Making Darkness

Why I did this.

2007-10-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

The drive behind this was I always thought the Darkness character to be the Holy Grail of demon costumes. However despite any artistic 'talents' I thought I may have, to take it on was almost too awesome a project for your average Joe Schmuckitelli without the help of experienced Hollywood FX designers and their seemingly limitless resources. However, being singled out for a thrashing in a costume contest was a great motivator. That and I am extremely competitive.

I started to look around on-line for information about the costume. Mainly the headpiece but found almost nothing. I found a handful of photos posted of home made Darkness costumes but no details about construction. Eventually I contacted Miles Teves and he sent me pictures of what they did with Tim in the movie. "Send photos!", he said. I then decided to photo journal everything and post it for any other Dick and Jane to help give ideas to pull this off.

Here is the end result:

Not exact but close.....

Acknowledgements

2007-10-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

Miles Teves: Creator of the Darkness character.
Since I was a kid, Darkness was the epitome of the demonic image. It has become the brass ring of costumes. His talent and vision created a forever imposing and memorable character that has awed and inspired many.
http://www.milesteves.com/

Michael King and Jason Painter: Instigators.
Michael and Jason are very good friends of mine. It was because of them I took up the challenging and almost impossible task of making the Darkness costume. Every year they host an incredible Halloween party. This year they posted a contest for best costume on their web site with a notation to 'Beat Scot Ward'. Basically it was the equivalent of a “Double Dog Dare”. I was just going to go as your friendly neighborhood Nosferatu but when I was named as the guy to beat the kit gloves came off and the game face went on. Thanks for the push guys!
http://www.michaelandjason.com/

My Wife: Patiently supportive. (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!)
My wife. What can I say really? She has always been supportive with all my crazy ideas and weird projects. Like a bemused parent patiently watching a child. Sighing under her breath and letting them blaze a trail through their follies. Not saying a word unless they try something that will either harm them or burn the house down.

Sara B: Thanks to Sara for taking great photos during the party! The pick of the bunch was used for the opening page on my blog. You can see more pictures of the party at her flickr page.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14564261@N07/sets/72157602775438430/

World Wide Web: Thanks to everyone out there who has posted anything and everything about costumes, special effects, and other stuff on the web. Your hard work and willingness to share your information helped me to pull this thing off.

Resources - Stores -n- stuff

2007-10-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

LiquidLatex.com: Reasonably priced latex body paint.

AradaniCostumes.com: Found the Darkness mask here but at several other locations as well for the same price.

MagicDove.com: Provided an adhesive better than Spirit Gum and by far the best customer service I have ever encountered!

EyesBright.com: Theatrical contact lenses. About the same price as anywhere else.

Lowe's Hardware: Picked up the fiberglass kit there.

Home Depot: Don't remember what I got there but I do have receipts for something I needed.

Ace Hardware: Nuts and bolts. Sandpaper. Paint brushes. Velcro strips. Glue gun refills.

Michael's Crafts: Odds -n- ends like brass rings and gems for the pants. Scrap leather.

Dawn's Co: The local art's and craft's store in Auburn. Very nice people who helped me find the best product for making a cast of my head. Thanks!

WalMart: Inexpensive cloth used for pants and cape. Faux fur for the top of hooves.

K-Mart: Spray paint. More paint brushes (very cheap!).

Other: My office. Boxes of packing foam for computers. Very handy as there were different types and a use for each one.

How I made Darkness - The Horns

2007-10-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

The horns and head piece were the single most daunting part of this project. While playing with ideas for the headpiece, I started on the horns by attaching various pieces of packing foam together. In this photo I had already made some progress. I took several long flat pieces and bent them over by letting them slide along as I made a bend. I used wax twine to hold each bend. From there I moved onto the next bend, more twine and so on. Wax twine worked great as it was durable and held a knot fast.

Once I had the flat pieces in the general shape I wanted I added strips of foam on the outside. This built up the edges which gave them a rounded shape.

I kept using the wax twine to help hold the shape as I moved the foam pieces around. I chose not to glue them because once glued, that's it. I was winging this whole thing so I needed to be flexible in case I needed to back out of whatever stage I was at. Eventually the shape came out to about the size and shape of the Darkness horns.

I rounded them even more with scissors to smooth out the gaps and get rid of the edges. I used paper mache paste made of two parts flower to one part water and strips of newspaper as the outer cover. Use a hair dryer to speed up the drying process. Helps allot!

Once dry I used a flat black household spray paint. Be patient and do one light coat at a time and let dry before starting a new coat. The paper mache will wrinkle if saturated with paint.

How I made Darkness - The Headpiece

2007-10-26T19:59:00.000-07:00

This was the most challenging and time consuming part of the whole costume. I had no idea how to even start. I was able to contact the designer, Miles Teves and he was kind enough to send me photos of Tim Curry having the original makeup and headpiece applied. They had used a fiberglass headpiece with anchors attached for the horns made of vinyl. They simply slid into the sockets and locked down.

Since I had no idea what to do I decided to follow suit. Lets make a fiberglass headpiece! First off I needed a mold of my head. I used a paper mache / plaster compound I picked up at the local art supply store. I wrapped my head in plastic wrap to keep it out of my hair.

The paste was a compound called by AMACO called 'Sculptamold'. It worked very well and was easy to mix and dried fast and hard to make a good mold of my head. *Note : make sure to put a layer of padding or wear a beanie cap BEFORE wrapping in cellophane and applying the molding compound. I found that an exact cast of my head left little room for padding and did cause some comfort issues.

It took about 30 minutes for it to cure. Once off my skull I let it dry for a few more hours to make sure it would not fall apart.

Now for the fiberglass. I found reasonably priced materials at the Lowe's hardware store in the paint department for around $30 bucks. It was made by Elmer's and consisted of a can of resin and hardener compound. I had to by the fiberglass cloth, also by Elmer's, separately. It came in a clear plastic bag and covered nine square feet. More than enough. *Note: Make sure you do the fiberglass outside if at all possible. The fumes are extremely toxic.

First step is to remove the lining that covered your head while the mold was setting. (You used a padding buffer right?) Cut the fiberglass cloth into small manageable strips. This is to avoid wrinkling. I used small pieces of clear tape to hold them in place. In retrospect small dabs of Elmer's glue would have worked as well. Once in place, I mixed the compounds from the resin kit and applied in generous strokes to the cloth with a paint brush. (Buy several brushes! This stuff does NOT clean off the brush and is worth spending about $10 bucks on half a dozen cheapo brushes) Be careful no to use too much when applying to the cloth! It will pool up in the bottom.

It needed to cure for about 45 minutes outside on a warm day. I applied at least one more layer after that to give it a little more strength. Once completely dried, I peeled away the mold, trimmed it to fit over my ears and forehead. I sanded the edges (Fiberglass will cut you!) and put a small strip of duct tape so avoid scratches on my skin.

Now on to attaching the horns. First I needed a socket of some sort for them to fit on the skull piece. What I wound up using, believe it or not, were two clear plastic covers from one of those bulk blank CD disk spindles you would pickup at a Fry's or Staples. The diameter of the horns was an almost exact fit. First I eyeballed where they should sit on the skull piece then i did a mock up with some duct tape. Once I felt good about the position I drilled about four holes through the skull cap and plastic covers. The holes were drilled out a bit wider than the diameter of the screws I was using in order to make the head more flush with the inside of the skull piece. (Remember when I said I goofed and left no room for padding let alone my head?)

How I made Darkness - Attaching the horns

2007-10-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

Now that I had the base foundation of the Darkness head piece made, I could start putting things together. As stated in the earlier section, Miles and his crew had a metal attachment for the horns inside the socket. I wasn't too sure how to pull that off. What I did was to insert the horns and play with the positioning until I liked where they sat. Once comfortable with the look, I needed to work on building up the headpiece so the sockets "flowed" more naturally to the skull piece. I trimmed large chunks of foam and attached with duct tape. Once I liked the shape, I placed thin strips of duct tape to bridge the gaps and smooth things out. I also placed a strip of foam as a ridge for his head.

I couldn't help but think that at this stage it looked like a Rebel pilot helmet from Star Wars.

Here is where more fiberglass comes into play. Now that I had a solid foundation, I cut fiberglass cloth into strips and attached to the headpiece.

The epoxy resin was applied and allowed to dry. I used only one layer here as it was already attached to the skull piece and fairly sturdy.

As you can see in the above photo, I marked the sockets about 3 inched down to be trimmed. Once the desired length, I inserted the horns and held them into position with pieces of foam.

Oh yeah! Lookin' good!

I permanently attached them with 3 inch wood screw through the top of the sockets. (No one will be able to see them from that angle anyway!)

Now I needed to make the ridge where the horns and the sockets meet as they did on the movie costume. I did this by attaching a thin strip of foam all the way around the leading edge where the horn and socket meet. Small strips of fiberglass cloth were then attached and finally covered in the resin and left to harden.

Once the fiberglass cured I sanded down any rough spots.

How I made Darkness - Mask

2007-10-23T06:56:00.000-07:00

The mask I used was one I found on-line. Unfortunately it was at best an approximation of the Darkness character but at least I had something. It looked more like a Klingon with a bad sunburn.

I decided to attach the mask on the headpiece. I couldn't think of a way to wear them separately without a big seam showing or something.

I hacked it to pieces to get rid of the ridges and shriveled up little horns. I did save all the pieces I sliced up as I used them for odds and ends as I put it all together.

Notice the chin strap. It was a piece of cotton pants waist band. I used that because the elastic in the waist band gave it some stretch and the cotton cloth was soft. It actually fit under my jaw and not over my chin as the latex long chin piece goes there! I drilled holes below the temples in front of the space cut for my ears. It was attached with small flat head screws and a nut on the outside. (That part would be covered with the mask so I wasn't worried if it stuck out.)

I super glued the brow to the the headpiece. All the slices were then glued into place until I got the shape I wanted. Some of the pieces that made the ridges from the original mask I bought were used to connect sides of the cheek bones to the horn sockets. Nothing wasted! I put a piece of foam down the middle and used a ridge shaped piece and glued it over to have the crest affect.

Once I had everything the way I wanted or as close to the movie Darkness as I could ever possibly make it look like, I used a flat red spray paint as a base for the latex paint. This was important as I found out latex paint DOES NOT adhere over non porous surfaces like smooth fiberglass.

Here is my first attempt. Not pretty.

So once I had a nice even coat of spray paint as the base, the latex paint went over it perfectly.

For the back of the neck, I used a flat paper-like foam sheets used in the packing material in computer boxes. Man was that stuff handy! I used it for many pieces of the costume.

I did not like the way the cheek bones sat on my face. I cut them out and replaced them with soft foam latex cheek bones off a skull mask I had laying around. Once cut and fitted into place I glued them and painted them with the red latex. Much better and more realistic fit. (they were green because I had used them in a Frankenstein costume last year.)

When fitted, I felt it looked pretty good.

How I made Darkness - The Legs

2007-10-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

Just how the heck do you make goat legs without the Hollywood magic of computer animation anyway? Well, since holographic imagery is not an option, at least for the next century, I had to rely on visual misdirection and some clever craftsmanship. That and pulling from the multitude of resources I found on-line. A big thanks goes out to everyone who has made faun legs and posted their work.

First thing you have to realize is a goat/faun leg is shorter at the thigh and longer at the ankle and they walk on their toes. So unless you happen to have the strength and endurance of Baryshnikov you wont be walking around on your toes.

To start I found that others made padding on the top of the leg just above the knee in a bowed shape to give the illusion of a shorter thigh and higher knee . At the base of the ankle, a piece of rectangle shaped padding was used to extend the ankle for the look of the longer foot and ankle. As for the problem of the human foot taking up so much floor space, a simple high heel idea was used to narrow the foot print. Here are some photos and diagrams I found on-line which proved to be great visual references.

Working from these individuals ideas, I now have method to make my goat legs. First I acquired a pair of black tights. (Thanks to my wife 'cause I sure as heck wouldn't own a pair.) Using square pieces of soft spongy packing foam, I attached block pieces of hard foam with a glue gun.

To ensure they did not come loose when worn, I used small strips of double sided Velcro tabs and hot glued one half to the foam and the other half to the tights. The piece for the ankle was attached to the back of my calves.

Even though the thigh/knee piece looked square, it rounded out nicely under the pants.

How I made Darkness - The Hooves

2007-10-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Question: How to make a size 12 foot look like a hoof sported by the Prince of Darkness?
Answer: High heels baby!

Well not 6 inch stiletto's. That's pushing the feminine envelope too far. I felt already awkward wearing tights.

I needed to shorten the area my foot covered to give the illusion a small point was touching the ground. I took a pair of my wife's 4 inch wedges (those are a solid heel) and screwed an old pair of my dress shoes on top.

FYI, you may note in some pictures the heel is placed inside the shoe. I found it to be more stable and gave me the higher angle I wanted by attaching the heel to the bottom of the shoe so please ignore that detail in the pictures.

Once I had my "foot" I needed to make a hoof. I made a cardboard form and tacked it on the front of the shoe with duct tape.

Once completed, I fiberglassed over the cardboard. The cardboard natural color showed through the dried fiberglass in a very natural hoof color. Only problem was I used two different pieces that had a different color. I had to paint them and then lacquered over them. That was a bummer because the paint was not even close to the cardboard shade of brown. Had I not been so lazy I would have made another hoof so they matched. It really wasn't that hard but in truth I was getting burnt out. I had been working on this for weeks now.

As you can see, the final product was not the rich color in a real hoof, but it worked.

How I made Darkness - The Pants

2007-10-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

This was fun because I am not a seamstress. I did manage to make them come together. I bought four yards of a black canvas cloth. I chose the heavier material as it did not let the seams and edges of the foam show. I wore a pair of old dockers cut off about midway on my thigh as an anchor for all the cloth pieces. This was a good solution to put it all together instead of wrestling with making pants from scratch.

Once I had an idea of how the leg would fit, I started cutting. I made the pants in several pieces. The upper and lower leg were separate and connected with brass rings evenly spaced. I was wearing the tights to better size the cloth. I cut the thigh piece up the side and stitched it in a cross pattern with the same wax twine used for the horns. This worked well for both a visual effect and durability.

Now that all the pieces were sized and the leg halves sewn together, I sewed the legs to the docker cut-offs. I then sewed on flaps of cloth to cover any exposed docker material. This also created a more rough medieval look. The faux fur was wrapped around my ankle and adjusted over the top of the hooves. I sewed them together to make a boot like fitting. I attached a piece of Velcro to the inside of the fur a few inched above the top of the hoof to the top of the shoe. This created a more natural joint look.

The final touch was a piece of leather across the front at the belt line studded with little gems. I then took 1/4" cord painted black, cut into lengths and hot glued to the back of the leather piece. While not movie accurate it was a nice touch to for the look.

How I made Darkness - Prosthetics

2007-10-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, obviously I am no longer anywhere close to my physique from my 20's. So how do I make washboard ab's and cut shoulders of Darkness. Well the ab's were out. I'm married now so I can let myself go. I wound up shedding almost 15 lbs for this project. Key was no cheese. No sugar and lots of cabbage soup. Just shoot me now!

The shoulders were much easier. I made traps and the front neck muscles out of soft packing foam (again the computer packing proved golden!). I covered them with a soft paper like foam used in computer packing usually holding the accessories from a new computer out of the box. I cut the foam for the traps in a triangle shape. A piece of the thin paper foam was cut in the same shape but larger to make a lip to attach to my skin with adhesive.

The Sternocleidomastoid (neck muscle) was soft foam cut into an 'L' shape and covered with paper foam.

Once everything was cut and fitted, they were attached with adhesive and painted with red latex paint.

Putting on the costume

2007-10-16T06:27:00.000-07:00

If you try to make this costume, plan to start applying everything about 4 hours before you have to leave to be somewhere. The mask and headpiece took about an hour. The prosthetics almost as long.

The pants/legs, hooves and cape went on in about 10 minutes.

The latex body paint was the real time killer. It was brushed on using foam paint brushes, dried with a hair dryer, another layer, hair dryer, paint, dryer and so on. You will need a dedicated team of professional make-up artists to pull this off. Well, since I had none I relied on my wife, my kids, my sister and my folks who came to see the show.

In you notice in some photos my hands are resting on broom handles. This is highly recommended as you cannot let the latex paint come in contact with itself until completely dried. Example, you bend your elbow before it's dried and it will stick to itself and tear. Holding your arms up will get tiring in about 10 minutes.

Advice, Tips, Techniques and Warnings!

2007-10-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

The number one most important consideration above all else when making Darkness........start in November. Specifically November of the previous year.
Glue guns are HOT!

Save everything! I found a use for the oddest items to make this costume. Most of the prosthetics were made from soft packing foam and a thin paper like foam from computer packing material. Thin cardboard worked great for making forms and molds for things like the hooves.

If you make the headpiece like I did, make sure you wear a beanie cap or something to make a buffer between your head and the final product. That space you will line with foam. Padding from a bicycle helmet would work fine. The reason being I made the mistake of making the skull cap a perfect fit. No room for padding. The was a small bubble in the cap that pressed against my temple all night long. It was extremely painful! Fortunately I had a pain medication from having a tooth pulled earlier. If not for that I'm sure I would have passed out. So, remember..... padding! Think soft, fluffy comfortable padding!

If you choose to go the fiber glass route, use outside! The fumes are extremely toxic! Additionally, cut the fiberglass cloth into small manageable strips. It makes for easier handling especially when applying the resin. Be liberal with the resin but be careful not to use too much as it will pool up. Put the headpiece on a post or something when you start on the horn sockets. Make sure something is on the floor as the resin dries fast, hard and permanent!

Glue guns are HOT! Really hot!

Spend the extra cash on a good pair of theatrical fangs. I bought the cheapo pair and wound up gargling them.

If you go for the contact lenses, the pair that are closest to the movie run about $250. The pair I bought were not totally accurate but very cool and cost about $65. I had to get a prescription but I have heard some companies will sell them without one.

Glue guns will give you 2nd and 3rd degree burns. Are we clear on glue guns now?

If liquid latex is used, here are some considerations: Shave any body or facial hair where you intend to use latex! Unless you want to experience the sensation of a full body wax, shave!

Do not let latex get on fabric. It will make a permanent bond with the fibers.

When applying, do not let it touch itself to another part of your body before completely dry (10 min) as it will stick to itself and tear. Use something to prop your arms on as holding them up will become difficult after 5 minutes. Don't believe me? Take a copy of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages and hold it with an outstretched arm for about 2 minutes. That is how your arms will feel after 10 minutes just with their own weight.

Latex will lift itself from your skin after about 4 + hours. It will wrinkle, tear, and droop. Basically fall completely apart. Here are some photos towards the end of the night.

Look on the Internet for anything and everything you can think of when brainstorming ideas for this costume. You'll be surprised at what you find and learn.

Finished Costume

2007-10-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

I did not get as many photos as I would have liked showing different angles of Darkness. These are pretty good pictures though.

BTW, the stunning creature next to me is my beautiful wife.