Pejaa's WIP

[Pejaa Netra]

Okay, so I decided to go ahead, bite the bullet and start working on the hard parts of the armour.

I started out with an old t-shirt that I couldn't stand and had Athin tape me up with duct tape.  Then he drew out the parts on the duct tape and cut me out of it.  Glory be, that was hot waiting around in that thing.  

After they all got cut out, I waited a week or so for flowers to come into the shop so I could make off with all the good brown paper.  So looks like this armour's made of brown paper, duct tape, an old shirt and glue.  So far.  I have plans to glass it on a day that's not humid (in Mississippi, that'll happen about the time Hell freezes over, but I'll try).

Pictures!!  Yay, pictures!  What's a WIP thread without pictures?


Boob plate. Yay boob plate!  

These pictures were literally taken shebs-crack early.  0600.  I hate being up shebs-crack early. Ugh.



The entire upper body sans gut plate and diamond.  I can't seem to find it in the tubs we have for our materials.  I'll find it, though.  It's....actually, it's right here on my desk.  Silly little thing.  The boob plates are actually curved and everything.  They fit decently, too.  

I used white glue and brown paper.  I was, at the beginning of my armor career, going for an Early Mando (Sith War-ish) era look, but then I had to change it.  I'm thinking Modern with a little bit of a throwback.  Leather straps and the like - I hate the feeling of nylon straps but leather's good.

Concrit's perfectly welcome.  I'm not entirely done with the brown paper and glue, though.  I know there are bits still showing.

Pejaa

[Mar'eyce]

It looks like you're off to a good start! Do you plan on using Bondo to smooth the front of the plates after you glass them?

And it's nice to see more girls in our clan's area! I look forward to meeting and trooping with you in the future.

[Pejaa Netra]

I'm probably going to use a little Bondo on them to smooth it out, but not very much.  I'm hoping that the glassing (using some extra resin) will stay fairly smooth.  I know it's probably wishful thinking...but hey, I can hope. 

Are you going to the Bantha Roast at the end of the month?  I will probably have a good bit of mine glassed by then. 


Pejaa

[Mar'eyce]

I was hoping to be able to make it to the Bantha Roast, but Dragon*Con has left my pockets empty. It would mean an overnight stay, so I don't think I'll be able to afford the trip.

[Pejaa Netra]

We've had about two and a half weeks of solid rain so I hadn't really been able to get much done - for some reason, glue doesn't do real well with damp weather.

Oh well! Here's some pictures.



This is the front of my body - collar piece, two boob plates, chest diamond and gut plate.  I think I'm going to attach some fabric to the bottom of that gut plate to make it flow with the vest.  The shiny bit is the glue still drying.



Full upper body, back plate and everything.  I'm going to go with a backplate and a little bit of a shoulder cape (I've always had a thing for shoulder capes - and it's not because of Mandalorians, it's because of Barnabas Collins.  Mmm mm.)

When it dries out a little bit more, I'll glass it and then probably sculpt some bondo on it.  I don't think I want to bondo muscles on to it, I'll leave that to Athin's armor.


Pejaa

[Pejaa Netra]

Okay, it's all been glassed.  IT's shiny too.  And!  It turns out you can bend fiberglass a little bit if you're liberal with the heat gun on low heat.  My back plate is now bent!

BUT.  The important parts! PICTURES.




My front, all glassed and nice.  I have to trim a little bit of the not-resined fiberglass matting off of it, smooth the edges and sand it, but it's all glassed and everything.  Even the collar, which is not in this picture because I couldn't find it.  Or the backplate, which was too shy to be in the picture.



This is the texture shot, which I don't think came out very well.  It's fairly smooth and with a swipe with the sander and a shot of primer, should be pretty nice. I don't really want really smooth armor, but I don't want something that's uncomfortable to touch.


I know this isn't helmet thread, but I did fiberglass the cheeks of it as well - and you can see Athin's big ole food too!


As usual, concrit more than happily accepted.

Pejaa

[Mar'eyce]

Your plates are coming along nicely.  Are you planning on using bondo to smooth them out some? I know you mentioned you don't want them to be too smooth, but I'm afraid that once you paint them the fiberglass texture will show. They should look like metal, so a smoother surface would be better than a more textured one, IMO.

It was nice meeting you over the weekend, by the way.

[Pejaa Netra]

More pictures!

Here they are.  They've been glassed (as seen above) bondo'd and Rondo'd.  I heartily approve of the Rondo method.  That's the one where you mix 1 part Bondo with 1 part resin, add the Bondo hardener and bammo! Paintable Bondo that fills in any pits. It's lovely.



Boobplate.  Much better than it looked a bit ago without the Bondo and Rondo. I love the paint I found for it.



Gut plate and collar.  The pictures aren't very good here because of lighting.  



Back plate.  It is actually black, not grey.  Ignore Darth Vader's head there, that's my (empty) cookie jar.

And last, but not least, the star of all this:


My paint!  It's really gorgeous in person on that armor.

Pejaa

[Mar'eyce]

I have never tried mixing bondo and resin....interesting.

It does look like you may need to do some more sanding; the plates still seem a little bumpy. And I would recommend trimming and sanding the edges a bit as well. The paint colour is beautiful; it looks like black with a slight metallic sheen?

I wish I had a Darth Vader cookie Jar....

[Pejaa Netra]

Oh, I definitely need to trim the edges, the plates are too big.  Athin wasn't very careful when he drew them on, so as soon as the Dremel gets repaired, the plates will be made smaller. 

I'm going to redo the Rondo, but this time just a touch less resin, a touch more Bondo.  It was a great consistency, but just a touch too runny.  So I'm going to thicken it up some.  It dries a touch sticky (at least in this humid weather) but once it's painted it's great and solid and doesn't show any dips or anything.

The paint is black with a bronze shimmer.   I fell in love with it.

Pejaa

[Pejaa Netra]

Time to start this sucker back up.

After trooping in my armor, I've made several changes. The current boob plates are gone, to be replaced with metal boob plates from Vhe'dyn.   I'm going to see if I can't (with a little luck and some serious visits to the park here in town) make some metal plates for the collar, ab and shoulders.  It looks like the Ace Hardware in town has some small sheets of aluminum in and since I'm a small person anyway..hah hah.  I figured it would work well. Same colors and all (or should that be lack of color?  It's all black with purple boots anyway).  If all that works out well, I'll go for the shins, gauntlets and thigh armor.  Novall's thigh armor had me going through my old 'make your own boiled leather armor' booklets for shapes.  I'm highly intrigued now.

The vest I bought from Mar'yce was lovely and warm, as was the flightsuit.  I need to get a belt together (and get my pouches back from Athin), whip up a loin cloth and ....actually, I can add another layer for a 'winter' kit if I use a loincloth skirt-idea..hmm.  Then I could have a short regular loin for summer.  

Also.  No kama.  None.  

[Pejaa Netra]

Well, I have some of my old fiberglass armor shaped with a heat gun - the only trouble I'm having at the moment is some cracking.


Anyone know if superglue is sandable?



See, it cracked right there because of over-stressing.  How I drool for metal that takes stress a little better.  However, if Superglue is sandable or maybe even some plumber's putty, that might work.  

This is what it looks like curved - much better than it was before.   It also didn't hurt that I got a good look at Mar's armor at the Christmas Parade in Pearl.


The stomach plate, curved properly.  I know you're all wondering 'How on earth did she get fiberglass and bondo to curve after it'd been cured and cut?'  Well, I'll tell you.  It happened a few months ago, I had left an armor plate on the stove while the oven was on.  I picked it up after a good bit, thinking 'Oh no! It'll melt!' and it was floppy.  After running it under cold water, it stayed curved.  Talk about fortuitous. So get a heat gun and get going.

Side view, showing the curve.  It's a little hard to show this with the laptop's camera, so ignore the background.

The chest plates are getting some edges curved so they don't stick out, but it's all very small.

The biggest problem I've got right now is having to replace the freaking velcro.  Ugh.


Suggestions are welcome!

[Mar'eyce]

I'n not sure if superglue is sandable or not...never tried it.

This is what it looks like curved - much better than it was before.   It also didn't hurt that I got a good look at Mar's armor at the Christmas Parade in Pearl.

Speaking of which, I will be retiring my original armor in a couple of months. (The chest, collar, and ab plates) You have the vest that was made to fit them, so just let me know if you might have some use for them. Free to a good home.

[Saz]

Personally I would put a coat of resin over the crack (Making sure it got into it and sand that back.

A mouse sander will make short work of it.

[Pejaa Netra]

Personally I would put a coat of resin over the crack (Making sure it got into it and sand that back.
A mouse sander will make short work of it.

That seems to be the consensus of the couple of local people I've asked....so off to the Depot or Lowe's goes I!

Pejaa