How to become a Terminator

For a recent fancy dress party, I decided to make a Terminator costume.  Here's how it was done...


The Mask (not the Jim Carrey variety)

"Light Up Eyes!" - Perfect. 

Right from the start, I knew I wanted to go for the 'damaged' look and probably base my costume on Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  I wanted the exposed 'eye' to light up, etc. so I did a bit of Googling & ended up buying the mask you see to your right.


This had the necessary electronics, so I wouldn't have to worry about how I was going to make the eye light up.  Well, that was the plan anyway...


When the mask arrived, I immediately started 'reverse engineering' it (read pulling our every screw & clip in the thing!)  To my dismay, I discovered that the 'light up eyes' actually consisted of an autocue-style arrangement; the LEDs shone down from the top and a reflector built into the mask sent the light out the front.  This was going to make my life a little trickier, but I figured I could probably hack something together.  And 'hack' is exactly what I did!

Broken Terminator

The picture you see on the left is the state the mask was in by the time I'd finished taking a hacksaw to it.  Suffice to say it will not be serving its original purpose any time soon!


As you can see, I have removed all of the internals, the right eye socket and a portion of the lower jaw.

The Prosthetics

After hacking out the bits I wanted, there followed a tedious cycle of trial fit & trim.  I would place the pieces against my face, work out what needed trimming/reshaping, trim it and then try it on again...




Once that tiresome task was over and I had the shape & fit I wanted (or as close as possible with the shape available) it was just a case of cutting off any pointy bits and filing off any sharp edges.

Shot Jacket

The Wardrobe


So, the prosthetics I intend to stick to my face are ready.  Next up is the clothing.  As we know, Arnie wore leather.  No worries, I've got an old leather jacket.  We also know Arnie got shot in the back a lot when protecting John from the T-1000.  That meant putting some holes in the jacket.  Dutifully, I took a pair of scissors to the back of the jacket, adding half a dozen holes at random.  To add to the 'hot lead' look, I took a lighter to the edges of the holes to singe them a bit - taking care not to set fire to the lining!

Shot t-shirt

Similarly, Arnie wore a bullet-riddled black t-shirt.  Another easy one; I took the scissors & lighter to an old black t-shirt.  Note: cotton burns very well and has a tendency to reignite after you've blown it out, so be very careful with this if you intend to replicate the costume!


The Eye - Part I


Now for the tricky part.  The eye!  As I mentioned earlier, I intended to use the optics from the mask, but this proved untenable once I got the thing to bits.  That said, all the components were still there, so it just needed a little bit of imagination.


The original LEDs were encased in a long tube with a refractor on the end.  The unit was far too long to use in that form, as the end of it would have been touching the back of my eye!  In order to shorten it as much as possible, I worked out where the top of the actual LED was and simply hacked the rest off.  I also carefully bent the connecting pins to one side.  This probably reduced the overall length from 1½" down to about ½".


That drama sorted, I then needed to figure out a way to affix the shrunken LED in such a way as to make it look like a terminator eye.  My first thought was to use a ping-pong ball, cut in half, with a hole drilled/poked in it.  Then I saw a cheap silver bauble hanging there in front of my eyes.  It was about the right size and already had a hole in it (where it hangs from the tree) so I took the hacksaw to that as well!


First, I cut the top off to expose the hole, then I cut it in half and offered it up to the eye socket from the mask.  It was still too deep, so I cut that hemisphere in roughly half again.  My cut wasn't quite straight, but that actually worked in my favour and the second attempt fit the eye socket perfectly.  A few strategically placed dabs of glue ensured it was all held firmly in place.

After letting the glue cure for a couple of hours, I gave the whole assemblage a coat of silver spray paint (the mask was actually a fairly dark grey colour and the bauble a bright metallic silver, so this was more to make everything match than anything else).  I also sprayed the jaw piece at the same time to make sure that looked the same colour too.

The Eye - Pat II: Electronics

The Electronics

Having ripped carefully removed the wiring & PCBs from the mask, it became obvious there wouldn't be enough length in the cabling to run from the eye to wherever I wanted to hide the battery pack & switches.  I had also managed to damage some of the connections, so I decided to rewire some portions.  The first thing I laid my hands on was a network cable in a box right next to me, so that was the source or the new wire.

I added length between the battery pack and the controls, and also between the controls and the LED I was using in the eye.  This meant I could hide the battery pack in any pocket and still have the controls hidden away somewhere convenient.

Eye Assemblage

Having expertly connected everything (with BluTak & super-glue) I tested it all still worked before gluing the LED to the back of the eye.

The Make-Up

With the prosthetics ready & wired up, the next thing to do was to actually affix them to my face.  I bought some Mastix (special effects make-up glue) off the Interweb to do just that.  I started with the jaw piece, as it was smaller, lighter and better contoured to my face.  Alas, disaster; the Mastix wouldn't set and the prosthesis kept falling off.

Face Glue

Whilst contemplating super-gluing it on (don't try this at home!) and playing with the appliance in my hand, I realised the Mastix was still getting tacky.  I tried it against my face again and it seemed to stick better.  I decided I had brushed too much Mastix onto the plastic, so I thought I'd take it all off, clean it down & try with a thinner coat.  It worked pretty well and the piece stayed stuck to my own jaw.

Fairly pleased with that result, I tried sticking the eye piece on.  Unfortunately, due to the mismatched contours and the relatively small contact patch, this thing was not going to stay put.  I ended up having to tie it on, which really wasn't what I wanted to do.  Had I had more time, I might have been able to pad it out with some foam & got that to stick.  Maybe next time...

Modelling Wax

Next on the list was the burnt skin effect.  Again, I turned to the Intertubes and bought a huge tub of modelling wax.  This stuff is supposed to become really sticky & pliable when worked with your hands.  To begin with, the wax was so cold I couldn't even get it out of the tub.  I guess leaving it on the radiator for a while might have made it a little bit more compliant.

Once more, disaster struck.  No matter how much I worked the wax, it just kept peeling away from my face.  This was really disappointing, as I was relying on the wax to blend in the edges of the appliances.  Still, I had to bin that plan and move on to the blood.

Blood Paste

Another web special, I was really pleased with this stuff and will be using it again.  Simply called 'blood paste', it (eventually) sets to form a rubbery substance that resembles a fresh wound.  I get the impression you could build up several layers of this stuff to make all sorts of gory effects.  I simply dabbed it generously around the prostheses to try to make up for the wax debacle.

The Final Ensemble

The Finishing Touches

Make-up applied and electrics working, all that remains is to accessorise.  For the wardrobe, I simply wore black boots (actually, mine were brown, but I darkened them with some black shoe polish), black leather trousers and the aforementioned t-shirt & jacket.

I also bought a couple of toy guns (Uzi 9mm and a random semi-auto pistol replica) and a couple of bullet belts, all from the £1 shop.  The guns were blue to begin with, so I bought a can of black spray paint (also from the £1 shop) and gave them a quick coat.  A little bit of over-spray from the face pieces also drifted onto the guns while they were drying.  As a happy accident, this actually gave the guns a more metallic effect.

The bullet belts were designed for kids, so I glued the two of them together to make one adult-sized belt.

Another £1 shop purchase was a leather belt that I wasn't particularly after, but it caught my eye and looked just like something Arnie would wear.

Finally, I dabbed some more of the blood paste into the bullet holes in my t-shirt.

What do you think?