Monday, January 6, 2014

Dilandau's Armor


Here's a write-up for Dilandau's armor!  More info on the swords and sewing in the next post!

The armor was made out of PVC foam sheets, (also know by their brand names of Sintra or Komatex).  It's available in various thickness's (I used 3mm), and can be heated with a heat gun and molded in to shapes.  It does not take complex curves well, but works great for shapes that only need to bend in one direction.  I really like using Sintra for armor because it requires minimal sanding or prep work before painting.

This was my first time working with Sintra; Koko and I had previously used it once before for our Berserk costumes, but at that time Koko made all the armor.


I started off the pattern by scaling up the black and white lineart of Dilandau's armor to my size.  I then printed off the full scale artwork, and traced out all the pieces.  Those were transfered to tracing paper, and then to Sintra.  While it's possible to cut 3mm Sintra with an Xacto blade, we preferred to use the scroll saw.  It's much quicker, and more accurate than doing it by hand.  (Also, less hand cramps)

After the shapes were cut out, the pieces were heated up with a heat gun until floppy, and shaped by pressing them against my body.  They were then glued together with super glue.



The greaves were slightly more complicated because of their shape; I ended up using a pattern off The Armor Archive.  Because greaves have more complex curves, I needed to cut the front and back in two pieces each, with a seam running down the center.  After gluing them together, the seams were bondo'd, sanded, primed, imperfections were filled with spot putty, sanded, primed, and then wet sanded until the seams were blended flawlessly and the greave looked like one solid piece.






After gluing everything together, and making sure the armor fit, all the details were added with Apoxie sculpt.


Imitation rivets were added with different sizes of googly eyes.

They're watching you......

Once all the details were added on, they were primed and painted with rattle cans.  



The gold detailing was hand painted on with gold enamel paint.  Always do paint tests before you try using different types of paints together!




Everything was given a dark wash, and then clear coated.



And I even acquired some pretty sweet looking battle damage while practising the fighting in our skit!



Where necessary, elastic was hot glued (hi-temp glue) to the inside of the armor to hold everything together.  

I drilled holes in the armor and riveted some red suede straps and buckles for closures.


Dilandau also has some samurai hip armor.  This was made by gluing pre-painted rectangles of Sintra to fabric with E6000.  It held up extremely well!



We needed duplicates of the demon face for both Folken and Dilandau, so I sculpted it out of a sulfur free oil based clay, molded it in silicone, and cast it in resin.




And the finished armor!  No photos in costume yet.  Coming soon, as they trickle in from the convention!




2 comments :

Jacecam32 said...

DAMN! how do you get your PVC foam to mould so well? When I tried to work with it. it didn't mould so well. or so uniformly. Tips please?

Unknown said...

Mostly just make sure it's really hot, and make sure to have something to mold it over...A PVC pipe for round shapes, a dressform for chestpieces, etc. And patience is king; don't be afraid to heat it up and re-shape it, or to keep working it if you don't like it yet. :)

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