Almost time.

Wow, last update was in March! :p Was either too lazy or too busy to update.... or maybe both. :) Well, with due dates looming, I've picked up the pace. Not just working on the weekends anymore. One thing I can't really believe is how long its taken to get where I am right now. :| Technically it shouldn't have taken this long but the details that have prevented me from going forward have been solved and things are flying now. So I'll try to keep everything short.

This is the front and the back of the armor at it beginning stages. I have doubled up on each lame so its pretty sturdy. The white stuff thats on the armor is paperclay. I was using it to fill in indentions, so its smooth.




I bought these cheap helmets on amazon to make the samurai helmets. Now they are kids costume helmets so I had to modify the helmet to fit my bigger head.




These are the four sections that will make up the four panels that go around the waist. I chose to not double up on these panels because I want it to move with the body.




This part is what goes on the front of the helmet as the helmet decoration. The three yellow pieces are craft foam and the white piece are those plastic for sale signs you can buy at Home Depot. Everything was just hot glued together.




Since the helmet is too small for my head, I had to make the the helmet bigger. I cut the helmet in half and extended it by 1.5". The extension of the helmet I recreated with wonderflex and added the four lames to the back of the helmet as part of the helmet.




Here, I have a near finished helmet. While trying to make paperclay into a paste where I can apply to the surface of the wonderflex to rid of the texture of wonderflex and not using gesso like other people have used, it reminded me of joint compound. I opted to not go with gesso because it would require a lot of layers where as joint compound would only require a couple of layers. So the helmet has 2 layers of joint compound on it, I think (can't remember :p). Primed, then painted two layers of an acrylic dark navy blue, then two coats of clear. Drilled 4 sets of 6 holes around the helmet, then cut and glued in yellow lace to make it look as the lames are laced together.




The finished helmet. Its not really to a standard I like, but I'll keep it. I will have to say that it needs another layer of joint compound. The result of sanding has caused the nylon grid on the wonderflex to fray and I will be spending more time on sanding to smooth out the imperfections. You can also see the brush strokes, I will have to find a method of minimizing brush strokes. The helmet ornament had to be sealed before painting because of craft foam being pourous. It is sealed with a mixture of fabric glue, sobo glue and water. After applying about 7 layers of the glue mixture, I applied two layers of acrylic floor wax because of all the glue in the solution has made the piece quite tacky. Painted on the gold, then applied 2 more coats of the acrylic floor wax to really seal out the tackyness.




Here is what I've done today. On the left is the back of the armor and its first layer of joint compound that will be sanded tomorrow. On the right is the front of the armor all sanded down and with 4 layers of joint compound. The holes have eyelets on them also. Tomorrow will come painting and more sanding. There are other pieces that I have made but I didn't take any pics of those pieces.




So there you have it. Your pretty much caught up with my progress right now. Hopefully, with the next update, I will be finished with both suites of armor....... I'll also share what the next few projects I'll be working on are next time.

A little side project:
I had to make a sheep that drowned for my cousin. Why? Because we were playing Worms and she had no idea what the sheep does and threw the sheep into the water and drowned. The color on the face isn't paint but make-up. :p The great thing about this sheep, I mean Ram, is it baaas. :p