For the cowl I needed to create a leather/fabric look similar to the Gotham by gaslight design. The dominantly used method for bat cowls is a clay sculpt and a latex/urethane pull. My sculpting skills aren't quite up to the level for a realistic leather textured sculpt, and that would require a quality sulphur free clay, silicone and fiberglass for the mould and urethane to create a casting which would make the build an extremely expensive and time consuming process. This project needed to be done to a smaller budget so I decided to base my build method around the process used on the 1966 batman cowl. The 66 cowl used a fiberglass shell wrapped in stretch satin. My method would be a variation on this idea.
The base for my build was a polystyrene mannequin head, the head measured in at 23", same as the actors head. I borrowed techniques from the talented kamui cosplay who was the person I discovered and learnt the basics of worbla from. I wrapped the head in cling film and then covered one side of the head in masking tape, I only needed half since this is a symmetrical build and the cling film prevented the tape from sticking to the polystyrene head.
Once I had covered the form I roughly sketched out the shape I wanted and cut it out.
Darts were cut into the piece so that it could lay flat so that I could transfer the pattern to card stock.
I went through about three versions at the card stage, I took away a lot of the curve at the back of the head to make the final piece easier to put on, I also added another inch into the pattern size to make room for padding.
A final test fit, looking more like a Tron helmet than a bat cowl at this point. The face section I decided to do as a separate piece so that I didn't over complicate my patterns.
The final pattern transferred to Worbla and cut out, I used a craft knife to cut my pieces out but a good pair of sharp scissors would do just as well.
The head form was wrapped in tin foil to protect the head from the heat gun and and then a layer of cling film as a barrier between the form and the worbla as worbla sticks to anything when heated.
One side formed, the material holds its shape very well considering how thin it is, this would be due to the wood pulp trapped inside the thermoplastic. Worbla is very flexible and cosplayers who use the material often strengthen it by sandwiching two layers of worbla over a filling of sheet craft foam. I need something a little more rigid as this is not a piece of armour made to wrap around a body and flex with it, it needs to hold its shape.
Since worbla sticks to itself there was no need for glue, both halves fused together and became a single piece, any mistakes and the worbla can be reheated over and over until you get the shape you want.
To strengthen the piece I thinned bondo in resin and slush cast a layer inside the form, I then spent 2 days filling and sanding the outside of the fro mto get it nice and smooth, the worbla was an quick and lightweight hollow frame for me to build on as I only needed one cowl so there was no need to sculpt a solid master and mould it.
The face section began as a flat piece of worbla, I line it up with the centre of the head form and used pins to keep the piece lined up to make sure it was symmetrical. I gradually heated and shaped the sheet around each of the facial features and pushed the excess material into small folds over the cheeks, these were then cut off and the resulting seam was heated and stuck together.
Overlaying the main head piece I made I marked out the cut lines for the face area, leaving a lip of extra material to use to bond it to the main head form.
The nose was patterned in card and then the card form was wrapped in worbla, heated and then pressed into place.
The face piece was glued in place and then filler was added to blend the face section into the rest of the head.
I drew out one eye, cut it out using a dremel with an assortment of bits and then checked the sizing to make sure there was good visibility, one of the advantages of making a mask piece hollow at the start. once I was happy I traced the eye and made a stencil from paper to transfer it to the other side. Once both were cut out a dremel with a sanding drum attachment was sued to round out the corners and then the edges were hand sanded down. I used my dremel's sanding drum again to equalize the thickness of the lips on the eye holes this was done from the inside and some final shaping by hand with sandpaper.
The ears were made as concave shapes, a little different to the usual movie cowls but this adds to the wet moulded leather look and also gives them a slightly stronger resemblance to actual bat ears, these were made as thin worbla pieces and will be wrapped in the fabric I decide to use.
The ears were heated over a metal ruler to angle them and then the base was heated and pressed onto the cowl to give it the same curve. Worbla stays workable for a while after it is heated so make sure the part has cooled before you start working on another area of the same piece, otherwise you'll ruin the shape you just made!
I drilled holes into the pieces so that I could relocate them back in the same place once both the pieces were wrapped in material. I will use rivets/screws to permanently attach the ears once they are covered.
The cowl shell was tweaked a little bit at this stage, I decided to give the nose a more hooked, gargoyle look, the whole piece was given a coat of primer to neaten it up ready for padding to fit the actor.
For padding I hot glued scrap black cotton onto pieces of 1.5cm thick foam, a pad was hot glued onto the top of the head and a thin strip was also glued to the back of the head, this was to correct the eye level of the actor looking out of the mask and to push the face of the mask closer to the actors own face. After test fitting the cowl fit well and was ready to be
patterned over to create the fabric covering.
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