Ragnarok’s crowning glory
Weta Workshop’s Sanit Klamchanuan reveals how Hulk’s ‘‘mohawkfringed’’ helmet was crafted for Thor: Ragnarok.
I’ve been at Weta Workshop for almost four years now, costuming for around two-anda-half. I started off in Power Rangers, before moving onto Ghost in the Shell and then Thor: Ragnarok.
It must have been between making Skurge’s armour and The Grandmaster’s costume, when this opportunity came up.
Sometimes you’re in the right place, at the right time, with the right attitude. That’s how a lot of things work at Weta.
I like doing crazy cosplay, costuming stuff, so my boss came to me saying, ‘‘do you want to try something cool?’’
‘‘Oh yeah, something cool is always pretty cool – what have you got?’’
So he showed me the picture of Hulk’s helmet and I went, ‘‘what am I making?’’ ‘‘The mohawk.’’ ‘‘Sweet. That sounds pretty cool, what am I using?’’
‘‘Um, this…’’, which was like this long-line of fishing line. They had cut it up and stuck on some kind of adhesive.
‘ In total, it took me a couple of days, around 18 hours to do it and it doesn’t even appear on screen.’
The helmet itself was heavily inspired by the Planet Hulk comics. I was given a 3D-render of what they wanted, so my job was trying to match the proportions of the mohawk to the helmet and cut out the slits so it would fit into the helmet, in order to help the guys who were doing the 3D-modelling.
From there, it was all teamwork, working with them as to the size of the slit they needed and then creating a half-size, normal human size and Hulksized version of the helmet in foam that the fringe would slot into perfectly.
The fishing line was originally clear before the guys in the paintshop did their magic on it and tinted it to make sure it looked nice.
The biggest struggle for me was trying to make it stand up. Fishing line is not the most rigid material. I didn’t want it to be a floppy piece of toupee.
In total, it took me a couple of days, around 18 hours to do it and it doesn’t even appear on screen.
The physical helmet is just so they can have it on set to hold up and see which way the light is falling so when they do the CGI they have the right lighting and the movement of the mohawk. That’s what happens with some of the stuff we do, it’s just there as a physical reference to help with lighting effects.
– As told to James Croot