so, i log into toontown. i get mail, its an invitation to toonfest. i get sad because i live super far away, so i cant really go. out of curiosity, i look up momocon. its got some cool guests, some voice actors my dad likes, so i message him and jokingly ask if we can impulsively travel and go to this convention.
except he said yes.
turns out, family was traveling anyway. and the way the schedule worked out, i could actually go to toonfest & momocon.
holy shit?
so of course my mind is running a mile a minute. ive only been to one convention, and that was ages ago, i suddenly have to hype myself up for like, everything. dress nice, get my hair done, should i bring something cool? stickers, my sketchbook, an UNO deck?
oops, the hellsinger brainrot.
so i grabbed a bunch of crafting materials i for some reason had stashed. grabbed my hot glue gun, my paints, politely asked for some materials, and got to work. after a few weeks, pazelius was real.
the crafting of the skull was, uh, interesting. i started by grabbin' his model, positioning it carefully in blender, seperating his jaw from his big ass cranium, then tracing over it from every angle. front, side, top, bottom, eye depth, etc. was that a little too much? yeah, but it made the carving process easier. after that, i glued his face onto a brick of foam and got to carving. this stage took about a day and a half, so i went through a lot of youtube mini documentaries. thanks, izzzyzzz!
at some point, i realized he was recognizable as a skull. unfortunately, every picture i took of him looked like ass. whatever, time for the next steps!
after the head and jaw were done, i got to work on his teeth. they're made entirely of hot glue, which i poured onto tooth-shaped outlines on paper. i wouldve molded them by hand, but hot glue tends to be hot, so i just waited for it to cool and then used a cutter to shape 'em.
after that, hours of paper mache. horrible mess. horrible process, too. i dont even know if youre supposed to do this when working with foam (did i mention paz is the first prop ive ever made? i kinda went into this blind). either way, it worked. i sat him in front of a fan for about a day, and when he was a little crunchier, i got to the gesso stage.
which took DAYS.
i coated him in so many layers of acrylic primer in the hopes that it would make him a little smoother, which didn't quite work. i didnt do a great job of smoothing out the Winkles when working with the paper mache, and there's only so much gesso can hide. so, i just made do. at this stage, i realized his horns looked a little flat, so i added texture with more hot glue. these ones i did do by hand, 'cause i figured out that technique where you just dip your hands in cold water. neat!
after letting him dry for a few days, i tried to sand him. that ended up like, ripping bits of him off. yikes. so i stopped doing that immediately and impulsively went Fuck it and started painting. and suddenly i was up all night painting every single precise detail on his skull. every crack, hole, symbol, whatever. a lot of the holes you see in the pictures are fake, just painted on. with the paint, he got a lot more depth! which made me super happy. at this point, i realized he was kinda done. i let him dry, then spent another day making SURE sure i didnt wanna do anything else with him, then hit him with the matte varnish.
but that's not all! because at some point in this process, i stuck a big-ass stick into his jaw to let his mouth move. however, it just kinda hung open when i did that. angry that the skull was just a prop and not a real floating angelic / demonic skull that could talk, i spent a while figuring out how the hell to fix the issue of his jaw. i eventually figured out i could hide two springs behind his jaw, which lets his mouth open when moved, but keeps it shut otherwise! which was cool.
so, not the craziest process. very tedious, and i think in the future i just wanna work with thermoplastic or figure out a way to make things sturdier and less wrinkly with paper mache. again, not sure if thats a thing people do. but i do wanna say, this opened up a new feeling in my brain- i really wanna learn how to make more props. so, uh, every media ive ever liked is probably doomed.
