This document is a 2015 portfolio that summarizes several of the author's costume, prop, sculpture and illustration projects. It includes a K-9 officer mascot costume with movable jaw, the character Flemeth from Dragon Age II recreated as a costume with foam armor, an animatronic book prop from Hocus Pocus, a digital Greenman sculpture, a unicorn faun costume, a miniature landscape scene reimagining a map from League of Legends, and several traditional and digital illustrations. For each project, it provides details on the design inspiration, fabrication process, and materials used.

1. 2 0 1 5 P o r t f o l i o

2. Special Thanks
To Greg Feiler | For teaching me principals of foam armor construction
To Cassy Ferguson | For teaching me principals of mascot construction
To Heather Hensen | For photographing my projects
To Allison Little | For designing my logo, page layouts, and business cards
To Louis Mitchell | For inspiring
To My teachers, family, and friends | For pushing, providing, and supporting

3. Table of Contents
1. K-9 Officer | Mascot Suit
2. Flemeth | Costume, Wig, and Foam Armor from Dragon Age II
3. Book | Animatronic Book from Hocus Pocus
4. Greenman | Digital Sculpture in ZBrush
5. Unicorn Faun | Costume and Headpiece
6. Summoner’s Swamp | Miniature Set reimagined from League of Legends
7. Illustrations | Traditional and Digital Illustrations

4. K-9 Officer
My college thesis project, the K-9
Officer mascot costume is based
on my central design philosophy
that a costume or prop’s success
hinges on its ability to capture
and interact with its audience. My
thesis addresses the problem
many children experience where
they are afraid of mascot
costumes, and I believe it’s
because these costumes are
“frozen” and have little
movement or ability to interact
with children; the face remains
rigid and the actor cannot speak.
The K-9 Officer is meant for being
used by police when they give
school seminars about safety for
small children. The eyes maintain
eye contact through an optical
illusion and the bottom jaw moves
when the actor speaks, allowing
someone wearing the costume to
interact better with their
audience and hopefully be less
intimidating to children. The
bodysuit has leg padding that
creates a digitigrade illusion.

5. Process
K-9 Officer’s head was fabricated
out of foam. It has a three-part
elastic “hinge” which hugs the
actor’s head and syncs the
bottom jaw’s movement with the
actor’s own jaw.
The following illusion of the eyes
was created by installing them at
an inset from the surface of the
foam.
Fur pieces were then sewn
together and glued on top of the
foam.
All the fur was shaved down to
length and the inside of the foam
was lined with fleece, including a
fleece tongue and nose.
The rest of the costume consists of
a separate tail, two separate feet,
two separate hand paws, and a
bodysuit. The legs have pillow
inserts that pad the legs out and
create a digitigrade illusion. The
tail is separate so that it won’t rip if
children pull on it.

6. Flemeth
Flemeth is a character from the
video game Dragon Age II. I
decided to recreate her wig,
costume, and armor because I
love her design and thought it
would be a fun challenge since I
had never fabricated armor
before. I am wearing the costume
in the photos.
This costume won Best In Show at
Matsuricon 2014, which was my first
costume competition.

7. Process
Six months in the making, all of
the armor was fabricated out of
foam. After it was sanded and
distressed, it was coated for
durability and weatherproofing
and then drybrushed to look like
metal.
The clothing parts of the costume
are fairly sparse, so their patterns
were freehanded. Over 300 studs
were attached to the fabric, and
rooster feathers were used for the
epaulettes. The flowing train was
distressed with razor blades.
The wig was made by purchasing
two silver wigs. I cut holes in the
first wig for the foam horns, and
used the second wig to cover the
horns in hair one hair at a time.
The horns were then glued to a
headband, fed through the holes
in the first wig, and everything
was wefted and glued together.
The tips of the horns were then
adorned with leather.

8. Book
This is an animatronic replica of
the book from the 1993 film Hocus
Pocus. It runs off of four micro
servo motors and is operated by
a wireless radio controller.
I chose to make this project
because I wanted to do
something different and also
because I love making realistic
human eyes.

9. Process
Book is built off of a textbook. I
hollowed out half of the pages and
drilled the servos and support
structures into the top cover.
The outer skin is latex that was
brushed into a mold and then
painted with PAX paint and stitched
up with sinew for looks. The snakes
were sculptures that I molded and
cast in resin.
The eye was a lathed acrylic form
that was then cast up in dental
acrylic. I drew an iris digitally and
printed it out and glued it do the
surface of the dental acrylic, and
then painted the acrylic with washes
and tacked on threads of yarn for
veins. The whole thing was then cast
in an outer mold to get the clear
resin on the outside.

10. Greenman
The Greenman is a 3D digital
sculpture I did in ZBrush.
His design was inspired by the
mythological Greenman and is
primarily based off of a white oak
tree for the leaves.
I chose to create this project
because I really enjoy themes found
in nature, and I enjoyed making all of
the bark textures.

11. Process
Greenman was sculpted in a basic
standing position and then moved into a
sitting position on his log. His arm was then
raised to hold his staff.
His staff, log, and staff gem are all
separate subtools, and his staff gem is
made of the “jellybean” material.

12. Unicorn Faun
This is a costume of a unicorn faun,
sometimes known as a satyr, with
unicorn legs instead of goat legs. The
costume is being modeled by one of
my classmates.
I was very excited to take on this
project, and did it because I have
always had an interest in costumes
and wanted to try working with fur. I
also wanted to try out the
digitigrade padding technique that
creates the illusion of an actor’s legs
bending backwards like an animal’s,
which worked so well that I applied it
to my thesis project.
I was also excited to have an excuse
to make something very cute and
girly.

13. Process
The legs are fake fur stuffed with
pillows that give them the illusion of
being digitigrade, meaning it looks
like the actor’s legs bend backwards
like an animal’s. The tail is fake fur
with a foam core with wefted purple
hair at the tail tip.
The headpiece is fake flowers and
fake fur assembled to make ears and
a flower crown.
The horn is a silicone appliance with
glitter suspended in it.
The hooves were cast foam hooves
purchased online which I then
painted with glitter and attached to
shoes which are glued into the
costume.

14. Summoner’s Swamp
This is a miniature set that was
inspired by the old game
map of the video game
League of Legends. I
reimagined the playing field
as a more swampy, war-torn
patch of forest. The original
map is called Summoner’s
Rift.
I chose this project because I
wanted to experiment with
miniature landscapes and try
making something that was
inspired by an existing map
but that wasn’t an exact
replica.

15. Process
The entire set is made of green foam
that was then carved into general
land mass shapes. The whole thing
was then covered in plaster for
texturing.
The lilypads and tree forms are from
a hobby store, where I also
purchased packages of foliage to
texture the ground, trees, and
swamp. The rocks were made from
casting plaster in a rock mold I also
found at the hobby store.
The cobblestones were dremeled
out of masonite with moss foliage
sprinkled in.
The pond is filled with Crystal Clear
resin.

16. Illustrations
I mostly excel in traditional or digital
line art supplemented by digital cel
shading, digital watercolor, or colored
pencils.
Most of my inspiration comes from
animals, and I enjoy putting small
details and lots of movement in my art,
hence my choice of billowing ribbon
banners and pinstripe shading.

17. Process
For my traditional line art I use Micron
pens over a pencil sketch.
Most of my traditional illustrations are
scanned into the computer and taken
into Paint Tool Sai for digital cel shading or
digital watercolor. Some of them might
be lightly colored with colored pencils.
Digital sketches have color roughed in to
help me then define lines better

18. Thank You