So I've made a ton of progress on these.
After a troubled assembly, I got some help from the fantastic folks at
https://dallasmakerspace.org/, so super duper shout out to them! They helped me get the steel bent right (mostly).
Then assembled.
Filler Primer
Two coats of glossy black as a base
This next bit is a little complicated. I started using that graphite powder trick that I've seen going around but on black, it was too dark. Rather than spend more $ on more paint, I elected to coat the body in graphite then add a gloss coat. I repeated this until I got a rich gunmetal grey so it took me a few days to pull off. I ended up doing 5 coats of graphite and gloss on the upper portion and 3 on the bottom. It's really subtle and my camera doesn't capture it well but in person, it looks really good.
Next up was a few spits of copper
Here are more complications. I originally wanted to use steel wire for grips on the pvc but the copper looks so good, I couldn't resist it. Before I made this decision, I tried wrapping the grips in steel wire but I kept coming up short. So after getting some advice from sword makers, I made almost over 100 feet of twisted wire to wrap. To say the least, it was an endeavor.
Next up is some weathering. The vibe I'm going for is that these have seen some battle damage but for the most part has been neglected. So definitely some scratches here and there but rust as well.
I'm considering adding some greeblies really, the vambraces need to be made next. Also I have to figure a way to attach these batons to the vambraces in such a way that they can be removed and re attached with ease.
