Deathstroke from "Arrow"

I have a story to tell all of you. I was trying to keep this one a little low-key since it’s pretty embarrassing, but I can’t keep in in any longer. It’s too funny….
I did something extremely dumb this past weekend causing me to have some unanticipated “free” time.
Let’s get this out and over with.
I ran myself over with my own car.
More specifically, I ran my leg over with my car.
Yes I was driving.
No I was not intoxicated in any way, shape, or substance.
It was a perfectly timed accident.
I stopped my car on the curb.
I forgot to put it in park.
I tripped getting out of the car and fell on my knees.
My car ran my leg over.

Good news!
It’s not broken!
However I am very much on crutches for the next week at least.
My dignity is another story…
I don’t think that will ever heal.
The only way to handle this now is to laugh about it.
Speaking of humor…
I do have some serious road rash that Garrick is tending to since it’s too gross for me to handle looking at. (I have a high pain tolerance but a low threshold for seeing blood/gore on myself, it makes my anxiety run amok).
I am lucky to have a great husband like him.
No I won’t post pictures of it.
Eww.

I will be posting pictures of older projects I haven’t gotten around to for the next few weeks.
That’s a plus!

I’ve been meaning to post about this one since Phoenix Comicon.
This is my last minute build for DeathStroke from the series “Arrow.”

Garrick and I had started watching “Arrow” and were instantly obsessed. We love when there is a good “real world” telling of a character and this is just that.
Let’s be honest.
I don’t have a huge attachment to Slade aka DeathStroke as a character.
But look at this mask.

I might add on arrow to mine later if I can find some driftwood to display it on…

How could I resist?!
There’s so much weathering to be done and texture to create.
This was a much welcomed challenge for me.
I also have a friend who really likes Deathstroke. So I was thinking if this came out well I’d make one for him. Since I was happy with the outcome of this project, I’m currently working on a second one for him.

I had a hood pattern already made for DeathStroke since I was commissioned to make a fabric mask for the web series “Super Power Beat Down.” For that one I we used the same face shell for DeathStroke as we did for Deadpool. This one that I made for myself I sued the shell we used for the Cobra Commander hood. You can watch the video here.
This was a pretty quick build since I already had the parts.
I didn’t take as many in progress photos as I would have liked since I was on a tight deadline but since I’m making a second one, I’ll take more this time around and post them when I’m done.

I first decided to double up on the material when I was sewing. I also went for a brighter orange, since that’s what I had and what I knew my friend would like. To be honest, I like the actual prop a lot, but I like this orange better. It’s not exact, it’s how I preferred it, sometimes I like to change things on my preferences, this is one of them.
Doubling the material was a great idea. When I started to cut into it to make it looked frayed, the double material really filled out the empty space. I tried to cut along the same lines as the prop undercutting everything by a bit so when I went back later to burn the material it wouldn’t burn it up so high.

I used scrap pieces of material to test out all of my paints and burning it first so I would know what to expect from the material. (Always a good idea to test techniques out first on scraps!) I did a combination of paints that would be more of a natural color, more dark browns, ochers, and oranges so it would look more like it was weathered on an island rather than the stark “cell shaded” looks you get with just blacks and grays.

I built up a little of the paint in a light layer to place where all the weathering would be. I took care to work it around the eyes, nose, and mouth very lightly to give it some character and to look like someone was actually wearing it.
After this initial layer was done came the fun part…playing with fire!
Spandex doesn’t really burn, it melts. This was a lesson in getting that reaction to work for me, not against me. There was a lot of watching melting fabric drop and hope it didn’t land on your toes and also using a respirator. This process stank. I also don’t know what kind of harmful fumes it made by just burning the synthetic material but I figured breathing it in wasn’t a very good idea regardless.

Once this was done, I let it air out a bit so it didn’t stink up the house, and brought it back inside for some more weathering. I ended up wanting to make the whole mask look dingy and filled a spray bottle up with really strong coffee and paint water. It took some rubbing and workign to get the material to absorb the water but it did. I would do a few layers of specific weathering in between and then drench the whole mask with the coffee/paint solution again. I did this about 3-4 times until I reached the point where i wanted to add some more substantial paint detail and was happy with color change from the solution.
This was my last step in painting. I made up a few different shades of the brown, orange, ocher mixture some with black in it and started to go heavy on the areas that had a lot of detail to them. I didn’t want to over-do it too quickly, so I built this up in layers and checked it with the origional frequently.

I think it came out pretty darn close!

Still think I might add that arrow later…

I think I will shave down the cheek bones a little more on the face shell buck

So much weathering!

No zipper, this was just a display

Like I said, the color is different but I’m happy with it and had a ton of fun making it an learning new techniques. I am really excited to do more masks like this in the future and really push the limits on what fabric masks can look like.
This was the first mask I made as a display piece only. Technically you could wear it but it would probably smell weird and be pretty itchy due to the burning and shredding of the fabric.
If I can find some driftwood that’s not crazy expensive I’ll probably put this on it as a display and put the arrow in it’s eye.
We shall see!

Let me know what you all think!