Previously I wrote about how I love finding ways to leverage my 3D skills outside the digital realm, when I discussed my Scout mask.
Like the scout mask, I wanted to make a mask of the "Aurelinaut" mascot from the Aurelia Cassiopeia community. It's a blue & purple space-cat:
My initial goal was just to make a mask papercraft and share it with the community so people could build their own. While I was working on it, someone said it looked like a DJ helmet (think: DeadMau5), and replied with this:
Even though I don't really do much for Halloween things since my Cup Head costume, I decided to take this throw away comment and turn it into a reality by making a full DJ set up.
Now, while I could have just used printer ink (toner) to have the purple-blue gradient on the mask, I didn't want to waste that much toner, but also, it would still look bad because the seams where the edges would have some white paper leakage. So, if I have to paint it, I'd have to learn how to paint gradients. Up to this point, I have only really worked with acrylic paints via brushes or sponges. I decided to get an airbrush and learn how to paint gradients with this, which was a huge help.
I ended up getting a cheap hand-held battery powered air brush as my first introduction. In retrospect, I've now got 2 more airbrushes, and the one shown above is pretty crappy. But it did work and got me into airbrushing, so I'm thankful for picking up a new skill.
To complete the rest of the outfit, I picked up a gradient dip-dye hoodie from the Linus Tech Tips store, and some purple pants from Amazon.
Then I had to figure out the rest of DJ set up. I modeled the turn tables in Blender and made them with papercraft, and spray panted them black. I improvised the knobs and buttons with straws, and used print outs for the final detail textures. I used some black rope cord I had around and painted straws again to mimic the audio wiring between the devices.
I needed a way to "wear" the dj setup, so I used more rope and some think foam-core to make a table with some vecro spots to hold the paper craft items down.
Overall, it came out really convincing. From a distance, and especially in photos it tricks the eye to look like a real DJ set up, see below:
Over all, this was one of my most ambitious Paper Craft projects - it took quite a long time to assemble app the parts and get them painted and decaled properly.
But I love how it came out!
