Krang costume for Halloween 2012

[TVsRobLowe]

Hey everyone,

Since I've been posting this over at the Replica Prop Forum, I thought I'd post it here as well. I know there are some people from here who post over there, but this is the community who can appreciate it more.

This first post will just be reposts from the other forum with appropriate notes added in red to make the posts current.

Further updates will be posted as I have them. Thanks for looking!
- Rob

[TVsRobLowe]

------------------------------------------------------------
Update #1

Hey all,

I'm 6'2, wear glasses, and always near 300 pounds, and I know my limits for costuming. Last year I made a budget Darth Vader hoping to conceal my weight within the robes, and I was happy with the results but I looked like a fat guy dressed as Vader. Being my size, I don't have many options for actual characters - only really Doctor Octopus or Krang.

Krang and his Android Body has always been sort of a dream costume for me, and I've always tossed the idea around as a joke costume. The design is absolutely embarassing - a near nude fat, bald man with red underwear and booties and brain in his belly. I've tossed around the gamut of ideas over the years, but never committed - first it was sweats and a bald cap, and various canvas straps. Then the idea of a morphsuit with Krang's chamber made out of foam.

This year, I finally committed. Two years ago I half finished a Dive Suit reminiscent of a Bioshock Big Daddy. I was unable to finish due to a surprise work trip to Sweden, but my friend wore the suit to a bar last year and took home first place. The costume gave me some good experience using EVA foam, and that's what I've decided to use for Krang. Here's a pic of that suit:


I plan to make full body armor out of EVA foam - both smooth floormats and the textured blue mats from Walmart. Not happy with how this turned out. I'll be using the spandex suit. For the head, I'll sculpt a buck out of insulation foam, split in to front and back, and vacuuform EVA foam to create a lightweight helmet consistent with the rest of the body. Krang himself will be made out of the insulation foam for his main body, and flexible foam with a metal core to make his tentacles bendable. I'll finish off Krang with a paintjob and a thin finishing coat of latex, resulting in a fleshy, rubberized feel for the alien. I ended up making Krang out of Crayola Model Magic. My jar of latex dried out on me during the Florida summer, so I'm not using that either.

I started with a few sketches. I wanted to make something that brought together some of the cartoon design, the bizarre toy design, and my own additions of making the suit resemble a robotic suit of armor.


This is my first sketch and still the one that I'm using for main reference. I was to add flexible foam on the inside of the elbows and make the elbows and knees in to working joints. The shoulders will also be more like shoulder pads (like Dr. Doom) than just regular shoulders. I wanted his mouth to resemble those of the Sentinels from Marvel comics.

I started out taking measurements and drawing up rough plans to translate in to templates. Here is the one I made for Krang's chamber:


I wanted Krang's chamber to have some depth and since I'm not thin, I needed make the upper torso oversized with a false belly.

After the first night, I had the base shape of Krang's chamber complete (forgive my iPhone pics and the dirty bathroom mirror, thanks):


I was really happy with the results. The next day, I started working on templates for rest of the torso. After modifying my cuts significantly from the template, I had a false stomach that I was happy with:



Tonight I found some time to add on the shoulder pads, essentially finishing the upper torso and chamber. I plan to add velcro in the back, leaving a seam down the middle, to get the torso on and off without a struggle.





------------------------------
Update #2

Tonight's update - Worked on the bases of the arms. I need to refine the cuts at the elbows to make a better working joint. Both pieces of the arms tend to slide off, but that should be remedied when connected to the upper arm shoulder pads, which will then be connected to the torso.

Better pictures when they're finalized.



I was not happy with how this was fitting, and instead chose to use my own natural bulk.

-----------------------------------------
Update #3

Cut an insulation foam sheet in to 1'x1' squares and stacked them 15" high. Set them to glue together overnight. This will be the base for the helmet.

[TVsRobLowe]

---------------------------------------
Update #4

9/22 Update
- I started forming the foam stack into a helmet, but the sheets started sliding around. I'll let the glue dry for another day.

I received two items in the mail today: my nude zentai suit and the door knocker I bought on eBay. The door knocker turned out to be way too small for my needs, so I'm skipping any sort of animatronics. I just don't have the time this year.

The zentai suit fits my fat ass surprisingly well. If anything the arms and legs are too long, creating some sagging. I was worried about my body hair showing through, but it looks fine in regular light. Though If anyone takes a picture with me using flash, they'll be in for a hirsute surprise!

After deciding to skip the animatronics and waiting on the helmet to dry, I decided to start Krang. My initial idea was to make him out of the pink insulation foam sheets. Confession time - this costume was my first time using them and I'm just not good enough using it to get the results I want on something requiring a lot of detail. I decided to pick up a large container of Crayola Model Magic. I've used it a few times before and it turned out to be just what I needed.

I made a template of the inside of Krang's chamber that I could use as a boundary guide. I drew a picture of Krang on the template to follow as I add on layers of model magic. I cut a ping pong ball in half to use for the eyes and off I went. My 5 year old daughter wanted to help and did the entire right side portion of the brain filler. Here are the results:










Teeth are sculpted separately and will be attached at the end.
I am so happy with this so far. Next steps for Krang are to seal him with Mod Podge, paint him up, then put a couple of layers of semi transparent latex over him to seal him up good.

--------------------------------------------------------
Update #5



Popped out the eyes, painted him up, and added veins with puffy paint. Next is 1-2 thin layers of latex to get a skin look.

[TVsRobLowe]

----------------------------------------------------------
Update #6

Two more layers of Mod Podge last night and I'm calling the paint on his body done. Set the eyes back in and just placed the teeth (not glued). I'm pleased so far. Tonight I'll finish up the foam work on the torso and get that ready for paint.



-----------------------------------------------------------
Update #7

Tonight's update -
-Attached Krang's teeth
-Cut some acetate for his window
-Added rings on the outer sides of the chamber
-Cut and attached lower faschia of the chamber
-Used a soldering iron to melt in some details in the torso.

It was really cool how easy the gray EVA foam took the etchings from the soldering iron (on the suspenders buckles). I almost wish I had built the whole thing out of it, but I had so much blue foam left over that needed to go to use.
If I keep going at this pace, the torso will be ready for paint by the weekend.

I plan to use a mirrored surface the back of the chamber. Right now Krang is right up on the outer wall, but I might be able to make him just a bit more spherical at the cost of the distance his tentacles stick out from his body.






He fell forward in this pic.

------------------------------------------------------------
Update #8

Worked some on the helmet today. I shaved down my block of foam with a hacksaw and then cleaned up up with a mouse sander. Now I need to put in details.


My wife ended up in the background of this picture and didn't want to be posted. Rather than going through cropping in Photoshop, I just added a tacky border within Photobucket.

Here it is up next to my pretty face for scaling reference within photoshop.


Here it is scaled to my head, with an overlay of the details. The bottom three layers need to be removed to leave enough to cover my head and neck:


I've also started working on the bodysuit. I've added the stitches/staples along the arms and legs of the morph suit. Next step is to paint in panel lines along the sides of the arms and legs and kneecaps, as well as doing a slight wash with watered down brown soft fabric paint to make the staples pop a little more.

Here it is along the length of the inside of one arm.


All I need to do on the torso armor before painting is clean up the area in the back where the velcro closure will be. I need to rebuild the area of the back between the two suspenders so that the mid-back vent detail can be added, and I can't have velcro going down the middle of that, so the velcro will be near the suspenders for the portion above Krang's chamber.

[oldmanwinters]

Well, I'm impressed!

[Master Splinter]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

Well, I'm impressed!

Heck yeah, this is amazing.

-ms

[Cowabunga Carl]

Looks great man. Can't wait to see the whole thing.

[Powder]

Sums up my reaction to each picture.

[Jester]

So far, so AWESOME!

[papa_smurf73]

Wow my dude... This is going to be epic! Keep the pictures coming. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

[TVsRobLowe]

Here are some 360 pics of the head. One layer of primer so it shows up better in pictures. Nose will come later.















The shaping was done with a hacksaw to carve off the large chunks and a coarse sanding sponge to get the detailed areas. Smoothing was done with a sanding screen attached to a mouse sander and a fine grade sanding sponge.

[Plasticplayhouse]

Looks great! Can't wait to see more.

[cartoonistaaron]

You are killin' it with this thing, man! Awesome!!

[cACHI]

holy crap is right that pretty sick

[Mona_Lisa]

You are going to scare the snot out of some trick-or-treaters!!!! Lol, it is awesome man!!!!!

[Jester]

I wonder if you could get with Pat Fraley to give you some great audio clips to play to the kids...

[sdp]

This is one of the coolest ****ing things I've ever seen. Props!

[Lampy]

wow.. so far. i especially like the body suit part and the krang brain part. looks freakin cool. can't wait to see the final product.

[sykosis]

I am so jealous of your talent!
very nice, all I wanted to be was a TMNT this year but not knowing how to make my own costume, I am sorely disappointed with the retail options
Very nice work!

[Jahwabunga]

Insane.!! What are you going to do with it when halloween is over? You could get a: 'dummy (the ~), mannequin (the ~), puppet (the ~), figure-head (the ~), lay figure (the ~), window dummy' (I had to look up the english word for etalagepop and now i don't know the good one ) and store it. Think it would be pretty great, especially in the guest room