Cewelowic's First Build and Introduction

[Cewelowic]

Current pic: Page 3

Hello 405th! Glad to be here. Decided to get into the harder part of costuming, since I just in fact love costumes. Never cosplayed before (assuming halloween doesnt count, though I've sewn my own out of vinyl before) but I think I've got the aptitude.

A bit about myself. I'm a Navy Veteran currently in college, trying to get a degree in Electrical Engineering. I'm already pretty savvy on electronics and such from my navy time, and hope these years go by quick. To that end, I need a hobby, and this is as good as any if not better!

My first build will be Ebony Armor from Skyrim. A quick shout out to ZombieGrimm, he has made a ton of Skyrim unfolds and I'll probably be using his unfolds when he releases the ebony armor set. Until then, I got blender, tinkered with the model, got pepakura, unfolded the helmet, and have pepped it. I'm without a garage, so I'll have to borrow one, or drive 200 miles to use my fathers. Hopefully I can find one around here thats reasonable. Theres a sketch hippie community that has a garage, but I'm not sure how they'd think of using toxic chems like fiberglass.

Here is what I'm going to look like:

Here's what I've got so far:

It needs reinforcement, and toothpicks to hold the visor open for when I fiberglass it next week.

Also, I have no damn clue how I'm going to get the black metal look like in the original, and suggestions would be nice!

 

[Cewelowic]

UPDATE: Finished the resin coat on the outside, and fiberglassed the inside. Used a toothpick to keep the visor open as I've seen and it worked like a charm!

Problem is, I have no damn clue how I'm going to reinforce the wings. Fiberglass on the outside of the wing probably wont set well and will make the corners disappear, which is no good. There is an opening on the inside of the helmet to them, but I'm afraid rondo will crush the wings after it hardens. Any Ideas? I was toying with the idea of masking off the rest of the mask and getting some plastidip and filler and just leaving them with a thin sheet of plastic like durability. Thoughts?

 

[blue2k]

Fibreglass cloth soaked in resin over the outside of the flutes. Bodyfiller over the surface of the cloth. Done.

 

[Tenebrus]

Rondo will not crush them, it's your best bet. Mix up a batch that is about 60-70% bondo the rest resin and use ample amounts of hardener. then just slush cast them and suspend the helmet so the rondo won't seep out when hardening. If you did a decent job with the pep and resin, the rondo won't hurt the helmet. Fibreglass is a mess and will just make the exterior harder to work with

 

[thorn696]

Also, I have no damn clue how I'm going to get the black metal look like in the original, and suggestions would be nice!

Paint.
1)Primer coat
2) Silver base coat
3) Mask edges with petro jelly, or tooth past. (for wear)
4) Black base coat.
5) clean/degrease
6) 50/50 Black wash (Acrylic)
7) 70/30 silver wash and/or silver rub&buff
8) clear coat.
This should get you the look, you're looking for. :cool

 

[Cewelowic]

Paint.
1)Primer coat
2) Silver base coat
3) Mask edges with petro jelly, or tooth past. (for wear)
4) Black base coat.
5) clean/degrease
6) 50/50 Black wash (Acrylic)
7) 70/30 silver wash and/or silver rub&buff
8) clear coat.
This should get you the look, you're looking for. :cool

Thanks man, I'll be sure to try that out!

UPDATE: Working without tools really slowed me down as I needed to pick up a respirator and such. But I've rondo'd the wings (or at least did something that worked).
Pics

I see that my pep was bent on one of the side wings, so when I finish the area I'm going to make it look like battle damage.

Next step seems to be bondo, but with finals I might have to push that one back.

 

[BeanwaterFox]

Nice! It's gonna come out well! So, I'm kinda still confused on rondo technique (I ruined my sister's Hylian Shield by doing it wrong). Is this what you do?

1) Resin to hold shape
2) Mix rondo in a 2/3 bondo to 1/3 resin mix (about) and add hardener (amount determined by desired set time)
3) Pour rondo into object to harden and swirl or run it to cover all interior surfaces
4) When liquid rondo has begun to solidify, position object so that the remaining liquid won't drip and minimize downflow
5) Wait a few hours to set
6) Enjoy the successes of your labor (ha ha hopefully)

 

[Cewelowic]

Well, I'm not sure what I used was normal bondo body filler. It was plastic metal or something like that.

I basically took a mixing cup, put an ounce of resin in, squeezed out the bondo plastic metal till it looked like the volume of the mix was an even mix. I mixed in hardener and it self leveled with a milkshake like appearance, so it seemed alright to me. Turned the helm sideways and poured it in the hole. Let it sit on a trashcan overnight basically, it was cold out and it was still wasnt hard even after a few hours.

Repeated for other side, but tried more hardener. No change in harden time. Its not as tough as the fiberglass around it, but it is holding shape (or at least bending without breaking) when I poke it.

My brother says I should fiberglass it because bondo can crack if flexed, but I think it will be alright for the helm. Its not going to take too much punishment I hope.

 

[BeanwaterFox]

Hmm...Alright, I'll try something like that when I get home

 

[Cewelowic]

Update!
I poured resin into the top section wings to ensure that they don't flex too much. After that, I got to bondo and sanding. After layers and layers of bondo then hours and hours of sanding.... then layers of bondo with sanding and a few primer layers, I think I'm to the point where it can be painted. I plan to paint the whole armor at once, so I'll leave it primer gray for now. If anyone thinks I should do more bondo and sanding, speak up

Thoughts?

 

[Cewelowic]

Hey all again, did some more work, and decided to separate the vambrace from the hand guard and clean up the model from zombiegrimm's Pepakura file. I feel like he was rushed on this one, but it was a stellar job overall.

Only took 3 to scale right, and then just inverted the pattern to get the left vambrace. Threw a layer of resin on and called it a day. Here's what I got.

With the way that the model is, I'm pretty much forced to do the rondo method for this one despite it's weight and lower strength compared to fiberglass. There are corners under the flaps inside the immediate entrances that cant be reached by hand to place fiberglass, let alone brush all the way back there. Fiberglass on the outside would be too messy on the edges. Hope to finish these up before I have to head back from break!

 

[Livebyhonor]

Nice work so far. As someone that also kinda jumped into armor building about a year ago I can give you one of the tips I was using. I was using a liquid plastic from Smooth-on (either their smooth cast 300 or onyx) and after building my piece from paper I mixed a bit of plastic and poured it on the inside of the armor piece and rolled it around the inside of it. It gave it a more solid feel to the part so I wasn't worried about crushing it anymore. That and it left the inside smoother than fiberglass backing. Granted its not as flexible as a glass backing but it worked and dries quite quick, 20 mins. And If you give it more than a single coat like that you can easily sand away the rough edges you dont like on the outside of the part to. If you have questions about how I did some of my stuff ask away and Ill help out if I can.

my Daedric build so far.
http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/36304-Daedric-lord-Bryon?highlight=livebyhonor

 

[Cewelowic]

Thanks man, always looking for some tips. I use fiberglass resin myself because of its availability and familiarity, but I may look into smooth-cast. I imagine that I can only get that online. Seems like it would be easier to slosh around though, having a lower viscosity and all.

If I dream up any questions I'll be sure to ask. One particular thing is the detail on the gauntlets. I plan to do bondo dams to make a pattern to sand into the intricate embossing, but if you know of any easier method, I'm all ears (eyes?).

 

[drack]

To emboss use needle files and for raised details I would use some thing like milliput.

 

[Cewelowic]

I'll have to see if I can find that, but right now I'm beginning to lean off of embossing and just painting the details once I get it all done. Should look just as good if I do it right. Now that I've returned to my apartment, I cant do any chemical work, so expect a flood of pepakura parts in the near future.

 

[sjb4552]

IMHO this should have been done in leather, it is a better material to work with, will look more acurate than fiberglass, and with the right weight can be half way functional armor (as the vikings used more leather armor that plate or male) and all the embrossing work would be easily done with a hammer and leather tools made sepecially for this. But then again this is only my openion as I make leather armor and foam weapons for the sport of Dagorhir.

 

[Cewelowic]

The (primary) reason I follow the pepakura method is my artistic skill is actually quite low. I have a knack for following procedures and precision when it comes to building things like this, so its a natural fit. Its also why I'm leaning to the painting rather than embossing, because I can follow a stencil, though I suppose I could stencil the places I want to emboss... hm....

The armor is supposed to simulate a rare metal, and as such I'd say leather is too soft for it, at least in my limited armor building experience.

 

[sjb4552]

indeed, and leather can be hardened with simple kiwi shoe polish and shine just like metal, but I was only suggesting another option to try, leather is often not used enough here (not that I would make full Halo armor out of it) just spreading the good word. but in any case it looks great and keep up the good work

 

[Cewelowic]

I'll have to look up the method, shoe polish makes sense, but I'll try it in another build.
Or at least when I have regular access to a workshop.

 

[sjb4552]

it works, Im in the military and I can see myself in my boots right now.