Once the shape is pretty close I will use kidney tools to smooth out and control the surface. Once the clay is soft I started applying it in small clumps to rough out the basic shape of Isaac's Level 3 helmet. I have a small convection oven in my shop that I use to melt down the Monster Clay. A heat source must be used to make it malleable. Basically at room temp it is fairly hard (great for detailing). I again used monster clay from Monster Makers This clay is awesome!!! It's easy to work with and will not mess with your silicone mold later on. Make sure to take that into consideration as you sculpt it out. Now they are designed for mask displaying so the scale is a little smaller than normal. I started with my head form from CFX These are great for sculpting and casting right off of them. This is where you make a casting that you will refine and add your details to, then cast it again for the final product. Both of these were not easy to figure out :) Because of the detail I want in this helmet I decided to make a junk mold. So my first goal was to make a helmet as small as possible but still have the ability to light up and look out. Most of the time the helmets were just way to big when compared to the rest of the armor. I have seen multiple Issac Clarke cosplay costumes on the web and the main thing that bothered me in almost every one was the scale of the helmet. Green LEDs and Coin Ballery holder - 2032 battery Knowing that the RIG would be one of the most detailed parts I made sure to take lots and lots of pics. The great thing about having a game is you can rotate the camera around your figure to get a good look at every angel.

I took numerous screen shots and posted them all over my basement wall for reference and inspiration. For this costume I actually played through the game back to where Isaac gets the Level 3 suit. Always try and find as many reference images as you can. When you start to think about making a prop from a video game, movie, etc. As with all of my prop builds reference material is key.

Dead space 1 lvl 4 suit