Comicon 2019: Tentacle Kitties and Mythbusters

As I do nearly every year, the Duck enjoys visiting the comic convention.  Not only is it a fun way to explore all things geeky and nerdy, but it’s also the only time I can dress up as a video game character without looking like a weirdo.  Even though this was the first year in a while that I didn’t have a new costume to wear, it was still a fun and exciting day filled with unique vendors, movie cars, Lego displays, and more.  With the obligatory opening paragraph out of the way, let’s discuss…comicon 2019!

Foxy Cosplay: The Finishing Touches

At long last, the long-awaited moment has arrived!  Foxy is complete, after nearly a year’s worth of work, not to mention blood, sweat, and tears.  Literally, as far as the blood is concerned.  Sewing needles are sharp.  The tears almost happened on a few occasions, during the more difficult parts of the project.  The sweat is just figurative.  That’s gross.  Anyway, self-indulgent rambling aside, the final steps are detailed below.

Foxy Cosplay: The Head Part 4

Now that Foxy’s head is nearly complete, all that’s left are the glorious details!  So let’s not waste any time!  First off, the creation of the tuft on the top of his head and the ears were pretty straightforward.  The tuft was carved from upholstery foam and covered in red “fur”.  It was a bothersome shape to work with, but it was a pretty simple affair otherwise, and I was able to attach it to the top of the head with super glue.  The main bulk of the ears were cut out of the largest scraps of upholstery foam I had left over (one ear even had to be made out of two pieces stitched together because I didn’t have a piece large enough for the whole thing), while the rim was also cut out of foam and sewn on.  After sewing on the fabric, the ears were largely complete, save for attaching them to the head, which will be described shortly.

Foxy Cosplay: The Head Part 3

Based on the number of posts covering this topic, Foxy’s head has obviously been the most involved part of the costume, and I suppose it makes sense.  A face is far more important than a leg or a foot, after all, and so I simply must make it perfect.  This is also the process I’ve been looking forward to since the beginning, adding the fur and other various details to the head.  Now he’s really going to start looking like more than just a foam blob.

Foxy Cosplay: The Head Part 2

Well, the Duck has been hard at work constructing the noggin of the frightening, yet also strangely adorable, Foxy the pirate from Five Nights at Freddy’s.  Last time I talked about this cosplay, I had described how to make the main frame of Foxy’s head out of plastic canvas.  The next step was covering it with upholstery foam.  I’ll try not to bore you guys with the details, but this was certainly one time-consuming process.  A lot of people glue the foam on, but I hate working with glue, and some glue causes the foam to get hard and puff up, so I just sewed it onto the canvas using lesser-needed colors of thread.  I was able to use leftover scraps of foam to cover Foxy’s head, which was pretty nice, as it prevented these pieces from being wasted, and I even managed to avoid opening my final roll of foam.  (I bought an extra roll because I thought I’d need it…but I didn’t.  Now I can save it for some future projects I have in mind….)

Foxy Cosplay: The Head Part 1

Throughout this entire cosplay, Foxy’s head had loomed over me with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation.  On one hand, I feared this would be a rather difficult part of the costume.  For all prior cosplays, I was able to just, you know, use my own face, but actually making a character’s head seemed a bit tougher.  At the same time, I was kind of excited, too, as putting together Foxy’s head sounded like a rather fun prospect.  I’d get to make his ears, his nose, and even add his teeth.  Plus, I love any part of a cosplay that I can later display in my gaming room, and what’s better than a big Foxy head?

Mainly, though, I was just nervous, so I put this part of the costume off until the very end.  Now that everything else is done, save for some finishing details and the like, I had no choice but to create Foxy’s head.  I had done some research in the past, and the method for making the head that I thought would work best for me would be to create a frame out of plastic canvas.  Even so, this looked like a rather complex process, so I made sure I watched several videos on the topic to see how other people did it.  I also looked up how to make a moving jaw, but thus far, the details of that have eluded me.  I’d really like to figure out how to do this, but no one seems to want to go into any in-depth detail on how to make this work.  It’s a conspiracy, for sure….

Foxy Cosplay: The Torso Part 2

All right, time to finish Foxy’s torso.  I said it before, and I’ll say it again.  This part of the costume was frustrating.  I mean, really frustrating.  While trimming the torso until it fit me right was tedious, this part really wore my patience thin.  So there is a large gash in Foxy’s chest, through which his endoskeleton can be seen.  While there were a few little extras I needed to eventually take care of, the main part of his torso I wanted to complete before moving on was this little section of endoskeleton, the materials for which I had already acquired.  One, a tough cardboard tube from an aluminum foil box.  Two, craft foam.  And three, wind chimes.

W-wind chimes, Duck?  Are you sure?

Yes, I’m sure!

Foxy Cosplay: The Torso Part 1

Foxy’s torso was a rather complex part of this cosplay, and thus the time-consuming process involving its creation must be covered in multiple posts.  Part 1…begin!  Before I could even start, I had to figure out the shape to cut out of the foam.  After quite a bit of pondering, I eventually decided that I would draw out a shirt pattern twice on upholstery foam, where they are joined on one side.  (I forgot to take a photo of this.)  The concept of making parts of a character out of upholstery foam seems confusing on the surface, but when you really think about it, all you’re doing is making clothes out of thick material.  What is the clothing equivalent of a torso?  Why, a shirt, silly!  Brilliant!  So I cut this out and used the spray glue to bond the shoulders together, creating this fairly, well, torso-shaped shell.  It appeared my efforts were off to a good start.

Foxy Cosplay: The Lower Legs

After spending countless hours trimming upholstery foam and sewing fabric onto, well, large pieces of upholstery foam, I was quite relieved when I got to work on something a bit different.  It was time to create Foxy’s lower legs, which are quite different from his upper legs, mind you, for while his upper legs appear as dark brown pants, his lower legs seem to be missing, revealing the metal endoskeleton underneath.  (And not a delicious, caramel filling, as one would expect.)  As a result, this part of our dear, piratical fox’s legs needed to be much thinner than his upper legs.  The best material for the job?  Craft foam.  Plain, simple craft foam, oh how I missed you.

To give the appearance of a simple metal rod, as I would expect the legs of his endoskeleton to essentially be, the craft foam I cut out for his lower legs are not form-fitting, but rather just a tube of craft foam the circumference of the thickest part of my lower legs.  I seem to have rather chubby legs, though, as these tubes are not as thin as I would have liked.  Hmm.  Anyway, the lower legs needed to be closed off with Velcro, so I hot glued the edge of a piece of craft foam underneath one edge of the main piece of foam and hot glued Velcro onto it.  This way, the edges of the leg should be able to meet up smoothly, as opposed to placing Velcro directly on the leg and making the edges overlap.  The Velcro’s counterpart was attached to the underside of the leg’s other edge.  While I hot glued this Velcro on, it seemed as if it could be peeled off without tons of effort (I wonder if using sticky-backed Velcro was unwise, as this may have interfered with the hot glue’s bonding abilities), so to ensure everything was as secure as possible, I also sewed the Velcro in place.  There should be no way it can come off now.

Foxy Cosplay: The Upper Legs

Now that Foxy’s waist is done, it’s time I finally got around to making his legs.  Foxy’s upper legs are comprised of brown pants, while his lower legs are merely metal endoskeleton.  I currently have a plan to ensure that his lower legs are much thinner than his upper legs, to give the illusion of a thin, metal endoskeleton showing beneath what’s left of Foxy’s bulkier, decaying body.  I won’t know if this works until later, but for now, I started off with Foxy’s upper legs.