Sticking to what you know

Most of the best LEGO costumes I've seen have followed a similar method for making the head: a base and a top both made from styrofoam, with a strip of card folding around the diameter sandwiched between them. If that's not the best explanation, than see for yourself: two of my personal favourites can be found here and here.

Just about every costume I've done so far has prominently featured wire. Wire is great because it's almost limitless in what it can be shaped to. However, the method discussed above made a lot of sense. In previous costumes, wire was a good option because the head shapes were intricate. The head of a LEGO minifigure is quite straight forward, making styrofoam more appealing; the only work one would have to do is taper the edges into smooth curves. Furthermore, the infamous head is so smooth and free of imperfections I felt that it would be impossible to replicate that smoothness using the wire method. As well as it has served me, a smooth finish it does not always make. 

With this in mind, I decided to opt for styrofoam. I had enough to do the neck, which was straight forward and turned out as well as I'd hoped (see here). After this, I only had enough foam to make a start on the base; however, a start was all I could make. Days after making this start, I began to resent the difficulties I appeared to be having in sourcing more styrofoam for the project. In the end, I felt that I had to start thinking about contingencies. With this in mind, I began to experiment with a wire frame. 

This has so far proven to be quite fruitful, to the extent that I have abandoned my search for styrofoam. The smoothness issue I feared was addressed by overlaying the wire frame with very light cardboard (the flexible type that cereals are typically packaged in). Despite substituting styrofoam for wire, I have followed the base/top method outlined above. Here is a quick pictorial rundown of the progress so far (written instructions will eventually follow):

Fully Built: Mr. Potato Head

The construction of my Emporer Zurg costume was a collaborative effort. Without the help of my girlfriend, Ciara, I would not have gotten very far past the head and torso. Fabrics are just not my strong point. They are not any point on my skills radar, really. In return for Ciara's invaluable input to my Zurg costume, I helped her construct her Halloween 2010 costume. We decided to share a Pixar theme in our costumes, ultimately choosing Zurg's film compatriot Mr. Potato Head.

Fully Built: T-1000

Maintaining a seasonal blog presents unique challenges. Forget the old SEO chessnuts of tagging, key words, descriptive titles, links to and from other blogs and so on; it's much harder not to let a blog die a death if you're not putting out fresh content on a regular basis. How do you achieve this when you're making one costume a year, and your blog is based on the costumes you make? Something I'm still trying to figure out. But for now, at least, we're approaching silly season again with Halloween very much on the horizon. Not for normal peoples' standards perhaps, but for me, I feel like I'm late in starting my costume. But more on that later.

For now, there is one more past costume to add to the index. The greatest movie villain of all time, bar none. Perfectly portrayed by Robert Patrick: Terminator 2: Judgement Day's T-1000.

Phase 1: Papier Mache; Phase 2: ??? Phase 3: Profit

Despite setting a deadline for this week that I haven't quite met, I'm happy enough with my progress. I now have the head entirely papier mached, as well as the three barrels of the Ion Blaster.