[Tutorial] Halloween Dragon Horns

Here's a build I did last year for a Halloween bash one of my friends was dragging me to. 

I've always liked horns, and other dragonnish things, and since I didn't exactly have a 'scary' costume for Halloween, so I decided to just do something different. So, I became a lady-wench-pirate's-pet-demon-butler for the night (sorry no pictures!) 

I had about a week to go look up references and start building so after searching the 'net a little I came across a nice pair of dragon horns I could emulate:

 

http://missmonster.deviantart.com/art/Dragon-horns-251200487
They have stuff on etsy too!

I mulled over materials for a few days, originally wanting to make a clay on polystyrene build but decided that I wanted to have minimal anchoring on my head, so heavy materials were out of the question. 

At the time I was going through my plushie making craze, so I had loads of stuffing available and so happened to have some faux leather as well.

Here's the list of stuff I used:

1 thin headband

4 snap on hair clips (black)

Synthetic stuffing

Textured faux leather (PVC)

Cotton cloth

Hot glue 

Multipurpose adhesive

Cloth scissors

Dark brown thread

A little duct tape (not necessary)

Basically what I did was draw a paper pattern of the horns, cutting out 4 identical shapes.

These shapes I then sewed together, turning inside out, stuffed and then had sewn shut to form the base of the plush horns. I made sure that I had stuffed the horns very firmly so they won't cave in and leave loose dents.

Here's where it kinda got messy. I measured out as many 'segments' of the horns that I wanted, cutting out strips of fake leather and using the adhesive to fold and glue the ends in. This is to prevent fraying and it gives that nice layered look.

Or you can also do a pattern like this, its your pref really.

Sew each strip together so it forms a circle, and tug it over the section that it's meant to go on, starting with the furthest one at the back. When it's in place, dab in a little adhesive to keep it there.

I kept going till I had covered the entire set of horns. The last segment in the front needed to be sewn a little at the bottom so it tapered off nicely, and this in turn was jammed onto the section behind it. This is where I had the clips sews onto the horns so I have the option to secure them extra if they flopped around too much. 

 

A little hot glue and duct tape later, the horns were on the headband. 

Needless to say they were really nice to wear, they were light to the point I pretty much forgot I was wearing them, and they looked fairly realistic (without giving away the fact they were squishy!) I finished off the combo with a black leather tail that had a bit of wiring to keep it from tripping me over.

Its been over a year and the construction is still holding strong, though I've since removed the band and have opted to sew them directly over a wig that I'll be using soon. If I can get a different texture of faux leather I might try doing this again with a different design.