www.sven-ristau-malerei.de

When I  see something sticking out in the Phönix-world and ask who built it, the answer quite often is “Sven”.
He´s taking commissions, by the way...

2006, Weg ohne Wiederkehr, 2007, Scarabäus
Jackal masks by Sven: carved foam, latex- colours.
For his design he didn´t use a skull-theme as model but mummified faces. This idea makes it possible to give the masks gender-specific mimic features: male and female are clearly discernible.

The foam- armour- parts were built almost on a day- but then Kerstin had to finish them alone.

Above: Dwarf with prosthetic leg, Tulderon 2006
Foam and latex-colours. The prop is worn by a player without going easy on it.

And just for the records: I didn´t bite off his leg.

Above: An ice-giant, Thing der Treuen, 2006. Pictures by Bernd.
No great hall without its Grendel... the vikings had a lot of trouble with this critter.
Fursuits are a science all by themselves and also find wide use in non-larp- activities.

The ice-giant stands about 2,5 metres tall. The puppeteer walks on plateaus and sees through the mask´s mouth.
The built- in padding isolates completely and the suit is warm (as in “unbearably hot”). But luckily Mike has a constitution that can take it.

Above: Slain. See on the left the plateaus and on the right the paddings over which the furs are draped.

Above: Ratmen, Abenteurer gesucht III, 2009.
Schmutzsumpf-Orga, pictures by Nicole.
Carved foam with cloth parts. No face-masks but worn on the head; a good option to make the creature bigger while depicting the non-human anatomy of an animal´s skull.
The puppeteer sees -and breathes- through a slot in the neck  just under the head that is hidden by netlike, see-through cloth. When the rat holds its snout so low that the heads of its opponents are not visible they in turn cannot spot how the creature orientates itself.

Above: The ratpack in january 2011. Interesting variations of a given theme; each has its own distinctive features. Monster- mass- production manifolds the amount of work.

Notice the boss-rats painted toy-gun on the right: in many game-worlds these squeaky nuisances have access to “advanced” technology (often so dangerous to everybody that no one else is interested in it anyway). Formerly to simulate firearms we sprayed the players with painted squirt guns (in the middle for example see a reconstructed weedkiller) which generally is more fun for the rat than the victim.
The toy on the picture however shoots small, harmless foam-darts; a certain improvement- especially with minus-grade- temperatures...

Above: “Wintermärchen”, february  2013. Imps. Scratch-built marionettes, about  40 cm tall.