Rookie Rise Blog

I've been wanting to get a mascot built for the brand since the brand was introduced. I contacted numerous prop makers who were always juggling a lot of projects, so locking down someone to do this for me was a bit of a challenge. As time went on, so did the itch to get this mascot head created. I decided to take it on myself. I spent hours and hours researching the materials and how to build masks, helmets, anything that could help me get going in the right direction to get this done. I bought all the materials that the mascot makers were using and I started to build. Here's some pics of the process. 

I bought pink foam, a closed cell material that doesn't allow moisture in. This would insure that the mascot head doesn't mold. I started to cut out the templates leaving plenty of room for my head to fit inside. I stacked the foam together and used good ol' gorilla glue to attach and start blocking the pieces.

Once the templates were stacked, I attached the end pieces. I sized it out by cutting out one of the Rookie Rise headphones. This gave me a rough idea on just how big i'd want this mascot head to be. I let the pieces dry, which took a few hours to fully setup.

Once the foam was fully dry, I started to carve out the logo. At this point, most people looked at it thinking “uh, what the hell is that?” (Haters) :D

I attached the sides of the crown to start giving the mascot some dimension. People that saw it looked at it like it was the worlds worst sculpture.

Okay, I could understand what they were thinking, but I knew where I was going and that's all that matters when you're creating. 

Edgar and I started sanding. It started to look 100 times better once the first pass was done. (This pink foam sands down just like wood, you can't tell the difference. I think I found a new hobby)

Since the face was looking pretty good, I cut out circles from the left over foam and started to shape th headphones.

I Sanded thand headphones pieces until they looked just that way ay that I had planned.

I attached the headphones with toothpicks to make sure everything is was scaled correctly. I also cutout a small viewport and to my luck, my eyes lined up right where the hole was cut.

I did a rough sketch to help visualize wher this was going. This would be my blue print the rest of the way though this build.

After sanding for hours on the crown, I realized that it'd be easier to chop off the crown tops instead of standing around each one (It was a pain in the ass to do!) This made it much easier to give the mid portion of the crown a nice flat surface. I sculpted each crown top piece while they were removed. As you can see, the whole area behind the sunglasses was also cut out. This allowed me to get a really wide open view, compared to most mascots that have tiny view ports.

I put the crown on hold. I shifted my direction to the foam hardening process. I used Gesso paint which acts as a sealer for the foam. You can't apply any type of acetate to foam because it’ll eat the foam away. The Gesso paint was a great way to create a safe surface to prime the foam, before applying the super 77 adhesive. 

I got most of the crown flattened out. I wanted to get the Gesso paint applied since it takes awhile to dry and this would need quite a few coats.

The sanding, painting and gluing was coming to an end, so I went to Joanne Fabric's and bought black and white anti-pilling fleece. This type of fleece has a little bit of stretch to it, which helps contour the shape of the foam without taking too much away from it.

I finished coating the headphones and sunglasses with the Gesso paint. It was time to apply the fabric.

Before applying the fleece on the headphones, I cut out a small circle in the foam for these small mirrors that I happened to glance at while picking up my fabric. I wrapped the headphones in fleece and then attached the headphones together using Super 77 and Gorilla Glue. The mirrors were attached to the outside of the headphones.

The sunglasses were wrapped in black fleece. It was coming out better than I had imagined.

I wrapped the face in white fleece. The fleece did a great job of covering any imperfections. At this point it looked like a fresh coat of snow. He also looks like the first time you see your friend without glasses.

Again, toothpicks were used to keep these black fleece parts in place. I used foam weather strips to add the band at the base of the crown. This was put in place to make the crown look like it's protruding out around the face. 

Edgar stopped by and was grinning ear to ear when he saw the progress. He spent about 10 minutes wearing it around the house posing. I don't know how many times I heard “bro take a picture!”

Before I re-applied the crown pieces, I had to add a base to fill the big hole that was deliberately cut out in the middle of the crown. I used EVA foam aka yoga mat material to shape the flat top of the crown.

I applied the headphone strap and then I screen printed Rookie Rise on to a piece of red cotton. I sewed the ends of the cotton then I wrapped it around the headphone strap. I also wrapped and applied the crown top pieces.

To create the sunglasses lense, I cut out plastic then applied a one way mirror tint film to it. This film is awesome. I can see out perfectly but nobody can see in.

The mascot head is complete. You can't tell that the sunglasses have mirror tint film lenses in this pic, that's because it's pointing at a white ceiling. Now that the mascot head is finished, I can focus on getting the youtube channel setup. Subscribe to our channel and watch for our videos!