The final of the mass cram session before Anime Banzai, to give me a wide variety of things to show. Only had a few days left, so I couldn't make this as correct as I could, but for a speed build I think it turned out great! Let's get started. I started out by making a blueprint of the hammer head, so that I could size it out to the staff I was going to use. The staff is a 1.25" dowel, four feet long - a remnant of back when I was part of a medieval sword fighting group. That means it's got the scars of battle behind it, what with all the dings and dents! Perfect height for the warhammer. The hammerhead may look small in this shot, but I didn't have anything to scale it to nearby. Once the scale was set, I started cutting parts out! I did the hammerhead in two full layers: the inner support layer, and the outer detail layer. Both were the 1/2" floor mat foam. Once the side sections were cut out, I started making the three dimensional parts - that is, making a whole bunch of boxes! I marked off where each outer layer piece would sit, then made a strip a little wider than the marking for the inner track to support everything. Then I assembled the inner box and used that as a guide to freehand the sections to attach the outer details together. Worked like a charm! The upper back area has a curve, which meant interesting measurements to get everything to fit right. In the end it worked great though. The last section was the most difficult, as it wasn't just one flat area - it was three. Two angled in and curved from the sides, and one final piece that connected it all at the back. And all that connected to an odd shaped piece in the very back for the hammer's claw. For this, I made the back and bottom piece to the shape I wanted, then attached them and used the opening to trace the shape I needed. After that it was a simple thing to cut it out and give it a slight curve with the heat gun, though gluing it was an absolute pain.... Got those on, traced and cut a hole for the staff, and hot glued that right in! After that, all it needed was the discs in the center and the pommel. This was easily done with layered craft foam on each side, and by rolling and gluing some 1/2" foam down at the bottom. Nothing fancy, nice and simple. Size-wise, I think it turned out juuuuuust right! No time to spare, it went right into the paint. Covered the foam sections in Plasti Dip, then covered the whole thing, staff included, with what turned out to be exactly how much Krylon Ruddy Brown primer I had left. After that some metallic silver. No, the staff isn't leaning. That's it resting on the curved part of the hammer, the only way it would sit still long enough for a picture! And then, out of time and needing to let it dry, I did a quick spray over some areas with more of that automotive gunmetal I had, including where the indents of the staff would normally be. I would have preferred to actually cut those out, but I just had zero time left. And that was done just in time! It was another big hit at Anime Banzai, though once again no one bought it despite the low price point I put it at. Oh well, no big deal! Just means I can toss it on the wall once I have space to!
Thanks for reading! Enjoy some final pics of it and the rest of the pile I took to Anime Banzai!
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Time for something new and exciting! I wanted to make a dragon style helmet a la Prince Armory, though my skills with foam are nowhere near their skills with leather. Still though, there was time for it, and I needed one more helmet to put up on display at Anime Banzai, so I did what I could. Here's the start of the helmets again! Having already used all three of the other helmets, I needed to make something new to add to this one. So, I started with a pattern for the back, and grabbed my craft foam. I started with a gothic-style pattern, then copied it in various sizes. These I layered onto the back, giving it a nice flare effect. It also conveniently covered the seams so I didn't have to! ;) I also cut out and attached two straps to the back, which would later attach to those craft foam panels you see. More on that later, while those are being painted! I also added several layers of v-shaped pieces on top, bending them in the middle to look like the ear fringes. Then I drew up the pattern for the face mask, cut them out, and used a dremel to bevel the points and give depth to the cheeks. By now I had also finished painting the back panels, but again it isn't quite time for them! Still some work to do on the rest of the helmet. Debated back and forth with my wife for a while, trying to figure out what kind of slits to add to the front of the facemask, and we opted with long, vertical slits. Of course, this is about when people started asking me if I was doing Sauron, or that one guy from League of Legends, so I guess I'm doing something right? lol Anyway.... Got that all done, so off to paint! Started with Plasti Dip to seal it, then used an automotive gunmetal spray paint to cover everything. Now, finally, it was time to add the back panels. I attached them onto the straps from before, staggering them like plate mail, so that it could move freely and look more like a piece of armor. Decided against weathering this just like the Anime style helmet, but I still wanted to give it some sheen. So, I took a silver spray and lightly highlighted some edges, and the cheek bits, to give it some more depth. Then I finished it all with a few coats of clear. This one was a ton of fun to make. I do have it up for sale in the store, though I may end up holding on to it and making a full set of custom armor to go with it. We'll see!
Before I moved back to Utah, I got a hankering to make my own helmet design. Lo and behold, the amazing Evil Ted Smith came out with a video series on how to make foam armor and costumes, and the first series he put out focused on helmets! You guys may remember the end results of that. Well, a good friend of mine invited me to help her out at her booth at Anime Banzai, and in return offered to display a few of my things for sale. I didn't have anything made at the time, having just moved back here, but I figured why not make a few more helmets? So, it being an anime themed convention, I decided to go generic space anime helmet! Nice, simple, same-old same-old foam floor mats. I used the same pattern I made in the previous build (which is up for sale in the Store if you want to make your own), and prepped the base to 4 helmets. I grabbed the first, and put the other three aside for later! Now, just so you don't get confused, this one is extremely simple and doesn't really have a lot of photos. I also did a lot of the next helmet - the Cyberpunk one - at the same time, so a lot of the pics will overlap. On with the show! I opted for a super basic helmet, keeping it recognizable as an anime style, but not as any one specific series. The ears and horn were completely freehanded, and I beveled the ears inward with my dremel. Once that was done, I grabbed the next helmet, then ended up grabbing the third helmet and chopping it to pieces. Kind of hard to tell, but I cut the third helmet in half horizontally, turned it backwards, and attached it to the front. Then I took the bottom half, turned it backwards AND upside down, then stuck it on top of that. The goal here was to make a sort of visor screen thing that covered the eyes entirely. Also made some tubes and stuck them to the back for the wires and tubes and things. Tried something new with the caulk from before. Was suggested to me to thin it with water and paint a few coats onto the foam - told it would fill the seams and work about as well as the Plasti Dip. I wasn't as successful with that method, so from now on I'll just be doing it the same way I used to. Anyway, on to paint! The anime one was simple: paint the upper horn yellow, tape it off, then paint the ears red and tape those off. Once that was done, I also painted the front of the helmet blue (don't worry, it'll make sense in a minute). The Cyberpunk helmet I painted a metallic black, then the upper visor and wire tube things silver. After that I taped off the front of the anime style one, then painted everything else silver. Tape came off, and I got to see firsthand how terribly the new sealing method worked. Can you see all the bubbles on the yellow horn? Not terrible, but not up to par. You can also see all the seams, though I wasn't too worried as it kind of accented the look of the Cyberpunk one. Anyway, sprayed a little, light bit of orange on the horns and a darker red on the ears, to give it a bit of a gradient look. I wasn't weathering it at all, so that added a bit more depth to it and made it look a bit better. Anime helmet done! (Final shot pre-gradient) To finish off the Cyberpunk helmet, I used a method of stenciling I learned from Punished Props: print a stencil, lay it on some painter's tape, cut it out with a hobby knife, lay it in place, then paint it on! This was a lot of fun to add, though definitely time consuming. I will absolutely admit to some of those splotches being on purpose! Fit the look anyway, even on the accidents, so I was happy with it. Test fit: Hooray for craptacular selfies when you can't see! Time for some tubes and random wires. A good friend of mine, Keelah Monster Cosplay, sent me a ton of random computer parts and wires, so I put them all to good use! Also snagged a random plumbing tube from Walmart, then arranged them all and hot glued them in place. Tied 'em all up with a zip tie so they weren't bouncing around loosely and bashing the wearer painfully, called it good, and took another silly selfie! After that I had a ton of fun messing around with acrylic washes, drybrushing, and actual painting. I messed around with a bunch of different colors of paint, giving it a really nice, rusted, dirty grungy look. Hope you had as much fun reading about these two helmets as I did making them. They were a big hit at the convention, and even though neither of them sold, I got a lot of compliments on them! Here's some finished fancy shots to send you off with. If anyone is interested, the Anime style helmet has been purchased already but the Cyberpunk helmet is still available! You can find it here.
These gloves were a lot of fun to make, and a neat experiment with some new super cool electronics stuff! The Tensor gloves are a creation of author Brandon Sanderson, from his young adult novel Steelheart (which is awesome, go read it - actually go read everything he's written!). They are described as "thin glove[s]...[with] lines of metal along the front of each finger. The lines joined in a pattern at the palm and all glowed softly green." This commission was for my brother, who had made a set before but wasn't too happy with it. We collaborated on the plans, and he bought and shipped me the materials he wanted me to use. What you see here was the fruits of our discussions! We opted for: Adafruit Green Sequin LEDs Adafruit Conductive Thread and a 2-pack 2032 battery pack to power it all. Once it all arrived, I got to work! These suckers are bright! The thread sews really well, though if it frays it's hard to get it into the needle (can't wet it and twirl it like normal thread). And yes, that's totally done by hand. Took forever! I highly recommend both of these products, since they're so easy to use and work so well. The thread doesn't shock you, and only has issues if you try to ball your fist, since the wires cross at that point. Luckily the battery packs have on/off switches, so you can turn them off and eat, buy things, you know - the important things. :D Did some readjusting with the threads after some wires ended up not working well, and finally got all the fingers attached! Dabbed a tiny speck of superglue to where the thread connected to the LEDs just to make sure they didn't come untied - no soldering here, didn't want to burn the gloves! Once the fingers were done, I threw on the next five lights, this time in the palm. That one light gave me grief until the very end, when I finally gave up and added some solder to get the connection going. I also wrapped the wires to the battery with electrical tape to keep them from touching and shorting out. Left the wires hanging out though, to give it the hodgepodge wires 'n' metal look they're supposed to have. The wrist part of the glove was secure enough as well to hold the battery pack underneath and out of the way. One glove down, on to the other! The great thing about this build is it can totally be adapted to other genres. People were suggesting magic effects from various games and movies, and even my Mass Effect peeps were saying they were perfect for biotics! Future ideas..... ;) Anyway, my brother loved them, and most importantly the author himself loved them! My brother showed them to him, cosplaying as one of the main characters, Prof. All in all, a fun, simple build!
Around the same time that I was working on the Sword of Ahrah, I was pumping out a bunch of different helmets. The first of these helmets was the Titan helmet from Destiny, for the awesome guys at Extra Life ATX. I opted to make it out of foam, like I do, but mostly because they wanted it light and durable since lots of people would end up wearing it at events and they wanted to cast games in it as well. This turned into a very interesting build, so let's get started! Started off as normal: prep the pieces, trace them to foam, cut them out, the glue them all up with contact cement. I had to do some major work on a few of the pieces, like the crest at the back. The underside piece needed a heavy angle cut, and the turkey legs (as I affectionately call them) needed huge trenches and grinding down to even fit together. Eventually, however, I prevailed! Got it all cleaned up, took it outside, and filled the seams as best I could with some sandable, paintable caulk. Once that set, I sanded it as smooth as I could, then brought it back in and used some craft foam to fill the front holes in the turkey legs. I also grabbed some smoke grey acrylic from my local supplier, used my heat gun over a ceramic bowl to stretch it to shape, and cut a visor out. I also used the xacto knife/heat gun trick to etch in all the detail lines. A light scoring and some quick passes make excellent and clean etchings! After that I grabbed a couple orange lights from my local Radio Shack (this was long before they closed down), and wired them up, along with a fan for later. Now it was time for paint! Wrapped up the fronts of the lights, leaving the back to be painted over. Also taped up the visor. Then, threw on my favorite foam sealer, Plasti Dip! Taped up the areas I wanted to keep black, as you see above, then grabbed an automotive gunmetal grey and went to town. More tape, and then came the primary color: orange! Cameo of my son, as viewed from the inside of the helmet. Looking great so far! Next came everyone's favorite part, weathering! I did a variety of things, from dry brushing to a dark acrylic wash, and added some color to a few of the details to highlight them better. I also finished installing the fan behind the hole in the front, so that the wearer could have some better air circulation and keep the visor from fogging too much. Threw on a final clear coat to seal it all in, which was unfortunately my folly as I forgot to tape up the visor again. It ended up being really hard to see out of, but I was so excited to get it to them I didn't test it before I shipped it. Looks awesome, but I failed on the end result of them being able to stream games wearing it....
Still, they loved it, and I loved making it so much I decided to make another one! But that's a tale for another blog! Here's some final shots of the Titan helmet. Hope you enjoyed! |
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