Just a little head

My husband and his friends go to Otakon, an Anime Convention, every year and I've always been invited to join them. Usually I don't go to conventions unless I'm able to cosplay. When else besides Halloween can I walk around in crazy costumes and have people not think I'm weird? (I mean, besides the people that know me personally.)

Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to sit down and really work on an awesome costume until now. With the house more organized and most of our boxes unpacked, I'm running out of excuses. I decided to try and work on an insanely hard cosplay outfit, based off a video game I fell in love with a couple years ago.

Don't tell my husband. . . 

In the game, Fred Neuman a murdered private investigator is reanimated by a scientist to find his killer Ulysses Pitt, a mob boss who runs Hope Falls, New Jersey. The scientist is forced by Ulysses to give Fred's head up, but he's able to save the brain, eyes, and body from being tossed. As Fred moves through the game, he's able to collect other heads that endow him with different abilities. It's a dark comedy game that takes a lot of humor from the detective noir movies from the 1940's. The best part of the game is that Fred is voiced by John C. McGinley, who played Dr. Cox in the TV show Scrubs. His voice acting abilities really adds a lot of humor to such a dark premise! 

Anyhoo, back to the outfit. Making a cosplay of a person with a brain in a jar is a lot of work, so I'll try to keep you posted on my progress as I go along. So far I've been able to finish a prop for the costume that I'm going to carry around with me. In the game he collects a shrunken head that enables him to shrink to fit through small compartments. 

It's super creepy with the eyes open

I looked online for a base that I could use to start the process. There were a couple different variations of plastic shrunken heads online (surprisingly). They all required a bit of work to get it looking the way I wanted, so I bought the cheapest one (in case I messed up the first time).

Not even close

You can see how much work was needed to make this head look like the shrunken head in the game. I removed the hair and cords first so I had a blank slate to work with. Carefully using a xacto knife I removed the nostrils of the nose and shaved down the bridge of the nose.

I had to find a clay that would air dry, but still be bendable with the soft plastic the head was made of. I used the Creatology Air Dry Clay from Michaels. This clay may not be good for some projects, but it's good when you require a non-toxic clay that can be glued and painted when dry. This clay will usually require glue when adhering it to other surfaces.

I usually use yarns when I'm working on hair in projects because it's a lot cheaper and plentiful. Now that there are so many varieties of yarn out there, most people should be able to find a similar texture or size for the project they need. I did make the mistake of not bringing a picture of the shrunken head with me when I went perusing through the yarn aisle. The yarn I ended up buying served the purpose pretty well, but wasn't as similar as this perfectionist wanted.

Close, but no cigar

After a couple of hours of working with the shrunken head, I finally got it to the point where it looked as close as I could make it.

You talkin' to me?

I was happy that I was able to get the angry look that the shrunken head has in the video game. Since he's really no bigger than the palm of my hand I didn't go for as many details as the head has in the video game. I cut out a lot of wrinkles and the cheekbones so I could start on the other parts of the cosplay. I usually like to try and make all my crafts as close I can and it was difficult for me to put it down and move on.

Here's a side by side comparison of the heads so you can see how close I got it!

 If you squint your eyes really hard you can see it 

Once I'm done with a few more items in the cosplay I'm going to go back and add some more hair to it. When I was working on it, I cut out the extra layer to save some time, but he really does need it. I'll update the post with the extra hair once I add it.