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SunSickOkra posted:Also, does anyone have a good solution to keeping thigh armor on? (when you add the word "system", it makes the sentence marginally less awkward for a 42 year old man to type.)  At any rate...I took some 1" wide black nylon web strap, like you'd find on a backpack, and fashioned a dead simple belt with a garter on each side. The quick-release snap clips that you usually find right along side the strap material make for easy wearing and excellent adjustability. Firefox is telling me that adjustability is not a word, so I added it to the dictionary out of spite. I used one clip as a belt buckle, and another clip on each side for the thigh pieces. As long as your armor isn't absolutely skin tight - and I guess it wouldn't be falling down if it were - you should be able to hide the clips right inside without irritating or digging into your skin. I never had any issues with discomfort in mine, even in that godforsaken rigid ABS monstrosity of a costume. OK, no *additional* discomfort.  I wish I had some pictures to show you, but that poor troopy suit hasn't even been out of storage in like 8 years. I am a terrible costumer. (edit)- I also seem to recall a fellow trooper using something like this stuff on his biceps and thigh pieces with pretty good results. I don't know if that's the exact product or not, but I'm pretty sure he said it was some sort of normally-pants-related thing. Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Aug 17, 2015 |
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Aug 17, 2015 10:12
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McPantserton posted:What about a spray filler primer? You'd probably have to do a shitload of coats but it definitely sands well and it'd be faster, smoother application than a lot of stuff. I use a Rustoleum one for smoothing worbla McPantserson has the right answer here. You still might need something more putty-like to fill in the larger chunks, but there's nothing better than a heavy, high-fill spray primer to combat pinholes in resin casts. I've always used Duplicolor automotive primers, but really anything that's labeled as sandable should do the trick. I've gone through more cans of that stuff in the past than I'd even care to count. I know you were trying to cut some corners with the plaster mold, but if you're going to do anything like that in the future, you might consider making a jacketed silicone mold. You paint the master with thicker brushable silicone (ideally, anyway, but if you're careful and patient you can use any type) to capture the detail and provide a nice release surface, and then jacket it with plaster or fiberglass to provide rigidity. There are a ton of tutorials out there for it. I've done it in the past for thick and odd-shaped objects that would have required a financially improbable amount of straight silicone just to make a simple 2 part mold.
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Jul 1, 2016 14:40
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thespaceinvader posted:Yeah I need to join the RPF. I'm building a mando pilot suit (strictly, Fenn Rau from rebels) right now and whilst I like the challenge of making the helmet from scratch, I can probably save myself a bunch of headaches... For Mando stuff, also check out The Dented Helmet if you haven't already. The site has been around almost as long as the RPF and has an overwhelming amount of templates and tutorials available. It's been quite a few years now, but at one point I made what eventually turned out to be a pretty nice helmet out of chipboard using templates I found there. (fake edit) - Yikes! searching my old post history there, it's been like 8 years since I made that thing (where does the time go?) so there are probably a hundred new and better things available now.  It was ultimately ruined by a bad batch of fiberglass resin, unfortunately, but it was a fairly easy build overall. I keep telling myself I'm going to revisit that whole project someday....
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Aug 31, 2016 11:46
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Sounds like it's a fun (if somewhat challenging) build! I can definitely see some issues trying to get the front of the helmet to hold its shape, at least until you get the actual visor in place to provide some rigidity. I haven't done a *lot* of foam work before, but one technique I have used to sort of temporarily pin stuff in place is to cut/bend a paper clip into a sort of...foam staple? I'm not really sure how else to describe it... just a " [ " shape, cut to the appropriate dimensions and poked into the foam. You might be able to do that or something similar to hold the face together while you get the visor affixed. I'm quite lapsed in the whole costume-making thing, though. Some of the other folks here who have actually built stuff recently will probably have a much better idea. 
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Aug 31, 2016 12:12
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Polyester fiberglass resin doesn't generally attack EVA craft foam, but if I can ever find a reason to *not* use it, I'll go with something else. Stuff's just nasty on multiple levels. Epoxy or polyurethane resins, while still not totally healthsome without good ventilation and/or a respirator (isocyanates in both), are just more pleasant to work with. If you don't want to use actual glass cloth, buy a roll of the cheapest paper towels you can find and use pieces of those instead. Years ago, I shored up some cardboard armor that my son had made, using some regular Smooth-On 300 casting resin and a 49-cent roll of paper towels. Even just a single layer was remarkably strong, and I didn't really put a lot of effort into doing a great job. Huge bonus of not having pokey glass fibers on the edges of everything too.
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Dec 14, 2017 19:09
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CzarChasm posted:Interesting. How did the paper towels in resin take to sanding and painting? Pretty well! I wish I had pictures, but this was like 15 years ago. They were typical paper towels with the sort of bumpy embossed texture, but they flattened out with a little bit of coaxing. As I'm sitting here thinking about it, something un-textured like the blue or white paper shop towels you find at hardware/home improvement stores would probably work better. Anyway - as I said above, I didn't spend a whole lot of time on it since it was just something for my son to wear and play in, but I did sand the high spots off, and shot it with some automotive primer and then silver Krylon. It was reasonably smooth even with that minimal effort. I imagine someone taking their time could do a much better and cleaner job.
Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Dec 16, 2017 |
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Dec 16, 2017 00:04
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thespaceinvader posted:The droid - R-M8E The whole thing looks like it's going to be awesome, but this right here is the best part.
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May 21, 2018 14:13
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deoju posted:I started watching the Mandalorian. In episode 5 there's a new bounty hunter character. Picture in spoilers.... As a general prop nerd, I love it when someone nonchalantly identifies a "found item". Might grab some of these gloves just on principle.
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Jan 1, 2020 05:18
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This Humble Bundle is a shitload of cosplay-related ebooks. The "Foamsmith" books by Bill Doran (Punished Props) are worth the price of admission all by themselves in my opinion, and there are multiple payment tiers that add new books as you pay more. The highest tier is still only a $20 bill. I'll probably never even look at the sewing ones, but I'm gonna buy the whole lot anyway.
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May 27, 2020 21:04
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I bought a couple of soft parts from Magnoli fairly recently for the Mando costume that I may actually finish one day, and they are not impressive. He's been around the prop and costume community for at least a couple of decades and used to have a reputation for absolutely top-shelf quality, but rumor has it that he's subcontracting a lot of the work out now and many items aren't even close to what the pictures show. The pieces I got would seem to back that theory up. I wasn't thrilled with them at all, just sloppy work in general and definitely not made to the measurements I provided. That's not to say that the GB suits still might not be great, but I'd be wary of buying anything from him again after this experience.
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Jul 20, 2022 17:28
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TwystNeko posted:Sadly, the mask designer is Russian, and got his CGtrader account terminated. Otherwise I'd approach him about possibly modified the mask so I could make the jaw move - it has obvious hinge points, I'm just terrible at modifying 3d models. I can't make any promises - I'm no 3D modeling expert by anyone's definition - but I also own those files and *might* be able to help you with a split version. It'll be some hours before I'm home from work and settled in, but I'll take a look at it this evening and see if I can do anything with it for you.
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May 25, 2023 17:44
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OK, nope, unfortunately... while I can actually manipulate the *.obj version of the model that's made up of several different pieces, the geometry overlaps between the parts and they wouldn't fit back together if printed separately. I'm not skilled enough with any of the software to do the modifications that would be needed. Sorry TwystNeko, I was hoping it was going to be as simple as saving out the parts and going to town. 
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May 25, 2023 21:42
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