Duuz

As with all my costumes, I started with the easy stuff first. I created the vest first from a pattern I made a while ago and just altered it slightly. The Chinese style shirt was next, made from another modified pattern. I couldn’t find material that was a dark enough green so I bought the darkest green I could find and dyed it in black for about 1 minute. That worked out perfectly. I bought smooth square buttons and covered them in black material for the clasp. One side is sewed directly to the shirt and the other has a snap.
The pants are made from a pattern I had for ninja pants.

I decided to tackle the boots next. My biggest problem was that Duuz is a huge character; probably 7 to 8 feet tall and built like Schwarzenegger. I needed to make myself at least a little larger. I bought a pair of snow boots and, using them as a pattern, cut out risers from a 2” block of wood. These were screwed onto the bottoms of the boots with 2” wood screws. I added in inserts to make them fit right as they were about one size too large. This also kept the screw heads from digging into my feet. I covered it all in ½” foam and blue material. Because of the way I had to put the boots on, the green strip had to be separate from the boots. I created Velcro bands that I could wrap around the pant legs and partially stuff into the tops of the boots.

I made the sword out of a 3’ piece of oak. Once the outline was cut, I beveled the blade with a radial arm saw. For the build up on the cross guard and ridges on the handle, I used DAP Plastic Wood and molded it into the general shape I needed and sanded it smooth. I also used it to fix cuts where I went a little too far with the saw. I put on a thin coat of Bondo to hide the wood grain. Then I started masking it off and spray-painting it. I drew out the blade shape on a piece of pink insulation foam and gave it a ½” space all around. I cut this out to make the sheath and glued poster board to either side with hold the foam. Once this was dry, I covered it all in black vinyl. I made a belt loop and hand stitched it to the scabbard.

The mask is build on a wire frame and covered in ½” foam. I started with 14ga. Steel wire and made loops, connecting them together to form a sort of wire basket that would fit my head. Where a wire joins another, I bent the wire around and crimped it before wrapping the joint in painter’s tape to keep it from sliding back and forth. I then started adding on wire to outline the shape of the muzzle, jaw and horns. Once complete, I began hot gluing the foam to it. The horns required thicker foam so I used 2” foam and shaped it around the wire horns. The way the mask sits on my head, I see out of the mouth area. My face is obscured with plastic canvas painted black. Once complete, I started gluing on spandex I purchased from www.americanspandex.com. It was a bit too shiny so I glued it on with the dull side facing out. I used hot glue very sparingly around areas like the eye ridges to really make them stand out. Once I had glued as much as possible, I set about hand stitching the spandex from the horns to the spandex covering the head. The eyes are plastic baseball covers I bought online. I masked the iris and painted the rest all red on the inside. I then glued them in place and backed it with black material. I added black vinyl around the eyes to hide the edges on the spandex and to give them more definition. I added in teeth made of Friendly Plastic, masked off the bottom jaw, and spray painted it lightly with white to complete the mask.

The tail is 2 thick sheets of upholstery foam I glued together with sprament. I shaped it with and electric knife and Fiskars and then created a spandex sock to cover it. I test fitted it and took it in in places so it would fit more snugly on the foam. I masked the bottom of the tail and lightly sprayed this white as well. The tail was then hand stitched to the pants.