Deadmau5 Head: Part 4

After several tries, this is the final shape I ended up with for the ears. It fits the curve of the head where the ear sits. I missed snapping a picture in here, but I doodled on the head where I wanted the ears positioned and drilled out some 1/4 inch holes.

With that complete, thus began the epic attempt at getting this fabric on the head. Definitely, definitely, definitely get some super stretchy material. In the original deadmau5 head, it looked like some lightly fuzzy material so I went with a rather pricey stretch velvet that blends pretty well into itself.

I used some 1/4 inch weather stripping with glue on one side to add the additional lip that's needed. The part of trying to get that fabric on, there was no way I could stop and take pictures. I used spray glue to help hold the fabric in place while I stretched and contorted it, and hot glue to actually hold the fabric inside the head. There ended up being a single crease at the lip of the head, but I think if I did this again I would try a different method as this method ended up with some wrinkles at the corner of the mouth I couldn't get rid of. Still, the client was happy so I moved onto the next part.

 

 I worked on the ears next. I had some stretchy red scrap material which I tried first. After trying to use spray glue and laying it over, instead I sewed a very basic bag shape inside out and pulled it down over the ear. This worked really well, so I went ahead and made the bag out of the black.

Here, you can see the rebar I used to hold on the ears. This required some decent cutters to get through, but could be bent with pliers. I bent the rebar and used hot glue to secure the rebar through the holes I drilled earlier. While this worked for this project, I think I would chose to do a different method in the future. This would have worked well for the more commonly used hard-foam ears, but for the soft foam it tended to tear as I pulled the ears over the metal. Unfortunately since this was a commission, if the hard foam inside broke I couldn't repair it. 

Since my face looked terrible in this picture... here's the head on me! Almost finished!

With the ears both attached and all ready, I snipped the fabric over the eye, cut a hole into it, and pulled it back like I had everywhere else. I reopened the hole I drilled earlier to keep the eyes in, and carefully pulled the light-trigger out of the socket it sat in and glued it elsewhere so it would be accessible once the eye was in. I reattached the eye. You can see both eyes in and lit up here!

I slowly used a dremel to cut the edges of the bigger light domes off and then glued them to the head.

I then used some leftover foam to get the helmet inside the head to the right level and glued everything in, including the helmet to the foam.

And then finally, I used screen mesh (like used for windows screen in a dull black/gray color) and if you can believe it, pantyhose! Yep, cut up panty hose. I glued the pantyhose covered mesh to the inside of the head and... tada! The head is complete, and here is me wearing it. You can see well enough out of it that I was taking pictures of the head with it on! Also, you can see how bright the eyes look in dimmer light and how they look really lit up. I love the effect.

Over all, there's some things I'd change about the whole head, but I'm fairly pleased with the final effect of it. My client is very pleased with the pictures, and it'll be shipped off very soon! I'm hoping my client will send me a picture with them wearing it as they DJ.