Silverback
New Member
Hi everyone. I've been lurking around this site for a few months after I stumbled across it while researching building a bust for a project that has been put on hold now that I have discovered the 405th. I have decided to build myself some lovely Master Chief armour but want to make sure I know what I'm doing first. As my wife and I have a fancy dress party to go to next month and I am the proud owner of a full face of hair I decided to build myself the armour of the original Spartan warrior - King Leonidas, from 300. Here are a few pics of my progress so far.
This is half the helmet. I found the pep file on www.pepakuralibrary.com and actually really enjoyed building it.
I also found the sheild on the same site. I doubled the size as it was only 400mm across. It looked simple but the size of it made it pretty difficult to make. Also I had to wait for my resin to be delivered so tried to paper mache it because I was worried it wouldn't stay in one piece. You can probably see from the centre that it warped and rippled quite a bit. I'll get a lot of this out with filler but I'm not that fussed as I want the battle damaged look and also beaten bronze shields probably would have looked a similar. I gave up on the paper mache and used card to make triangular 'beams' to glue across certain points to stop it flapping around like a witches ***.
I added some supports to the helmet in the form of a beam across the middle one up the back of the nose (which will be permanent) and a couple of bits of card across the lower face to stop them spreading out. My 6 year old son also wanted me to make him a helmet so while I was waiting for my resin I started to pep an iron man one at roughly 2/3 scale.
The resin turned up today but as it's November and we were expecting rain I had to just open the back door and crack on with it. It stunk the whole house out and due to the low temps its taking a while to cure properly. The first coat is on and hopefully I'll get a chance to fibreglass the insides tomorrow.
While the resin was drying I had a go at making the plume for the top of the helmet. I had drawn around the top of the crest to get the shape and then drew out what I wanted onto some hardboard. I cut out 2 pieces to make it a bit thicker and glued them together. I also cut out a 2 cm strip to bend and glue along the bottom edge so that it would have a better surface area when I fix it to the helmet. A quick tip for anyone using hot glue on hardboard is score the surface with a knife to create a key for the glue to stick to. Some black faux fur was glued on using a combination of hot glue and carpet spray glue. A piece for each side was cut and left long on the front, back and top. Once it was glued I ran hot glue along the edges of the board and rolled the fur in to hide the cut edges. A scrap of fur was rolled up and glued to the back to create a 'tail' which I've seen in loads of reference pictures.
Another thing worth noting is the amount of mess faux fur makes when you cut and work with it. I tried explaining to my wife that it just meant she got to use the lovely new Dyson I got her for a second time today but apparently that wasn't a good idea.
More updates soon as I'll start on the other parts of armour soon.
P.S. I hope I have uploaded the images correctly as the how to video on the noob thread doesn't seem to work.
This is half the helmet. I found the pep file on www.pepakuralibrary.com and actually really enjoyed building it.
I also found the sheild on the same site. I doubled the size as it was only 400mm across. It looked simple but the size of it made it pretty difficult to make. Also I had to wait for my resin to be delivered so tried to paper mache it because I was worried it wouldn't stay in one piece. You can probably see from the centre that it warped and rippled quite a bit. I'll get a lot of this out with filler but I'm not that fussed as I want the battle damaged look and also beaten bronze shields probably would have looked a similar. I gave up on the paper mache and used card to make triangular 'beams' to glue across certain points to stop it flapping around like a witches ***.
I added some supports to the helmet in the form of a beam across the middle one up the back of the nose (which will be permanent) and a couple of bits of card across the lower face to stop them spreading out. My 6 year old son also wanted me to make him a helmet so while I was waiting for my resin I started to pep an iron man one at roughly 2/3 scale.
The resin turned up today but as it's November and we were expecting rain I had to just open the back door and crack on with it. It stunk the whole house out and due to the low temps its taking a while to cure properly. The first coat is on and hopefully I'll get a chance to fibreglass the insides tomorrow.
While the resin was drying I had a go at making the plume for the top of the helmet. I had drawn around the top of the crest to get the shape and then drew out what I wanted onto some hardboard. I cut out 2 pieces to make it a bit thicker and glued them together. I also cut out a 2 cm strip to bend and glue along the bottom edge so that it would have a better surface area when I fix it to the helmet. A quick tip for anyone using hot glue on hardboard is score the surface with a knife to create a key for the glue to stick to. Some black faux fur was glued on using a combination of hot glue and carpet spray glue. A piece for each side was cut and left long on the front, back and top. Once it was glued I ran hot glue along the edges of the board and rolled the fur in to hide the cut edges. A scrap of fur was rolled up and glued to the back to create a 'tail' which I've seen in loads of reference pictures.
Another thing worth noting is the amount of mess faux fur makes when you cut and work with it. I tried explaining to my wife that it just meant she got to use the lovely new Dyson I got her for a second time today but apparently that wasn't a good idea.
More updates soon as I'll start on the other parts of armour soon.
P.S. I hope I have uploaded the images correctly as the how to video on the noob thread doesn't seem to work.
