Thor

This is the first human head that I have created. On the positive side I was able to do the eyes, nose, mouth, and proper bone structure for the chin and cheekbones which are necessary for the head to look realistic. The major negative of this costume is that it is far too large. It was very heavy to wear and work with. Moving it around and putting into my car resulted in the frame deforming which caused the end result to be a bit twisted and far more wrinkly than it should have been. Most of the effort I put into getting the face wrinkle free ended up wasted when the frame deformed and the fabric started hanging differently. Also, for some reason, when I wore the costume at home the harness inside hung the costume on my the way I wanted it to. But, when I got to work I wasn't able to put it on so that the costume hung properly. As a result I ended up having to lean forward inside the costume and I could hardly see a thing. I partially corrected this part of the way through at iPass, but it was still not quite right.

As usual, it was fun working on the costume for the first 3 weeks. The last week of October is never fun because I have a hard deadline of Oct 31 which means that if I come home tired I still have no choice but to work on the costume until it's done.

I actually had to take 3 days off work in order to get this done on time. There was just too much detail in this one combined with the difficult time I had keeping the symmetry between the two eyes (3 hours for the first eye, 6 hours for the second as I kept having to measure things to make sure they matched up), both sides of the nose, and both sides of the mouth.

Next year I'll work harder to design the costume so I can do more work on the sewing machine and far less work by hand. It's just so much faster when I can use the machine.

I also think I'll probably avoid doing a human head next year. We're far more critical of human faces than we are of non-human ones.

People responded well to the costume even though the costume didn't really live up to the expectations I had of it, particularly due to the deformation that caused it to be slightly tilted and wrinkled. I think it also helped a lot to be part of a group costume. I got together a merry band of vikings who would be my followers. At first enthusiasm was muted and I needed to pay for part of the cost of the costumes. But, once the costumes arrived and they put them on they really rose to the occasion. I was very happy with the way they really got into it. That's really the sort of thing that I live for. I love enthusiastic people.

designing the Thor costume
building the Thor costume
wearing the Thor costume on Halloween

designing the Thor costume
building the Thor costume
wearing the Thor costume on Halloween