how to make a blood elf, part 1

so blizzcon is Oct 22-23.  this is my first year going.  what does this mean to everyone else?  expect to see a lot of my gamer side in the next 2 weeks.  so being the good WoW nerd that i am, i'm dressing up as one of my characters.  a blood elf death knight to be exact.  this turned out to be way more involved than i every thought it would be.

reference pic for all you non gamers

so the clothes part wasn't too hard since i'm a huge ren faire junkie and was able to use some items i already had.  all i needed to buy was a shirt, and i'm making a creative decision (i.e. no money) to not have spaulders.  a really important part for me was to have the blood elf ears.  now i didn't think this would be a problem since halloween is right around the corner, but apparently it's really, really hard to find 6" ear extensions.  and due to cost and time, buying them on line really wasn't an option.  so after going to 2 costumes stores with out any luck, i went to costume capers.  while they didn't have the ears there, i was lucky enough to have an associate helping me who had actually worked at blizzcon last year and knew exactly what i was talking about.  so being an awesome person, he showed me how it would be possible to build my own ears.  so here's a rough how to (part 1 since i'm not finished yet) on how to make elf ears at home for under $20.

first off, you need to buy some liquid latex and floral wire.  i got a 2 oz bottle of the latex to start with, which should be fine depending on how long you want your ears.  this cost about $8.  i also got 26 GA  1/4 lb silver florist wire.  it's about $2 and you get way more than you will ever need.

next you need to make a frame.  this helps keep the ears upright, and since flora wire is extremely flexible, it will also allow you to shape the ears after they are attached to your own ears.  remember to make 2 frames.

Cross wire the frame for extra support

against my ear so you can kinda see what i'm going for

now you're ready to start painting the latex.  you need a flat glass surface to do this on.  since i didn't want to go buy a piece of glass, i used my mirror.  it works fine, but if you have access to a horizontal glass surface, i would recommend using that.  you'll want to trace an outline just to make it easier.  i used a dry erase marker, which will wash off the glass and the latex really easily

 you're going to be painting on four ears (two sides for each ear).  you can do these one at a time or all at once.  this is why the stencil helps.  that way they are all the same size.  just remember to flip 2 of them so the tops line up with the bottoms.

you're going to need to do at least 5 layers of latex for each side of each ear.  this will give you very thin ears.  you can use more latex if you want thicker ears, but just remember this will add more weight to what the frame needs to hold.  you want each layer to be totally dry before you paint on a new one.  the best way to do this is with a heat fixing gun.  or you can cheat like i did.

just make sure you have the setting on low

after you have the ears the thickness that you want, i suggest adding the frames on.  this way it dries into the latex and just makes it easier to work with later on.

now let them sit overnight.  leave them on the glass.  seriously.  do not take them off too early or you will fuck up everything you just did.  trust me on this one.  first ear i made i got impatient and pulled off early.  liquid latex is really, really sticky.  it likes to stick to itself.  when i pulled of the first ear, i didn't have the frame on it, it wasn't as dry as i thought, and it literally crumpled onto itself.  save your self the heartbreak.

after you have let the ears set over night, you can take them off the mirror.  i recommend pulling from the top down.  this was the easiest way to do it.

now you need to add the two sides of the ears together.  the latex will still be really sticky, so no need for extra glue or anything.  i pressed the two layers together along the top part of the ear.  i left the two flaps at the bottom unattached.  these will be what you use to attach the tip to your own ear.  i stored the ears with a piece if paper towel in between the bottom flaps so that they didn't stick together.

this is what your somewhat finished product will look like.  i'm going to let them sit over night, and then clean them up and trim the edges tomorrow.  then i'm going to use the rest of the liquid latex to add ridges along the edges of the ears (another nice thing about cross wiring the frame is that it already looks like the ear has inner ridges).   after that has dried. i'm going to paint them to my skin tone.  these will be in my part 2 post.

i almost have long ears now

for part 2, click here