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How to make an Togruta headpiece costume from the Clone Wars movie. This tutorial mainly looks at how I made the headdress but I also go over how I put together the beads and a few other parts of the outfit. Happy costuming!
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Signing UpStep 1Creating the Headpiece
This is the most elaborate piece of the costume by far.
1) I began by ordering a skull cap. I wanted a good base for the headpiece. If you google "skull cap", you should figure out what I mean. It's a plastic cap like thing. I then put the cap on and with a pencil, sketched where I thought I would need to cut it. The skull cap initially covered my entire forehead. I cut out the big arches. I wouldn't recommend cutting off any from the back. The actually needed to be longer.
HINT: Constantly keep retrying on your headpiece throughout the ENTIRE process. You will end with a lopsided/uncomfortable/too small/too big headpiece if you don't.
2) Once I cut the skull cap, I started putting Model Magic on the piece. I used Model Magic because it is very lightweight and relatively inexpensive. You will need one big 2 lb box. (It comes with four 8 oz pouches). I used blue painters tape and taped three old cardboard toilet paper rolls where all the montrals/tentacles would go.
HINT: If I did this project over again, I would probably put a wire frame on the skull cap FIRST before using Model Magic. Mine didn't come out very well proportioned and you will save money on buying Model Magic.
HINT: If I did this over again, I would make the tentacle in the back very short or at least make it stick out more. I kept having to rebreak it and redo it because it went straight down into my neck and was very uncomfortable!
3) By this point, you've completely sculpted the entire thing out of Model Magic and have something resembling the final product. If it was at all similar to mine, it it very lumpy and has cracks all over it. This part stinks. Start sanding the headpiece all over. Try to get it as smooth as possible!!
HINT: When sanding the Model Magic, cover the area in newspaper. Little white flakes get EVERYWHERE
4) After this stage, I was still dissatisfied and I used acrylic caulk on my headpiece to try and make it smoother and more durable. I really am not sure if this helped or not. I think it made it heavier and stronger but it didn't really help make it much smoother. The caulk filled in a lot of cracks but the paint probably would have done that as well. I might skip this step if I were you. It depends.
5) After caulking the headpiece, I began painting. I used a shiny paint because the reference picture I used seemed to be shiny. I'm not sure if this was a good idea because all of the imperfections seem to be highlighted. It does look pretty though. I recommend using at least 3 or 4 coats of paint. I painted the entire thing pearl white first. Then I went back and did the silver and blue. By then, I didn't feel the need to use as many coats.
6) Somewhere throughout this process, you should have made the beaded part. Make sure you make this towards the end so that you make the correct size. As you can see in one of the pics, I bought tiny little screws with a circle part at the end. I screwed this screw under the middle diamond so that it would look like the beads were just a part of the headdress. I didn't trust that the screw would stay in there so I covered it with some super glue.
7) Hm, after you finish painting and screw in the beads, you should be done! Congrats! You are finished with the toughest part of the project!
1) I began by ordering a skull cap. I wanted a good base for the headpiece. If you google "skull cap", you should figure out what I mean. It's a plastic cap like thing. I then put the cap on and with a pencil, sketched where I thought I would need to cut it. The skull cap initially covered my entire forehead. I cut out the big arches. I wouldn't recommend cutting off any from the back. The actually needed to be longer.
HINT: Constantly keep retrying on your headpiece throughout the ENTIRE process. You will end with a lopsided/uncomfortable/too small/too big headpiece if you don't.
2) Once I cut the skull cap, I started putting Model Magic on the piece. I used Model Magic because it is very lightweight and relatively inexpensive. You will need one big 2 lb box. (It comes with four 8 oz pouches). I used blue painters tape and taped three old cardboard toilet paper rolls where all the montrals/tentacles would go.
HINT: If I did this project over again, I would probably put a wire frame on the skull cap FIRST before using Model Magic. Mine didn't come out very well proportioned and you will save money on buying Model Magic.
HINT: If I did this over again, I would make the tentacle in the back very short or at least make it stick out more. I kept having to rebreak it and redo it because it went straight down into my neck and was very uncomfortable!
3) By this point, you've completely sculpted the entire thing out of Model Magic and have something resembling the final product. If it was at all similar to mine, it it very lumpy and has cracks all over it. This part stinks. Start sanding the headpiece all over. Try to get it as smooth as possible!!
HINT: When sanding the Model Magic, cover the area in newspaper. Little white flakes get EVERYWHERE
4) After this stage, I was still dissatisfied and I used acrylic caulk on my headpiece to try and make it smoother and more durable. I really am not sure if this helped or not. I think it made it heavier and stronger but it didn't really help make it much smoother. The caulk filled in a lot of cracks but the paint probably would have done that as well. I might skip this step if I were you. It depends.
5) After caulking the headpiece, I began painting. I used a shiny paint because the reference picture I used seemed to be shiny. I'm not sure if this was a good idea because all of the imperfections seem to be highlighted. It does look pretty though. I recommend using at least 3 or 4 coats of paint. I painted the entire thing pearl white first. Then I went back and did the silver and blue. By then, I didn't feel the need to use as many coats.
6) Somewhere throughout this process, you should have made the beaded part. Make sure you make this towards the end so that you make the correct size. As you can see in one of the pics, I bought tiny little screws with a circle part at the end. I screwed this screw under the middle diamond so that it would look like the beads were just a part of the headdress. I didn't trust that the screw would stay in there so I covered it with some super glue.
7) Hm, after you finish painting and screw in the beads, you should be done! Congrats! You are finished with the toughest part of the project!
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SO what that means is unless your cosplaying Ashoka or Shaak Ti don't get to hung up on making it accurate
in case you are wondering the triangle shaped bits that go around the forehead are the Akul's actual teeth (looked it up)