Clicker ( the Last of Us) Mask and Costume

after I played this amazing game for the 5th time now I decided I hade to make a clicker costume.

this tutorial will focus on the mask, but I will give away how I made the closing and make up at the end ;)

more pictures can be found here

http://corroder666.deviantart.com/gallery/48683999...

http://animexx.onlinewelten.com/cosplay/mitglied/4...

Starting with the splitted upper jaw:
These are regular acrylic teeth (ask your dentist or a dental laboratory for some (we´ve always got some to spare ;) ) OR make your own using Worbla’s Deco Art or whatever) which I casted in liquid plastic to form the gum. To make sure the final mask will fit on my face, I used a model of my own head, but you can also use a Styrofoam head instead. The teeth were glued on the model with hot glue. If you use a Styrofoam head, make sure the glue is not too hot or just use other glues instead.

postition the teeth directly on your upper lip. that way it will cover your lip and when you wear the mask later you can paint your lip black and you totally can´t see it then

Than glue Styrodur boards onto the head model. you can use hot glue or expanding foam for that. Make sure you leave an empty space for at least one eye to see through the mask. the clickers have a skull fracture where the fungus cracked the skull open and swelled out of it. I put that crack over the position of my left eye. when you paint you panit your face black and close your eyes halfway people pretty much can´t see your eyes nor your skin. (you can see what I mean on the 3rd pic of this step)

Then roughly draw the forms on the Styrodur and carve them with a Stanley knife. For the concave parts I used a cooking torch to melt the material and give it a little texture.
Add piece by piece. You can also use expending foam to shape the parts that would be too difficult to carve. When you are pleased with the look, cover everything with Worbla’s Finest Art, to create a solid framework. worbla´s finest art is a thin thermoplastic. you simply have to head it up (I prefer hot air gun) and this stuff become flexable and stretchable. one side of it becomes sticky when you head it up. put that on the styro foam. Try to use as few pieces as possible to reduce ugly transitions.

color change!

for the basic color you can apply Smooth Cast 65 D with a brush. The translucent Smooth Cast will cure white. It should cover the whole surface except for the teeth. this will distroy your brush when the smooth cast cures.
Why use the Smooth Cast 65 D? I wanted to make the mask glowing like the funguses on the Clicker’s face in the game. These funguses do phosphoresce. Therefore I wanted to add LEDs.

Problem is: If you use varnish to paint the mask, it would block most of the LED’s light, because it’s opaque. Since the basic color of the mask is white, I needed something that’s white but still translucent and a good base to paint on. Smooth Cast 65 D was the choice for me.

after the smooth cast ist cured you can paint it with what ever you want. I used an air brush gun,spray varnish an thinner. for that I simply spray some varnish into a cup and thined it für the air brush gun ( unthined spray varnish is to thick for the gun)

because the air brush gun spray only a little amount of paint on the mast the LED´s ligth is still able to shine.

don´t forget to spray clear coat on it when you are done painting. it will secure your work from sretching.

most parts I sprayed with matt clear coat, but I thought it would look cool if the red edges and the teeth would be a little shiny so I spray them with high gloss coat. that makes it look wet.

now you can remove the mask from the head model. ( if you want to you could have removed it previously but I wanted it to stay steady until this point)

if you have problem to removing it here is a general trick for hot glue. cool it down! if you cool down hot glue it will become hard and it will shrink a little. this allways helps to remove hot glue from smooth surfaces

here you can see the glowing effect I was mentioning before (pic 1)

to get this effect I had to put 25 organge LED ´s inside the mask.

now you have to make space for the LEDs. you do that by ripping out some of the styro foam. to do that you can use a flat nose plier. just hollow out the parts you want to light up.

the LED circuit is a simple but massiv circuit^^ a lot of wires! don´t make the wires to short to make it easier to handle but make sure you don´t knot them while soldering.

each LED got it´s own resistor, if a resistor breaks down, the whole circuit won´t.

as a power source I used a 9V betterie block, it´s very small and I was able to hide it in the upper part of the mask.downside: it discharges pretty fast. I use cheap batterie and they last for about 2 hours. you can use what ever you want.

I build in a switch to shut it of easely

simply glue in everything with hot glue and that part is done

for keeping it in place on your face glue on a small rubberband. maybe you can hide it under your hair like I did.

for max. comfort I glued in felt on the parts that touchs my face.

and that´s it. the mask is done

for the clothes you can use pretty much everything you want. you just have to weather it.

for that I used sanding paper, a knief and some paint.

use the sanding paper on parts like elbows, knies, sholders and hemlines to make it look worn.

if the sanded parts aren´t good enough to see you can spray a little bit of white spray paint on this parts. this makes them look washed out.

the knief can be used to slash open some seam and fabric.

I wanted to do somiething like that concept art on top.

for that stuff on the shoulders I used expending foam and rubed it in the suit. the fruit bodies of the funguses are a little tricky to make. I used a small box for that. poke some holes in the boddom of it. spray some expending foam in that box and close it, make sure it keeps closed, because the foam will push it open. because the foam can´t go anywhere but through that holes it will swell through them. you can glue that things on with some extra expending foam. lat that cure for a day or two and you can paint it. simply spray on some paint (I used green and black) and swipe over the surface with a brush before the paint is able to dry. that way you brush the paint in the depressions and clean out the bumps.

to cover up my real upper jaw teeth when I open my mouth I made myselfe a balck night guard ( is that the word? I´m not sure^^). this ist pretty hard to make if you don´t have the right equipment (for me as a dental technician it is easy).

I know that there is paint specially for teeth, you can use that instead.

for the make up I used water make up for the basic color (black, white), cotton wool, fake blood, worbla´s finest art scraps and smooth on´s Skin Tite Silicone.

preparation: 1st you need to preparat the funguses on for your neck. for that you need to cut put little half moons from the worba´s finest art. you can bring them in shape to make each a little bit special. paint them and let it dry.

now the skin tite silicone. that stuff is usually use as a body silicon to make wounds. it will stick to your skin very well but it also is very easy to remove + it is very flexable so it will move with you skin. I used it as a base for the fungus plates.

mix the same amounts of part A and B and put it on a smooth surface. make sure it don´t stick to it when it´s cured, please test it before you pour everything on it. for that I used a PVC board.

flatten out it a little and wait until it´s not runiing anymore. but it still needs to be sticky. now put your fungus plates in the skin tite an watch over them not to fall aside. when it is totally cured you can carefully pull the whole thing of your surface.

paint you rchest and your lower jaw with the white make up, paint your upper jaw and face with the black make up.

to apply the fungus take your skin tite sheet and put some more skin tite on the bottom side and your chest. let it cure a minute ´til it´s sticky and you can apply it. try not to move to much to let it cure in one place.

to blure out the edges you can apply some more skin tite or/and yous some cotton wool as mould.

now some fake blood and it´s done ;)