Round the horn

Here's where I started: a felt skull-cap with a pair of plastic devil horns attached. The ones I found in the fancy-dress shop weren't identical to those illustrated, but were smaller and made entirely of plastic. They swung outwards and upwards in a rather bovine way.

I selected a black wig, cut the horns out of the skullcap on small felt bases, and glued those felt panels into the inside of the wig, poking each horn through the hair and carefully rotating it so that it now faced backwards in a more goat-like manner. No known paint seems to stick to red polythene, so I applied a thin layer of car body filler and painted that. Bondo sticks to anything, it seems, especially skin, nails, tools, fake hair...

I am indebted to KomicKrazi Studios for information on how to make some rather better horns. I didn't follow the instructions precisely because the materials weren't available in my local market, but I did get what I think is a reasonable result.

There are too many costume devil horns that point upwards and outwards. Fauns, which are not devils or demons despite the strenuous efforts of the Church over the past 1600 years to get people to believe otherwise, surely have goat-like horns, and these grow backwards and outwards, unlike cow horns that grow sideways.

So my horns swing to the rear rather than upwards.

Picture: KomicKrazi Studios

Step 1: Cardboard cutouts.

From left to right, the three cardboard shapes form the inside, rear, and outside of the horn. Illustrated is the right-hand horn. For the left, the cutouts have to be mirrored.

I only just noticed that KomicKrazi put the thin triangle at the front. At the end of the day it doesn't matter too much because of the plasterwork that will follow.

Picture: KomicKrazi Studios

Step 2: Duct tape.

Stick each horn together with duct tape so that you get a pair of bent triangular-based pyramids. The horns should bend backwards and outwards. If they were real and they were allowed to grow, the horns would eventually produce magnificent outward spirals.

But those would be too heavy if built in this way, so let's keep the horns short, shall we?

Picture: KomicKrazi Studios

Step 3: Modelling clay.

KomicKrazi used plaster cloth to cover the cardboard. I used Sculpt Dry, a brand of air-drying modelling clay. First I rolled the clay into a thin layer to coat the cardboard, and then I added a second layer to make the triangular horns more rounded in cross section.

While modelling, I stuck each horn on to the top of a 1.5-litre water bottle so that I could work without constantly handling the clay.

Sculpt Dry is supposed to dry without cracking.

Picture: KomicKrazi Studios

Step 4: Texture and paint.

I wrapped thick acrylic wool around and around each horn once the clay was almost dry.

Then I painted the horns with acrylic modelling paint. First a base coat in a cream/ivory colour, then a black wash to darken the deep areas between the wool ridges. Finally, I dry-brushed a light cream colour onto the top surface to produce highlights.

Horn colours are extremely variable in nature. Pick whatever colours you like!

Once the paint had dried, I coated the entire horn surface with Elmer's Glue-All, which I suspect is nothing more than PVA wood glue. It goes on white, but dries clear. The glue seals any cracks in the clay, sticks the wool down, seals the paint, and produces a slight glossy finish.

My faun horns, attached to my faun hair

Step 5: Attaching the horns

Here's the finished product. I removed the cardboard and duct tape with long-nosed pliers and then painted the inside of the horns with Elmer's Glue-All. They were too heavy, so I had to cut them down by hacksawing an inch off the bottom of each horn.

As it turned out, the original plastic horns were too fat, so I chopped the ends off these before ramming these plaster-and-string efforts over the stubs and gluing them into place.

A strip of of black faux fur glued to the bottom of each plastic horn base helps to merge the horns with the black wig. 

Beneath the wig

Step 6: Reinforcement

The original plastic horns weighed almost nothing, but as each of my new horns weighs around 100 grammes they wanted to wilt.

I solved the problem with a plastic Alice band. This I threaded through the plastic horn bases and glued it into place here and inside the wig. Now the new horns' weight would be distributed across the full width of my head.