With Halloween fast approaching I arrogantly thought I could crank out a quick set of GOW armor before it gets here.
After some reading up… and a lot of education, I thought it was best to change gears from being something pre-done, to something a little more original.
So I canned all of the drawings and cut-outs I had made
It didn’t take me long to figure out what to make, a death knight, or something along those lines.
It’s Monday, I go to work Thursday, and off again Monday… so I has 6 days to get this costume cranked.
Not much time to think about it… so I’ll show you where I’ve been, and where I’m at… work will continue on again Monday.
Also, while I’m working on this, I’m simultaneously working on the Cardinal guitar.
My first attempt was get a whoooooooole bunch of old newspapers
Make some homemade glue
And paper mache that sucker.
One forearm later I realized that I don’t have time for this noise.
Jen gave me a hand as I tried to make a plaster mold of my body
Which failed once it came off.
Alright…
Next I made a cardboard cutout of my chest
And fiberglassed it
It’s about as comfortable as listening in on your parents pillow talk.
Tick-tock the time is going…
With the failsauce that was the chest, I decided to cheat and bought this sporting thing (don’t ask me what it’s called) and started to build up the shoulders from there
And glassed the shoulders
Which after this next part was done, I realized I have to re-think… but more on that later.
I changed gears to what I think should be the hard part, the helm.
So with an old motorcycle helmet …
…and cut that sucker into bits
I’m going to focus on the head and go from there I think
So I start cutting out eye slots
I start building up the helm in cardstock
You’ll see the design changes a few times, mostly it’s trial and error
At one point I concluded that I needed a rig mount as the project was growing beyond my desk… so I made one
Mount in place, I continued to build up
(you can see part of the guitar I’m working on in there lol)
Let the glassing begin…
Set and dried, the next layer goes down…
After that dries comes the “fun” layer.
This layer is fun because the lovely Jen helped me as we shredded up fiberglass sheets into thin strips and then I tore the fibers apart to make this rough “hair” looking stuff…
On layer 4 of the “hair” (set & cure between layers)
…and it’s shredding my chem. gloves… as well as my hands
But by layer 5 it’s where I want to be
When dry I start cutting like an emo on prom night, and then start applying the base flat black
I then start working in my silver range, my copper/gold range, and then some green and black highlights… after brushing in the colors I get my desired effect
The camera really doesn’t do it justice
With the helm down, I start on the shins… no reason in particular to go there and not the arms… I guess that the backpart was near my hands at the time.
So I bought these shin things
And after I cut off a bit at the base to give a better travel.
Now these are going to be glassed, but this is impact ABS style plastic, and therefore the glass appliance my break off easily/cleanly.
To prevent this I drilled AP screws into them as anchorage points.
And then I went with a random glass sheet layout carefully glassing the screws planes in the process.
Once the glass cured, I cut off the excess screws (at random heights) so that I could start building up the appliance detail.
I then made a rough skull shape, and then banded the top of it to make a 3-D shape, and spent the next few hours sculpting that shape in hot glue
A few layers of black… and then again with brushing in the colors the first shin looks like this
With time being as short as it is, that’s where I’m at currently.
Soooo much more to do in such a short period of time.
This is my very first attempt at making anything armor or armor related, so it’s a lot of trial, error, error, more errors, trial again, errors, rinse repeat.
I know it wont be perfect, but it’s a first attempt in a very short period of time, and of the 4 or 5 trick or treaters we expect to get, I don’t think they’ll complain when they get a bagful of candy from the weird dude with this huge bobblehead looking costume on
After some reading up… and a lot of education, I thought it was best to change gears from being something pre-done, to something a little more original.
So I canned all of the drawings and cut-outs I had made
It didn’t take me long to figure out what to make, a death knight, or something along those lines.
It’s Monday, I go to work Thursday, and off again Monday… so I has 6 days to get this costume cranked.
Not much time to think about it… so I’ll show you where I’ve been, and where I’m at… work will continue on again Monday.
Also, while I’m working on this, I’m simultaneously working on the Cardinal guitar.
My first attempt was get a whoooooooole bunch of old newspapers
Make some homemade glue
And paper mache that sucker.
One forearm later I realized that I don’t have time for this noise.
Jen gave me a hand as I tried to make a plaster mold of my body
Which failed once it came off.
Alright…
Next I made a cardboard cutout of my chest
And fiberglassed it
It’s about as comfortable as listening in on your parents pillow talk.
Tick-tock the time is going…
With the failsauce that was the chest, I decided to cheat and bought this sporting thing (don’t ask me what it’s called) and started to build up the shoulders from there
And glassed the shoulders
Which after this next part was done, I realized I have to re-think… but more on that later.
I changed gears to what I think should be the hard part, the helm.
So with an old motorcycle helmet …
…and cut that sucker into bits
I’m going to focus on the head and go from there I think
So I start cutting out eye slots
I start building up the helm in cardstock
You’ll see the design changes a few times, mostly it’s trial and error
At one point I concluded that I needed a rig mount as the project was growing beyond my desk… so I made one
Mount in place, I continued to build up
(you can see part of the guitar I’m working on in there lol)
Let the glassing begin…
Set and dried, the next layer goes down…
After that dries comes the “fun” layer.
This layer is fun because the lovely Jen helped me as we shredded up fiberglass sheets into thin strips and then I tore the fibers apart to make this rough “hair” looking stuff…
On layer 4 of the “hair” (set & cure between layers)
…and it’s shredding my chem. gloves… as well as my hands
But by layer 5 it’s where I want to be
When dry I start cutting like an emo on prom night, and then start applying the base flat black
I then start working in my silver range, my copper/gold range, and then some green and black highlights… after brushing in the colors I get my desired effect
The camera really doesn’t do it justice
With the helm down, I start on the shins… no reason in particular to go there and not the arms… I guess that the backpart was near my hands at the time.
So I bought these shin things
And after I cut off a bit at the base to give a better travel.
Now these are going to be glassed, but this is impact ABS style plastic, and therefore the glass appliance my break off easily/cleanly.
To prevent this I drilled AP screws into them as anchorage points.
And then I went with a random glass sheet layout carefully glassing the screws planes in the process.
Once the glass cured, I cut off the excess screws (at random heights) so that I could start building up the appliance detail.
I then made a rough skull shape, and then banded the top of it to make a 3-D shape, and spent the next few hours sculpting that shape in hot glue
A few layers of black… and then again with brushing in the colors the first shin looks like this
With time being as short as it is, that’s where I’m at currently.
Soooo much more to do in such a short period of time.
This is my very first attempt at making anything armor or armor related, so it’s a lot of trial, error, error, more errors, trial again, errors, rinse repeat.
I know it wont be perfect, but it’s a first attempt in a very short period of time, and of the 4 or 5 trick or treaters we expect to get, I don’t think they’ll complain when they get a bagful of candy from the weird dude with this huge bobblehead looking costume on