Star Wars Macbeth

In my English class we are doing scenes from Macbeth. We can put it in any setting so my group chose Star Wars. Macbeth is going to be Darth Vader. Any tips for making an easy and semi-cheap mask? Any help would be appreciated.

 

Cool project!

A Rubies mask will run you about $30. It's not accurate, but would probably be fine for your purposes.
They can be bought through the SW shop online, or just about any costume retailer.

 

Thanks! but I was kind of looking on tips for making a costume. Maybe some ideas on what we could make it out of?

 

Hmmmmmm... there are certainly ways to make a helmet, but if you want one that looks really good, none of them are inexpensive, unfortunately.

The two budget ideas that come to mind are paper maché, and a resin-coated posterboard model.

Paper maché can be done over a ball or similarly round object to give you a hollow interior for the head, though I have never really loved the results for something like a helmet, where the outside needs to be smooth. It will also be difficult to get some of the sweeping angles of Vader's helmet using it.

A posterboard/resin approach involves making model of the helmet using posterboard, taping it together, brushing on several coats of fiberglass resin (for a project like this you can use just the resin and not mess with the fiberglass, but it will break if you drop it), and then sanding and painting it.
This approach usually has a cleaner look, but will normally have some angularities in areas that normally would be smooth (piecing together a dome shape using wedge-shaped pieces of posterboard often leaves ridges), and involves working with toxic chemicals (you have to work outside or in super ventilated areas with the resin).

Hopefully, other folks will chime in with ideas of their own!

 

Yeah, I would say that if it's just for a play it'd be easier to by the helmet and make the rest of the costume.

If you want to make the helmet that bad (and know that it will take at least a week of solid work) I would go get some modeling clay that doesn't harden (don't remember the exact name but check out any craft store. It's the stuff that is maleable when heated and hardens when cooled but is reusable) and make a sculpt of the helmet. From there cover it in either wax paper or alluminum foil and either fiberglass or paper meche over that (that way it won't stick to the clay).

This way you can take your time and get a really nice sculpt. If you want it looking super nice and accurate then when you make your clay mould cover it in plaster. This will make a "negative" of the mask, then you can coat the inside with a releasing agent (vaseline works well) and pour that full of plaster. Break off the negative and you have a hard mould of the helmet. The only advantage of this is you can now bondo any low spots and sand it to make it really nice. From there either fiberglass or paper meche as mentioned above.

I do a lot of play props and I can say this, the plaster method is far too time consuming for one play. Go witht he first method and you should be fine. If you do the first method with glass then you can fix most of the major flaws (if there are any) with bondo and sanding.

 

Could the name of the clay be Sculpty? I've worked with counting a bunch of that clay, and I'm not sure if it's what you're describing, but it could be.

 

Naw, if I'm not mistaken Sculpty is the stuff that you can put in teh oven and it will become paintable and hardened and such, right?

*goes and digs through messy composites drawer* The stuff I use is Van Aken Modeling Clay. It's a pigmented oil based compound *wipes excess fiberglass resin off keyboard*

Because I buy it directly it comes in rather small amounts and is a touch expensive so I would try some online places. If you see this stuff you'll probably need at least 8 bars for the facemask. Remember, you're not just modeling the face but you have to model the sides and such, thus adding depth and lots of clay! What I usually do when modeling anything with clay is to start with a large enough clump to get the size right then start taking clay away into the shape I want.

http://www.in2art.com/product/120

 

Haveyou seen this?

http://www.glenridge.org/macbeth/mainpage.html

 

oh darn. All of this is very helpful, but unfortunately our teacher did not give us enough time for your ideas.

I made the helmet out of an old baseball/umpires helmet that was plain black. The clothes were just regular black shirt and pants and a cape. In case anyone else is on a time/money crunch...there ya go!

well thanks everyone!

oh yes and for R2 we took a card board box made holes for this girl to get in and used butcher paper and tin foil to decorate it.

 

Awesome! can you give a small summery of how it went? I'd love to hear!