Gurney Halleck Impersonation Cosplay Costume / Josh Brolin Impersonation Cosplay Costume
Darrell Green
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Post in progress....
The following is a repost from therpf. Much of our back and forth conversations have been removed. For the full thread (with advertisements, sorry) click here:
https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/gurney-halleck-impersonation-cosplay-costume-josh-brolin-impersonation-cosplay-costume-dune-ii-fremen-heavy-armor.367589/
The following thread will document my attempt at the creation and collection of props and costume necessary for an impersonation level cosplay of Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck in Dune 2 / Dune II.
This thread is in a retroactive build stage presently with some work needing to be posted but already complete. I will update this line when the thread is up to date. (now up to date)
I will also update this initial post with final poses when the thread is complete.
______________________
Update 8-21-26 (initial hair and makeup test with finished baliset)
Update 10-25-26
Split face comparison:
Final poses:
______________________
Back to original post.
Here are the initial inspiration pictures (movie stills and behind the scenes photos) for this intended build:
The following is a repost from therpf. Much of our back and forth conversations have been removed. For the full thread (with advertisements, sorry) click here:
https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/gurney-halleck-impersonation-cosplay-costume-josh-brolin-impersonation-cosplay-costume-dune-ii-fremen-heavy-armor.367589/
The following thread will document my attempt at the creation and collection of props and costume necessary for an impersonation level cosplay of Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck in Dune 2 / Dune II.
This thread is in a retroactive build stage presently with some work needing to be posted but already complete. I will update this line when the thread is up to date. (now up to date)
I will also update this initial post with final poses when the thread is complete.
______________________
Update 8-21-26 (initial hair and makeup test with finished baliset)
Update 10-25-26
Split face comparison:
Final poses:
______________________
Back to original post.
Here are the initial inspiration pictures (movie stills and behind the scenes photos) for this intended build:
0
Comments
1) Still Suit - following previously provided patterns (post #3, below). I will not be completing the full suit but only the portion needed for use with the outer armor.
2) Shoes - initial purchase complete for stand ins but please post if these fremen shoes were ever confirmed.
3) Gauntlets - complete
4) Outer Armor - I will complete this in sections for the purpose of allowing thread conversation, corrections and process documentation. Likely breaking down to A) Neck,
5) Gloves - although this was identified in Dune I, they seem to be a new model in Dune II (knuckles seem to be missing on glove and wrist sections) - complete
6) Facial Hair
7) Scalp Hair - color, thickness, hairline
9) Makeup effects - Skin color, scarring, expression wrinkles, nose, lips, etcetera
10) Site - Initial site has been scouted in Frank Herbert's very own favorite location, the Oregon dunes.
11) Boot covers - draped, patterned and completed
Dune Stillsuit Laser cutting patterns by XavNZ92
Thread 'Dune (2021) Still Suit build'
They do look somewhat familiar, but so far I haven't been able to find any good match.
I browsed through climbing- and diving-equipment, parachute-harnesses, police-protective-gear and what have you...
Anybody got an idea where these might come from? Any help would really be appreciated!
Thread 'DUNE 2021 Stillsuit Components'
And on that note, I won't be doing that.... hahaha, because Gurney is wearing armor over the majority of the suit itself. All of the still suit wearers in Dune and Dune 2 had a multi pieced outfit that was layered on with the assistance of a helper. This meant that some parts could be left out in specific scenes. For the most part, legs and arms are needed from the still suit and the arms are only partially shown.
Here is Josh with the chest portion removed:
Much discussion has gone into identifying the shoes. As of now, I believe the end result was confirmation that they were custom made for the cast. If you have an identified source for the shoes, please share. Here are some closeups from the movie:
The heel is an obvious addition which makes me feel like the shoes themselves are not, in fact, custom. Props always go through multiple stages of life and possibly these were custom made and then customized further... but that seems a stretch. Most likely, these are available in the real world and only the heal and toe covers were added (cloth on top of shoe and added heel extension).
The gauntlets are a part of the heavy armor and are not an original portion of the still suits. They consist of 3 stacked sections covering the back of the hand and a portion of the outer forearm. The 3 are attached to one another via staples and straps on the under side (between the arm and the armor) and then attached to the forearm by 3 straps (one per section).
I have created a pattern for the 3 sections that I used for the center of each. However, the 3 are not the same in that the knuckle one has only a portion of outer trim while the forearm sections have outer trim all the way around their edges. I will cover the materials and process in the next post on Armor. The process photos below do not include the edging trim. I will update with a newer post when they are attached. After that, they will be painted and weathered.
Because these are foam pieces (floormat), they needed to be cut, then heat formed. I used a heatgun for forming but also highly heated all three sections to shrink the thickness for screen match (or close).
All recieved a light dusting of gray and tan paints. Edging will be next and a final weathering. I may add rounded edges with a dremel sander if the edging looks too square in contrast to screen match
This is pretty much what stands apart from Dune 1. Dune 2 includes heavy armor on Fremen due to their intense shift from guerilla warfare to direct assault. We are to assume these are advanced materials that can stay flexible rather than the standard hard shell normally seen. I could go down that path on an engineering rant but will just say it is completely possible and not at all just an excuse to make a large amount of foam armor to keep the movie budget down (so there). But, in the end, it is really foam armor. The still suit was a similar surprise in that it is completely within the realm of cosplay to replicate it entirely. The heavy armor is a bit more on the production side and requires heat forming on most parts, some sanding and, in several instances, actual foam casting.
Just for conversation sake, the shoulder pads are custom foam cast appliances and so is the large neck piece. Several, if not all, of the other parts have been vacuformed either in their construction or in their finishing. All of the back (upper) is combined in such a way as to look both adhered AND heat vacuformed into one large finished piece.
All of these heavy armor pieces are extremely similar to martial arts sparring equipment and to motor sports pads added to riding gear like coats and pants (several are even the same shape as parts from a motorcycle jacket).
I did not want the expense nor labor intensity of a foam pour mold so I opted for a workaround using a vacuform table. I looked at the neck portion and decided it looked like it was partially vacuformed and thereby avoided the clay sculpt, fiberglass mold, foam fill/bake/etcetera.
continued in later post
I could see the neck section was the most custom, most labor intensive part of this entire build so I wanted to conquer it before posting a build thread. It is, at least, in the realm of nearly complete so I am finally up to sharing. The neck should have been a complete sculpt, mold, cast, foam fill with final skin vacuformed to the outside. But instead....
I realized that the neck looked like a vacuformed mold piece made from thicker foam. I say this because I have seen what happens when a person is vacuforming and fails to get the seal, fails to get the vacuum strong enough, or uses material that is not heated enough. It creates these hanging areas rather than getting deep into the corners, like laying a tarp over something. In this instance, that is exactly what I wanted.
This is the neck piece from the movie:
To me, it looked like someone draped a sheet of fresh dough over a cardboard frame. This cardboard consisting of the shoulder pad section of a football uniform and the tall neck tube like in the old diving bell dive suits. I first used a single sheet of cardboard and began to cut a silhouette into it to find the true shape of my chest/shoulder/back at the neckline:
I then made a duplicate of that for the other side. I did a bit of pepakura molding and folded a sheet of carboard on every line to make it flexible and layed it into the cut shapes and hot glued it into a final mold:
I then started on the neck section, using some long cardstock I had saved from a package of flooring planks (one between each plank).
I formed this in a tube the best I could compared to the different in-movie shots.
I placed this on top of the other mold and had to do the silhouette cutting again to get it down close enough to the cardboard "shoulders" to then trace the opening:
Inserted the tube into the hole, hot glue and then cut it out from underneath:
Once this was in place, it could be worn and the upper neckline could be finished to match on screen but also to look appropriate on me:
Now it was holding its shape and I could finish enclosing it, because, my goal was to fill it with crack fill expanding foam:
Even with it filled, I needed to make the neck section strong enough to withstand a vacuform pull (they are very strong). I used sheets of screen protector plastic, in layers to get the final "positive" for vacuforming.
continued in next post
Now I needed a vacuform. I seriously winged it and made a nearly useless version out of a storage tub and a sheet of pegboard. This collapsed several times while using it as the vacuum was stronger than the plastic tub could handle. This should be solid wood or similar. (made two sizes)
The vacuum was my shopvac:
Then I needed something strong to hold the material flat and even. My guess was that the on-screen shapes seemed to be made from half inch thick foam. Floor mats, especially the lock together dense foam type, was what I wanted to try. Mine were 24 inch by 24 inch. I found that my portable table saw stand was nearly this size. I then clamped the foam to it using bars and clamps:
The heat needed for this process was extreme and I had no oven large enough. I opted for a blow torch weed burner. At this point I realized that none of this can be recommended to anyone as it is so far off from being normal or safe.
After 5 failed attempts I realized that even when totally heated, the foam would not stretch as far as I needed. I cut the bottom off of my sculpt:
One more pull and I decided that this simply was not even possible. The foam either tore or melted, every time. Once, even catching my sculpt on fire:
I decided to "go home and rethink my life":
After some soul searching, I decided to give up and find a different method. I could, ever so slowly, use a heat gun and, section by section, sculpt one large, flat sheet into what I wanted but wow, just wow, the time it would take. Then it struck me that I didn't need a perfect vacuform pull because I could finish it with the slow-mo heat gun process. Off I went, out to my catastrophe redneck mock-up of a vacuform, and on try number 7:
This is what was needed to then cut away the excess and slowly heat small sections to get to my passable final result. I will still be rounding the edges and adding the crimped edging sections:
I had, at first, decided to seal everything in vinyl shelf liner and then crimp that as edging.
But, that took away too much of the texture, on the top of the mat, and I still hadn't figured out where to get that crimp texture. I continued to search for crimpers, online and around the house. I finally found a gear track driven nutcracker with exposed gears. I then heated the nutcracker and laid plastic garden trim (called edger) on the track and pushed it into the teeth, using the tines on a kitchen fork.
This worked well enough to get bands of edging to apply to the foam with hot glue.
Trimming is needed in notches to fold as I go around corners.
It actually looks near screen accurate when applied (still needs paint).
versus
This is needed because the on-screen crimping looks to have been done to a skin over the piece. This means that a proper screen match will not look like the crimping continues beneath the point of contact between the crimping and the edge of the foam.
These are my Cole Haan sacrifice shoes that I will be covering, following ohnunu 's cover (above).
They have a passable side profile but lack the front, back and high instep. My goal being to keep them in sand during the shoot.
I traced this onto cardstock for my final pattern pieces:
Three main additions to the armor beyond their shape:
1) The crimped edging in specific areas only
2) Wire staples holding parts to each other and holding straps to parts
I found this passable wire at my local farm store:
3) texture
Several areas have armor plates melted or skinned one to another instead of stapled. The back is like this. Mostly melted or glued, significantly, into conglomerate pieces.
The chest has two major parts, the main vest (front half) and one extra layer on top.
This top layer seemed a bit odd and out of place.
Seems to be just an added layer but the shape was weird. While looking for alternate foam sources, I took apart a motorcycle jacket....
Clearly not a coincidence.
For this section, the areas that have crimped edging are in blue while staples are in red. Pardon my colors. I need to adjust my phones defaults again.
Final shape (alterations happened) but before edging added:
The next part, the primary vest portion (under layer closest to body) of the chest has several unique characteristics:
1) Bent at the chin, this is a beveled seam that allows for this forward fold
2) contains strap points holding the shoulder pads, connecting to the neck portion, strapping to the back half, connecting to the lower front and stapled to the outermost chest layer (shown above).
3) Contains edging on some parts, mainly neck area.
This piece looks very similar to martial arts sparring pads, the vest portion.
Here is my cut foam of this section, followed by my markup of crimping areas, staple location (down, not to top layer), bevel location, and straps.
The following shows the slotted bevel groove that I cut to allow the neck portion to bend forward and permanently be glued (yet to do).
Groove in yellow, Staples locations in Red, Edge crimping decoration in Blue, Strap locations in Green
I have not yet found a picture to confirm this but I believe the shoulder pads are strapped to the chest at the staple locations on upper left and right.
The following are pictures of the groove depth and location.
Neck section for edging and staple locations
Red = staples
Blue = Crimped edging
Green = Straps
Identical on left and right. Front straps are unseen, so I can only guess how it attaches to the chest by stapled straps. The back is adhered and melted together with several back panels.
Here are my four lower torso patterns (ya, I am terrible at getting them into the computer so my offering is just a really flat picture of same).
These are layered:
Then adhered and seriously heated, possibly vacuformed after. I would recommend using 1/4 inch or 3/8 foam instead of 1/2 inch. In order to thin out mine, I will need to heat them.
The upper section seems to have some massive liberal movement vertically. This seems to indicate no attachment to upper chest but does slip under the upper chest panels. The only straps are at the extreme right and left and are considered to be at belt height to attach to the butt pad (lower back).
Red = staples
Blue = crimped edging
Green = straps
I do not have decent, high resolution pictures of this lower area, so, we may find the edging and staples are not completely marked (not yet found).
The shoulder pads were a real trial. They use a much larger sheet of foam pad than expected.
I wore the neck portion to get the initial pattern but eventually switched to patterning off of my mannequin.
Because these are so extremely molded to shape (serious heat gun work), there really isn't a way to offer a pattern. It would change per person.
However, I can offer that the line next to the neck is a rainbow, straight up and over to the back. Straight line from front view. It has slightly rounded transitions and one projected lump on the side. Here are several onscreen views:
Mine took several hours to heat sculpt from flat sheets. It would be far easier to cut and dart these but I didn't want the change in pattern. They could also be sculpted from a solid block.
Here is my initial sculpt prior to trimming:
and then cutting the side profile (the little projected area):
Sketches:
green = straps
red= staples
purple = authentic battle damage (insert Kung Fu Panda voice here). No other character shows this cut in their shoulder pad, that I have found.
The shoulder pads contain no crimped edging.
This post is mostly for conversation sake. Because Gurney is wearing gauntlet covers over his gloves, this topic will not affect his choice of gloves and the most basic of gloves (not even movie match necessary) can be painted gray to match what very little you see of his gloves (mainly fingertips and palms).
However, I did find it very curious that from Dune I to Dune II there seems to be some glove swapping and inconsistency going on with major characters, including Timothy and Zendaya. The gloves from prior to the release of Dune I, often, had no knuckle protrusions but rather a smooth padded addition at the knuckle and a second at the wrist. This can be seen in several of the movie's posters and pre-release advertising. When the movie did come out, it seemed that these gloves were replaced and the real world "found" item was identified (see other still suit threads linked at the beginning of this thread).
It seems that now, in Dune II, the opposite is happening. Most of the pre-release advertising contains the knuckle protrusion gloves but several in-movie screencaps show these smooth, no knuckle version.
Note: The following has Gurney wearing the heavy armor and is therefore a Dune II or late Dune I timeline moment. Chalamet has smooth pads on his gloves:
This close-up of zendaya's hand, shows clearly that these are not the same gloves. With the complete letdown of AI use in film and photo, these may well be trash AI renditions but if they are from the film, they are not the knuckle shaped gloves.
Elements of Josh Brolin as Gurney:
1) No sideburns but a slightly lower cut on the hair near the ears. This is just a Josh, not Gurney, picture but is the same style.
2) Thick, abundant hair on scalp and hairline is very forward for his age. Will need to hand lay hair on hairline and a lot of it.
The following screen grab would allow for a lace front piece because the lace can be hidden under the gick on his forehead. This would be far easier to process and to replicate over numerous uses. Hand laying hair is time consuming and cannot be replicated but rather just redone from scratch. (possibly AI enhanced which ruins it for a confirmed screengrab).
3) Mustache - Josh's mustache grows uninterrupted (no gaps). There is no central split and no gaps at the side of his mouth. The mustache goes fully into his goatee without looking too long on the sides. Roots seem to be present in the entire area rather than longer growth stretching over any gaps.
4) Goatee - the lower facial hair is also nearly complete area root coverage with only a small bare area near the lower right and left edges of his mouth.
5) Eyebrows - Josh's left eyebrow shows some scarring that disrupts the shape of his brow. This will need to be replicated. Usually, the shape of one is mirrored to the other so creating a match is just getting the initial shape on paper (silhouetting) but having two different eyebrows will require two patterns and remembering which is which. And these brows don't just mind their manners, they change daily.
The lower armor section is much thinner than my 1/2 inch floor mat material (mentioned previously) after stacking four layers one on the other. I had showed (above) how I thought they could be stacked in order to have only 3 layers but after using my measurement app, the piece, highest up the chest, and the piece, lowest in that same set, will overlap. I had to find a way to thin this down.
I have chosen two steps to thin this back to nearly screen accurate. First, I heated them to thin the foam. Second, I have chosen to overlap them, draw the overlap and then cut it out. This will bring it back down to three layers. I believe the onscreen definitely shows it being 3 layers and not 2 or 1. The one closest to the body is a layer and the one farthest from the body is a layer. The other two are sandwiched between but I can keep them to being one layer by notching the one to fit the other. These will then be glued so that all four pieces form one large lower section.
Here is a picture from my original guesswork (split comparison with the screen grab from the movie):
My layout is too long and the parts that are in the middle layer need to be vertically shorter. Both the bottom needs to be raised and the top lowered. This causes them to pverlap so they need to be notched.
This is the new configuration with them overlapped (also split comp with screen grab):
Far closer to movie accurate but causes this overlap that needs to be trimmed out:
I will continue to readjust the layout until the split comparison matches. I will then notch them to keep it to 3 layers. Then glue, heat form and final glue because the outermost layer molds over the middle layer and glues to the lowest layer. This means it must be heatformed AND glued, not just glued.
My solution will be to glue them all together and paint the shadows in where they are on Gurney's and it will look like it is cut like that but will still be glued in a way that it holds together.
I finalized the layout of the lower section compared to screen shots:
then marked cuts
cut the notch
and refit
Then I used contact glue, hot glue and superglue, with the heat gun, to get the pieces formed as one.
With all chest and lower torso armor together for the first time, I did a split photo comparison shot versus in-movie:
I am pretty happy with the current fit. I need to heat form to the body now and will then paint and weather.... and staple. Once that is complete, I will add the straps to attach to the back half.
All of it was strips except the one under the chin which needed to be perfect. I cut that from one sheet and then added the crimp after (but still before gluing)
versus
Those, circled in blue, show a black strap with no desert camo touch up paint. But the two, circled in red, show deliberate desert camo matching the armor. This is likely due to damage and repairs done during filming.
Because of the vacuforming method that I used on the neck portion, it lacked the lower rolled edge. The vacuum process was just not strong enough to get this last edge formed.
I pondered a lot of different methods to finish this edge but all of the internet pointed to using a heat gun. I was not going to be using a heat gun and potentially ruining the vacuform shape I worked so hard to get. What I really wanted to use was a curling iron rod but everyone cautioned against it. Everyone was wrong. The curling iron worked perfectly and I was able to put heat in precise lines and dots when shaping.
My starting point, flat edge:
I was easily able to apply heat to the exact line I wished to fold. I did have a curling rod that heated all the way to the tip. Some do not.
One issue on folding into an inner curve (making it smaller) versus an outer curve (stretching larger) is the likelihood of forming wrinkles.
The curling iron perfectly smoothed out the wrinkle by applying heat directly to the wrinkle and a small area around it. This allows for relief of the strain.
I then held the edge flat against the floor and it cooled quickly and smoothly.
Now that it was the correct curve....
I needed to reinforce the edge so there was something to glue the edging strip to. Hot glue and a strip cut from the mats.
Edging, glued to this new stronger and flat surface:
And tomorrow, time to paint.
I completed the second side edging (the crimpy bit) and painted:
The yellowish light makes it look more tan but it really does look like the other parts.
I padded out the shoulder pads to lift them as they appear on screen.
Also, painted: