Time for a real dusty update. I thought I was at a standstill until I got some supplies in, but after making a checklist, realised there's still a lot I can do. So while I was waiting on supplies, I started making his toes, spikes and some armour.
The toes number about 46 individually cut and glued parts sanded down to shape. I kind of wish I had instead printed the bulk of it and sculpted foam clay around it, but that's in the past now. The rough shape was cut out to reduce sanding, then they were taken to the belt sander. My finger nails did not have a fun time there. Because I was stingy with the contact cement (there was a lot to glue up), some of the pieces started to rip off, so I applied foam clay to patch those holes. These will be given 100 layers of Mod Podge after sanding to try and make them as smooth as possible.
The spikes were done in a similar method, but with different texturing. I started by scoring in a lot of lines with a soldering iron, then gave it some gouges with a grinding bit. Finally I used a knife to slit some grooves into the foam
(and apparently my hand, welp) to open up when heated. Do you think the texture is overkill?
Originally when making the bicep armour, I just used rectangular sheets of foam with beveled edges to wrap around his upper arm. I didn't think the conic shape would be an issue - it was, so I glued the sheets back into its original shape and cut out templates I made with this
net shape making site here. Again, I have used foam clay to fill the gaps caused by the seams, and have sanded them back with a palm sander. I'm using Velcro to close the rings at the back.
And finally, the shoulder armour! This was modelled a while back, and the legendary
ODCA has volunteered to
(or perhaps bullied into by Purplehazey ) unfold the grunt's tank/body armour. The bulk of it was made using 9mm foam (which is too thick to use for this sort of curvature), with some 6mm in there too. So far I've only made one, and will be cleaning it up later on.
Before making the second one, I'm finally creating some foam anvils to heat form foam around. I've found that if I use just my fingers, they can roll in the edges of the foam, making it much harder to align seams neatly.