activation email

[Slade Kel]

So I've returned to the forums after a long absence, and have decided that I'm going to make a suit from each era. My modern era kit is my priority and will thus be updated most frequently, but I need a break from it every once in a while so I decided to start with the early crusader.

First off, always wear protection when working on costume stuff:

I found that a jigsaw makes a treat of cutting sintra or other pvc out. I unfortunately only had a woodcutting blade, so the cuts were rough and sent bits flying everywhere. Fortunately early crusader armor is meant to be rough-hewn. Add in a handy-dandy belt sander, and you can cut out and rough shape a whole set of armor in a long afternoon and evening. My reference for this was the same picture used on the CRL page for early crusaders.

For expediting reasons, the paired parts are shown with one belt-sanded and one raw cut.
Shoulders and biceps:



I decided to do a bone chest plate instead of leather, and vambraces instead of wrist wraps.











Doesn't look like much yet, they're just cut and roughly sanded. Next time around I'll be shaping them prior to final sanding and detailing. Haven't quite decided what to do about the raised details on the plates. I might cut it out of sintra and sand it to fit, or I could build it up out of bondo or epoxy putty or something. A lot of the armor is 6mm too, and I could theoretically dremel the negative space in and leave the raised.

Updates on this will be relatively slow until I finish my modern suit. If you wanna check that out too, I'm adding links to my profile signature. Regardless, stay tuned for more updates.

[Naran Baatar]

Seems like you have things in hand, I would say the adding the texture with either a thin layer of bondo could work, but it is harder to control, but it will be lighter than the epoxy putty which will really like you get a lot more control on your texturing but you will add a fair bit more weigh doing that all over the kit.

[seugtai]

Woah! Glad to see you back. 8) I'll definitely be checking in to see your progress.

[Slade Kel]

Seems like you have things in hand, I would say the adding the texture with either a thin layer of bondo could work, but it is harder to control, but it will be lighter than the epoxy putty which will really like you get a lot more control on your texturing but you will add a fair bit more weigh doing that all over the kit.

Thanks for the input, about the same lines I was thinking along. My old Slade helmet's horns were made of epoxy putty, and despite being an inch wide at the base and an inch and a half tall they were weighty. I'm going to play around with a few options before going crazy.

Woah! Glad to see you back. 8) I'll definitely be checking in to see your progress.

Thanks ! Your crusader build was always an inspiration, and when looking for reference pictures for my new modern era build I stumbled across a picture of you suited up in it so I decided crusader would be my first side project while I work on the Wren-inspired kit. I have something like project ADD and seem to run into a wall working on anything if I don't step back from it every so often and work on something else.

I got a bit of shaping done today, and realized in the process that I did my conversions wrong at Home Depot...so the bulk of the heavier armor parts are 12mm sintra and the smaller parts (knees, hands, biceps, cod piece) are 6mm, rather than the 6mm and 3mm that I thought, lol. Guess it's been a while since I worked with sintra, but all it means is that the thicker plates take a while longer to shape. They're still coming along nicely.


I had to cut the ab plates down a fair bit for them to actually fit on me without overlapping both the chest and the cod. I also replaced the center ab piece with 6mm. I decided on a bone chest plate rather than leather, as I'm going for a bit of a heavy look with this suit.





The shaping came out a little wonky on the foot armor, so I'll have to revisit it. ALL of the plates are only roughly sanded. I wanted the basic rounding of the edges done before shaping and plan on the final smoothing once all of the parts are shaped. I also deliberately put little effort into making the parts perfectly symmetrical, to aid in the look of crude bone armor.

I've run into a bit of a wall on the primary new kit, as it's still way to cold to paint here. When my velcro and strapping arrives I can at least get them ready to suit up, but in the mean time I'll be putting more work into this kit.

[Slade Kel]

I made a fair bit more progress today, finished shaping the plates and pulled my old EC helmet out of storage and put some work into it. I don't remember if I ever posted it back in the day, but it's been sitting unfinished since around 2010 I think.






It lived in this state for about 8 years or so. The base is the dome from a Jango 2-pc and sintra, with the built up areas a combination of plaster and bondo. As with the plates, I left it asymmetrical to give it that organic feel, which is also why I didn't sand the bondo perfectly smooth.



The thighs and shins will receive the raised 'vein' texture, and I'm still debating what technique to use to make it. I'm considering a layer of thinner sintra, with a little bondo for shaping.



The vambraces and shoulders will get small horns and maybe a lesser version of the raised veins, while the biceps will just be weathered but otherwise have no detail pieces.

[seugtai]

I don't remember seeing the helmet before but, it looks great so far!

[Slade Kel]

Did more stuff!!!

Went ham with a dremel this evening and roughed out all of the indentations. Will go back over with a finer grit sanding head, then hand sand paper at some point. Next up is designing and fabricating the 'spikes' such as those seen on the old reference picture's shoulders and knees. On mine, there will be some on shoulders, knees, vambraces and shin plates, and perhaps I'll add some to my helmet, though I'm leaning toward none on the helmet.












I did not get to the shoulders as it was getting late here to be dremeling. You'll probably be seeing more progress here as I'm approaching done with the modern era kit. All I have left is finishing off the vest, and then painting and mounting all of the armor. Painting will have to wait as the weather will be -censored- here until next week, and dubious then with lots of cloudiness. On the bright side, that means more crusader work.