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etmoonshade — Doc Scratch Head Walkthrough
Published: 2011-09-01 07:54:34 +0000 UTC; Views: 13718; Favourites: 83; Downloads: 200
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Description
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.
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Comments: 54
It's actually acrylic, not glass. It's also surprisingly not quite as fragile as expected... sure, I never threw it at the ground or anything, but it really took 3 years of carrying around my one con per year before it finally got bad enough for me to think of replacing it.
Thanks for the tip - I'll look into that when I revisit my Scratch cosplay. ^_^
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your welcomed, and whew burden relieved
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Perhaps I missed it in the description, but pray tell, can you SEE out of this contraption?
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Nope! Although I'm eventually going to rig a camera up in there.
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o_O How will you go about doing that?! I'm mechanically stupid so forgive me if I appear bewildered.
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You mean, how have I?
It's a pinhole camera hidden in the bowtie, and a screen inside the headglobe proper. I've still got the problem that I need to somehow get binocular vision inside that head - the small screen + only one camera (and that about a foot lower than I expect to be "seeing") makes it pretty much impossible to navigate, especially in a crowd. It -does- work, though.
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have you tried looking into how the Occulus rift works? you can hook that up inside the globe and as long as the bow-tie camera doesn't get damaged it will seem like you don't have a globe on your head. and it wouldn't hurt to have a wireless connection on the camera, that way if it does get damaged you can have a back up you can easily swap with.
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That's actually a really interesting thought. I wouldn't use Occulus Rift specifically, because fuck Facebook, but I'd certainly consider something similar for the camera solution.
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I actually looked into this, and I got Ideas(TM). I'll keep y'all posted.
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yeah, you might be able to salvage any old virtual reality head gear from online. I think the basic concept of it is that each eye has its own isolated screen, making it trick the eye
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So you could say the camera is....
...ALREADY THERE?
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You've enlightened me, however I'm still technologically stupid. Haha. My friend who is considering cosplaying as Scratch needed help with the head, and I'll be damned if I'll let him do it half assed. I like what you've done and you have proven to me that it is, in fact, possible, to rig a camera to one of these things. You have done me a service, sir.
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Just wondering, what is the width of your shoulders?
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I'm going to say 21 or 22", but that's being measured by holding my measuring tape across my chest and hoping.
Holding the same measuring tape in an attempt to measure my armspan, I've got 75" armspan and measuring to my shoulder on one arm is between 26.5 and 27", which gives the same 21-22" measurement. So that's kind of a decent guess if nothing else.
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Ah, thank you! I needed it for comparison to my own for the doc scratch head.. I was getting kind of worried about the sizing
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A decent general guideline is to have it a couple of inches narrower than your shoulders, or the same width. It's going to be big and unwieldy any way you look at it.
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Read the comments on the picture. Not only do I answer that question, but I make some suggestions on how I may be able to work around it.
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so its bassicly its a cosplay only for those who have the money and time aka a job
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Well, yeah, unless you're multi-talented. That said, cosplay of any decent amount of complexity is expensive anyway (either in time -or- money, often both) from what I've seen. Trolls/kids/guardians are relatively cheap because it's trollpaint/shirt/horns/pants, and maybe a prop if you've got spare cash. Any of the non-major characters, though? Bloody expensive if you want to do them "right" or "well." Try pulling off Lord English without a fairly significant investment. Even if you're doing the Midnight Crew, you're going to want a suit (except for Boxcars,) although at least you'll be able to use -that- suit again for non-cosplay purposes.
IF you could buy/make and tailor the suit, make the bowtie, buy/make and dye the shirt, and maybe make a head out of paper maiche or something, you could get by under $100 or so if you didn't care about the shoes. The head would probably look like crap, though.
I ended up buying the suit and having it tailored (roughly $200 total for the rush job I needed done, but it still would have been $150 or so non-rush) buying a shirt (which was $40 because it was the ONLY one I could find in the right color,) buying the streetlamp globe (which was something like $60 for me because of my oversized head,) and buying a pair of shoes (again, overly expensive at $80 (although I'll be able to use those for other things) because I wanted just the right style.) The only thing I actually -made- was the bowtie, and that kinda looks like ass because I'm not exactly "crafty" in that sense.
This is definitely one of the pricier cosplays in the fandom to do "right" if you don't have that talent, and probably one of the pricier ones to do even if you -do- have talent. My moirail spent less money on her Fancy-Tier Jade [link] (which looks fucking awesome and way better than mine) than I did on this cosplay, although she put significantly more work into it because she sewed pretty much everything herself. The trick is that most people aren't going to have the equipment to extrude a 16-18" polycarbonate globe - and certainly not one that won't break your neck. That damn thing gets heavy! Same with a nice pair of leather shoes. Gloves probably wouldn't be too terrible, at least.
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so all in all it cost about $600 to $700
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Hm. $50 + $135 + $80 + $60 + $10 + $10 + $10. So the baseline price was around $360 or so? Adding $170 for the camera, $50 for the high-capacity battery, $40 for the screen, and $20 for the electronics I slapped together, and yeah, it ends up being close to $600.
Even buying the stuff, you could probably shave a bit off the $135 for tailoring if you don't mind it being done slooooooowly and wear white tennis shoes rather than nice leather shoes. If you've got smaller head/shoulders (which I think I analyzed somewhere in the comment thread here,) you can get away with a far cheaper globe than I got as well. So buying the stuff, you could maybe stumble in around $250.
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I think I will try that this summer
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You mention using a camera, LCD monitor, and speakers in order to rectify your impaired vision and hearing, no? Do you think I could ask what specific equipment you intend to use? I've tried brainstorming on my own, but all I could really come up with was the possibility of a borescope (such as one of these: [link] ) along with maybe a personal P.A. system for speaking.
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That isn't flexible enough. I'm planning to use a monitor from a car backup camera (the kind you mount on the rear bumper) because it'll take a plain NTSC(?) input. The camera I was looking at is here: [link]
As for the speakers, I was thinking something more along the lines of a pair of headphones I wear in the headglobe, MAYBE use the microphone (although the headglobe echoes terribly,) and then both detect and transmit outside sound using something like this: [link]
Keep in mind, none of this will be easy to rig up. The speakers are especially dangerous - if I rig one as a transmit and one as a receive, I need to find a way to clamp the input of one when the other is outputting. Otherwise, feedback will probably ensue, and it'll be... probably unpleasant. >_>
Once I actually sit down and buy the camera, it should be fairly easy to rig up. Once I do that, I'll certainly do a new "walkthrough" and post it here. ^_^
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Aha, I see. That certainly makes a lot more sense than what I had imagined. And thanks, I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product!
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Hey, can you see relatively well with that on?
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I can't!
I'm working on something to fix that, though - I've already got a screen and power supply inside, and I'm looking to mount a camera inside the bowtie so I can actually walk around while wearing it.
One issue with this that I'm discovering (from going on Omegle with a screen in the head) is eyestrain. I'm not sure whether a smaller screen will help this issue any, but as it stands, 3 hours of wearing the headglobe = headache for the rest of the night. The 7" USB monitor I use for Omegle is about 3" from my eyes... terrible eyestrain. The screen I have for actually mounting -inside- the headglobe is only 3" - this might kill some detail, but hopefully it'll cut down on the eyestrain some. Ultimately, it remains to be seen how well it'll work out.
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Thanks so much for posting this! I have a friend who wants to try cosplaying Doc and this was a big help!
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eeee Fantastic little tutorial~ It's always neat to see how people make their props, especially the good Doc. Though, I think it's a little abrasive to go and point out certain cosplayers like that, they may get offended or hurt, no matter how innocent the comment. Perhaps just make an illustration showing what you mean when you say flat rather than pointing people out?
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I considered it, but let's be honest - there's a reason you don't see any drawings on my DA account. If either of the people mentioned don't like being mentioned, they're welcome to comment and I'll take the links down.
Of course, I actually like both those Doc Scratch cosplays for various other reasons - especially since they both had the good sense not to cut a giant rectangle in the front of their globe unlike SOME people I could mention... (you know, like me 
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Of course. I was just stating an opinion. (Very true)
(Oh psh, now you're tearing yourself down, no sense in that boyo)
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No, I'm simply pointing out the -major- flaw in my own cosplay out of a sense of fair play.
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Where'd you get your globe? I've been looking all over and I can't find anything.
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The specific one I used was this: [link] . Keep in mind, most people aren't going to have a huge head like I do - you might be able to get away with a 16" globe that's $20 cheaper or so. There's a bonus picture of me in the review I posted on that site. *grin*
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Oh man that review 
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you are THE MOST AMAZEING PERSON EVER! I've been looking every where online on how to do this and here it is!
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Not a problem - glad I could help. ^_^
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This is awesome!
It makes me think maybe I should lake one of my own!
About the hardhat method, I did a similar thing when creating my monitor head:
[link]
Obviously there'd have to be something other than screws (unless you found a way to cover them up, say, plaster or something), but maybe you can get a few ideas from looking at its construction?
On my second monitor head, I actually used soft upholstery foam at the base to give bits of padding so it wouldn't slip around.
It fits much better than my first!
Take it or leave it! I just thought I'd offer a bit of my own experiences into the mix!
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Didn't I see a picture of you at Sakura-Con? *peer*
And yeah, that's similar to what I had in mind - it's nice to see it in action. The problem is that I've got a whoooooole lot more room all around in that head - I'm not sure how I'm gonna make it stay in place. I very well may be able to use styrofoam like I did for the "temporary mount," but I'd love to have a more permanent solution. Thanks for the link, though!
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No, I didn't go to Sakura-Con!
I'd love to go some day, however.
No problem! Glad you liked it :]
I hope you find a good way to keep it on and keep it sturdy!
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Thanks indeed. I hope it works. ^_^
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*make one of my own, rather.
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One things i've always wondered whenever i see Doc cosplayers with this kind of set up is?: how the hell do you see?
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Essentially? You don't - you just put it on for a photoshoot and hope you get your pose right. I told the people at PAX, "Pose me like an action figure. I can't see or hear shit when my head's in this thing."
I'm planning on using a small hidden camera in my bowtie along with an LCD monitor in the head to give myself vision while in the head. Between that and a small set of amplified speakers, I should be set for all information and communication.
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Hehehe. I find it ironic that as a character of such insight, you can't actually see anything.
Beautifully done, by avoiding the "flat" effect. It's a shame there isn't an easy way to get a good looking 360 view (short of turning your head into a cue ball, that is).
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Assuming I get a new headglobe, I should be able to reduce the amount that's shown in the back greatly. Before, I didn't have much to work with as far as experience, time, or materials for holding my head in place. This time, I might even be able to try fancy stuff.
For instance, if it were necessary to take a picture from the back, I may be able to mount something inside that allows me to rotate the head around a central (internal) pivot point. This means that I'd be able to move the head so the gap is against the back of my neck instead of the front. Sufficient amounts of JB Weld and perhaps epoxy putty should be sufficient for that, and would probably be used in any case.
Another thing that -could- work would be to slice the globe in half and hinge it internally. Of course, then you'd need to deal with A: Lack of ventilation (which would be deadly) and B: the seam around the edge created from cutting it (since acrylic is... obvious about where it's been cut.) If I were to do that though, it'd go back to being a wear-only-for-photos thing, and I don't necessarily want that.
All around, thanks!
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