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[Kol Varek]

I'm sorry, the cats crawling all over you is just flat-out hilarious! 

[Kris Jasra]

Hmm, battlecat, must resist urge to construct actual cat-armour

glad the random metal boobekin helped you out there

No Mal. NO. You will not armour our Nexu! We will all die.

And yeah, the metal mannequin worked brilliantly as a base shape for fibreglassing on so the card keeps it's 'me' shape. Also useful as a wipe clean work board for planning armour placement.

The Manager is pleased with the progress using the aforementioned technique. 2 outside chest plates are 'glass and resined and the bondo is in varying states of smooth.

[Kris Jasra]

Bit more work on the two outer breast plates over the past couple of days. Management team thinks it's fine, note the lack of protest given. I'm not entirely convinced about the mark I bone effect, although it does look better during daylight than through the fluorescent filter on the camera. Still, opinions?

[Reyn Vok'chi]

I think you've done a great job of recreating weathered/aged bone, I'd be tempted to add some chips and cracks once happy with the finish. Makes me very excited about the finished kit

[Kris Jasra]

I'd be tempted to add some chips and cracks once happy with the finish.

Most of those two plates are actually underneath the leather pauldron thing so I left them fairly pristine, but the shoulders and gaunts will definitely be more beaten up.


So, the Supervisor here is looking very handsome as he shows off what my housemate can do in about two or three hours. Thanks Maldemar, I suppose I'll have to forgive you for attempting to break my finger Pretty much all the shaping done to the base, so just planishing, smoothing, and then all the details to go...

[Maldemar]

So, the Supervisor here is looking very handsome as he shows off what my housemate can do in about two or three hours. Thanks Maldemar, I suppose I'll have to forgive you for attempting to break my finger

Could probably add it's a mask, fairly successfully head-sized one at that.
Honestly think it's a fair trade, though we probably shouldn't repeat it the next time you want a helmet, you've only got so many fingers

[Kris Jasra]

Could probably add it's a mask, fairly successfully head-sized one at that.

You could add that, but then where is the mystery? The suspense?

Talking of mysteries, I go out to work leaving a mask with various marks on saying cut here, trim this, roll this edge and boom... I come home and it's all planished and trimmed and shiny. The Manager approves too. Or at least, she didn't appear to disapprove. Same thing right?




And copper cutting spree for the back and front torso plates, unfortunately the Supervisor got distracted from his inspection by dinner. Just got to get them all attached to the harness and weathered and then make the plate for the centre of the chest now.

[Kitala-Enby]

Really need to comment here as there is loads of progress that I'm missing

[Kris Jasra]

The Assistant Manager insisted that I pass along a message. "I'm cute and cuddly and warm and furry and who would want to look at or work on the cold metal thing beside me? Admit it human servants, you all just want to pet me, love me and give me lots and lots of scritches."



Time to cut the visor and change out the blutack for rivets...

[TheRushingRhino]

Great job so far!

[Kris Jasra]

The Supervisor thinks this wasn't worth disturbing his sunbathing for. But I'm quite happy with the progress, all the copper in shot is rivetted down, and the side padding and elastic is in place.
Just the top padding and elastic, the top section of copper, smoothing out the visor and trimming the bottom section, putting in the visor, weathering it all, making and adding the cowl and adding the connection at the bottom for the hoses yet to do...


The Supervisor did however appreciate the long distance scritching pole so I may be forgiven. More of a test of how it will look at the moment as I need to take the leather off and wrap it neatly instead of just throwing it on. And the spear blade is only just beginning production.

[TheRushingRhino]

Keep up the picks!

[Kris Jasra]

Junior Management has had a grand time today stealing all my leather thonging as I tried to put these together. All I can say is thank goodness the final article will be using rivets. Strung together mainly to look at how big the upper back section will need to be. Probably looking at a solid armour grade leather panel with some form of bone attached but I'm not 100% decided yet.

[Kris Jasra]

Got it all out to work on today - The Supervisor promptly relocated to the leather that was meant to go on the back.


We wrestled. I won. Lined it all up. The Supervisor let me know it was off-centred and he would helpfully put it in place for me...


Also got the ab plates on the front in place. So you can have a really rough picture of how it is meant to look.


And the Manager brought me some more fur for my kama. I have since specified that the trophy should not still be alive when presented.

[Maldemar]

Still struggling trophies are somewhat problematic to mount i imagine

[Draceline]

This is why bounties need to specify "dead or alive." And nexu need to learn how to read bounties.....

[Kris Jasra]

The Supervisor was coaxed out of his underbed lair for long enough to take a look at the gauntlet. He says I need more sanding on the sides and the spikes need more bondo. I did try to tell him that I was planning to but the Great Sky God saw me working and decided my project needed more water.


And since I have a tendency to forget where I'm up to I made myself an inflate-a-mando so that I can see how it's coming along.


Still a lot to do but I think my main bits are now:

Flightsuit arms and neckseal.
Mask finishing plus cowl and hoses adding.
Make shoulders and central chest plates
Finish both gauntlets.
Make shin armour.
Weather everything that's not yet looking well used.

[Kyri]

I need to be following this, love a fellow Beast Hunter 

What are you making the gaunts out of? Really liking them.

[Kris Jasra]

Left gaunt is hardened leather, right gaunt is a slightly more flexible leather with foamex and bondo sculpting for the bone.

[TheRushingRhino]

Guess who's back.. Keep up the hard work!

[Kris Jasra]

The full team was giving me disapproving looks. Apparently being in work for six days straight does not mean I can stop kit working. So I got in a bit of sanding and bondoing when I could (23:00 is bondo time right?), added the physical damage and got the base white coat on. Just the bone effect and mounting to do now.



Any opinions on the damage welcomed before I go any further with the painting. Finding examples of scratches in bone is rather difficult when the only image results tend to be cartoon style tattoo designs...

[Naran Baatar]

The shape of the gauntlet and the general bone structure is really nice.
 
However the damage looks super clean. Bone chips, cracks, and shatters when damaged. Right now the damage doesn't look very organic. I think you need to rough up the damage a bit so it doesn't look so clean.

I think adding little cracks that break off from the main cuts would help to give the damage a more organic feel.  Maybe add crushing and chipping effect to what you already have.

[Kris Jasra]

That image is brilliant, exactly what I was searching for. Thank you.
Lost count of how many different keywords I used, was starting to think google had added a cartoon search function

[TheRushingRhino]

Gfeat work so far!

[Kris Jasra]

Added a bit more chipping and it fits what I was going for a lot better. (Polished bone with damage rather than extra aged bone, scratches look a lot more natural now than they did before). Will be weathering the leather more, except for the strap that runs over the claw mark, leaving that completely clean as if it's a new strap because to put the claw mark through it would pretty much sever it. And still needs fastenings once the flightsuit/gloves are sorted but until then it's a good chew toy.