Doc Scratch Head Walkthrough

So, this shows how the Doc Scratch head was constructed. It's an 18" streetlamp globe, with a 9" wide and 12" long oval-shaped hole cut in the neck. Inside, I just kinda slapped some styrofoam.

The trick to picking a globe for your head is how big you're gonna need to cut that hole. With a globe as large as 18" diameter, I can cut a 9" wide hole in it without affecting the appearance of it except from the back. The smaller the globe, the larger a percentage of the curve of the globe would be taken up by the hole.

What this means to anyone attempting to choose a headglobe is that if you pick something too small and you have a large head, you'll be reducing the angles from which you can be photographed and still present a uniform appearance. If you go small enough, you'll find that you've cut off nearly half the globe, and you've basically got a mask rather than a full head.

Also of note is how the globe is worn - although it isn't readily obvious from any picture but the back one, you'll notice the front of the hole in the globe is against my neck. Again, this is for a uniform appearance. I've seen more than a few Doc Scratch cosplayers who appeared to wear the globe hanging straight up and down - what I'd call "flat." The result of this is that the bottom of the globe around the neck appears to be flat, and it detracts from the appearance of the cosplay IMHO*.

You can see that the head-holder inside is fucking ghetto. My only excuse for this is that the entire cosplay came together over the course of two weeks, and I only had the head for three days. When I redo it (I kind of did an emergency jury-rig for PAX, since the group basically demanded I bring the head the next day when I showed up in my suit...) I'm going to be using the innards from a hardhat along with... something else (I'm not sure what yet, but I'm resourceful) to keep it firmly attached to the head. Assuming that's done properly, it'll allow me to be a lot more dynamic as Doc. As it stands, it's fairly unstable on my head unless I'm careful - in one of the pictures on this page: [link] , I'm getting some plush rump in my face. What isn't quite as obvious is that Bro's knocking my head all over the place. He wasn't even plush-rumping me that hard - it's just that damn unstable.

If there's anything that any of the other Docs care to add as far as tips and the like, feel free to do so in the comments. If you want to see the details better, download the full image.

* I submit [link] and [link] as two examples of what I mean. I'm not gonna knock a fellow Doc, and I know I've got plenty of issues with my own cosplay, but these two pictures illustrate what I mean by the "flat" statement, which I admit is pretty unclear.

Second update: I stumbled across this: [link] which was submitted a few days after I slapped this together. He's got a -great- method for mounting the head. I'm gonna eventually find some foam and use that idea.