patterns and the vest, where the actual studs would be.

Then I traced the pattern onto the vinyl, cut the vinyl, prepared the clay, attached the trim, and glossed with Mod Podge -- same procedure as the vambrace, pauldron, and hip armor. Drawing the overlap lines on the chest pattern helped in positioning the clay swirl pieces on the final vinyl bands.

The closure for the vest was the next decision point. Buckles or laces? This time my son and I agreed on laces. The laces will make the vest more adjustable and comfortable to the wearer. Either way, he will need a second pair of hands to close the vest but the laces will be more forgiving. In any case, they won’t be seen under the cape. So I attached loops to the back of the vest using studs.

And I hammered the lames in place.

And here’s the chest armor, front and back. It wasn’t that hard after all! Well, it became easy after I finalized the paper pattern.

[Go back to Lord Elrond Costume Summary]

The Hobbit: Lord Elrond Costume: Hip Armor

The hip armor was my next challenge. Again, I’m thankful for the dress form because without it, I would not have been able to do the math on how to curve those plates around the hips and meet up in the back.

I saw the pattern that was posted online, but I still wanted to do it my way. So my paper pattern is different. Mine has a belt and tabs hanging down to serve are posts for the lames/plates. It was crucial that the pattern is accurate, all the way down to the location of the stud holes.

Then I cut the vinyl and punched the holes.

Then I made the silver clay trim and swirl designs.  Yup, a lot of clay work.

Then I laid out the swirls, superglued them in place, and painted on the Mod Podge.

Hammer the pieces together, and there you are!

What’s not shown in the photos is I attached a belt (also using studs) to the waist of the hip armor assembly. It closes with a buckle in the back.

[Go back to Lord Elrond Costume Summary]