'Carol' from 'Where the wild things are'(Movie) Costume

Step 12 Eyes

I have to say, the eyes are one of the things I'm most proud of. I'd consider them worthy of an instructable of there own if I had any illusion that anyone was looking for ways to make giant glass eyes. The idea for these is something I vaguely thought I'd heard somewhere; that glass eyes are painted on the inside, so that the outside stays smooth and shiny and the features of the eyeball seem to be inside it, like a real eye. After failing to find a clear plastic sphere bowl anywhere that didn't cost a fortune, I tried two deli salad bowls.

You can see something similar in all kinds of takeouts or catering businesses. I just got the only kind I could find. This very thin plastic, so it can be melted and remoulded at fairly low temperatures. It will get soft in boiling water. I got pretty close to the right shape by having a pan of water boiling and, wearing oven mitts, using a measuring cup to push the ridges out of it against the bottom of the pan while turning it. You do have to keep on top of it, because it tends to buckle once it gets to melting temp. The good news is that unless you put a hole in it, you can always remelt it and try a again.

In the end I got better results from putting it in the oven with a round bottomed metal mixing bowl. Watching through the glass for when it start to look melty, I'd snatch it out and smooth the platic over the top of the bowl with oven mitts. Repeated until it was fully smooth round the surface. This is not actually perfectly spherical, but it was rounded and smooth, which is close enough. I was worried that the plastic would stick to the bowl, but it never really gets that hot. Running a knife under the edge just makes it pop off.

Paint on the inside of the eye, you don't need to worry about anything except getting good coverage. If you paint the pupil and white first you can let them dry and it's very easy to paint the iris. I used a CD to get a circle for the white. Once the pupil and white are dry, you don't even need to worry about painting over them because it won't be seen from the front. I put a couple of streaks of gold and green - very light - through the iris first, then covered the whole thing in very dark brown.

Comments

[Wolfbird]

**Caution: this may creep out younger children, but older ones who know that it's a costume and not a real monster will think it's a really cool opitcal effect. You will probably have to experiment a little to get the right ratios for depth/size because you have to decide what looks best by yourself. Both deep and shallower bowls work about the same but the deeper the eye the more likely it'll be that you lose the pupil at more extreme angles, which doesn't look very realistic most of the time.
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On a related note, if you want to make it appear as if the eyes move about and follow a viewer or camera around the room:

1) Get 4 bowls instead of 2. Two have to be clear, the others don't have to be.

2) Do what you did for these eyes, in that you paint the inside. Do this to the non-clear bowls if you don't have all the same type.

3) Glue the clear bowl tops to the painted bowl backings, so that you get a sort of 3D/somewhat spherical eyeball that only has the back half painted.

4) Once glued into your costume head, you'll see that beause the backing is concave, the pupils will appear to follow a viewer around the room. Makes for really awesome pictures, but it's very likely to scare the bejeezus out of babies and toddlers, so use at your own discretion.

[aliking]

That really is a very cool idea. Have you tried this? Do camera flashes on the outer bowl obscure the features on the inner bowl?

I was also thinking for the eyes, if I were to make some again, that I could pool some clear resin in the bowl the size of the irises so that when you paint on the iris you get the effect of it being deep inside the eyeball.

[Wolfbird]

I would think that yes, a camera flash would reflect at least partially, but that may add to realism (since real eyes reflect, too). The eyes I make myself are mostly out of non-reflective material (different construction style entirely, actually), so I paint in reflects by hand.

Yes, resin works well for making costume eyes. I've seen other people work well with it, but personally I don't like using it because it's so easy to get wrong. If you're feeling adventurous though, nothing beats follow-me 3D eyes. I've seen most people use a mold to make two resin sphere halves, paint one side and then stick the two sides together. Beware the type of paint you use on the colored side and/or how you glue in your eyes... most paints don't stick well to resin and your eyes will fall out!