Ashton Wig, Foam, Tutorial

Ready to make that Ashton wig?!? This is the tutorial for a foam wig. I’ll also make one for my resin wig once it’s finished. But the foam is for conventions since the resin wig is incredibly heavy.

Let’s start with supplies!

Plastic wrap
Duct tape
Markers
Scissors
Foam (I used 6mm for the base, 10mm for spikes, both from Michael’s)
Contact cement
Snap blade
Plastidip
Paint
LED coaster (or some other circular light source)
Hot glue
Mylar

First, start with a duct tape pattern. Please be very careful, do not wrap your face! Get help if you can.

Draw your cut lines, make sure to draw notches to help line up your pattern, and cut it out. I angled my cut on the front edges to help it blend with my skin. Be sure to sharpen your blade every few cuts.

Glue together. I highly recommend using contact cement for this, not hot glue. Also, it helps to heat the foam first and bend it into shape. Hold until it cools. Then it should retain the curved shape. It’ll help ease stress on the seams, and minimize pulling apart/gaps. I also cut air vents in the back to help keep cool.

Now, cut out your spikes. I used 10mm foam and cut long thin strips, then cut those down to spike length. Then I used scissors to make the gem shapes. You’ll need to make a TON of these. So, so many. Remember to make them smaller as you work your way to the back.

Glue them onto your base. This could probably be done with hot glue, but I prefer contact cement. Be sure to leave room for your head injury. I traced around my coaster as a guide.

Next, plastidip the whole thing.

I used brush on acrylic to paint the gems. I used an amethyst paint with some shimmer. If any ‘skin’ is showing, paint that green.

Now for the injury. I used a coaster because it screws apart to access the batteries. This allowed me to glue the base to the wig, but create the injury on the light and still be able to access the batteries. It turns on with a remote.

I glued a piece of white foam (I was out of plastizote) to the top to help disperse the light.