Thor: Ragnarok’s Hela, the goddess of death as well as Thor and Loki’s sister, is Marvel’s first female supervillain and a considerable badass. Powered by seemingly limitless otherworldly dark forces, her strength is exemplified by her intimidating appearance, punctuated by her antler-like headdress that’s like Maleficent turned up to eleven. It’s even cooler when she rubs her hands over her hair to quickly conjure the headdress as she heads into battle.
For Thor fans undeniably fascinated by Ragnarok’s most impressive piece of headware, Adam Savage’s Tested YouTube video at DesignerCon delves into how it was created: namely, a combination of CG and a 3-D printer. Jose Fernandez from Ironhead Studio discusses the process that created the impressive piece, starting from a 3-D model. Despite its size, the headdress is only about four pounds. It’s also a shiny dark green, although it appears almost black on screen. Fernandez explains that the 3-D printer produced the separate antler pieces, followed by a multi-layer painting process. The CG then makes it look as if the headdress pops from her head, turning Hela from menacing into straight-up terrifying.