how to make a katamari head! | katamari damacy

Posted by: Lucy Morris on: February 7, 2011

• In: costumes
• 13 Comments

Specially for the 30 strong Katamari Cousin flashmob happening at New Zealand’s Christchurch Armageddon con in April– here’s a tutorial on how to make your very own Katamari cousin head! (: Personally, Katamari is one of the best games I’ve ever played, and being able to spread the love like this is kinda special. Plus, rolling stuff up. Yeah. Yeah. So! Today I’ll be taking you through making Marcy’s head, which is this delightful cousin here:

MATERIALS
– 1 x foam mattress topper.
You can find these at The Warehouse for around $25, with dimensions 1830 x 900 x 30 for a single. They make two heads.
– 1 x hot glue gun, hot glue
– fleece/knit in appropriate colours for your cousin
Make sure not to use anything too see through (as it may show the glue/eyeholes).
– yellow (face frame)/orange (nose)/red (mouth)/black (eyes) felt
– 1 x polystyrene cone
These are at Spotlight in packs of 2 for~$3. It makes it a lot more cost effective to make cousins in pairs!
– peach tricot lingerie fabric
– fabric scissors
– 1 x sheet of plastic canvas
About $4 for an A4 sheet, this is to help keep structural integrity for your eyeholes.
– 2 x plastic dinner plates that match the circumference of your cylinder
– 1 x small polystyrene ball (if you can buy them in red, do it. If not, buy some red paint.)

STEP ONE.
Take your foam and measure out a rectangle 90cm x 80cm. Cut.

STEP TWO.
Curl the rectangle into a cylinder and hotglue the ends firmly together. I recommend pinching them together until the glue sets so that it soaks through the cells of the foam. After doing this, cut the hole for your head. Mine was 20cm wide and gives me just a wee bit too much room, but you’ll have to adjust this to your own head size. Just keep trying it on until it works for you and keep in mind the foam is pretty flexible.

You should end up with something like this.

STEP THREE.
Next task is to cut a space for you to see through! Put the head on and use a sharpie or pen to mark the rough level your eyes are at. Then mark the 40cm point at the head (the middle) and cut a wee rectangle something like 15cm across to see out of. Don’t make it too big, though.

STEP FOUR.
Take your plastic canvas and cut out a rectangle that will just overlap the hole you made for your eyes. This will make sure that the hole isn’t obvious and it helps to preserve the structural integrity of the cylinder. Hotglue it down around the edges and then cut a small amount out again for your eyes as the canvas is a little hard to see through.

STEP FIVE.
Cover your Katamari head as per your cousin! Once you’ve done the base, cut out the rectangle around the eyeholes.

STEP SIX.
Take the tricot fabric and cut out two pieces 20cm x 25cm. This is for your cousin’s face. Pin them at a suitable level and make sure you’ve got them centered (40cm mark). This photo was taken with only one layer of the fabric that I bought and because it is so obviously see-through, I used a second layer. Depending on the fabric you have, this may or may not be necessary. Hotglue it down, making sure you keep the fabric taut if stretchy.

Two layers!

STEP SEVEN.
Cut a square of yellow felt just slightly larger than the peach tricot square you cut out, measure 3cm in from the border and cut. This is the frame for your cousin’s face. Use the rest of the felt to arrange your Katamari cousin’s face accordingly– you may want to look up a reference of what their face usually looks like. Though they’re pretty much all happy… all the time…

STEP EIGHT.
Take your polystyrene cone and cover it in yellow felt, hotgluing the bottom by making wee cuts every 1cm or so.

Glue this to your cousin’s head. Then take your polystyrene ball, paint it red and glue it to the top of your cone. The antennae is done!

My flatmate was playing Ratchet and Clank 2. But that’s unimportant.

STEP NINE.
Finishing touches! Decorate your cousin’s head appropriately, take the two dinner plates and cover them with the right coloured fleece. If you want the ends slightly rounder, take some dacron or stuffing and insert it between the plate and the fleece for volume. Hotglue them to the hollow ends of your cousin’s head– these will also help you keep a solid cylinder shape.

My slightly unfinished but extremely blindness-inducing cousin head.

AND SO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN KATAMARI COUSIN. Wear it out. Go to the shops. Roll some stuff up.

Tags: katamari damacy