Back after a long time away

Dragon con is coming up, and of course, we have done next to nothing for it.  Look forward to cameraphone shots of up coming costumes soon.  Sorry about the last time, really had nothing going on since I scrapped the paladin t10 costume.

More content to come

I picked myself up a camera and a new hard drive, so there will be more content coming soon.  Props, reviews, and gaming stuffs.

Shield and Shoulder Progress

Ended up scrapping the first draft of the shoulder.  Im not experienced enough with expanding foam to make anything that doesnt look awful.  Instead we have this posterboard tape together thing.  I am definitely on the right track with this, just need to make it a bit bigger and get the rifts in the central lobe open.  I think I am going to try wonderflex for this piece when I am satisfied with the mock up.  It is currently too small and flimsy with little to no detail.  The "ribbon" will be added later most likely out of a seperate piece of wonderflex wrapped around like cloth.

I sat this on a wig head to get it out of the way and ended up with what you see here... Looks a bit like the helm, no?  The helm is still FAR down my priorities list but I at least have a spot to start from.

(also pictured RumKitty's clanrat casualties left over from our inagural Island of Blood game.  When I get a few more games under my belt Ill post some opinions on it.  Im relitively sure cosplay readers arent going to care about warhammer but I want to get started painting again.  In short: What the hell was GW thinking putting a 410+ beast of a general in a starter?  It pretty much soloed RK's army.)

Left is the shield.  Im pretty happy with how its turning out.  it is 3 layers of foamcore (one .5" and two .25") glued together, wrapped in masking tape, paper mache, and finally a few layers of gesso.  I need to add the "web" details, and plan to make them of sculpey and glue them on seperately.  That will give me some freedom to sand and sculpt them.  I also picked up about $30 in electronics including: two super bright red led, switch box, and battery pack.  I plan to sculpt the skull and mount it slightly raised so when the eyes light up it will cast light from under the skull.  The whole thing will be painted as close as I can get to the original.

I am really happy with the progress I am making on these two pieces.  I am almost stumped on the mace, I have little to no idea what I need to do with it.  In other news my guild dissolved and I picked up new hammer for my paladin and am one achivement short of getting my frost-drake.

Edit: 100 views for my blog (with myself turned off)  If any of you actually read this feel free to leave comments about what you might want to see more of.  Also if you're bored click through some of the ads, I get paid from them and that money is just going to go straight into more costumes.  Thanks for getting me to the 3 digit mark, and for sticking around on the long climb to 1000!

Shield teaser

Here is first draft of the Bulwark of Smoldering Steel, the shield to accompany my paladin's sanctified lightsworn garb.  This will be the very base layer, with about 4-5 more layers on top for the detailing.  The entire thing is 27"x21" and will weigh probably about 10lbs or less.  I have to be able to carry it one handed without straining.  If everything goes well I also want to be able to attach it to my back like it works in game.  I also would love to have it lit for it to be more impressive.

 I can't say I am fully happy with how it turned out.  I made a few mistakes but since foamcore is so cheap I can afford to mess up a few.  I really wish I could find pregridded things, thats always something I have had problems with when transposing a reference image.

EDIT:  I know the skull is too small.  That will be fixed.

Edit2: Got the shield cut out this morning and just about passed out, too sleepy to get anything done.  Also scrapping the first piece of the expanding foamed armour.  Ill come back and make a better form, thats the big thing I didnt do.

Quick Post

Girlfriend is up for the weekend, so there is a good chance I can get her help.  Look forward for lots more pics coming soon.

Pally work PHOTOFLOOD

WThis post will be updated all day.  Let me start off saying that I took a trip out to Michaels today with a huge coupon and walked out with close to $50 in stuff for less than $20!  Here was what I walked out with:

  Thats a $30 box of sculpey (3 rolls of it, rolls usually going around $10), a small bag of paperclay (which Ive been wanting to try out ever since I heard of it), and some bloons.  NOT PICTURED: clearance candy that I ate on the way home.

I have been saying I wanted to show my thought process. well here are a few images to show kinda what goes on in my planning:

 

My last image for now is a mockup of how the piece will fit on my shoulder.  I feel like it looks too small.  I know it will be much bulkier when its filled and such, but until then Im just going to have to worry about it.  The best part of working with cardboard is definitely not getting attached to the pieces,  I am working with the thought in mind that I will most likely ruin a few pieces before I get one worth anything.  This is something I want to work on with myself, because I tend to get frustrated when things don't go exactly as I planned them.  Ill often just give up on projects that stump me like that (see: laharl, lightning, dragoon).  I have rambled long enough, here is the pic.

 Note: this post will be updated as much as I can today. 

Update: feel like awful, taking a quick nap.

Final update:  I slept too long.  I got a few more slats cut out.  Id like to get a skeleton build for each side, then get the lobe into place with its backing (basically taking a concave orb on the outside, then with a convex one on the inside to keep it closed up.  That way ill have a little place to run in wires to light this sucker up.  I feel a little better about the size.  Id get the last few images up but my camera shit out and Im too lazy to go get another battery for it.  That will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Pally ref pics

Click for bigger, I put the Lightsworn Garb on in the Wowhead.com model and just capped the pics. Overall my first project will be the mace and shield. Then the shoulders and other armour. I also plan to leave the helm for last (seeing as I have NO idea how to do it) and possibly leave the chest off (just make my bloodknight tabard). I could make another set of weapons for prot and ret, but that will come later. I realize he isnt wearing shoes... Ill fix that.


Late edit:
I HAVE CREATED

A BRICK. Having some second thoughts about how this is going, I dunno if the scale is right, ill take some looks back at my plans and see, maybe its just that the skulls are so bulky.