Best costume ears, ear models to jumpstart animatronics project?
 

I'm contemplating a costume project. One of the things that I would like to create is a pair of ears that reacts automatically to the positions and volumes of sounds relative to the wearer, perhaps also to jarring or sudden movement. Something that would really help the design along would be an existing pair of Na'vi ears that I could play with and make partial casts of. Has anybody here found anything that they really liked?

Sounds amazing :)
I don't know of anything, although there are a few people around who have made Na'vi ears, you could try asking them, I know there are a couple on Learn Na'vi.

Cool, thanks HNM. Yeah, I had earlier done a search and ran into a post over on Learn Na'vi about an animatronic tail project--*that* would be *hard*!! I'll drop a query on a few of the other forums and see what happens. Really, I should be able to get the basic design into a pretty good place without the exact ear shape, although it would help me to know how much space I have to work with if I could mount some costume ears to a hat and adjust them for best appearance.

Wow that would be great to do the tail project......it would be amazing.

If you could control it, yes. I think that's the hard part. I also suspect that's why the guy hasn't been heard from in a while. :P

I'm very interested in this subject! Let us know how you go.

Certainly will. I've already saved a couple of non-working 2.5" laptop hard disk drives from the dumpster and will be extracting the head actuators this weekend. My hope is that these will be strong enough to animate the ears--which probably dictates that I'll have to make them myself out of latex, both for flexibility and to ensure that they fold in the right places. Servo-controlled ears would look silly, IMO. They really need to be able to react instantaneously.

More when I get there! :D

Have you seen these:
YouTube - ‪neurowear vol.1 "necomimi"

Motorized ears that react to your brain waves.

OMG, that was my idea!

That would be great if they could be flat if you were sad and angry instead of relaxed. Great idea though, especially if someone could make Na'vi ears. :D

New. Set.

(Want. Now.)


Also; I could see that as a potential source for interesting data for JC's animators for A2 and A3.

- Mikko

I want a pair! :D

/me goes to their facebook page... I must not miss these. Even if they don't make Na'vi-like ones (although I could see them doing so :D), then it could always be a modding project :)

That's awesome!!! I need to get back to this project. Got the hard disk head actuators working, but hadn't yet begun framing the ears. I think I probably need to try a few simpler things with latex or other liquid rubber before trying to manufacture my own Na'vi ears from scratch, though. :'(

I have to say this..... Both Sara Noel and Moms Ball Avatar coustumes were 100% amazing. The work they put in to making and collecting the bits of their costumes and the to go out in public, wow, kudos to them. I like also mention the hard work that Moco Loco put in her RDA outfit, had made the mask and all the bits, she look cool too. Thank to you all how dressed up it was a great day, it made the day at the musume more exciting.
Again Thanks.

Here here.
Amazing job by Wade, Sarah and Emily!

On topic; Sarah's ears were actually her own with just a prosthetic tip; so they moved. Though a long way short of actual Na'vi range of course.

- Mikko