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blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


So I've been working on designs for Illidan's war-glaives from World of Warcraft/Heroes of the Storm. My original plan was to loosely follow what Volpin Props does: make a base prop out of fiberboard, clay, and Bondo, then cast it in urethane. Since the blades are symmetrical, I just have to sculpt one side of one glaive, pull four copies, and assemble the two completed glaives.

I've run the numbers, though, and it looks like this is going to cost me hundreds of dollars in silicone alone for the molds, and then another couple hundred for the urethane. While I'm not explicitly on a budget, is there a cheaper way of doing this that still retains the strength, lightness, and ease of construction of resin casting? I'm a little bit hesitant to drop six hundred bucks on making some fantasy weapons.

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blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Tomero_the_Great posted:

Directed here from the Cosplay thread. Hello everyone. :shobon:

My roommate is throwing a party this Saturday, and I've decided to dress up as a sort of bio-wizard. To complete the look I'm hoping to make a parasite-like staff.

Coating, painting, and sealing the pole is no problem...


But attached to the top I want the staff head to appear like this...


I have zero experience/talent, but I have a credit card and a day off coming up. What would be the easiest way for a complete novice like me to put this together?

What I'd do is drill a tiny hole straight down into the top of your staff, then get some stiff wire and glue that in so it sticks out straight. Bend it so that it forms the core of the shape you want to work with, then start adding some stuff to thicken it up.

There's a great kind of self-hardening epoxy clay called Apoxie Sculpt. Basically, you mix two parts together until it forms a smooth clay, which is workable for about an hour before it starts to set up. At that point it becomes rock-hard and can be sanded smooth. Wrapping clay around wire is a bit tricky, but if you wait about 15 minutes after mixing the clay, it will firm up enough to be way more usable. Try doing it in two passes: one to get a bunch of clay covering the wire, and another to get it up to the thickness and texture you actually want.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


CherryCat posted:

I've got a con in September and really, really want to go as Shepard from Mass Effect. I'm just not sure where to get materials (UK based) or if I even have the skill/equipment to make the armour. I have a few backup ideas but frankly feel too chubby for most of them.

What are your backup ideas? Don't worry about being too chubby, September is eight months away and that's plenty of time to get in shape. Working out is cosplay prep.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


I want to put together a few simple craft foam armor pieces, but I have neither a 3D model nor a scan of my body to build one around. If I can't use pepakura, how do I go about drafting the pattern?

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


McPantserton posted:

Sounds janky but what I pretty much always do is wrap the body part in question first in saran wrap, then in painters tape. I rough out the armor piece in sharpie on the tape, cut it out, and then refine it from there out of paper and foam.

PS sorry for the total cosplay silence guys but I'm on a sexy vacation in Costa Rica, I will likely have some big cosplay news when I get back though! (Looks like I'll be doing some material testing for a company professionally omg)

Alright, that sounds reasonable enough. I've actually just built myself a duct tape model of my torso, so I'll tape a bunch of paper to it and work things out from there. Thanks!

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


I've been slowly grinding away at an Illidan Stormrage costume for a while, and I'm getting to the point where I want my weapon props to be extremely badass. (The costume basically consists of being a half-naked purple elf with awesome weapons, so I'm putting most of my effort into the weapons.)

The weapons need to look metallic, for the most part, but I want to make them glow green. I was thinking that I might cast them in a translucent resin with LEDs embedded, paint the entire thing metallic, and then gently wet-sand the paint off along any corners or raised edges so that the light can shine through. Does this sound plausible, or has anyone tried anything similar? I've seen some crazy weapon builds in this thread.

(Cost is not much of an object for this project, cosplay is basically my only hobby I spend money on.)

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


From the various testing I've done in preparation for turning myself into a big purple elf, I've found that Ben Nye paints WITH A SEALING SPRAY are pretty good. It comes off pretty easy with some vigorous scrubbing with a washcloth in the shower, and it didn't rub off too much over the course of an hour or so. I haven't tried it at a con yet, however.

The sealing spray is incredibly important, it's what keeps the paint on you and not on the seats of the Applebee's next to the convention where all of the homestucks have already left greasy gray smears.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Hey, protip: use the right mold release agent for the material you're using. The same spray I use to make my silicone production molds does NOT work on plaster molds.



Luckily, this is only like $15 worth of plaster instead of $150 of silicone, but god drat this is going to be a long night.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


To test out my LED embedding and painting ideas, I threw together a really simple mold, cast a part in resin, sanded it down to 2000 grit, and blasted a few coats of whatever metallic silver spray paint I had on hand. It dried terribly unevenly, probably because I didn't bother with any primer, but other than the little bubbles it looks pretty solid, right?



WRONG! Apparently four coats of this paint isn't actually opaque enough to block more than a little bit of the light.



The end result that I'm going for is ideally a solid, opaque metal-looking weapon that glows along every sharp edge and through every scuff mark, so having paint that doesn't actually block out all of the light doesn't work for me at all. I'm casting another part now, and am going to see what happens when I actually prime the part before laying down the silver. If I can make it out to the hardware store this week I might try finding a shiny chrome paint instead of the kind of speckly silver that I'm using now, since that's what I'll actually wind up using for the final part.

(I have no idea what I'm doing and this is extremely exciting!)

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


McKilligan posted:

Get ahold of some Black Gesoo - that stuff is plenty opaque and makes for a great primer, ought to do a dandy job of blocking out the light.

I'll give gesso a shot, thanks! I live like three blocks away from an art store so that'll be no problem. What's the best way to apply it perfectly evenly, like I'd get out of a spray can?

McKilligan posted:

Speaking of which, I'm planning on doing something eerily similar to your setup - I'm planning to cast at least the end of the coiled greatsword with a few embedded LEDs so that the tip looks like it's incandescent. What's your setup, any guides for basic LED circuits? I've never done anything with electronics so consider my a complete novice. Like, cold I just solder a circuit with like 6 yellow LEDs to an 8-volt and call it a day?

There's a pretty good introductory Instructable about how LEDs work that should get you started. If you're testing things out like I am, you can basically just stick a bunch of LEDs next to each other, connect positive to negative, and jam the leads onto a battery assuming your math works out. My LEDs are 3-volt, and wiring them together in series like that means that each LED "consumes" 3 volts so I can use a 9-volt battery to light three of them up.

In my final build, though, I'm going to be using dozens of LEDs, so I'm going to be wiring them in parallel, allowing me to use 3 volts to light all of them up at the cost of burning through batteries more quickly. You're probably going to want to get some resistors, and you'll definitely do some math to figure out what you need to do to build your circuit. The Instructable walks you through a bit of this.

And, most importantly: :siren: MAKE SURE EVERYTHING LIGHTS UP AND STAYS LIT BEFORE YOU EMBED IT IN RESIN :siren: because I have seen multiple people waste lots of money on LEDs and resin only to have a non-functioning circuit in the end.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


McKilligan posted:

I'm definitely going to be very careful when building the circuit, make sure everything is carefully soldered and functional before the resin comes into it. But at any rate, I won't be tackling that particular problem for a long time, I'm going to focus on the armour first. I think the trickies part is going to be figuring out a way to embed the power supply into the handle without weakening the whole thing overall.

If you're making that enormous loving greatsword from your earlier post, the center part of that crossguard is easily three inches thick. You can totally fit a small hatch for a 9-volt in there somehow. You're going to need to get really creative with how you wind up casting that, though, because that much resin is going to be kinda heavy and might be prone to wobbling. Volpin Props (the blog that got me into propmaking) did a very long, thin cast of the Scissor Blade from Kill la Kill, and he described how he embedded a steel rod to give it some rigidity when it started to wobble.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Here's the latest update in my warglaive saga: I still have no idea what the gently caress I'm doing.

When I tried to do this last year, I made a blank for each blade of the weapon and cast a few parts out of it. The mold was ugly and the casts were ugly but they worked, more or less, except for the fact that I completely neglected to include any physical joint between the blades and the handle so they kept snapping off whenever I waved them around too much, no matter how much epoxy I used.



At this point, there were only three days until the convention and I really wasn't happy with how my abs were looking anyway so I decided to shelve the shirtless purple elf thing and just reuse my LoL Ezrael costume from the previous year. Months (and a couple of other conventions) passed, and now I'm back at working on this again. I've got a bunch of ideas on what I can do to fix the structural problems, and have a lot of ideas on how to make things even more awesome (like LEDs), but I've got a couple of problems.

Problem one: the way I constructed the original blanks made it basically impossible to do the kinds of modifications that I want. I need to drill a bunch of holes, sink some support struts, sand a bunch of things very smooth so that I can get the LED effects working like I want them to, and so on. Unfortunately, the blank is made out of foamcore and cardboard with a layer of apoxie sculpt to fill out the bevel and a very thin skin of Bondo on top of that to smooth everything out. It doesn't sand very well and looks really ugly up close, so I can't use that as the base for my improvements.



Problem two: I did a huge round of closet clearing back in December and thought to myself, "man, this mold sucked, these casts sucked, I'm never going to use these," and dumped about three hundred bucks worth of silicone and urethane in the garbage. In retrospect, had I saved even one of those lovely casts, I could have used that as a much more solid basis for the modifications that I want to do now.

I decided that the correct thing to do here would be to make what's called a "waste mold": a quick, cheap plaster mold of an object that is good for basically just one casting. In sculpture, this is useful for when you make something out of one material, such as clay, but want it cast in something else so that you can make changes to it that clay won't let you do. Easy enough, right? I have a ton of plaster of Paris on hand, all of the foamcore board and clay I needed to make a mold, and so on. Let's ignore the fact that I've never made a two-part plaster mold before and only had a vague idea about what that would entail.

Since I was very concerned about the water-filled plaster soaking into and destroying my cardboard sculpt, I coated everything with a couple layers of Plasti-Dip for waterproofing. This actually worked out pretty well to keep the water out when I made the waste mold, and the blank came out unscathed.

Unfortunately, the two-part plaster mold became a one-part plaster brick because I didn't use the right release agent, like I posted about before.



Undaunted, I dug into my boundless reserves of plaster and tried again. I reinforced the mold box, changed up the geometry a bit, and looked up the correct mold release agent to use for plaster-on-plaster casts. (If you're curious, it's several coats of dish soap.) The bottom half of the mold came out great! It cleaned up nicely, caught every detail I needed to, and had a nice, flat, non-lumpy back so I didn't need to level anything out before flipping the mold over. Unfortunately, the Plasti-Dip coating got damaged at some point between me freeing the blank from the first mold and pouring the second mold, so the side that I just molded was a soggy, disintegrating mess. No problem, though! I didn't need that side to stay solid anymore, I just needed the other side so that I could finish the mold. I set the blank aside and soaped up the bottom half of the mold in preparation to pour the second half.

Soap, by the way, is slippery, so I dropped the mold and it broke into eight pieces.

Not a problem, of course: plaster is easy to repair and just needs a bit of glue and some time. I got everything glued back together, although there were some noticeable cracks, and poured the second half of the mold. This came apart much more easily: instead of having to chisel the blank out of a ruined mold, I just accidentally snapped the top half of the mold into two pieces trying to pop it off. No worries, more glue, more tape, fixed all that. (The blank is thoroughly waterlogged and useless by now.) I got everything cleaned out, lubed up (triple-checked to make sure I was using the right mold release, which is also dish soap in this case) and set up for pouring. I mixed up a cupful of resin (Smooth-On's Smooth-Cast 300, which I can't recommend highly enough) and poured it in.

This is where I started noticing some serious problems.

First problem: the mold wasn't watertight, thanks to all of the cracks. I thought I'd gotten them all, but the tiny imperfections made it so that it didn't fit together cleanly, and precious plastic started oozing out of everywhere. I was out of clamps, so I grabbed the two worst bits with my hands and squeezed everything together myself. This more-or-less worked. (Yes, I was wearing gloves.)
Second problem: the plaster was apparently not completely dry. Steam visibly rose from the pour hole as it was curing (yes, I was wearing breathing protection) and the mold started literally weeping water. I had no idea at the time if this was actually going to be a problem, but drat if it wasn't concerning.

Again, no problem, I had some more resin to top off what leaked out, the water didn't seem to inhibit curing, whatever! I fixed it up and tried to pry the mold apart.

Apparently, the steam caused the resin to stick to the plaster, despite the fact that I know I used enough mold sealer. And, of course, since resin was oozing out through every single crack, that means that every single crack was now glued shut with plastic, so the mold was now a solid brick. A bunch of hammering, chiseling, and sweeping up of plaster dust later, I'm left with this wonderful hunk of plaster and plastic:



I guess it's time for me to break out the sandpaper and file again! :shepicide:

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Pile of Kittens posted:

Oh buddy, you've got a serious case of "bad idea? better stick with it". There are like three points in that process that I would have started over again rather than struggle with a plaster mold that's cracked. From what I hear, it never ends well, and when you're just starting out (like me) it's better to just repeat the process all over again to at least get good experience out of it, since you're not likely to know enough to fix a hosed mold properly. As you've found out.

Yyyyep. Unfortunately, by the time I started thinking that I should try again, the blank was ruined and I didn't have much choice but to keep going. Luckily, the part is cleaning up pretty nicely: the Internet told me that soaking the part in vinegar would help dissolve the plaster, and it is indeed scrubbing off with a Scotch-Brite pad. The underlying cast is in pretty good shape for the most part, though it'll need a bit of cleanup around the edges and I'll need to file off the raised bits where the cracks in the plaster were.

McKilligan, thanks for the gesso recommendation. I pulled a fresh hunk of clear resin, gave it four thick coats, gently sanded off the raised bits, then blasted a couple coats of silver on top of it:



I'll need to perfect my technique for getting some nice jagged scuff marks on it (either scrubbing off the gesso with a rough brush before it dries completely or a heavier grit sandpaper) but this is exactly the effect I was going for: opaque when it's off, glowing around the edges when it's on. Going to be a pain in the rear end to paint four huge blades like this, though.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Wow, that's a big loving gun.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Work and life got in the way of cosplay work, but now I've got time again, back to fixing this disaster.

When I last left off, I had just attempted to make my life way easier by re-casting my blank prop using a plaster waste mold and some old leftover resin. The idea was hopefully to get me something that wasn't made 90% of cardboard so that I could sand, sculpt, and drill some parts I was having a bunch of trouble with.

This did not turn out well, due to reasons I mentioned in my last post:


After doing a bunch of experimentation, I determined that the correct way to extract my prop from the enormous chunks of plaster it was embedded in was to soak it in a basic solution, so I dumped a box of baking soda into a plastic tub, got some huge gloves, and scrubbed away at it, revealing the plastic underneath it. My elation at figuring that out, though, was quickly dampened once I saw how the cast had actually turned out:


You see, resin gets very hot when it's curing. If you pour it into a plaster mold that isn't 100% dry (which happens if you add too much water, which I did), then that extra water boils, turning to steam, which bubbles up through the resin as it cures and turns into an awful mess. But, whatever, that's what Bondo is for. I filled in all of the bubbles, used some Apoxie Sculpt to fix up the parts that I wanted to, and sanded it down more-or-less smooth. The beveled center bit was basically entirely lost, since I didn't want to fill in those weird controls. I filled that entire bit in with a generous amount of Bondo and marked it out for dremeling:


A bunch more carving, sculpting, sanding, and filling later, I was finally satisfied with the shape it was in. I hit the entire thing with a light coat of primer so that I could more easily catch any cracks and tiny little bubbles that I couldn't spot, sanded down the rough spots, and filled the last bits in, and, well...


The loving bubbles are back. They were always there, lurking under the surface, and every time I sand anything down I reveal the next layer of tiny pockmarks.

I need suggestions on what I can possibly do to fix this. The bubbles are tiny, so it's difficult to get Bondo in there, and the interiors of the bubbles are very smooth, so it's impossible to get it to stick. Is there something that I can slather on top of this thing that I can sand down smooth afterwards? I remember seeing a gesso marked as "sandable" at the store, would that work?

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Thanks everyone! I live in walking distance to Blick, so I'll try molding paste first, then filler primer if I can't make the paste work.

How would I go about applying resin? Would I be looking for something goopy enough that I could apply it using a throwaway brush and just commit myself to the idea of doing some hardcore sanding to get it back into shape?

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Well, PAX is coming up, so I need to get serious about finishing my Illidan. The only tricky bit of sewing this is going to involve is the weird half-tabard:



How the gently caress do I make any of this? I can cut out a chunk of green fabric, but how do I get that ridged-yet-flexible pseudo-embroidery along the edges and around the gem? For that matter, how do I securely attach that gem to the fabric, and what clear-ish material can I make it out of so that it's not going to massively suck to have it pounding against my crotch as I walk around the con all day? Also, what's the best way to actually attach it to my waist?

Also, do any of you have any ideas about what I should do about the fact that the character is barefoot? The biggest thing I'm worried about is the fact that my feet are going to be covered in purple paint, making it difficult to wear anything like flip-flops without having all the paint rub off after the first couple of hours. My "best" idea so far is to do it kind of like how they did hobbit feet in LotR, where I'd make a cast of my foot, then make a prosthetic that would contain a thick enough sheet of rubber to protect my feet.

(I'll post some progress pics on the weapons once I've got them looking a little more impressive, but they're coming along great. Thank you all so much for telling me about spray filler primer, it's done wonders for evening out all of the tiny little pockmarks in my resin.)

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


McPantserton posted:

For fabric trim, maybe beveled craft foam? You could probably just glue it on I'd think. Gem is tougher but maybe a cast that includes loops on the back to sew to the tabbard, I def wouldn't just glue it. Junk hitting I cannot help with sadly.

As for bare feet there's a group I know called Sewing is Half the Battle who did a write-up for invisible shoes using clear straps and sandal soles so that might be an option if you google for it

Wow, that Sewing Is Half the Battle tutorial is great, I'll definitely do that. Beveled craft foam sounds right up my alley, too, although I was hoping to finally have a project that didn't involve any craft foam at all. For the gem, if I'm going to cast something with loops on the back, then I just realized I could actually make it hollow and paint the inside silver, which would make it lightweight enough that it wouldn't be too uncomfortable.

Do you have any idea how I should go about attaching those to my waist and keeping them from sliding to each side? I'm a little reluctant to sew them directly to the pants, since that would make weathering (and eventual modifications/repair) a bit harder.

Thanks for the suggestions on the toe shoes, Ashcans and chitoryu12, but those are expensive as hell and I'm not a good enough sculptor to make them look convincingly like feet.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Oh man, someone new who is mostly excited about making props?! Let me tell you about the gospel of silicone molds and urethane resins...

Incidentally, I'm about to mix and pour, like, five hundred dollars worth of silicone to make molds baaaaaarely in time for PAX. I somehow managed to turn a four-month lead into last-minute crunch. Here's hoping nothing fucks up curing!

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Putting together each circuit for my supposed-to-be-glowing warglaives was taking 4+ hours each, so I'm having to drop that entirely and have them not light up since I don't have time for PAX.

...which means that I'm going to have something cool to do for Version 2, at the cost of having to re-cast everything which is going to be even more expensive. At least I don't have to make new molds, which is the really expensive part.

On a happier note, this is the first time I've made a 2+ part mold successfully on the first try. I'm actually pretty proud of this! Most of the time I have to take a big knife to a solid hunk of silicone before I get something barely usable.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


I have an idea for my next project once I finish my current one, but I'm trying to scope out feasibility first. What would be the best way to make metallic armor that could be polished to a mirror finish? All of my armor builds so far have been craft foam, which doesn't seem like a solid foundation for something like that.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


neogeo0823 posted:

What do you guys recommend for dealing with foggy lenses? I've got this mask I'm working on. I attached a piece of fabric to cover the mouth, and some lenses in the eyes, and they fog up like a bitch because my breath is basically directed straight up to them. I've heard of anti-fogging solutions, but I'm not sure how well they work or if they're worth the price. Should I be looking to vent my breath in another direction, get the anti-fog solution, or be looking for some other thing I haven't thought of yet? I'll take any ideas you guys can give me.

I'd stick some foam or rubber in there to seal up the path between my nose and eyes to vent it elsewhere.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


I'd make a fake cork. I'd build a plastic housing for the electronics and switches, then wrap it in something firm but squishy (maybe even cork) textured and painted to look like cork. It's not going to be as good as a real cork for doing cork things, but it'll be much, much easier to work with.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


So, for this year's PAX, I'm going to do mid-game Link from Breath of the Wild, with a random assortment of gear to reflect what I wind up actually wearing at any given point.

I'm doing the Stealth Tights for sure, which is kind of a stretch for me ability-wise since I've never really done any work in a really stretchy tights material. What makes it extra difficult is that it looks like the tights continue straight down and are part of the boots:



How the hell should I do this? I figure I'm going to buy some tabi boots, strip them down to just the soles, and build them back up somehow, but I don't really know where to begin, especially when working with such a stretchy fabric. Does anyone have any suggestions of things I could start looking at?

(also i might be doing the climbing gear because it means i don't have to attach any sleeves)

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Skandranon posted:

Maybe don't try to make them the same thing? Why can't you just get tabi boots, and some matching colour tights, and wear them together / overlapping. No one is going to be looking for seams down at your ankle, especially if you have the additional strap on shin guards.

That is an excellent suggestion. Thanks!

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Coupons, sales, and convincing myself that all of the equipment I’m buying will be useful for future projects.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


The answer you probably don’t want to hear is “print the blade again, with higher heat to increase bonding between layers and also use more perimeter shells”, and the answer your client doesn’t want to hear is “cast it in a flexible epoxy, that’ll be a couple hundred bucks extra lol”. I don’t know anyone who’s had good luck with long, thin 3D-printed objects. My plan for my next sword is going to be to build the blade by hand and just print the cross-guard.

You’re right to think that adding screws won’t help. If your infill percentage is low for weight purposes, and if you printed the blade sections vertically, there’s not going to be anything in there for the screws to bite into. I’m pretty sure it is, but is it too late to disassemble the thing and put thicker, more rigid rods down the center? You’re not going to stop the blade from fracturing like that if it can bend.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Oh, important question: is it cracking at the seam, next to the seam, or somewhere else?

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Harvey Baldman posted:

The heat and shells don't seem to be the issue. I did it in PLA at 210 and 6 outer walls, which is plenty. It isn't delaminating layers; it is cracking right where the seams are, along the interface between where separate printed parts are joined together. I'd have loved to mold and cast this in something better but as you said, client ain't paying for it.

If it’s cracking at the interface then it’s probably because the thick rigid cross-sections where the parts were joined together aren’t flexing in the same way that the rest of the hollow sword is. At this point, I’d go with Lord Frisk’s suggestion and wrap the blade in fiberglass to give the exterior some ability to handle being flexed. This might not stand up if there’s going to be a lot of torque applied to the blade, but it’ll help with the side-to-side flexing from waving it around.

Hmm, now that I’m thinking about this, I might try printing a sword with zero infill and no full plates on the top/bottom layer so that there’s no internal structural difference to cause this kind of problem...

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


If you’re worried about interaction between paints, test on a sample piece first. Better to find out that a glossy clearcoat ruins the iridescent finish on a little chunk of plastic than on the prop you’ve spent days working on.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


One important difference between cosplay and doll-making is the distance that the work is viewed at. Cosplay is about making something look good at 3+ feet away, whereas doll-making presumably involves much more detailed observation. You might have some luck with the tabletop wargame minis crew in the traditional games subforum.

More practically: the first step to making something that is not cloth look like cloth is to make it look like it behaves like cloth. Cloth bunches, wrinkles, and flows, and replicating that behavior will get you 90% of the way there without a single coat of paint. If a literal rock can be made to look like cloth, so can whatever plastic or clay you’re using.

Next, you need to think about color and texture. Cloth is slightly fuzzy, so you want a very matte coating on it (unless you’re specifically trying to replicate a shiny fabric). The base can probably all be one straight pass with an airbrush. Texture is harder, and this is where the 3-foot rule comes in on cosplay: you don’t actually need to model or paint the texture of the weave since nobody is going to have their face jammed up against the surface to admire the detail work. So, I have no idea how to paint that kind of texture on. The finest detail I’ve seen was someone laboriously recreating the pattern of duct tape by hammering little dents into a very thin strip of epoxy clay.

Weathering is the Fun Part that everyone skips, and that’s the part that actually sells the illusion that what you’ve made is a real object. Weathering adds wear, tear, and age to your object. Even objects intended to look like they’re brand new or carefully maintained should have some weathering. For cloth, any raised edges (hems, the tops of any felled seams, etc.) should be lighter in color to represent the fabric being rubbed against, and any deep cracks (joining seams, the undersides of any felled seams) should be darker. How you would go about accomplishing that on the scale you need, I don’t know. For props (again, seen from three feet away), getting the low parts involves smearing a bunch of paint over it and using a wet paper towel to wipe off the excess, and the high parts involves sweeping a very dry brush over them unevenly. This works great for large objects but I don’t think it’ll work for smaller ones.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Can anyone recommend a cheap-ish source of flexible hose of varying diameters? I need three or four different diameters, one of them ribbed:



All the sources I'm finding at hardware stores are like $50 for 25-foot rolls, which is rather expensive and also way more than I actually need.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Rit DyeMore is a line of dyes made for dyeing synthetic fibers, and a cursory search turns up people using it for dying plastics. I don’t know for sure if it’ll work on your material, but it might be worth a shot. (Make sure you test on a swatch first!)

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blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Deviant posted:

anyone who says 3d printing is easy or cheating has never owned one or tried to fix a broken one

Or had to do all of the post-processing work to turn parts from the printer into usable, good-looking props.

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