I just saw How to Train Your Dragon 2, and I decided that for Metrocon 2015 I am going to cosplay Toothless, using a handmade mask. I decided to go extra-large with this mask, and I might need a baseball cap to keep it on my head.
Since the mask is going to be coming off my face quite a bit, I decided to look through the top of the mask head. I hope this was a good choice... experimentation at its finest!
I started out by drawing the face mask outline, so I knew where to put my edges, then I looked at pictures of Toothless and drew a rough sketch of what I wanted onto the felt. I began to needle felt around the eye hole, not quite sure what I was going to do with it at the moment.
Once I took care of the basic shape of the top of the head, I needed to create the depth of the head itself. This was a bit tricky, taking a 2-D drawing and translating it into a 3-D model. I added a large amount of wool core to the area below the eye hole to start off.
I had to envision the top section connecting to the bottom section with an imaginary line. Once this was done, I continued to mold the mask into the basic shape of Toothless' head.
I decided to take a different route for the eyes. I normally would use wool and just make the eyes, but I decided to experiment again and cover half circle Styrofoam pieces with modeling clay and paint the eyes. Toothless has really beautiful eyes, and the paint and textures used helped to create the realistic effect.
Handful after handful of wool later, I finally had the shape I was looking for. I had to cave in the areas for the eyes to be placed into the mask, and it also doubled as a perfect brow-line for the mask. The eye holes were covered with a black see through fabric, so it will blend in with Toothless' black body. Scale-like patterns will be added to distract the eye as well as his bright eyes.
The only problem...... how to keep the eyes in the mask???
Black wool everywhere!!
I have started covering my mask, leaving the eye sockets, back, and perimeter uncovered. I decided to not use any of the wool I bought for mask making. Instead, I am using wool that I bought from my mom. I needed it for an earlier project, but knew I would use it later on this mask.
I would love to add a wool and cheesecloth texture that I saw in one of my mom's scarves... might be the eye catcher it needs to make it rememberable.
Finally got the core wool covered with wool and the I decided to create a piece of felt for the ears. The felt was wrapped around some wire, so I could bend them and keep them standing if I wanted. With those attached, all thats left to add are the eyes and to tighten my mask completely.
Still not 100% sure how my eyes will stay, or how I am going to get them in, but I have until June to figure it out.
