ImgurThis guy has really gone all out, talk about dedication to a project. This is hands down one of the most awesome ‘fancy dress’ achievements you are ever likely to see. Our respect goes out to you sir.
ImgurAccording to muppet77:
You have basically two options when starting a Chewbacca. Two good ones anyway. Kanekalon synethic extension hair, or custom fur fabric from National Fiber Technologies, which is what they used in most of the movies after A New Hope. Sadly I am not independently wealthy and can’t afford $65 per square foot of NFT fabric, so I went with hair extensions.
ImgurI commissioned a mask kit from Evil Chimp FX. The aesthetics of this mask are great! The sculpt very closely matches the shape of Chewie’s face in the original trilogy. It just needs some color and some hair… and the interior needs to be modified to fit my fat head…
ImgurLots and lots of latch hooking. This is after the hair has been dipped in recently boiled (still hot) water for about 15-20 seconds to straighten it and reduce the sheen a bit, then hung to dry overnight, brushed out, and hand blended. This is two different shades here. Strawberry blonde and medium brown. It gives a much more natural look that resembles real hair much better.
ImgurHere I’m making the gums look a bit wet and adding a dark wash so that there’s some shadowing and they look more three dimensional. I’m also yellowing the teeth and darkening them just a bit where they meet the gums.
ImgurThis is what the mask looked like before any styling or shaping. I was pretty proud of this milestone at the time. This was after over a year of work with admittedly a gap week here or there when I was just crazy from latch hooking.
ImgurHead and body complete!
ImgurI found some plastic painter’s bucket stilts And I started modifying them for Chewie. First I had to cover up as much of that lime green as I could or it would show through Chewie’s fur.
ImgurIf you think this looks pretty bad, you’re right! Luckily, as the hair layered upon itself, it covered up this travesty pretty well. I’ll be attaching mesh over this and latch hooking another layer later to make it better.And, more or less a finished ‘foot’.
Now, time for our dedicated hero to go and show off his epic costume to those who will get the most enjoyment out of it…
ImgurTruly incredible work.
