Resident Evil Life-Sized Angie! Moving Mouth & Poseable Arms

I had so much fun making Angie for a local cosplayer who wanted to dress as Donna Beneviento for a convention. I had some requests for instructions, and thought this was the perfect place to put them! I will be updating pictures as I start work on Angie 2.0, but here are the instructions as I made the original.

Luckily, Angie is made with easy-to-find materials. Your two more 'high-end' components will be the Apoxie Sculpt and Sculpey, both of which are great materials to have on hand for multiple other purposes. Feel free to message with any questions!

Supplies

Insulation foam sheet- bought for $10 at Home Depot. Had to ask for it to be cut in half to fit in my car.
Marker/pen
Scrap newspaper
Elmer's glue for paper mache
Apoxie Sculpt & Sculpey- I used Porcelain Doll, but literally any type of Sculpey will do, including scraps of the little colored blocks. This will be painted so color isn't an issue.
Aluminum armature wire
Craft paint- any brand will do. I used a mix of shades to achieve the bone color.
Hot glue/super glue/adhesive of choice
String
Plumbing pipe, 1/8" thick
Tinfoil & Masking Tape

Step 1: General Overview

Template:

I've included a template for the torso and limbs that I used as a starting point, though keep in mind the carving process will produce different results.

To print the template:
Save the Angie jpg. to your computer.
Open Microsoft Excel. Click Insert, Pictures, and after clicking the file, hit LINK TO FILE, not just insert.
Now in Excel, click the image, and under 'Height' in the top right corner, change to 36", as Angie is three feet tall. Hit print with standard settings, and your print will come out to 12 pages. These pages can then be taped together to form one blueprint.The steps of this project are pretty simple. It requires using foam and paper mache to create a lightweight torso, bones, and shoes. Details around the shoulders, neck, and breasts are added with Apoxie Sculpt, and hands are sculpted separately with Apoxie Sculpt for durability. These are hooked together using wire, while a tube runs up the body to support the head.

Process Overview:

The head is made by first sculpting a "face piece" as well as a separate chin piece, then attaching foam around the back to create a hollow interior. The inner strings are attached, and once put in place, clay is added around the head to create an opening only in the neck. All parts are secured into place, then the entire piece is touched up and painted. All that's left is the dress!

Step 2: Torso & Bones- Foam Carving

Pieces:

Start by plugging in your hot glue gun. While it heats, draw (or trace) a general torso shape, drawing a little bigger for safety.
Cut out using your x-acto knife. Pick up your torso piece and and use the marker to draw/touch up the shape. This will be covered and does not need to look perfect. Once you're happy with the look, trace and cut out two more torso pieces.
The torso takes three pieces: Two of Angie's silhouette, and one piece, cut in two, glued in the middle so that the tube can sit in the center of the body. Layer and hot-glue the pieces as shown.

Foam Carving:

The foam will first be 'whittled' away to create a more rounded, human-like shape from our layers. We want to create an undersized, rounded form to add topography with newspaper.

The biggest tip I have is to keep turning the body at different angles and reconsider what it looks like from that direction. Keep in mind the chest and ribcage will be flat at this point, and the shoulders will look like broken little nubs. This is all totally fine. It's better to be undersized then over at this point- make sure the waist is a little under template size.

Step 3: Torso & Bones- Paper Mache & Apoxie

Newspaper/Masking Tape Covering:

Use pieces of newspaper to smash up and tape across the body. Make sure to add less in areas that will have a deeper angle, like where the neck starts to slope out to create the chest. The breasts and shoulders are usually where people get confused. It's easy to forget about how those features connect to the armpit and back/neck.

Take your time adding and tearing away. Your torso will likely look messy and "bad" during most of this process, but that's just part of the process! Cut the ribs according to the image to create even more angles. Make sure all loose pieces are taped as we will be using paper mache next.

Paper Mache:

Mix glue and water to reach a mostly gluey, but thin consistency. Dip small strips of newspaper in the mix with an even coating of glue. Small strips stick quicker than trying to flatten and layer large ones. If there's a weird angle, don't try to push big pieces in. Rip up miniscule pieces and dot them on. Don't rush this- work on one side, dry, then do the other. Turn the torso on it's side and work in small sections. We will create details (shoulders, collarbone, ribs, breasts) once this is dry.

Step 4: Hands, Limbs, and Wiring

For the Hands:

You can sculpt Angie's hands without an armature if your prefer, as Apoxie Sculpt is very durable, though I like the extra ease and security of wire. I've included many pictures of this process so you know what to look out for.

Use my included template, or roughly sketch out the size of the fingers/hands relative to your already made body and limbs. Cut wire as shown and lay out over drawing. Tape and glue together.
Bend fingers slightly for a more elegant touch.
Add Apoxie Sculpt in sections. First, cover hands and a little of the knuckles. Wait to dry before adding fingers. Apoxie Sculpt starts to move past malleability after about twenty minutes, and hardens to a rock in about an hour. Working in sections ensures:

That you can put full pressure on the clay while sculpting the fingers without denting what you've already done.
That you can have time to sculpt and catch little details before the clay dries.
That you don't damage other sections while you work up from the knuckles to the fingertips.

Using a toothpick, add little indents to the fingertips to create a sharp nail!

Wiring the Arms & Legs:

The first arms I made had two wire pieces hooked together exactly as shown on the character model. However, if you want the arms to be poseable and sturdy, you need one loop that holds the upper and lower arm pieces together. Follow the images I included to get correct looping. This requires no tools but your hands!

After you sculpt the arms, poke the piece through the upper torso by the shoulders. You may need to cut open areas with another tool so this sits correctly. Use hot glue on the inside, and finish securing with Apoxie Sculpt.
The legs are hooked together loose as shown in the first image, and drawn in the last image. A piece of wire is stuck in the end of the limb, and curled into a loop. The second piece is hooked through. All wire-entry points are secured with Apoxie Sculpt.

Sculpting The Arms:

Wrap a thin layer of tinfoil around each section of wire according to the template. Add a thin layer of Sculpey to the middle of each of these pieces.
Now that you have a good, thin base, using your template to add Sculpey around the 'bone' end of the arms. You can use your xacto knife to make clear angles or keep the arms rounded. Do not add clay for the wrist cuffs yet, and keep the hole where the wire comes out uncovered. Bake these pieces at package instruction- 275 F for about 15 minutes. The wire is oven safe but will be extra hot, so be careful taking it out of the oven.

Shoulders:

When everything is hardened and cooled off, you can use Apoxie Sculpt to create durable shoulders that will hold everything in place. These are just balls of clay slightly smaller than the width of the chest. Make sure the clay gets into the holes where the wires meet the torso!

Step 5: The Face

You can once again use my template to measure the face, but as you sculpt things will tend to change. Don't worry about it. I tend to sculpt with a lump-on and carve-away method, so it takes a lot of "this looks good" /"no I hate this" back and forth until I wind up with something cool. Stick with it and remember to keep looking at your piece from different angles as you work!

For the Face

Lay out a hunk of tinfoil in the rough size of the face. I used Sculpey as a base. Get ready for a lot of squishing. Don't be afraid to smash stuff and lose features along the way! No feature has a one-step process.
Sketch out the eyes, nose, mouth, and cuts.
Roll out small coils of clay to add height to cheekbones, eye ridges, and lips. Make sure you turn the piece to look at the profile.
Smooth out your clay- using a finger dipped in a little water helps- and bake according to your Sculpey package: 275 F for 15 minutes.

For the Eyes

Roll out two very tiny balls of clay. These will be wrapped in a thin border, so it's always better to be a little undersized. Measure the balls so they fit comfortably into the sockets. Using the tip of a pencil, lightly poke into the center to make the pupil, and tilt your pencil towards the edge of that hole so the indentation has a smooth transition into the rest of the clay.
Bake these before adding the border! This time, only bake for 10 minutes at 275 F. They will have to go back in the oven and we don't want them to get burned!
Roll out a thin tube of clay and flatten against a hard surface to create a ribbon-like piece. Wrap this around the edge of your baked eye. The hardened surface of the eyeball will prevent you from squishing these pieces together. Once it is secured on the eyeball, bake these again for 10 minutes.
The 'third eye' screw at the top of her head was done in the same way, just without a border. I made sure the size fit into the hole I had made in the face plate, and sharped the edges by pushing the piece against the bakc of my fingernail. You can toss this piece in to any of the bakes, also for 15 minutes, though it bakes hard around 10.
Once everything is baked and cooled down, you can glue these pieces into their places. I also added a line of Apoxie Sculpt pressed in around the back of the eyes with a pencil for extra security.

Step 6: The Face: Moving Mouth & Head

In this step we will set up the chin so that it moves, add the lips/teeth details, and finish making the head. This is very much the rough/budget version of a mouth mechanic, but it will be durable.

The Chin:

Now that you have a creepy half-face and torso in your possession, we can make a fitting chin piece. Clump up a small piece of tinfoil that fits into the slot where the chin should be, making sure it's a little undersized so there is room for clay. Cover this piece with Sculpey, then shape to form the mouth as shown in the pictures attached. Things to keep in mind: Turn this piece to view at different angles. Keep checking that the chin piece will fit into the empty slot as you sculpt. We will add details to the inside of the mouth, so make sure there is extra room where the teeth/tongue will be.
Use a piece of wire to push through one side of the mouth to the other. Each end of wire will sit inside the face plate. Before gluing, fix up any rough parts that were moved when the wire went through, and check that your chin piece still fits as you manually move it up and down.
Pick up your eye hook or make one out of wire, and push it into the back of the chin. To test if the chin is working well and to assess size, hot glue your unbaked chin piece into place by gluing either end of the wire into the face plate as pictures. Thread a piece of string through the loop, and pull down to see how the mouth moves. Sculpt and adjust as needed.
Leave the wire and eye-hook in place to bake so that the openings don't shrink. Bake for 15 minutes at 275 F.
When the piece is cooled off, glue the stability wire into place where you had the chin sitting before. Squish in and fully cover this with Apoxie Sculpt and let dry to secure. Use scrap Apoxie Sculpt to add a small tube of clay behind the upper and lower lips a couple millimeters back to act as 'teeth' in the extra room we left, making sure the mouth still closes. Let dry. Once hardened, use the same process to add a little Apoxie to make a tongue shape behind the teeth on the chin piece.

The Head:

Secure outer edges of the face plate with Apoxie Sculpt. Layer and glue in scraps of foam to the inside of the face plate, leaving room around the chin to ensure movement.
Make tinfoil "brains" as shown and then surround this with Sculpey. Bake, and then finish out the rest of this process with Apoxie Sculpt as shown.

The Neck:

Now that the chin piece is sculpted and set into place and the head rounded out and hollow, you can build up the neck with Apoxie Sculpt. Stick your plumbing pipe through the opening at the top of the body using a little hot glue. Loop your string through the eye hook in the chin and let the rest dangle through the pipe until it come out the other end.
Build up the neck with spare tinfoil and Apoxie Sculpt to make a small stump- not the full piece yet. Close up the exposed pipe in the chest area with Apoxie as well. Let harden.
Holding the head in one hand and the pull string in the other, lower the head towards the stump. You want to find how close you can get the chin to the neck without disrupting the movement of the chin. Once you've found this spot, you can build the rest of the neck for the head to safely sit in. This is the most trial-and-error part of the build, so take your time!

Step 7: Details, Securing Pieces, Painting!

Now that you have all your pieces baked, you can use your Apoxie Sculpt to adjust and secure all edges and vulnerable areas. We will also use Apoxie Sculpt for the neck piece and wrist pieces.

For the Limbs:

Secure wire into place by pressing the Apoxie Sculpt tightly into any spots where the wire pokes into the 'bones'. Remember to do this for the inside of the faceplate as well! For maximum safety and longevity, I cover every limb in a thin layer of Apoxie Sculpt, sand, and prime them, however, paper mache made with glue generally holds up well, and you will not see the leg pieces under the dress anyway if you want to skip this step.

For the Neck:

Build up a small section of tinfoil, followed by Apoxie Sculpt. String your cord through the hole to make sure it works, and continue to build Apoxie upward. Stop at the point where the chin starts to hit the neck. Make the neck very thin at first, dry to harden completely, and then thicken as needed.

For the Neck Piece:

Work in layers and take your time! Better to have to re-mix small amounts of Apoxie Sculpt then have a ton of it harden and go to waste. I eyeballed the size of the collar- I checked to make sure the thickness would not interfere with the chin opening. I pressed on thin amounts of Apoxie Sculpt around the neck, and drew an outline of the shape I want to make. I then cut this using an exacto knife and balled up the scraps to begin making the edge. Using the same motion as the eyeball border, roll and flatten the Apoxie Sculpt and traile it around the edges of the collar. Excess pieces should lay over the torso side to make trimming the excess easier. Only work with what you have already mixed, and let this whole section harden before completing the border or doing the inner pieces.
For the inner design, I rolled long, thin pieces of Apoxie Sculpt but did not flatten them. I looped this pieces in sections and pushed them into place with the tip of a pencil. I flattened them slightly with my fingertips, and trimmed any excess with the edge of an xacto blade.

For the Wrists:

I made up this design without a crystal-clear view of Angie's wrists, even screenshotting furiously through the game.
Start with one wrist, as we will use scrap from this process to start the other one.Using Apoxie Sculpt, lump on a general cuff around the wrist. Cut angles as shown in the images to create sharp gauntlets. Use your scrap clay to start making a beginning cuff on the other side, keeping in mind thta if it dries you won't be able to slice it away. When you're done with the one wrist gauntlet and run out of Apoxie Sculpt, wait for this section to dry. That way, when we start making the details, you won't be pressing fresh Apoxie Sculpt into lumpy wrists, thereby denting your sharp edges.
With fresh Apoxie Sculpt, finish making and cutting the second wrist gauntlet. Use these scraps to roll out into ribbons. This will be the same method we used for the neck, but in the design shown in the attached images.

Painting:

I used a mixture of paints and brushed/dabbed them on in layers. I first painted the entire face with a mix of purple, black, and cream to act as a primer and get an even base. After everything was totally dry, I brushed and dabbed on a mixture of various creams, whites, reds, browns, and yellows. Angie looks more yellow-orange in her in-game surroundings, so I wanted to go with something in between antique-yellow and burned-in-a-fire porcelain.
After everything was totally dry, I brushed on some liquid-y black (added water to seep into tiny cracks) to the lines and scars on her face, immediately wiping this paint away with a clumped up paper towel so that only the grooves were colored. I also then used the paint on the paper towel to dab around her body, first the painted side then dry, to add more of a burned, smoky look.

Step 8: Finished! (+Dress and Hair Notes)

Perhaps a seasoned sewer would be able to quickly whip up a pattern for a miniature wedding dress. However, I have my get-around for avoiding sewing as much as possible while still getting a good look. Luckily much of the pieces are obscured by other details, so once you have your fabric chosen, all you really need is some clear glue and scissors to make this look alright.

Use your lacey pieces to cut and wrap fabric around Angie's torso. You can fold and super glue ribbon to create a trim as well as prevent fraying.
The skirt is similar, I fold several pieces of fabric to create the puffy effect, and made several pieces to layer on top of one another.

I happened to have some horse tail hair laying around and thought it was fitting for everything about Angie's vibe. If you don't have access to a friend with a barn though, most craft store doll hairs can be made dry and aged by dipping in diluted bleach (please be careful with your bleach), and leaving out in the sun.

Thank you much for reading! If you have any questions or would like any tips, don't hesitate to reach out.