Magneto - Days of Future Past
I didn't expect so many people to be interested and ask about my workflow, so I didn't visually document this process completely - but I will write my ass off explaining for you where photos lack :) .. and i will take snapshots of EVERYTHING from now on.
I'm not sure if I would ever by any means call this a tutorial. I do not claim to be an expert. I owe all knowledge that I have of anything concerning prop or armor building to my very talented friend Jim Nemanich. I'm trying to convince him to start a blog - we shall see:) until then, you get me.
Let us look at this as a learning place. If you've done it better or if you've found an error, please comment with advice or criticism.
Prior to this costume, my 'costume skills' were only in… you guessed it… craft foam. That being said - I'll never diss on that medium. You can make really amazing things and spend next to nothing to do so. I just wanted to try to advance my skills and move on.
After seeing Days of Future Past, I had to try to dupe it. I loved the unrefined look. I was never very fond of all of the purple and bright red magneto helmets/armor… but something about this dull rustic build kneaded into my brain until i started the project.
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Ah, yes. The failure section.
I had been working on a helmet for a while. I had a basic cardboard form and then started covering it using paper mache.
I was using a mix that was…
2 Cups of flour
2 Cups of PVA glue (wood glue)
…and the 'paper' i was using was (and i do mean to be brand specific…) Viva paper towels. When I mixed this it was so thick that it honestly looked like bread dough. Extremely sticky and hard to work with. I only used this mixture one time, and then lessened the wood glue by replacing with water more and more through the process.
(If I lost you, what I mean is… After I let that first 'bread dough' paper towel drenched coating dry overnight - when i made my next mixture it was… 2 cups of flour - 1 cup of PVA glue - and 1 cup of water.) Hopefully i cleared that up.
Anyway.
I loved it. It looked really good, felt structurally sound - was so smooth because I layered it so meticulously without any clump-age. and let me tell you. Those Viva paper towels are awesome. They almost feel like cloth. They soaked the mix up perfectly and were still strong enough to ring out and flatten….
But then after about 2-3 layers I realized my fate.
Paper Mache shrinks. I don't know when. Why, or how. But I'm telling you I made it to fit my head and by the time I was done it would have only fit Vern Troyer. (No disrespect, love that dude.)
I'll never use this again for a helmet - but I will do the PVA wood glue mache again for props and other things. It costs virtually NOTHING compared to all other materials - and it reasonably durable. (I don't know that I would use it for intense larding weapons though as I think it would eventually crack).
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Back to the build…
I started off with this cardboard form.
Which you can see there covered in duct tape.
[Which I will never ever do again. It was horrible because when sanding (several steps ahead…) if you do end up going down to the duct tape it just shreds awkwardly. The fibers come out. I tried covering them, burning them, you name it. They were a nuisance. I would have rather used masking tape or done the next step right on the cardboard now that I know what duck tape does.]
*Note that this shit smells. You cannot do any of this inside unless you have a well ventilated area. I only work with all of these materials for this type of project outside and I generally wear a respirator. & you definitely don't want pieces of fiberglass all over your carpet seeing as it is one of the itchiest things that has ever existed.
Supplies for the first part - Fiberglass Resin
I bought this stuff…
(I paid around 30$ for a big can)
And I bought this…
(the mat and cloth may have been 6-8$ each?)
Which is fiberglass cloth.
& You need a few diff grit sandpapers. Probably 80-200 for the whole project.
*Now let me stress the difference between fiberglass cloth and fiberglass mat - in my opinion, of course - cloth is too hard for a beginner as I was/still am. I ruined several pairs of scissors cutting this cloth too. DO NOT USE your favorite scissors on this. it will eat them. The cloth wasn't very forgiving of edges - I had a lot of air bubbles when i used the cloth that I ended up cutting out with an xacto and going back over the whole thing with fiberglass mat.
This is the mat.
vvvvvv
It comes in a sheet also, like the mat, but much thicker. You can tear it with your hands easily into little chunks like that.
I prefer tapping the mat over the cloth. I found it to be much easier.
& You will need paintbrushes. Buy cheap ones as they may get destroyed.
*Unless you want to use 900 brushes, you might want to buy acetone also. This will help you to clean brushes - because once they harden, they're basically goners.
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OK SO the first step of this whole fiberglassing process that I did was to give a good little candy coating of just the resin all over the front of the bra and all of the pieces.
Fiberglass resin comes in 2 parts that you have to mix.
Do not try to be a time saving person and mix up a giant batch, because it will harden quickly and you will waste all of it.
Follow the directions. You have to put "x" amount of catalyst for "x" amount of blablabla.
Just do what it says in small batches. You can always make more. You can't ever get back what you wasted.
Here is everything with its thin candy coating of just resin
So thin you can hardly tell.
After this, I ripped up a good amount of fiberglass into small pieces that I could work with quickly and sat them aside.
Mixed up another batch of resin, and coated and tapped at the same time.
So what you basically do…with a brush, get the surface decently wet with resin, throw on a strip of fiberglass mat, and then with your brush tap more resin ON TOP of the mat to make sure it is saturated. Repeat this until all pieces are covered. I did this 3 times. 3 separate coats.
I only still had one candy coating of resin on the inside - you could also fiberglass that but I wanted to save time and money so I just did the outside.
(remember you can line this at the end of it all with felt or any fabric)
Sorry that I have no pictures of me tapping fiberglass. I was working too quickly to remember to take a snapshot. You can youtube this and find a tutorial I am sure.
*After all of this, when you have several coats and everything has hardened - You can sand. Now don't go all the way sanding down to 200,
I mean a rough 80 grit. You're going to bondo over this anyway.
Before step two, after a rough sand - MAKE SURE TO TAKE A WET RAG AND WIPE EVERYTHING OFF. NO DUST should remain.
Supplies for Step 2 - Bondo
You will need Bondo - which is a body filler putty like substance. It looks like this…
(this is about $20-30 for a large can)
And you will need a few putty knives to apply the bondo with.
It would also be nice for you to have a few spare razor blades nearby to scrape off these putty knives when the bondo hardens as you're working with it.
Okay here we go. I didn't expect this to be that long, but I don't want to skimp anyone who has asked. I have struggled to get through many long tutorials that were still missing information. not cool.
At this point your armor pieces are all fiberglassed up, roughly sanded, wiped free from dirt or debris, and are dry.
The bondo comes, like the resin, with two parts that you have to mix.
What i did was take three spoonfuls of bondo, and then get the hardener (which is in a small tube) and squeeze gently to draw a line of it across the pile of bondo. You don't want to over mix this either as it sets up quickly and you don't want to waste. After you draw your line of hardener across the pile, use the putty knife to scrape and mix the two together. You want it all to be the same color (which is usually like a mauve pinky type of color?) - but you have to work fast to mix because you want more time for your application before the shit sets up.
You apply this stuff much like you apply thick icing onto a birthday cake.
In this picture it the bondo looks way too light - I must not have put enough hardener - it will cure and harden regardless but thats what nice about this stuff - the less hardener you put, the more working time you get - but it takes longer to harden when you skimp.
After a layer of bondo on everything, you sand.
And after you sand,
you repeat bondo all over again. Yep.
Sometimes numerous times until everything is looking as you want and without lots of holes everywhere.
*Please don't forget to wash off sanding dust between each layer of bondo*
Here is a photo after some light sanding…
Notice the cracks and holes here and there. i bondo'd again after this.,
After everything appeared filled in, I sanded. My dad and Jim helped me sand t0o - especially since I was making the helmet also (which i plan to make a tutorial for later providing no one hates me after this 5 hour one for the armor)….. so. much. sanding.
When you're happy with the shape, you can wipe everything off agin and prime it when it dries.
At the end of all the hard work you get something like this…
Glorious. I was ecstatic.
from here, its all about whatever you have in mind.
My finished products…
I'm willing to add to this if anyone wants me to add anything else.
And I'll do a helmet tutorial also if anyone has an interest.
I hope this was at least somewhat helpful.
& I apologize about the length.
Comment if you made it through my long torturous first post :-p
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