TMNT's Leatherhead
Jared Lee
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From the first time I was 5 and saw the show Werewolf, I have loved anthropomorphic animals. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a series that my love has grown for as I have gotten older. What Jim Henson's studio was able to do with Ninja Turtle's designs was amazing. Not only did they bring them to life, but gave them individual looks, and personalities.
While it is a dream of mine to make my own TMNT costume of the caliber of the films, I know that is something that has been attempted by a lot of people. So I am going to make some attempts at some other characters from the TMNT lore and try to bring them to life how I imagine they would be put on a movie screen.
I have planned on making a Slash costume for over a decade, but after seeing the FuRay Planet Wilderness Hunter Crocker I have been compelled to bring the character Leatherhead to life.
This design character captures what I think Jim Henson studios would have put on screen if given the opportunity.
I am currently low on funds, but I have a lot of upholstery foam, foam floor mats, glue, paint, foam clay, mask latex (I hope it's not dried out) left over from when I was really making costumes in the 2010s. I plan on going to Retropalooza IX Oct 22-23, 2022 @ Arlington Convention Center.This character would be a nice blast from the past to enter into the cosplay contest and wear for Halloween.
My first creature costume was Aeon Calcos Lizardman from Soul Calibur 3. The struggles of creating the costume, and wearing it for several hours, have not escaped me.
That Lizard man will work as beta of what I want to accomplish with this Leatherhead costume.
There are several things I want to fix that were problems with Aeon.
1. Aeons head was very heavy. It was cast in plastic resin and had wooden puppetry inside. The head had to be held up to my face with my right arm for hours. This was very uncomfortable.
Solution: make a lighter foam head using closed cell foam floor mats, and foam clay.
I will try to puppet the head with my jaw movement using this horse head mask as my inspiration.
I have to figure out how I will see out of it, and how big it will be.
The head will be proportion the head to make the body look big.
2. The bodysuit was built on a surfer wetsuit that I had to zip my self into from the front. While this gave the costume a seamless look, it was very hot. I compare it to wearing a dishwashing glove over your entire body. The carved upholstery foam coated in latex rubber would not allow my body head to leave the costume. This put me on the verge of heat stroke. The only way to cool down was to lower the mask and unzip the costume. That was very inconvenient and broke the illusion.
Solution: Make the costume 3 pieces. Head, torso, and legs that will all go on like a shirt and pants. The can just remove the top when things get too hot. I will also try not to cover the entire costume in latex. I will make sure that in areas no one can see to leave openings for air to escape the costume. The latex is old and in buckets. It may have dried up into a solid chunk. If I do not have liquid latex, I will make do with foam and paint.
3. My Aeon had eyes that could turn left and right. That will not be something I want to pursue with this costume. Moving eyes were only noticeable from up close and hardly worth the effort.
Solution: I will instead see if I can find a way to make the mask blink using string.
While I hope to capture a look similar to the Crocker, I will take artistic liberties to make the character my own.
Now that I have posted this here, I guess I have to follow through with it or risk disappointing everyone. I will do my best.
I will start with the mask and take it all from there.
I have planned on making a Slash costume for over a decade, but after seeing the FuRay Planet Wilderness Hunter Crocker I have been compelled to bring the character Leatherhead to life.
This design character captures what I think Jim Henson studios would have put on screen if given the opportunity.
I am currently low on funds, but I have a lot of upholstery foam, foam floor mats, glue, paint, foam clay, mask latex (I hope it's not dried out) left over from when I was really making costumes in the 2010s. I plan on going to Retropalooza IX Oct 22-23, 2022 @ Arlington Convention Center.This character would be a nice blast from the past to enter into the cosplay contest and wear for Halloween.
My first creature costume was Aeon Calcos Lizardman from Soul Calibur 3. The struggles of creating the costume, and wearing it for several hours, have not escaped me.
That Lizard man will work as beta of what I want to accomplish with this Leatherhead costume.
There are several things I want to fix that were problems with Aeon.
1. Aeons head was very heavy. It was cast in plastic resin and had wooden puppetry inside. The head had to be held up to my face with my right arm for hours. This was very uncomfortable.
Solution: make a lighter foam head using closed cell foam floor mats, and foam clay.
I will try to puppet the head with my jaw movement using this horse head mask as my inspiration.
I have to figure out how I will see out of it, and how big it will be.
The head will be proportion the head to make the body look big.
2. The bodysuit was built on a surfer wetsuit that I had to zip my self into from the front. While this gave the costume a seamless look, it was very hot. I compare it to wearing a dishwashing glove over your entire body. The carved upholstery foam coated in latex rubber would not allow my body head to leave the costume. This put me on the verge of heat stroke. The only way to cool down was to lower the mask and unzip the costume. That was very inconvenient and broke the illusion.
Solution: Make the costume 3 pieces. Head, torso, and legs that will all go on like a shirt and pants. The can just remove the top when things get too hot. I will also try not to cover the entire costume in latex. I will make sure that in areas no one can see to leave openings for air to escape the costume. The latex is old and in buckets. It may have dried up into a solid chunk. If I do not have liquid latex, I will make do with foam and paint.
3. My Aeon had eyes that could turn left and right. That will not be something I want to pursue with this costume. Moving eyes were only noticeable from up close and hardly worth the effort.
Solution: I will instead see if I can find a way to make the mask blink using string.
While I hope to capture a look similar to the Crocker, I will take artistic liberties to make the character my own.
Now that I have posted this here, I guess I have to follow through with it or risk disappointing everyone. I will do my best.
I will start with the mask and take it all from there.
1
Comments
/Chris
The tutorials that helped me the most were Shannon Shea's Garage Monsters series, and Steve Wang's creature mask painting.
I took the lessons Shannon gave about building a puppet out of foam, cotton balls, and latex then applied it to making a costume.
If the TReX head lesson had been around at the time I would have sprayed glue over the foam to seal it before coating it with latex. I did not know that trick and the foam soaked in a gallons of liquid latex.
Another tutorial that really helped me was the first I ordered. That was Steve Wang's. The way he painted Gill man was an inspiration. The lessons on motteling made a huge difference in the realism of the costume.
My only regret was I did not use thinned rubber cement to apply the paint. I was worried about the health side effects of the thinner and my garage having bad air circulation. So I just used water thinned acrylic paint. It looked great but did not flex with the costume. All the areas that rubbed the paint flacked off.
An alternative I wish I knew at the time was to tent the liquid latex with the acrylics and thin that down with water. Then the paint would bond and flex with the costume. I used that on my following costumes.
I coated the body of the lizardman in a flexible gloss coat but that only helped a little.
Live and learn.
I know the jaw articulation of silicon masks works well when close to the face. I don't know if it would work with a longer snot.
Just to cover my bases, I think I will start with foam and if I can't get that to work I will sculpt and cast.
The entire bottom jaw of my Lizardman is foam. Only the top was resin cast. So I need to give myself the benefit of the doubt that I can work in foam.
The head sets the proportions for the entire costume so I have to get it right.
Tools; Pizza box, scissors, marker, box tape, tailor's ruler, and a marker.
I added a part to the front to close up the jaw, and taped it all together. I cut out a space for my neck, so the jaw could fit past my head. I may cut the space in more so my head is farther into the mouth.
Here is a test fit.
I'm not sure how far away I want the jaw from my face.
I may be able to mirror the jaw for the top of the head, but I want the jaw to look powerful. So the bottom jaw will be bigger than the top of the head. To avoid looking like another Lizardman, I may taper the snout some more.
I mirrored the jaw template and this is what I got. I have to make the top slimmer. At the moment it's shaped closer to a JP Raptor head than an alligator.
I can lower the top of the head to where I can see under fake eyes place on my fore area like the movie ninja turtles.
Or I can make my forehead the neck area, and look out of where the neck meets the base of the head? Then put the eyes up farther?
I am leaning towards the yellow example, and looking out over the fake eyes. Once I add the hat, it should help hide a lot.
I've left the snout the same width, but I made the top half of the head shorter than the jaw.
I placed some glass eyes I had on top of the head to see how it would look. I like it. There is plenty of space for him head. The jaw will still open when I open my mouth, and I think there is enough space to add some mechanisms/puppetry for opening and closing eyes.
I thought the glass eyes would only look good facing forward, but they look good from an angle too.
I cut some foam spheres in half to see how they would look as eyes. I think they would be too big for what I am going for.
I put the Ganon body on like a big coat that buckled in the front. There was armor over it, so no one saw the front. Leatherhead wears a vest and shows off his chest. I have to close the front, and find a way to put this on from behind. After that I have to repaint it.
Summary; I have to:
1. Make the head.
2. Adjust the front of the body, and make a way to put it on from behind.
3. Make a tail, Maybe some feet.
4. Repaint the body.
5. Make a vest and hat.
The convention is on the October 22nd. So I have to get to it.
I was wondering if I could use a flexible spray paint, or rubber to speed things up? Like black plasti-dip, or vinyl paint?
I made some progress on the head. I only have 600 grams of foam clay. I don't want to run out of foam clay, so I am blocking out as much of the head as I can. I think this is good enough. I may make some teeth out of polymer clay next. Then I can stick them into the head while the foam clay is still soft.
I wanted the jaw to move when I open my mouth. I hot glued some rubber bands on the inside of the mouth. It is not working. The mouth just shakes a little. Not much movement.
I asked my brother if I should add some brow movement. He responded, "Alligators don't really emote. They float around and eat stuff." So I'm not adding brow movement. I could add moving eyelids. I'm not sure how the mechanics would work.
I tried to adjust the front of the body, and to make a way to put it on from behind. I really don't want to cut the back of the costume. It has a strong latex skin that I would hate to cut. So I took the buckle away from the front of the chest and replaced with velcro. I also cut away some of the chest area. I decided to separate the torso into two sections. A jacket section consisting of the arms, back, and chest.
Then a poncho that is the belly, love handles, and crotch. This fastens in the back with the claps. I'm going to use a wood burning to cut some alligator skin patterns onto the belly.
When everything is painted, I hope it all blends in together. Once I make the vest, it should also help hide the parts.
I am going to spray this sucker with black plasti-dip, or flex seal. I have to save on latex, and time.
I like that you are able to repurpose an older costume to help save some time!
PlastiDip should be a good option for basing things out, I know some cosplayers use it for foam armor, though I've never tried it myself. Hope it works out!
/Chris
Chris, after spraying the foam with the plasti-dip it just changed color. I wanted to make sure that I had a base color to work with. I know spray plasti-dip flexes, and pray paint doesn't. Likewise, I will check it's flexibility in the morning. Right now it's drying outside overnight. Surprisingly, plasti-dip is cheaper than the 3M Foam Fast 74 adhesive, orange suggested in the T-REx lesson. If I am lucky, it may work just as good as a foam seller?
I'm making some knee-high feet to wear as shoes. I hope these turn out good.
The base is a camping mat. I traced a slipper size onto the foam and drew out what I want the foot to look like.
Keeping track of my supplies is tricky. I plan on going over the foam with some latex mixed with paint. That should get the colors right. I have a gallon, plus a bucket of monster makers latex. It's 10 years old, so I've got to check and see if it's still liquid or a block of rubber. I have 9 days left. I hope it's still good.
Update: Sigh... Well, my 5 gallons of latex from 2014 was all bad. I opened it up, and it had a brown layer of latex on the top. Then I poked the skin, and it had tan water. It all smelled foul. Like a mix of sour milk, and feet.
I have 2 16 oz of latex on the way. Nothing like waiting until the last minute.
So teeth got sculpted out of super sculpey and painted them. I also used some craft foam, hot glue, and pipe insulation to make this tale. This is closed cell foam, so I can seal this with plasti-dip. Once it is painted, it should all come together.
This is closed cell foam, so I can seal this with plasti-dip.
The jaw on the mask can move when my mouth opens.
It had rubber bands hot glued on the side to pull the moth back into position. I took those out and used springs instead.
There was fabric on the side of the mouth hinging the mouth. That was taken out, and I used bent wire to function as pivot points.
The hot glue texture was not enough for me.SO I burned some line details in. It's thin foam, so I had to be careful.
Here is a picture of the top.
Here is the bottom of it.
After this, it got sprayed with a gray primer. Then some black plasti-dip. The plasti-dip ran out, so I finished with black flex seal. Now it is outside airing out.
The vest got started. It is not sewn, but I looked at some patterns and cut out some fabric in that shape. Next, I used baby pins to hold it together. When I get time, I will sew it. The costume's arms were used to make sure everything fit. It didn't, so I took another piece of fabric and extended the back of the vest.
The next step was to brush on some latex. I mixed water latex, and paint. The latex is clear, but the paint is black, and brown. Dark brown should be a good back color. I hope I can get my air brush to work, but I will take this as far as I can with brushes first.
This is what it looked like after the first coat of latex.
I am giving it some time to dry. I rushed my lizard man's latex phase and only the outer layer dried. I don't want to make that same mistake.
To conclude this update, I used the foam clay. I heard it compared to a marshmallow, and that is accurate. I mixed equal parts black and white clay and kneaded it together to turn it gray. The results speak for themselves.
In a previous post, I listed some cons of my Lizardman costume. One was the head was resin and heavy. This foam is light, so that problem is solved. It just takes time to dry. With Lizardman I sculpted in oil clay, made a silicon mold, and cast in resin. All of my costumes have been one offs. So just fabricating us good enough.
I used some rubber nibs for details, but most of them have smoothed out. When this fully dries, I will burn some details into it. I'm not a fan of all the dust rotary tools leave. A hole to add the teeth may be cut in. We will see.
Air holes were added. I will back them with black sheer fabric. These will help me see, and add ventilation.
Glad the plastidip is working out for you. Looks like everything is coming together nicely. Lot of progress!
I'm sure the lighter head in this costume will be a lot nicer to wear. Resin can add so much weight.
/Chris
I am happy I can wear the head no problem. Now I can just focus on performance.
Details were into the head. Some foam was added to the back of the mask. Pleather was hot glued onto the bottom of the to hide the neck. Now, no skin should show when I have the mask on.
I primed it gray an hour ago. Now I have to wait for it to cure, and the smell to go away, so I can paint it.
There was a box put into the mouth to keep it open.
I'm surprised how big this head ended up being. It's comparable to an actual alligator head.
It is difficult finding the correct hat for this costume. I do not know what the official name for a hat like this is so I could not search for one online. When I read Leatherhead's wiki, it just said, "Beat-up old hat".
I stopped by Hobby Lobby and got a foam hat. Then I hot glued more foam onto the top and bottom of it's brim to extend it. Next, I used a heat gun to reshape the brim. "Black hot glue). A nail was raked over the hat to give it a leather texture.
The hat was then sprayed with 3 coats red vinyl / fabric paint. Then one of glossy clear plasti-dip.
The results were good. The heat was completely sealed and red. Next, I used black shoe polish to weather the hat. It toned the red down a lot.
It may get another pass with the shoe polish, but I am liking this.
Here are some feet I made yesterday.
/Chris
I just finished it all. Spent all day painting.
My air compress burned out on me after I put the base coat of white on the face. Had to paint it with washes. I sealed the head in plasti-dip afterward, and it changed all the colors. So I had to go over it again to make the green pop some more. Now the plasti-dip is pealing. Oh, well it, I guess it adds character.
Now the hard part is going to get some sleep and getting to the convention in time.
Then one of the toes broke off while I was walking. My brother had some superglue and put it back into place. So my brother was an MVP for this event. I managed to get 2nd place I could not defeat the power, and historical accuracy of an awesome Marie Antonie costume.
I still have a good time. The costume had me sweating a lot, but I wouldn't really call it hot. I was like wearing a heavy coat, with a trash bag over it. I could open the mouth to get more air to my face, so I never felt claustrophobic or anything.
My only concern was having the tail fall off, and my butt showing. In the end, that did not happen. The hat flopped out of place. I should have used push pins to keep it down since the had is foam.
I will take more pictures when I suit up for Halloween.
Glad you had your brother there! With big and complex costumes it's great to have a handler to help with moving around, repairs, and getting in and out of the costume.
Sorry to hear about the tail falling off. That type of issue is pretty common when a costume first goes out into the wild. Always handy to travel with an emergency repair kit containing things like zip ties, safety pins, glues, duct tape, monofilament, a sewing kit, etc. Some events even have cosplay medics (either wandering or at a booth) that can help.
I look forward to seeing that new batch of photos!
/Chris
I wish we could have thought of some better poses, and used some prop weapons. Even with the orange tip at the end of the barrel, walking around with a toy gun does not sound like the safest thing in the world. If I had more time, I could have made a big foam knife.
The other is a bust for sewing. I can't remember when I got it.
As long as I stick to my measurements, things turn out fine. It just needs to hold things up right, and I'm good. The full body mannequin is 6 feet tall. I am much bigger than the mannequin , and a tad taller. So things fit loose on it. They still come in handy, and break down well.