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

DIY War Bonnets or Indian Head dress Part I

HOW TO MAKE INDIAN HEAD DRESS / DIY INDIAN HEAD DRESS

In order to make Indian Head dress you need the following but not exactly, you can also use materials and tools which can also complete the head dress. Here is the list of the tools and materials we used:

Materials:

Fur

Small Beads (choice of color)

Medium sized beads

Long feathers

Leatherette

(White) 2 centimeter width strings

(Brown) poly canvass fabric/ bag fabric

(Brown) Yarn

Nylon

Spray paint

Barbeque Sticks

Garter

Wires

Thin foams (crypsole)

Tools:

Glue Gun & Glue Sticks

Scissors

Springs (I used cord protector instead)

Wood (I used a compound of sticks, glued together and an empty container of dishwashing paste for beadwork)

Needle

Thread/Strings

Safety Mask

Masking Tape

Pliers

Cutter

So let's get started:

Step 1 - Preparation
Prepare your materials and tools to avoid later distractions, and it won’t get in the way during creative process.

Step 2 - Start working with the base,

• I used wires to form the head-band, plus it can give flexibility in sizes of head dress users.

• Then I sew garter on both ends of the wire, making sure it not too loose and not too tight for the head.

• After that using hot glue cover the wire with thin foams, you can use any foam materials just to make it comfortable.

Step 3 – The Beadwork

Bead Holder
•Before laying the patterns of the beads, I did first the improvised bead holder/template. I used barbeque sticks and empty dishwashing paste glued together to create it.

This is the 3d model of bead holder.

Set-up the Nylon
The long nylon/string tying first from one of the T-shape sticks going through the gaps of both springs then going around to another T-shape string, repeating the process going back and forth until you fill each gap of strings, this nylon will serve as a divider for each bead.

Needles and Beads
You will then prepare a needle with strings and inserted beads, the beads will be depending on how many nylon gaps there is.

1.The blue bead is counted by gaps of the nylon,
2.The needled string was then tied first at the first line of the nylon
3.Insert the beads at the needled string & going under the nylons, push the group of beads upward filling the gaps of the nylon,
4.The needled string must go back to the hole of the beads but this time, this should go above the nylon.
5.Repeat the process.

Continue working until you ran out of the needled string; just remember to tie the end of the string under the beads so the end of the string is concealed.

The Bead Pattern
As you can see the almost finished beadwork was copied from excel I made, I changed the color of each cell and adjust it to smaller cubes to make the cell equal in sides.

Here is how to change the cell sizes, after that, you can now change individually the color of each cell.

You can create your own beadwork pattern or you can look for references from various Native American patterns.

After filling all the spaces and finishing the pattern, cut both ends of the nylon from the T-shape sticks. Then tie them by pair like a shoe laces.

yipee! you're half-way there.
click to continue here