Hobby Horse from Alice Madness Returns

Even though I have a gorgeous Vorpal Blade for my Alice costume (Tutorial for the dress here) I really wanted something extra. Also the blade is forges out of metal and is not really con friendly. And hence I decided to make the Level 3 Hobby Horse. There are other tutorials for making this on the web, take a look at this tutorial by randomnizer. 

Since this is a huge prop I need it to be light weight, that means either using expansing foam or styrofoam for the base of the head. I'm not really a fan of expanding foam, you often get irregular air bubbles making it hard to get a smooth surface. So styrofoam it is. I got hold of 5 cm sheets. 

First I made a template. I free hand draw this one, but you can print out a scaled up photo of the reference photo if you want it to be more accurate. My template was tranferres to the styrofoam, one with mane and two without

These were then glued together. I used only wood glue for this step.

And then the carving begins. I tried electrical sanding tools, but felt I had more control and is was somewhat faster during the early stages to use handheld rasps. 

When I had my basic shape I started sanding with grit paper (60). This took forever. 

The ears were added separately. And when I was happy with my shape I started covering the surface with wood filler. 

The eyes are made out of polymorph with a LED embedded. The tape is to hold the eyes in place while I hide the wires.

And the wires are just being pushed into the Styrofoam. The switch and battery pack will be hidden in the mouth of the horse. 

I also added more details around the eyes using paper clay. 

Adding more filler. 

Sanding with finer grit paper. When It is sanded smooth I covered everything with several layers of wood glue. This will even out the surface even more and create more flexible surface. Wood filler can easily crack and the wood glue will help hold it together ;)

I used 2 mm foam to create the detail around the base of the horse. 

Last stage before painting was to coat it with spray filler to even out the surface even more. 

Next up is black spray paint, and because I wanted the surface to look as smooth as possible I went for matte paint. Shiny paint will bring out any bumps in the surface, while the matte paint will hide them. I also airbrushed it with silver paint to bring out more  subtle details before adding silver highlights with a sponge (shown on a picture further down)

The rains are made from real leather with actual metal studs (left overs from my Morrigan cosplay. The rains were glued on using super glue. 

While I worked on the head I of course worked on the handle as well. And I knew I was going to travel with this prop so I had to make it modular to fit my suitcase. And those of you who are familiar with my methods might not be surprised to see that I used a soda bottle and cap to make the mechanism to detach the handle. ;) I made a plywood plate that will be attached under the base of the horse head. I screwed the cork to this plate and attached the top of the bottle to a cardboard tube that would be my handle. The plywood plate was both screwed and glued to the horse head to secure it. 

Sadly I forgot to take photos of the process of making the handle. The top dome id made from Styrofoam, the details along the handle if made from paper clay and the ornament at the end is first carved from Styrofoam and then covered in worbla for durability. 

The lights. 
This is the effect of the light, polymorph diffuse the light well. The eye was painted red after this, and the light is more red than orange, just looks funny in this picture. 

The final Prop :D

Photo by Kake Costumes