Jorge Armor Sculpt

[Iceman065]

Hello,

I am a returning forum member. My account has been dormant for a while but I recently reactivated it. This is the only forum that I can post in for a bit of advice/help.

I am starting my sculpt with the boots/calves/knee plates using medium hard, oil based clay. I am in the process of making a cheapo mould (suran wrap, packing tape and plastic bags) of my foot to build ontop of but my bigger question is if I should sculpt ontop of a boot?

I found a pair of steel toe rubber boots at Wally World for $25 yesterday that I Believe will work for the build but I am not sure if I should begin the sculpt ontop of these or just use them later. The idea was to cut them down by a few inches so that they do not ride higher than where the armor would be. I thought that this might help out later on after the moulding and casting process. I thought about using a pair of generic crocs to do the same thing but these seemed like they might work a bit better.

Below are the pics I took while wearing the boots. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome! Thank you.

P.S.
I will post any and all updates within this thread.

 

[Iceman065]

Slight update.

I made the cheapo leg mould tonight but didnt have enough plastic bags to finish stuffing it. So its still a little thin yet and the foot needs some filling out. But I will starting the clay sculpt on of this armature in the next day or so.

Like always, thoughts and opinions welcome!

My finished arm next to the WIP leg.

 

[Pack hunter]

hmm this could be an easy way to make a full body stand in... i wouldn't sculpt directly on the boot i'd do a paper machie mock up of the boot, i few layers of the stuff and then peel it off.... but if ur good at soddering you could make a copper wire frame of it, but more money needed then the paper machie

 

[Iceman065]

Do you mean something like this?

I designed/built it so that the pole can be removed to allow for the base to be placed on a table or Lazy Susan. This one is about a year or so old though.

 

[thorn696]

Nice dummy/stand. That has to make working allot easier.

 

[Iceman065]

Life caught me a bit off guard lately. I've been really busy with work which left very little time to work on the sculpt. But I finally got some time over the last 2 evenings to put in about 7 hours worth of work. I am taking my time since this is my first ever attempt at something like this.

So without further adue, my update pics.

I ended up not using the boots at all. I picked up a cheap pair of knock off Crocks that I covered in painters tape (I didn't want the oil from the clay to seep into the shoes very easily).

Here I have the foot/leg in the shoe.

I finished stuffing the leg and began putting clay onto the shoe and leg.

As always when working with clay, the start is rather chunky and uneven.

I tried to keep with the general shape of Jorge's boots while applying the first round of clay to help things in the next step.

Here I have the next step done. I have added in alot more clay and smoothed out as much as I could. The idea being that I am trying to build everything out to the highest layer and then carve the recesses into the clay.

Slightly different angle.

Up close shot of the cuff around the leg. (Front)

Up close shot of the cuff around the leg. (Back)

That is all for now. The next step (after a few more touch ups and alot more refinement) is going to be creating the patterns in ACAD and plotting those off to help create some templates to carve around. The idea is that the patterns will help to keep the "Inner" and "Outer" sides of the boot uniform.

As always, constructive criticism and questions are welcome!

 

[Ist Lt Hawkeye]

Interesting. It may be because I'm new, but I haven't seen anyone else use this sort of method for the boots in my reading through the threads. I'm not even close to good enough with sculpting to do something like this, but it looks like your work is coming along great. I'm curious as to how heavy it is as it looks like it'd be super heavy. Also, it looks like you have the shoe and shin attached. How do you plan on walking in that? o_o

 

[Iceman065]

@Hawkeye
It is really heavy but its not meant to be worn like this. I will be making a mould and casting the boot once I am finished sculpting it. As for the shoe and shin being attached, once I cast them I can cut them apart to make them into two pieces.

 

[Ist Lt Hawkeye]

Oookay, makes sense then. I was thinking, "Dear God! There is no way anyone could walk around in a suit like that!" XD