Life-Sized Yoda Project

ACQUIRE THE PARTS
I bought a pulled mold from someone on the internet. This was the Empire Strikes Back Yoda. I found another vendor selling a similar mold, but I got him to give me the feet and hands separately. These are sculpted resin plastic, and needed some sanding and filler.

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YODA’S FLUTE
After looking online at photos of Yoda’s flute, I built my own using 3 pieces of wooden dowels, glue from a glue gun, necklace rings, and a necklace rubber material from Hobby Lobby. Drilled, sanded, and painted with spray paint AND model paint to get the wood-like texture and color. Unfortunately, I didn’t document the build of this accessory.

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YODA HEAD
Primed Yoda with an olive spray paint, then painted him with a green color. Kept the eyes covered and painted them white (with lids a light pink for detail).

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It didn’t seem like it was right, and a friend of mine pointed out that he was Hulk green – and that wasn’t accurate. A lighter green was needed, so I went to Home Depot to get some paint samples to get the right color. I figured using house paint would work – plus, I could get a good bit of it, and match it again in the future easily if needed.

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I left the Hulky green paint on him and figured it would be perfect for the undertones of his skin folds. It was! It worked well for the texture too as you can see.

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Did the hands and feet like this too, and used those pieces for testing the paints first.

AGING YODA
For further detail and aging, I new I had to create liver spots. Hesitated on how to do this, and settled on getting a textured sponge from Hobby Lobby (love that place!). Dipped the sponge in a dark olive brown model paint and just went to town punching it on his face. Then, I would smear it to get a faded look. Worked perfectly! Then, hands and feet the same way.

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THE BODY
This was one of the most difficult parts. The pieces were of exact size, but I had no body – only references from pictures and other toys. I used the size of a few different Yoda toys that I could get a hold of and measured everything. I even had a friend who owns the Pepsi life-size Yoda. I measured his Yoda all over – but… come to find out, that Yoda is WAYYYY bigger than the actual character size. Those claim life-size, but are incorrect. They still look cool though.

I learned from a crafter at a Comic Con that you could build the body either out of molding clay, or using PVC. I wanted my Yoda to be light, so I went with PVC. Luckily, I already knew how to design a body like shape because I did a PVC mannequin a few months before. The hardest part was converting the measurements from the smaller figures to a lifesize scale. Had to learn some Algebra to do so, but I finally got a ratio that I could work with. Then, it was on to Home Depot to buy the PVC and connections needed. The hands and feet had smaller PVC pipe on them, and I used 1″ PVC with connectors and adapters to get the entire frame completed. Bent the PVC as needed with a heat gun, and designed his body frame after cutting the pipes down to size. His head part fit perfectly in the PVC splitter connection.

I hesitated to glue him together just in case there were changes to be made. Luckily, he stood up straight and even although he was not glued together. I also added an extra outlet of PVC in the splitter piece for an optional stand pipe that could be inserted into a base.

For the filler of his body, I used mesh wire to form the shape, and then covered it with paper mache’ strips. This hardened really well, but I needed more durability. Over the paper mache’ I used fiberglass resin. This made it really strong and durable – and incredibly light.

THE EYES
This was nearly impossible!!!!! I struggled with the idea of how to do his eyes. I went to a doll maker and asked how to buy and install eyes into Yoda. The guy told me they have to insert them from the inside, and my Yoda doesn’t allow for that to happen. There was no way to do that, and I was upset. I was told to have his eyes painted, but I would need a skilled painter, and it just doesn’t look right to me in the end. I came up with the idea of using my actual contacts as his eyes. I had some old blue contacts that I saved, and decided to experiment with painting the back of them.

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I had to create the pupil first. Let that dry, and then pain the rest of the iris. It worked perfectly, but… the eye color was just not accurate – more blue than anything. So, I went to my optometrist and asked her if she could give me two green contact samples that they have in store to try on for customers who want colored contacts. I told her what I was doing and showed the employees the actual head in progress. They thought that I was not only some crazy person, but that it was pretty cool. She gave me three sample lenses for my use. So, I went home and painted them the same way as my trial blue ones. This time… the color was PERFECT!

I then had to cut and glue the contact into his eyes. Unfortunately, by doing so, the contacts got a bit rumpled from the glue. You can only tell if you look very closely, but from afar it looks amazing! Even up close, it looks damn good.

YODA’S CANE
Just like the Emperor’s cane I made for the 501st costume that I’m working on, I used more PVC pipe – the smallest I could get. Cut it down to size, bent it with a heat gun, and applied Bondo all around it. When the Bondo dried, I used strips of a fiberglass cloth along with fiberglass resin and wrapped it around the entire PVC pipe. After this dried, I sanded it roughly, and painted it a dark brown. Sanded it more after drying, and did some spot painting and weathering to make it look like wood. Came out great! Like my Emperor’s cane, it was hard as a rock too – and very light.

THE BELT
I learned how to do some basic leatherwork when I made my Jedi costume. It’s actually very easy once you learn how. Stained the leather the appropriate color, and made a small scale belt and pouch (real leather) for Yoda based on his size.

HAIR
Looked everywhere for straight gray doll hair. Craft stores didn’t have anything but curly ones (used for Santa dolls). Finally found some at Party City that was used for a wig. Cut the pieces and secured them to the head with heavy glue. The hair was difficult to do, and I still think I need more – but this is good for now.

THE TUNIC
I bought a kid’s Karate shirt sewing pattern and made a mock up of the tunic. For the actual tunic I used some thin linen that I washed a few times to fray it. I made my Jedi tunic previously, so this was real easy – especially since I knew I didn’t have to be elegant with the sewing and stitching. Just ratty stitching and a poor sewing job was perfect. You don’t even have to finish the ends.

An undertunic was made with brown cotton material as well.

When the tunic was done, it fit nicely. Note: I left his arms unglued so I could get his tunic on and off if needed.

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He looked almost finished to me as I displayed him. BUT.. something wasn’t right.

It bothered me all that night until I realized, “His sleeves are not long enough.” Yoda has long wizard-like sleeves, and this karate shirt pattern did not have those types of sleeves. So… I had to unstitch the sleeves and redo them. Adding to the original pattern, I sewed new sleeves to the tunic.

Then, I had to weather his tunic. I still need to do a lot more weathering to him, but he looks pretty good right now. I took sandpaper to his tunic, then took a filet knife and gave him a Norman bates. This worked really well, and I’ll do more of this soon to get an ever rattier look to his tunic. My friend and I actually went further and singed the ends of the tunic with a torch. At one point, after we finished, we saw smoke and wondered where it came from. His tunic was on fire, but after putting it out, it made for a realistic effect as if Yoda burned himself slightly while by a camping fire.

Finally, he was coming together.

BASE
I wanted to make a base as an optional way to display him. I went to New Orleans the week before and got some Spanish Moss from a tree in City Park. I was going to use real foliage and actual trees until I was (once again) in Hobby Lobby and discovered they had fake plants and foliage. They even had some pieces of bark that you could use for landscaping crafts. Bought all of that, and worked with some placing before securing it to the base.

I need to add that I also installed a PVC base to the wood base so he could be mounted properly on it.

At an armor party that my Rebel Legion and 501st friends had, I secured the foliage onto the base with screws, lots of glue from a glue gun, and some staples from a staple gun. I felt like a florist doing it, and he was finally done afterwards.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I still feel like I need to add more hair, and then weather his tunic much, much more. I’ll eventually do this, but for now he’s 99.9999% done! I’m extremely happy with the results, and my friends loved him! This took me probably 4 months off and on to finish – along with a lot of curse words in between. But, he was worth it! When all is said and done, he probably cost me a good amount of coin to build – I don’t even want to think about it. But, he’s worth every penny, and I would value him as priceless if I had to put him up for sale. He sits in my living room on a stand, but will be used mainly for a mascot for the Rebel Legion table at Comic Cons.

After adding more hair, and repainting his nails, this is the final product as he sits in my living room.