How to make Mulawin Costume Part I (Head Dress)

Part I - How to Make Mulawin Head Dress

Core Tools:
-Pliers
-Scissors
-Glue Gun
-Mannequin (Optional) / Own Head
-Measuring Tools

Core Materials:
-Hot Glue
-Feathers
-Fur
-Wires
-Foam

Mulawin Overall Costume Tools and Materials

Besides from the “Core Tools And Materials” you may want to sneak to the overall tools and materials we used in the making the whole Mulawin Costume.

Materials used:
-Foams (for armors, I used light green color foam because the target color for armor is dark green it readily served as the base color)
-Thin foam (for Wings)
-Spray Paints (Dark Green, Black, Gold, and Brown)
-Acrylic Paint (Color:Green & Dark Green - used in telon feathers)
-Telon (used for hardening the fabric collars, we used it for big feathers)
-Natural Feathers
-Green Dye (for colorizing white natural feathers)
-Adhesives: Rugby, White Glue, Max Bond Glue (for adhesives) you can use any adhesive agents
-Garter
-Feathers (Color: Light Green, Natural Brown, White & Black - for wings and head dress)
-Fur (Light Brown)
-Towel (Cream color – used for skirt)
-White Strings (rope like)
-Wires (for base) & Floral Wires (for interlocking wires)
-Bag Straps (for Wings)
-Strap/Plastic Adjusters
-Quick Release Buckles (used for locking the strap)
-Buttons(For Decoration)

Tools:
-Soldering Iron (for texturing the foam)
-Glue Gun & Glue Sticks
-Scissors or Cutters
-Measuring Tape
-Sand Paper (For sanding the armor foam)
-Plastic foils and Packaging Tape (for getting the form of the mannequin or body – Body measurement)
-Mannequins
-Pliers

Wanted to know how much it cost before you create your own Mulawin costume? Well it takes a lot of effort, time, tools and materials. Its more than a penny or money, but for sure you’ll enjoy doing it so let’s get started.

I give it a 4 star difficulty

Prepare Every Tools and Materials
to keep the creative juices flowing you need to prepare everything before you get started.

Know where you would like to start
Starting is the hardest part, we all know that, but to get you moving, keep your hands busy start to whatever part you feel like starting. To have a peace in mind we can give you an idea. There are no standards but you can start top to bottom, front to back, starting from head dress > Upper Armor up to Lower Armor > and lastly the wings.

Step 1 – The Head Dress Base & Feathers

1.a ) Mulawin Head Dress Base
If you have a head mannequin like this you can easily form the wires and foam. Aside from mannequin you can use your own head if you’re the costume user.

Wrap around the wires to the largest circumference of the forehead, put small ellipses at the end of the wires to make them adjustable,

Cover the wires with foam based from the form of the head measurement.

Tips on how to get the head curvature, you can wrap plastic foil to the head and tape it, you can use packaging tape to layer the wrapped plastic foil, then draw the shape of the head dress directly after you apply the tape.

Here is the visual process.

After you draw the shape of the base of the head dress you can now use it as a template. Quarterly cut the template out of tape and foil so you can flatten them.

Each cut piece of template will be traced to the foam, after you trace and cut the foam, bond them using super glue, I used Rugby, when applying the Rugby, make sure the surfaces are smooth and clean, let them dry a little for about 15 min/s. so it will strongly adheres,

When you glued the pieces of foam together it should automatically form a concave shape of the head, like from the photos in “wires and foam”

1.b) The Head Fur and Feathers

When shaping the fur, imagine a long hair attached at the scalp you can make a symmetrical shape from both sides of the head temples, then another long rectangular shape at the middle, To fully cover the foam.

Attached the fur at the foam using any adhesives, for me, I used Rugby because it quickly adheres to the material. The only negative thing about Rugby is that it has a negative effect on health, so wear mask as much as possible and make sure you are in an open space so air can freely flow.

Colorizing the Fur
As you can notice the fur we made has a touch of dark brown, and dark green at certain parts, We used Spray paint, as of our experience it may be advisable coloring the fur material as it does not hardens the fur, it can also be comb if you want to arrange the flow of the fur/hair.

The Feathers
The layering of feathers is the most enjoyable part, it may distress you “I promise”. To better arrange the feathers start at the bottom going to the top most part of the head dress which is at the forehead and make sure you have a reference photo or guide search in the internet from a lot of birds or directly to Mulawin characters itself.

I used hot glue and glue gun to attach the feather to the fur. Tip! hot glue it at the end root of the feather, not to the fur and most importantly attach the root of the feather at the scalp/fabric of the fur so the feather won’t dangle and easily be removed when you just hit something.

Yey you're now done with the Mulawin Head Dress, tell us whats on your mind.
If you would like to go to the next mulawin tutorial Click Here, for Part II - How to Make Mulawin Armor