MH4U Eldaora's Taus Hunting Horn cosplay prop [part 4]

Hello all cosplay and MonHun fans! 

What you're now reading is the fourth part of my big Monster Hunter cosplay project – I'm making a Hunting Horn called Eldaora's Taus from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. I've been a huge fan of the game series since Freedom Unite and now I'm finally slowly making one of my cosplay dreams a reality – a MonHun costume!  

I decided to start with the weapon prop and I will do the armor separately, later. I'm fairly certain on what armor I'll do but I'll keep it a secret for now, hehe. It's gonna be from 4U too, of course.
For the previous parts of this project you can find them here: 1, 2, 3

Note: this project is split into several parts because otherwise it would turn into a kilometer post; I need to document my progress carefully (many photos etc) since it's a school project. 

Let's get to it!

Reference of the end knob's shape. Enjoy my hunter's manbutt.

I left off last time with shaping the end knob and yeah, it was rage-inducing because of all the angles. xD The next day when I went back to my working space I noticed that I hadn't carved it in the right shape, bummer! I had done it from memory the last time (didn't have references at that time) and I thought that it was shaped like a rhombus but no, not quite. So yeah, I corrected it a little and then shifted my focus elsewhere – namely to those protruding parts on the shaft of the Hunting Horn. I'm not sure what their purpose is but I'd assume that in the games its either the sound pipes or some kind of buttons that the hunter presses to create the different notes. I might be horribly wrong on both though, but whatever they are supposed to be I had to add them to my creation!

Notice the protruding parts on the lower half of the shaft.

A slightly better angle to view them from.

They are placed so that the outermost ones still show when
viewed from the other side.

To create these, err, let's just call them pipes, I had to sacrifice my stepdad's old broom. Good thing he planned to replace the shaft of it anyway and so I didn't have to feel bad about it. The wood itself had seen better days (it had cracked on top) and so I had to use the middle of it because it was the most healthy part.

Rest in pieces, broom. ;_;

Three pieces, each of 10 cm, were cut out. I left the handling of those for later (filing, sanding) and I started to think of what to use to cover the Hunting Horn with. As far as I know the most common material that cosplayers use for covering is a combination of masking tape and papier-maché. It was an instant no to me because I don't even want to imagine how hard it would be to tape around a prop of this size! Not to mention how many rolls it would take. So yeah, had to come up with something else – and then I remembered that back when I made Harada's spear a couple years ago I coated the spearhead with filler/putty/whatever-you-call-it and it worked amazingly. Sure that the Hunting Horn is on a completely different size scale but at least it seemed like a better option than the tape and papier-maché.

Test-run of the filler, to see if it can also
cover up the bigger holes.

Stepdad showed up, fetched the bucket of filler and we test applied it to some particularly hole-filled/uneven parts of the Hunting Horn. He said that, because of the depth of the horns, the filler might sink in when it attempts to dry and, if that happens, another layer will be needed. No big deal I thought and, besides, it seemed to apply effortlessly and neatly – looked really promising, in other words! Now I just needed to wait a full day for it to dry.

The next day dawned and I headed out to check what the filler had done over the night. I noticed that where the deeper holes had been covered (aka where there was a big amount of filler) the filler had cracked a bit. Nothing that can't be hidden underneath a second layer though! I also noticed that it wasn't completely dry yet.
Being quite pleased with the filler result I took some more of the gray stuff and started patching up the Hunting Horn, focusing on covering the bigger holes (air bubbles left by the foam, mainly) and such first. I made sure to not accidentally put a second layer over a spot that hadn't completely dried yet, because otherwise the drying time would get slowed down a lot more.

Patching up the worst holes with filler.

I didn't cover it up properly because I still need to carve out holes for the pipes so that I can sink them into the shaft. Speaking of the pipes, I rounded and sanded them down a bit before I left to go back home to my apartment. I left the other end untouched since it won't matter because it will be embedded into the shaft anyway.

Sanded pipe things for the shaft.

After almost a month, in mid-July, I returned to work on this project (I got a summer job! I mainly continued with covering the whole shebang in filler, which is quite a time-consuming project because of the shape and size. I also carved out the holes for the pipes (with a knife) and attached them. I had marked out the position and instead of using glue I just sprayed a click of PU-foam onto the bottom of each hole and then just planted the non-sanded end of the pipe in there. It stuck very well.

Pipe placement test (not attached) and filler progress.

After "gluing" on the pipes I used the remainder of the foam can (maybe 1/4 left) to fill in holes in the foam to make my filler life easier. I also added some foam to a couple of the back mane's spiky ends because there were huge and/or missing gaps. 

Foam, what are you doing? Foam, stop.

Above is one of the back mane spikes that I wanted to thicken, since it was super flat at the end. The problem was that I couldn't rotate the thing so that this particular area was facing straight up (because there were other newly foamed areas on other places), straight up is of course the ideal curing position because of avoiding gravity screwing things up. The consistency of the foam was a bit funny as well (this was the very end of the can so yeah, extra runny) and so it slowly just started gliding downwards and all I could do was watch, since I had already tilted it as much as I could (without fucking up other areas) and turning it any more would end up with some other foamed areas hitting the ground and/or falling off, including the pipes.
Oh well, luck in misfortune was that the area that the spike foam ended up covering by accident was actually a spot that needed some fixing anyway – there was a visible carving mistake there that I didn't notice until after I had put filler on it, which made it more obvious. *shrugs*

Foam added to cover holes, pipes attached
and continued to put filler on head area.

Bonus!
My empty foam can wanted to be artsy til its dying breath. xD

I had put some quite thick layers of filler to cover up the unevenness of the foam, which means that it'll take some days for it to dry completely. I also covered up some of the earlier cracked spots with a second layer.
I also realized that I shouldn't attacht the horns and ears until I've completed the filler episode because yeah, once the horns and ears are set I won't be able to rotate the Hunting Horn as freely as I can now without risk of breaking off the protruding parts.

The next day I came back to tidy up the foamed areas, which mainly meant cutting off the excess foam wherever needed and then (re)shaping and improving the back; a couple of the back mane bananas had huge gaps in them, especially close to the tips (because of the foam randomly leaving big holes when it cures). I had also used foam to thicken the handle a bit.
After the foam episode was done I continued to apply filler.

A lot of filler later.

And then I ran out of filler. :'D So. Much. Filler. You might notice that on the photo above I left one of the middle mane's without filler, that was simply so that I had somewhere to hold the damn thing to keep it from moving while I put filler everywhere else. Stepdad brought a new tube on the day after and so I used it to cover that bare spot and some other stuff. 

I still have to put more filler on this thing, before I can start sanding, but I feel like this post is getting a bit long and so I'll end it for this time. ^^; Part 5 coming up later so keep checking back in, yo!

~ Shiro Samurai out.

MH4U Eldaora's Taus Hunting Horn cosplay prop [part 3]

Hello cosplay fans and monster hunters alike!

Here comes the third part of my Monster Hunter cosplay project. I'm building a Hunting Horn weapon prop from scratch as part of a big school project. I've been a major fan of the MonHun games for years and I thought that it would be high time that I made a costume to make my love for the games visible, haha. The Hunting Horn that I'm making is the Eldaora's Taus from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and, if you missed the previous parts of this project, you can find them here and here. ^_^

Note: this project is split into several parts because otherwise it would turn into a kilometer post; I need to document my progress carefully (many photos etc) since it's a school project. 

Let's get to crafting this thing!

Starting position. I know that the end knob
is crooked but it was unavoidable. I will
hopefully fix it later.

Okay, so I left off last time with my Hunting Horn looking like a sleeping foam mummy. I had run out of the two extra cans of PU-foam (aka expanding foam) that I fetched from Säästötex earlier and, meanwhile I was busy with school since I left, mom actually went and bought more of the sale cans for me. Once I got back to mom's on 4th June five cans of foam were waiting for me. The sale 5 cans for 10 € was still available, God bless. 

I continued applying expanding foam to the build, mainly the knob at the end of the shaft, the back of the "horse head" and the thickest part of the shaft's backside. I left it to dry for some hours and when I came back I noticed that the foam had hardened but it wasn't ready to be cut. I checked the knob and noticed that the foam had indeed fallen off and was partly stuck to the ground (thanks gravity) and so I separated it from the floor –which thankfully I had covered in plastic before, for protection– and decided to turn the prop so that it laid on its side, to allow for the "inside" of the knob to dry. You see, where the foam had fused with the ground it actually was all wet on the inside, and when I turned it I accidentally grabbed on that non-hardened spot and my fingers just sank into the sticky goo. Eww. Protip: if you ever get PU-foam residue on your hands (it sticks like a second skin and feels like really sticky glue that won't go away) you can get rid of it by applying nail polish remover onto a cotton pad and swiping the affected areas with it. It's important that the remover contains acetone.

The following day I returned to start shaping it. I started off with the back half of the mane and just cut it somewhat into its general shape. I noticed at some point that I'd need to to make each of the mane hairs (there would need to be 7 +1 on the back of the final product) deeper.

Started carving out the back mane.

While I was working I suddenly caught a sniff of that strong distinct smell of fresh PU-foam. I stopped in my tracks and checked where the smell was coming from – it didn't take many seconds before I noticed that some thick, yellowish and unhardened foam was bubbling up from the inside! It was all gooey and sticky and I used whatever scrap pieces I had at hand to wipe it off, but it just kept coming out slowly but steadily. I was just standing there like "oh come on..." because it had gotten about 24 hours to dry but it was still, seemingly, not enough.

Red arrow points to the fresh foam bubbling out.
(note: this was taken directly after I noticed it, it grew a lot more since then)

No can do but put the carving on hold until it has completely hardened. What a bummer, I don't have so much time to finish this project.
During the remainder of the day I went out a couple times to check on it and there had formed a pillar of foam! It was probably close to 10 cm in height and had this weird I've-kinda-hardened-on-the-surface-but-still-gooey-on-the-inside consistency – like I could touch it without making a sticky mess but I was sure that my finger would crush the surface if I applied even a small amount of pressure, aka I could feel it give in under my fingers. I decided to rip off the protruding pillar of foam (using tools and not my own hands) to make sure that, if anything else would flow out later, it would be able to come freely.

The next day I checked the hole that the foam had been flowing out of; it had hardened and so I continued work. I continued to shape the "hair bananas" in the back, aka the back mane. :) As I've mentioned before I'm not even trying to make this thing 100% accurate to the game (which would be a pain in the butt because of all the symmetry) and so all the mane bulks are free-handed; I kinda wanted them to have a natural "flow" to them, if that makes sense. I did make sure that there were 7 of them though – and I'll add the small pointy tip one later.

Mane carving in progress.

Once the back mane was somewhat in shape I decided to test out the papier-maché ears that I had made in school earlier – turned out indeed that they were a tad too big. :/ It's really hard to get the size right when you don't have the head there to compare with and have to go by memory and a note.
I quickly made some new ear bases out of chicken wire, slightly smaller.

Comparing old ear(s) to the head.

Comparing new ear(s) to the head.

I decided to skip the papier-maché approach on the new ears because I don't have the equipment for it and I think I might get better end results with the foam anyway, since the whole build is covered in expanding foam. I'll save the old ears for another project so they won't go to waste.

New and old ear side by side. For size comparison.

I didn't attach the ears yet and instead continued on carving out the shaft (handle, whatever you want to call it) of the Hunting Horn. I thought that this would be easier to do than the manes but lolnope. :') So yeah, I started carving as usual and then, at some point, I realized that those separating lines (showing where each of the three levels end) didn't meet! It was really annoying to notice it after I had already done a majority of the work. Even the slightest difference would add up and then when you had spun the thing around completely the separating lines, at worst, had more than a 10 cm difference. -_- It was impossible to keep track on if the line was straight or not because of the foam's bumpiness and the circular shape, aka I had to constantly rotate it to do any progress and thus couldn't get a good grip on if I was cutting it straight or not. I had to improvise a lot and it's not perfect nor symmetrical – good thing it's not super noticeable because of the shape.

Started carving out the shape for the shaft.

I took the can of foam and filled in some uneven spots on the manes, on the shaft and wherever else there wasn't enough foam. Meanwhile it was drying I made the horns in the same way as I made the ears. They had to be 50 centimeters long each.

Horn bases done.

You might notice that the horn sketch is under and that the curve on it is different. I can say that I drew the reference image way too big for the paper (common mistake that I do, lol) and thus the proportions were off (I had to fit it in); I wasn't planning on doing strictly the same shape anyway, just drew it to get a general idea and as a reference for details, once I get to painting the horns.

I left the horns for later and left the Horn (hihi) for drying overnight. The following morning I continued carving – this time doing the rest of the shaft, except for the end knob. Now it's starting to look like something!

Shaft carved out and new foam added to uneven spots + end knob.

I can't help but think that it looks like an oversized fancy chess piece. It's quite noticeable that it's not exactly like in the games and yeah, I had to make it different for a number of reasons and hey, taking some artistic liberties every now and then is fine~! The main difference is the shape of the upper neck (where the head attaches to the shaft) and thus the head's position, as well as the position and shape of the manes. It just ended up differently and I don't even mind – I made it my own and it will still be easily recognizable. It's like, maybe 85% accurate, haha.
I have used so much money on this that I don't want to butcher half of my hard work just to correct some proportions and/or placements. I can't change the shape of the head/neck part anyway (which is the only thing that slightly even bothers me) because it's a placement miss that happened so early on, aka already at the cardboard base. Because of that, and how I started with the front mane hairs, the head is pretty much doomed to be almost stuck to the neck instead of being more up and free like in the game. No can do and no big deal – it will be awesome anyway! 

Before I left it for the day I added some foam to even out the end knob and to patch up some small spots on the shaft that were uneven. The following morning I went out to carve the end knob and oh boy, it was a pain in the ass! I was thinking all along that "it can't be so hard" but I swear this was the most frustrating part of the project – by far.
I quickly gave up on trying to get the knob to be identical on all angles because it was flat out impossible! Every time it looked good, when viewed from a particular angle, I would spin it around and then the opposing side looked like a case of "end my misery". The more I tried to correct one side the more it messed up when viewed from a different angle... or when compared with another side; it basically needed to have the exact same angles on all four sides to be perfect. It just wouldn't line up nicely no matter what I did and I ended up losing my patience, which is rare. Yeah, I was at the verge of ragequitting.

Fuck this shit, let's call it close enough. 8C

So yeah, the knob is far from symmetrical and it's obviously tilting more towards one side than to the other but oh well, I did what I could. It's not bad enough to be a complete eyesore but it does trigger my perfectionist side a bit, lol. It could be worse though – at least that's a consolation!

That's all for this part and next time I'll get to start on the surface treatment! Be sure to follow my blog if you don't want to miss it. ;)

~ Shiro Samurai out.

MH4U Eldaora's Taus Hunting Horn cosplay prop [part 2]

Hello hunters and cosplay fans!

If you've been following my blog or social media accounts you know that I'm currently working on a big and challenging project, namely my first Monster Hunter cosplay prop! I've been a huge fan of the games for years now and as part of a big school project I'm now making the Eldaora's Taus (aka Rusted Kushala Daora one) Hunting Horn from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. I will eventually make a full MonHun armor as well, to go with this Hunting Horn, but for now I'm focusing on making the weapon prop first!

And, in case you missed it, I highly recommend that you take a look at part 1 of this cosplay build to know what I did before this post! ;)

Note: this project is split into several parts because otherwise it would turn into a kilometer post; I need to document my progress carefully (many photos etc) since it's a school project. 

Let's get to the prop making!

Above are some additional reference photos of the Hunting Horn in question, seen from different angles. Enjoy my hunter in his undies! These have been my main references while I've been working on this project. I'm not aiming to make it perfectly identical to the in-game version (that would be really hard when it comes to symmetry) seeing how I'm making the whole thing by hand and with materials that I'm new to.

Continuing from where I left off I went to school's art classroom to work with chicken wire. This is a material that I've barely working with before and so my art teacher –and supervisor for this project– showed me how to work with the chicken wire. At first it was a bit hard to get the net to do what I wanted but once you got the hang of it it was actually quite easy! Save for accidentally poking yourself with it – use gloves, people. I needed to fill some gaps on one of the ears with steel wire, which basically meant just "sewing" it closed.

Wire base for the ears.

I was supposed to make the ears about 10 cm long but I ended up making them almost the double, oops. When I made these I thought that 10 cm looked ridiculously small, to be honest. Now to hope that the ears aren't too big once I get to the part that I'll attach them to the head. Before starting putting papier-maché around the whole thing I wrapped it in masking tape, for extra sturdiness and to even out any bigger gaps.

Ears left to dry after first two layers.

I returned to the art classroom on several days to add papier-maché layers to the ears. The problem with papier-maché is that once the wet paper dries it sinks in a bit and, unless you have enough layers built up, the hollows left by the chicken wire's hexagonal (or whatever size you have) patterns will show through. I did over 5 layers to get it to be somewhat smooth.

Reference sketch for the horn's general shape.

I sketched some references for the horns but I didn't start building them on the same day. Instead on the weekend I went back to mom's to continue working on the main body of the Hunting Horn in the garage – which mainly meant adding a lot of PU-foam to the back and sides.
The thing is that I had to add PU-foam (aka expanding foam) in layers and move the head around every time I wanted to get to a different area because otherwise gravity would do its job and I'd waste foam. Learn from your mistakes.

Backside unfoamed.

Added some foam to the back.

I kept spraying on some foam, waited for it to expand and dry and then came back, turned the thing around, rinse and repeat. It's time-consuming but it's better than messing up and I'd rather be patient and not take risks.

Once both halves of the backside had gotten their fair amount of foam I started building the shaft. After having worked with the ears I figured that I could try my luck at using chicken wire for building the main body. I must admit that I hesitated but ultimately went with a yolo mindset. Half the time I was not sure what I was doing because yeah, it was a complete trial and error episode. Good thing Sacchan was with me and so she provided a pair of extra hands for holding things in place meanwhile I secured the nets to each other with steel wire etc – it's convenient to have friends around when you're working on large-scale builds.

Base for the main body done.

Same as above but from a different angle.

I'm actually surprised how well it turned out! It took some hours but it was worth the effort. It's satisfying to see things for once in a while turn out well, even though you went at it looking like a big question mark. I just hope that I'm gonna be disaster-safe until the end, lol.

Close-up of the front of the shaft.

Same as above but the backside.

Now the next part was to cover the whole thing with something and my first thought was to use expanding foam as well, but I wasn't sure if it would actually work. I was afraid that while the foam was fresh it would fall through the wire's structure but once I stared applying it onto the chicken wire it actually stayed on top – good! It seemed to stick just fine (then again, my stepdad said that it has some glue in the contents anyway, hence why it's a bitch to get off if you get it on your clothes etc) and I left it to dry for some hours. Once I came back the foam was still on, now expanded and hard.

Started spraying expanding foam on the wire parts.

Knowing that the foam method works I continued to apply PU-foam all over the build. I had to go out and buy some more cans because yeah, my spare can ran out before I knew it. Luck was on my side and Tamperen Säästötex in town had big cans of expanding foam for dirt cheap because the best before date had recently passed. I bought two cans (different brand than the one I used before) and happily went home to continue the project. For anyone interested the cans were 2,50 € each and you got 5 for 10 €!

Almost done foaming. It looks like a sleeping mummy horse... :'D

I'll need to add even more foam later, especially to the back of the head and to the little end knob, but I'll see what it looks (and weights) like once I start carving out the details.

I'll end the second part here and next time I'll continue adding foam to the back, carving the main body of the Hunting Horn, start making the horns and more! Stay tuned for part 3!

~ Shiro Samurai out.

MH4U Eldaora's Taus Hunting Horn cosplay prop [part 1]

Hello geeks and fellow hunters!

I've wanted to do a Monster Hunter costume for years now (I'm a huge fan of the games!) but I've been hesitant to start because of the difficulty level of the designs. I finally got the push that I much needed when a major school project came up and I wanted to make something big and impressive for it. I thought that I could start by making a weapon from the games and save the armor for later.
After going through a lot of weapon candidates from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, I decided on making a Hunting Horn. It's one of my main weapons in several of the installments, one that I use a fair lot and enjoy playing with, especially in multiplayer hunts. So yeah, once I had decided on that I wanted to try my hands at making a Hunting Horn I only had to figure out which one – there's a lot to choose from! I soon came to the conclusion that the Eldaora's Taus (aka Rusted Kushala Daora one) would be a fun challenge to make and it looks really pretty too!
Also, I want to mention that this is my first time making a cosplay prop of this caliber –and difficulty– and also my first time using PU-foam for a bigger project; I've only used expanding foam previously for small stuff like a spearhead etc. There will be a lot of learning involved.

Note: this project is split into several parts because otherwise it would turn into a kilometer post; I need to document my progress carefully (many photos etc) since it's a school project. Some photos in this post are taken with my SLR camera, while others are taken using my crummy cellphone camera. This is why the photo quality varies, sorry about it. 

Let's do this!

I couldn't find any references of said Hunting Horn, the Eldaora's Taus, on the internet so I had to start my own game and take some photos of it myself. My camera had a really hard time trying to capture the colors accurately from the screen, but the photos above are as close as I could get.
 

Around the end of last year (November something) I started this project. The first step was finding a wooden pole that I could use for the base. I found one in my school's garage that had a broken tip, most likely it had been a broom before and the broom part had broken off. It didn't matter to me that the top was broken because it would be covered inside the bulk of the weapon anyway – aka the "horse head". I know it's not really a horse with the horns and all but yeah, during the early stages of my work some other students and my teacher asked me what I was making and, well, it's so much easier to just say "oversized hobby horse" instead of starting to explain that I'm making a huge-ass monster slaying cosplay prop to people that don't even know what cosplay is...

I needed to make a base for the general shape of the head part. I asked Sacchan for help with cutting out two identical horse-shaped heads out of thick cardboard that I had saved over the years. I hoard things that I think might be useful for cosplay purposes later on. I then taped them together but made sure to tape the whole thing in a V-shape to give it a bit more dimension and depth.

Cardboard base cut-out on wooden pole.

I realized afterwards that the ears were misplaced –and thus useless– but luckily it doesn't really affect anything because the whole thing was to be covered in expanding foam (PU-foam) and then carved into shape anyway. I couldn't have placed the ears right anyway because my cardboard is only 2D while the prop is 3D, if that makes sense...

I started adding foam to the build. I had to take turns spraying each side to try to get them as even as possible, which proved to be hard since the foam expands so much. This part of the process is really slow and it's better to be patient and careful than try to foam many different spots at the same time
– I did this mistake and ended up being unable to find a position that I could put/balance my work to dry (too many fresh spots on both sides of the horse head) that would keep all the newly foamed areas from shifting positions because of gravity. So yeah, I could only watch as the foam either fell off or moved significantly and thus I wasted half a big can of PU-foam. Needless to say I was really mad at myself and wanted to throw the whole thing out of the window...

First layer of PU-foam.

3 big cans of foam later... #epämääräinenmöykky

You might notice on the photo above that there's something white on the pole – it's filler that I tried experimenting with to see if I could thicken the upcoming shaft for the Hunting Horn. Turned out that it's really annoying to work with but it does stick to the wood after some careful application. I did realize halfway through that it's too tedious and time-consuming, especially considering how little thickness it adds and how much I need, and so I stopped putting filler and waited for a better idea to show up. 

Started test carving the head.

I started carving with a mora knife to get an idea of if I had enough foam or not. Turned out that some spots needed more and I had to use a fourth can of foam. I also had to use some foam to cover up carving mistakes...

This (school) project stood still for some months meanwhile I changed schools, which meant that I couldn't work in the garage anymore and had to take my project elsewhere – which meant that the only possible other place was to take it to mom's car garage, or well, that little work room in the back of it. I also had to figure out some things regarding my school change and what teacher would be my supervisor for this project. Luckily my new art teacher was also willing to take up this project as well! The reason I opted to ask the art teacher out of all possible teachers I could have asked is simply because this is a creative project duh and I thought that an art teacher would understand it the best and be able to help me with any issues along the way, material choices if I got stuck etc. My supervising teacher was awesome enough to lend me a full roll of chicken wire –and tools for working with it– when I said that I'd need to use some to make the base support for the horns and some other parts later, score!

This is the "stand-by" state that it was in for months.

On 8th April I went to mom's to celebrate Easter with my family. On the same go I took with me my creation, along with a shitlot of primer sprays, spray paints and whatever else I had lying around in my apartment that I might need for this project. I mean, I got a car ride to mom's so of course I'd bring with me all the stuff that I might potentially need to finish this MonHun prop!

A couple days later I continued to shape the other side of the "horse head". I had a hard time carving it because of pains so I didn't progress a lot on that day. At least stepdad had given me another tool option instead of the ordinary mora knife – a really handy saw! I don't know what it's proper name is in English but it was a godsend.

My carving tool options. (middle one is just the knife sheath)

The head's general shape is starting to look like something...

I returned to work on this project after approximately a month, on the Mother's Day weekend in Finland (aka this weekend). I continued by carving out the head in more detail and to slim it down. It was important to get the head as ready as possible so that I could measure it and make the horns and ears separately at school the next week. It's too cumbersome to move this large prop around and, to be honest, it might not fit into a car once the horns are attached... 

Head slimmed down and details added.

I didn't notice it at first but I accidentally measured the eye placement wrong (I only used eye measure, pun not intended) and so one eye was higher up than the other. Good thing it's only foam so I could easily cover up the faulty eye hole with more foam and carve it out again in the right spot.

Once the head was more or less finished (for now) I continued to make the mane/hair/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. This was a bit tricky because there's quite some depth going on and I needed to plan it and think in "layers" before I started sawing off big chunks randomly. I started by carving out the upper bulk of the mane on one side and then carefully mapped it out in my head where the lower one would be.

Started shaping the mane... or whatever you want to call it.

Once one side was in good shape I turned around and made the other side. Too bad I only managed to make the upper mane bulk on the remaining side before I noticed that there's not enough foam – the mistake earlier (when I put too much foam and it slided etc) had made it so that the sides were not of the same thickness. Good thing I had a spare can of PU-foam lying around, waiting to be used – I knew that I would need it. Ennakoi, tiedät kyllä miksi. :D

Put the prop on the garage floor, plastic underneath for protection.

Added PU-foam to the lower mane half.

I left it on the floor to dry. I must say that I'm actually a bit surprised by how well it's turning out so far, despite the errors along the way. Can't wait to get more progress done!
I will need to come back later to carve out the lower mane on the side that I foamed and then add some more foam to the tip, to get it similar to the side that I already made. Wow, now that sounded clumsy. Once that's done I can move on to foam the backside of the head, to make it big enough to carve out the back mane – but I'll get to that later.

Next up I'll continue with carving the lower remaining bulk of the mane, as well as go and start progress on the horns and ears. Keep your eyes peeled for the second part!

~ Shiro Samurai out.