grimdarkthroes:

Well, you will need: 

• Great stuff construction foam. Buy it at Home Depot or Lowe’s or any home improvement place. One bottle should be more than enough if you are conservative, and read the directions. Tip: empty out the entire bottle at once, in small(ISH) chunks to make chunks for horns. Store the excess in a box or something. (The tube it comes out of tends to clog)
• Aluminum foil.
• A knife.
• A knife sharpener. (Optional but recommended) 
• A prickly animal brush, for cats or dogs. As long as it has little wire spikes you should be ok.
• Something thin and pointy, like a sewing needle or pin.
• Flat cardboard or something to cover your workspace.
• Three brushes- one tiny, one small, one medium. 
• Acrylic paint in the following colors- dark brown, red, orange, yellow, black, white.
• Water, a towel- regular brush cleaning supplies. 
• A sharpie of any color.
• A foam ball. 
• Wood glue.
• Thin wooden dowels, approximately 5. 
• Paperclay, approximately 80-100 oz. Buy a few and then buy more, if possible- it’s pricey and it’s hard to keep stored, but if you have extra, put it in an airtight ziploack bag with a sprinkle of water. It’ll be okay as long as it’s not in the sun.

Tutorial time! 

Make yourself a shitload of horns. Follow the guidance of this lovely blogger, or read my version of instructions below.

1. Get some construction foam. the kind that expands. Pour it all out on wax paper in a LARGE AREA. Be prepared, you will summon FOAM SATAN. AND BY GOD CRACK A WINDOW THE FUMES ARE TOXIC. For each can, I can make approx 24 horns. 

All hail foam satan.

2. Mark out the general shape with a sharpie on a chunk you unceremoniously hacked from the rest.

Watch RuPaul’s drag race with you work. SIDE NOTE: Things like vriska’s curvy bit or Kanaya’s hook need to come later. Just do the base shape.

3. Carve it into a horn shape. It’s okay if it’s rectangular but it hAS TO BE 3D.

4. Tin foil that bitch. Wrap it up in tin foil, use the body of a marker to smooth it out.

5. Get a bowl of water and paperclay. Mash out a sheet of paperclay flat. 

6. Put on the horn. Later, rinse, repeat until the horn is covered in a THIN LAYER of paperclay. Use your WET HANDS to smooth out lumps and such. It’s gonna feel heavy- it won’t be once the water dries out. Promise. (Unless you use a lot of paperclay. Be conservative.) Add the other bits to the horns like Kanaya’s hook and stuff.

7. Walk away for 20 minutes. 

8. Use a straight sharp pointy thing to make indentations and holes. Always enter the paperclay from lower and exit from higher. Make a bunch of indentations until it’s nice and textured. Vary your depth and length. Once you’re finished, use a cat brush to make holes using a “tapping” motion. Do not brush your horn!!! Tap it. This will smooth out some of your texturing. Redo it if you want, after catbrushing. I then make SHALLOW, LONG LINES vertically through my horns.

8. Walk away overnight. Have dinner. Sleep tight.

9. Paint with a DARK DARK DARK undercoat. Use as little paint as you can.

10. Use a TINY AMOUNT OF RED, and paint the bottom. Go about halfway up. 

11. Slap on a line of orange on, cover SOME of the red. Again, not a huge thick slop of paint.

12. USING THE TINIEST DABS OF RED AND ORANGE HUMANLY POSSIBLE, blend.

like seriously this much

12. Repeat for yellow. blend as needed.

If you use a TINY AMOUNT OF PAINT, these will dry in 10 mins. Lightweight, durable, covergirl.

You have some horns. YAY. Good!! Get a wooden stick, nice and thin.

1. Use a knife to saw it a little bit in half, then just snap it. The sharp edge is okay. 

2. Use a knife to open up your horn at the base. Start with circular motions for about a quarter of an inch, and then stab through until you BARELY hit the foam inside. 

3. Spear your stick in there. This stick is WAY TOO LONG, but you can always cut it down.

4. Acquire a FOAM BALL. You can buy them at Michaels. Lament that it costs TWENTY DOLLARS.

5. Stab your hornsicle into the foam ball. It doesn’t give any resistance, don’t worry. If it sticks out of the foam ball, just trim the stick to size. If you’re worried about it staying on, slather the stick with wood glue and sink the horn on, leaving it in the up position until it dries. 

6. Stab horns in until you are happy. 

7. Hold the ball in your hand. Find a comfortable holding position. Then, use your knife to carve out a hole JUST BIG enough for your thumb. I took the horns out to show you.

Alright, it’s time to put some CLAY on your foam ball! Your horns have set, glue is in place, everything is rocking and rolling.

Make VERY VERY VERY flat hunks of paperclay, taking care to keep your hands sprinkled with water, and it sprinkled with water. Press the clay onto the foam and use your wet fingers to smear it around, pushing it against the foam and spreading it really as thin as you can. Use your fingers to smooth any lumps, and get the texture you desire.This stuff is made to be lightweight but we’re using a lot of it. Even paperclips get heavy and all that.

Only do about 1/8 of the ball at a time- you need to have every section be dry before you move on, and this way you’re not trying to smooth clay here and slap clay on here and balance it somehow. Go slow, be patient. This process took me a full week.  On the dividing lines from yesterday’s clay and today’s, be sure to spread extra thin, and even overlap a little bit, to give it a smooth look. 

Don’t put anything IN your thumb hole, just keep it there.

This is a little roll of clay. Once your clay has been spread to the base of a horn, make a little roll and press it on the base of the horn, and then smear it up and down so it connects to the wet clay on the body, and goes about ¼ up your horn. This is to seal any cracks between base+body, provide extra support, and it looks SUPER COOL. Like horns are growing out of the egg!! Super neat.

I couldn’t take a picture of this part because it took a lot of concentration, and both hands. See the end product for a general idea of what to do, and otherwise, try hard and do your best!!! I believe in you.

Putting the roll on the base.

One side of one horn done- see how it sticks out on the side I haven’t done yet, where there is a gap between the horn and the body?

Now you have to let it dry, which takes about 36 hours, longer in humid conditions. It needs to be dry as a bone before you continue. 

Using a hairdryer to dry out the clay is a TERRIBLE IDEA AND I DO NOT ENDORSE IT.But, if you need your clay dry(ish) quickly and you dont mind working with additional cracks, use the LOW setting. 

No matter how studiously you let your clay dry, cracks will appear. We’re working with a lot of clay- it’s pretty much impossible to avoid. NOT TO FEAR!!!! Take a tiny amount of clay- just a wee lil dab- and fill in cracks as needed. 

Look at the dab. 

Let those dry as well- wet clay will be darker than dry clay, as you no doubt gathered, so don’t be alarmed by the color difference. 

Finished, unpainted product. Notice how I’m balancing it on a roll of duct tape- this is so the horns and the clay don’t touch anything but the open air. ONLY PUT DRY CLAY OR BARE FOAM ON THE DUCT TAPE ROLL, or the roll will stick and you will be sad. Make sure the horns arent touching the desk/floor/whatever- they CAN NOT hold weight. Well, they CAN, but it’s a risk to your  horns and your orb. Don’t do it.

So, I thought painting was going to be MUCH more of a hassle than it was, but it essentially boils down to mix a nice deep grey (deeper than skin paint- the matriorb is darker than skin)

But generally, you mix paint, and then spread it NICE AND THIN. I used three different brushes, one for the body, one for the bits that connect the horns to the body, and one for tiny cracks and details.

And now, I present to you, a series of paint shots, followed by the finished product!

I made too much so sue me :P 

THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!!

The stand is where the thumb hole is and therefore where I will hold it from- this is what will show at cons!!!!