#horn tutorial

[haruomicat]

i keep 4getting to do my aradia horn tutorial 4 yall

[vaard]

Do you happen to have any tips for drawing horns?

Hi, Anon! I’ll definitely try my best. Horns are a little tricky since they’re so subjective and the styles/textures vary so drastically.

Mostly I’m going to be talking about texture here and I’ll try to keep it simple since they’re time consuming to draw.

Smooth horns are great and easy, can come in any and all shapes, but if you want to add more interest and character to the horns, it all comes down to how you texture them.  Here’s a simple smooth horn. It’s okay, it’s basic, but it works and will especially work better once it’s colored if it has a sheen or a matte look.

You can add simple lines to it to give it a bit more interest, but you can take it farther than just the cylinder look like drawn here. The lines give it the easy, quick illusion of being more dimensional, but it’s not the most interesting or dynamic.

You can play with the lines however you like to give the horns more uniqueness, such as a line down the center to sort of pinch it inwards. Still more dynamic than the smooth horn, but more interesting than the rounded one.

You can leave the lines as they are for an easier horn, or take it a step farther and use them as guides to texture them. This is where it gets fun, but time consuming. Definitely look up references of what you want to go for if you’re not sure. I highly recommend Ram, Ibex or Antelope references, Antelope being my favorite. They have so much texture to them in the forum of smaller and larger ridges, so here’s a horn based loosely (artistic liberties taken) off a mix of Ram and Antelope.

Getting into plates which are my favorite, there’s little to reference off of. Here’s a more dynamic, spiky look with plates using the guide lines as a base to get an ideal direction you want the horn to shape into.

Just take your guide lines and then extend outward. Add as little or as much wear, tear and damage as you want. Horns can get dry and crack, they can take a hit and break, age can cause grooves, your imagination’s the limit.

Outside of plates, you can look up any horned animal to get ideas for texture, anything from steer to deer and elk (if you want to get more into the antlered look), or mix and match textures from a few horn styles you like. Hope this helps! Sorry I can’t go more in depth, but I tried to explain it as best as I know how. Good luck with your horns!

[maysoulrose]

a short little horn tutorial cuz I made some horns for a last minute costume idea

ETSY | REDBUBBLE | SOCIETY6 | ART INSTA | YOUTUBE | TWITTER

[arsenicgallows]

I really like the attachment method this tutorial provides.

Definitely will be taking this into consideration for my horns.

As always, please give yaexrae all the love.

https://yaexrae.tumblr.com/post/11997998469/semi-realistic-troll-horn-tutorial

Semi-Realistic Troll Horn Tutorial

I know there are a kajillion of horn tutorials out there already, but I ended up using a method to make my horns that I haven't seen written

[thundercluck-blog]

Hey friends!

It’s Meg for this week’s TUTOR TUESDAY! Today we take a little look at hopefully some exercises that will help with drawing horns! So go draw some peeps with horns, my dudes. If you have any recs send ‘em in here or my personal. Keep practicing, have fun, and I’ll see you next week!

[xagave]

How do u make your horns?

I use paperclay (ignore the cherubplay notif lmao) over aluminum foil for small horns and insulation foam or styrofoam for big horns. For styrofoam you want the kind made out of bubbles, not the crunchy kind.

(Also comes in pink and purple, you can find insulation foam boards at Home Depot or Lowes or places like that. They’re very big so if you have a tiny car like me you’ll have to snap it into manageable chunks in the parking lot to fit it in and you’ll have everyone stare at you)

Here’s an aluminum foil base. Sorry about the gross carpet s:

Here’s insulation foam bases. To make these you cut out the shape of your horns and hot glue several layers together (if you’re using thin layers) then sand them into shape. You do the same thing when using styrofoam except you can’t sand that I think? Granted I never tried, I just used scissors or an xacto blade and hacked off chunks.

Stick your clay on and don’t worry about making them super smooth or anything, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t put on a ton of clay; the less clay the better because it means the horns aren’t as heavy. Ideally you want the finished product to be a few millimeters thick, with the tips of horns being thicker to prevent breakage. Let them dry, don’t sand until they’re fully dry.

Also another important thing. Don’t do that thing where people don’t add enough clay to the bottoms of their horns. Rounded bottoms don’t look good and look fake af. That’s not how actual horns grow so make sure you add extra clay to the bottom. When you’re done with these you don’t want the horns to taper at the bottom; the bottom should be your thickest point and it should be flat.

When they’re dry I take an xacto blade and cut off any lumps to help make sanding go by faster.

Sanding is the most important part, it’s how you get nice, smooth horns. I start off with 60 grit sandpaper and sand until smooth, then I add on more paperclay to any uneven parts, cracks, dents, and areas that are too thin. If there’s aluminum foil or foam showing through, cut some of it out then refill with clay. Wait until dry, resand, and repeat as necessary until the horns are perfect. It’s very tedious and annoying but boy is the final product Noice. After that I sand them with 360 grit sandpaper to remove the marks left by the 60 grit (360 grit is super fine while 60 grit is rough.)

^^^ the same pair of horns, post sanding. Next to them is the insulation foam core before I sanded it into shape. At this point you can poke a hole in the bottom of the horns and hot glue in a screw anchor.

Here’s a pile of sanded horns ready to be painted. After you sand, the last thing you need to do is angle the bottoms (Some horns won’t need to be angled, like Terezi horns.) If the bottom isn’t properly angled your horns will stick out badly. I cut off just a tiny bit (I start off with around 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch) to get the horns to point more inwards/backwards/wherever they need to go, you don’t need to lop off a ton. Start off with a little, it’s easier to cut off more than to re-add more clay because you cut off too much. Every time I cut some off I screw them into the wig to see how they stand up. This is also a good time to say that once you’re completely done with your horns it’s probably a good idea to replace the screw anchor since it could be pretty stripped. You might not screw yours into a wig to test them as much as I do, and if not then you might be fine.

Your horns should be ready to paint at this point. Wipe them down with some damp toilet paper to remove any dust first in order to prevent lumps in the paint. 

I use cheapo acrylics to paint my horns. I like my yellow to be thick but my orange and red to be thin to paint on layers easier, but it all depends on how you like to paint your horns. If your paint is too thick you can simply water it down. I also like to GENTLY sand off any bumps in the paint with my fine grit sandpaper between layers. Once they’re painted, seal them. I use Krylon aerosol sprays to seal them but I heard from someone that you can use Mod Podge hard coat as well? I like sprays because there’s no brush marks, but if you use those spongy brushes that could be a good way to eliminate brush strokes with Mod Podge. I’ve never tried it so don’t take my word for it.

If you want shiny horns get the spray in gloss. I use two different sprays, both matte finish, but one says dries in minutes and the other says clear latex finish (look where the red line is). I apply the latex one first and the dries in minutes one after. 

I use the screw method to install my horns. Horns on headbands looks downright awful. I used to use cardboard to stick the screws through but I use wonderflex now (the white stuff) but use whatever you’d like, so long as it’s sturdy. Make sure to use a washer (the donut looking thing) so the screw doesn’t push through the cardboard/wonderflex/whatever you have. For Captor horns I use a single piece of wonderflex per side because it’s a lot easier to screw them in if they had separate pieces per horn instead.

Screw anchors WILL get stripped eventually from screwing and unscrewing horns (you can tell when because your horn is no longer stable on your head and it wiggles around everywhere.) Just take some pliers and yank them out then hot glue in a new pair.

^ Screw anchors look like that.

For Nitram horns and tall horns like Makara horns, I screw them in as well but I also stabilize them with wire. I don’t exactly remember which gauge wire I use but I think it’s like... 14 or something??

Make sure to shape them to your head. Not too tight or else you’ll get a wicked headache while wearing your wig and horns. I make a hole in the wonderflex next to the screw hole and also a hole in the horn to stick the wire through; I screw the horns in first then shove the wire in. For Nitram horns angle the wires up to account for the weight of the horns so they don’t droop on your head. You’ll be able to angle horns whichever way you need if there’s wire in them.

(Ignore the yellow text.)

The pictures above were for a pair of tall horns, just stick one side in and bend the wire at the middle to get the other side in then rebend to its original shape.

This pair was specifically requested to be on a headband (which I don’t do anymore) but the ONLY time I will put horns on a headband is if they’re MONSTER HORNS that need more support. 

The headband goes UNDER the wig and the screws stick out of the wig, then you can screw the horns on that way. I do this for Dammek horns, ancestor horns, or big fantroll horns where wire support isn’t enough to keep them up.

Sometimes horns break, but they’re easily fixable. (God, a lot of these next pictures are of old horns and the paintjob sux, gomen)

This is a picture of Dammek’s horns when they broke while being sanded. I removed all the broken clay and added new clay. This was also during a stage where I was repairing thin spots.

That’s what they look like fixed. Notice the different colors from the patch job. Sometimes when I’m in a rush I’ll bake the horns to speed up drying but ONLY do that if your core is made of aluminum foil DO NOT bake your horns if the core is made of foam, it’ll melt. The darker clay is from when I baked it and the lighter clay is the patch job.

This is from when someone at a con snapped one of Dammek’s horns right in half.

Cut away any hanging bits and sand away some paint around the edge of the hole, then add some paperclay and let it dry. Sand it and repaint and reseal and they’ll be good as new. If there’s a crack, superglue it shut and fill in any gaps and paint over it. 

If you get a huge dent in your horns (This is one of my Tavros horns, which tend to be a little more fragile due to their size) Just cut away the clay and do what you’d do for horns made of foil. When transporting Nitram horns please please bubble wrap the hell out of them, especially if you’re flying. Airports are not kind to your luggage and this is the result of someone tossing my luggage around really badly when I hadn’t bubble wrapped my horns.

This is the horns mid-fixing after discovering that huge dent. I smack these against everything when wearing them so I fixed other dents and holes while I was at it. 

If there’s anything else you need to know feel free to ask me!

[seaweedrain]

Quick and Easy Horn Tutorial!

So I have gotten a lot of asks on how I make my HOMESTUCK TROLL HORNS! Now they aren’t the best, but they take A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME to make! You have a CON tomorrow and haven’t finished your HORNS? Do them in a DAY! Just read this tutorial!

Now here is an example of the horns I shall be making.

(iwill-be-justme is cosplaying midna, ignore her in the picture currently, look at the hella rad horns upon my head)

Okay to start off you need wrap.

wonderful, right? An easy start I know. Now this section takes about half an hour to do, maybe less maybe more. I kept getting distracted when I was timing myself when I was doing this project and due to that I used a whole day to make the horns. Now make two little scrunched up round pieces.

I mean, try to make them AT LEAST the same height. It doesn’t exactly matter in this stage, they will grow anyways. Now this part is a bit odd but it works. Trust me, I’ve made Feferi, Kankri, Terezi, and Vriska horns (we don’t talk about the Eridan horns). So what you need to do is rip the wrap into little strips and roll the bottom half of the horn in it until it is your desired width and roundness.

You kind of just keep doing this until something like this is formed

So yes, you do sometimes make the strips of wrap longer so you can even out the horn so its not all thick at the bottom and extremely thin at the top (if that makes sense). Like this!

Now do the other one and try to make it the same height and thickness! (make sure to keep crushing the wrap so it sticks together, and crush it against the table so its flat, also roll it against the table so it gets round!)

I made mine about the size of a quarter! 

Look at that! Same height basically! Now take your clay out! I use this clay. (the clay part takes about 45 minutes, but again, I was very distracted)

Now make the clay AS THIN AS YOU CAN! Considering the wrap isn’t all that heavy, you don’t want your clay weighing it down! These horns still aren’t all that light, but hey! Its better than nothing!

Now start to wrap your horn outlines! It doesn’t matter where I guess, just make sure everything is covered!

Now everything is covered! Now I bent my horn due to it being a Feferi horn. (Little Feferi horn tip! DO NOT BEND YOUR HORN THAT MUCH! MAKE A SLIGHT TILT! ITS ON A CURVED SURFACE THAT IS CALLED YOUR HEAD! IF YOU BEND IT TOO MUCH THEY ARE GOING TO BE SO CURVED AND LOOK A LITTLE AWKWARD! ONLY CURVE IT SLIGHTLY!)

Now you see how chunky this is? This is gross. Ew. Grab some picks. Now I’ve tried to flatten my horns out in many ways, this has been one of the best ways to me even if its kind of awkward.

Yay picks!

Look at this bad boy oh yeah good style and such. Now the way I do this is kind of weird, you kind of just... push on the clay? Smooth it out that way I guess, in a rolling sort of gesture? I don’t know, if it works it works.

So I did that and this is how it looks.

You need to try to get out all of those little cracks that aren’t cracks but you know what I mean. Now I didn’t really try too hard considering I was very distracted, but trust me, it looks better without the little cracks.

Yay, now you’ve gotten one done! You can use the picks to make little indents to make it look like those, uh, I don’t know, indents on horns, like a rams horns, they have indents. Yeeaah... Just do the other one.

Now that you’ve done that, you need to stick the wire in! This part is hard considering you have put SOOOO many layers of wrap on, but it IS possible! Now there are many other ways of putting horns on, so if you prefer like, I don’t know, clips attached to the horns then ignore this next part.

I use this wire, it comes in different sizes and I can never remember which one I used for which horns so whatever.

Make sure to cut the wire so its not extremely long. (also try to get the clay around the wire so there is no little hole, if that makes sense) Now cook it! I believe it takes 15 minutes to cook and then who knows how long to cool down! Then we grab the sandpaper! We sandpaper to get rid of some of the fingerprints and smooth out some of the lumps. Also sandpaper can make some tiny lines that could possibly make the sandpaper look more realistic in a way I guess...

And then we paint. I don’t know how long it will take you to paint, but do not forget to do layers! ALSO I DIDN’T DO THE BEST PAINTING JOB BECAUSE I WAITED ALL DAY TO START WORKING ON MY HORNS AGAIN AND IT WAS LATE AT NIGHT SO I DIDN’T REALLY TRY WHEN PAINTING! (also stay hydrated you guys)

Look at dat crappy job! Make sure to blend the colors if you like to do that. I enjoy blending the colors and I obviously didn’t do the best of jobs so whatever. Now we find the hot glue gun and headband, make sure its a tick headband that can handle the size of the bottom of the horn. Now go to a mirror and put on the headband. Then we place the horns where we want them and mark the area with chalk; I suggest you put a chalk mark on either side of the horn that is on your head so when you place it down with the glue it is in the middle of the two chalk lines. (you should get help for this, thanks mom and iwill-be-justme for helping me out with all my cosplays!)

I put glue down first and squished the horn on, letting it cool for a few seconds. Then we wrap the wire around and hot glue that!

Yes, hot glue ALL OF IT, make sure the wire is not loose so it won’t mess with your wig hair. My Kankri horns constantly mess with my wig hair and I should fix that soon. Also glue the little holes in the clay where the wire breaks through just to make sure everything is safe!

AND THERE YOU GO! The horns are done! It only took you a few hours and a little waiting time! I do not suggest using this tutorial though unless you are having a last minute issue only because they don’t look as neat as other horn tutorials out there! They are light though, but heavy enough that if you bend down they will fall off. Don’t let that happen. I haven’t had any of mine break before, but I know that clay breaks, so be careful I guess? And yeah, happy con-ing? Just have fun cosplaying!

[accidentallywhiskey]

How To Go From A Chicken Fence To Half-Dragon: A Walkthrough For Building Lightweight Horns

I’m quite happy with how my Qunari Inquisitor horns turned out and I’ve been asked a few times how I made them, so for the benefit of the general public I’ll be doing a bit of a write-up on the steps I took to get from the first photo to the final!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3