Koda Vonnor

Did the first cut at the right handguard sculpt today. Just getting the basic shape down. Most of the bulk thickness will get shaved off as I put in the surface contours. Still have to do the thumb-side cutouts and the edge bead, which will come last. I hope to have this in fiberglass by next weekend. Eventually I will back-fill that, leaving a slight depression on the underside for the thickness of the Velcro, and make a clamshell mold with silicone and plaster-backed. Depending on how good the first hard-model comes out, I may make another with a rigid resin pour to do the final shaping and smoothing. Ultimately the production piece (and it's left counterpart) will be poured in a semi-rigid resin, something near Shore 65-80A hardness. A bit softer than a rollerblade wheel. That way it will flex when my thumb moves. Stay tuned. ~ Vonnor

As a way of a bump, I had been keeping my eye open for the right color leather to use for the loin-guard and hip pad. I just ordered this off ebay. Looks like a very good match to me. I will use it for the facing surfaces with cotton backing and some thin polyester quilt batting in between. I can highlight the top-seams with dye. http://pictures.kyozou.com/pictures.asp ... et=6352666 The CVI announcement was a wake-up call for this project. Updates will come a bit more regularly now. ~ Vonnor

Weekend update. I dry-brushed the hand mold to get any loose plaster off it, then painted the insides with a mixture of half water and half Murphy's Oil Soap (see pix). They say Tincture of Green Soap (tattoo wash) is best but Murphy's was all I had on hand. This is to waterproof the mold so the casting doesn't stick. The first coat took a lot of the mixture as most of it sunk in to the plaster. The second and third coats were much easier and just glided right on. After taking a blow dryer to that, I checked one final time for loose bits of plaster in the mold, then reconnected the two halves and sealed the seams with hot glue. I used little round corrugated cardboard plugs that I sprayed with Krylon Crystal Clear acrylic to plug the finger and thumb holes and hot glued them in place. To figure out how much plaster I needed, I filled a measuring bucket with water and set it inside a cake pan. Then I stuck my hand in the bucket up to my wrist and measured how much water my hand displaced (about 20oz). I mixed up the HydroCal per instructions and poured it into the mold. No leaks! I tapped it lightly against the table to help settle the plaster and pull up any bubbles, then waited about 30 min to extricate the casting from the mold. Notice the Gypsona bandages captured enough detail to make out fingerprints. After filing down the sharp edges and smoothing out the seams a bit, I set it under two 75watt light bulbs for about 4 hours. This helps it harden during the "cold & clammy" phase. It's important to note that if you want to do any edge filing or seam smoothing on HydroCal or UltraCal, you need to do it before the "cold & clammy" phase. I did my tooling between about 30min and 60min after the pour. I did not do the arm as I wanted to see how the Murphy's would perform as a mold release. I will do the arm tomorrow, time permitting. ~ Vonnor

The completed molds: ~ Vonnor

Yesterday with the help of my sister and niece, I built molds of my left arm and right hand. I will seal them up and pour plaster castings this weekend. I made a few observations, this being the 2nd time on such an endeavor. First, I can give a true unsolicited endorsement for Gypsona plaster bandages. I used Pop-Art bandages on the last project and the difference was like night and day. The Gypsona was much easier to smooth down and it blended into a cream much easier with less lumps than the Pop-Art. Second, we used very warm water (because my sister doesn't like cold hands, I found out after), and it really helped the mold set up more quickly. This helped me keep my arm still for the duration. Used a toothbrush to clean up the caked-on plaster crud, as I did not want to remove the back half to clean my arm off then try to re-attach the mold before doing the front. Also of note was I shaved my arm and hand and used no mold release (cold-cream) on my skin. This really helped the mold bandages stick to my arm all around. Note the "line" from the widest part of my elbow to the widest part of my wrist is a bit twisted. This is due to the natural pronation of the forearm when dangling at rest. You need to run the seams like this if you want to take an arm mold. I found this interesting but it was discovered by the mold-maker (my sister) and came out very nice. The mean thickness of the arm mold is 3/16" to 1/4"". The seam overlap is about the same (kudos to my sister for her precision). We used a blow drier to keep the heat on the mold for about 30 min before doing the front half, then the same before attempting to crack open the mold. The light layer of Vaseline brushed on the edges was well enough to allow for clean separation. We attempted a shoulder mandrel as well, but a miscalculation on my part rendered it unusable. We will do another one when we build the torso mold. I was originally going to take a separate arm mold and two hand molds, but decided it might be easier to get all 5 gauntlet parts to mesh with the hand-guard if I could sculpt them all on one cast (sequentially, not simultaneously). Some sample pix (31 total in my bucket): ~ Vonnor

That cracked me up, Maestro. Actually, I have a pretty good idea for the bandolier. You're not very far off. After the breastplate and backplate are hard-modeled, I will do a vinyl contour template to get the curvature right (as I did on the TFU version). With the curve on paper I will fabricate 35 little sticks of polystyrene (or 6 of them, cast 6 times) and affix them along the curve, then take a rubber mold of that and cast it in rigid plastic. Then clean up the rigid master and take another rubber mold. Final casting to be poured in semi-rigid polyurethane and weathered with R&B. Then affix the flexible ribbed section to the leather bando strap. I hope. ...and it is truly good to be in the zone once again.

Thanks Scott!

Hi everybody. It's been a very long time since I've posted up here, but as I am starting in earnest tomorrow on the Force Unleashed II version of Rahm Kota, I'd like to once again borrow space at this excellent crafting community for the next few months. I hope to provide a bit more detailed observations and insights than on the last Rahm Kota project. Here are some references of Starkiller dressed up like the general: Ninety-some odd more pix at my photobucket. I have Daniel (JDOS Producciones) making the boots. I will be making the arm and hands molds, and a shoulder armature tomorrow with my sister's help. I will be building the gauntlets first. Each piece of those will be a clay sculpt molded and cast in a fiberglass shell, then back-filled and clam-shell molded. My goal is to keep production quality molds as some of the pieces may need semi-rigid castings. That way I can try different materials if needed. I have good ideas for every element except the belts. Hopefully I'll come up with something. I'll post some pix of the plaster body-mold process after tomorrow. It's good to be back. ~ Vonnor

If you didn't know, Pam Simpson has garnered the most votes in the 2009 Rebel Legion Costumer of the Year. She won 38 votes out of 146 cast. The next closest took 29. Quite well deserved in my opinion. I'll go as far as to say it was a no-brainer. Well done Pam! ~ Bill Costigan

Looks great Steve. I like it.

You know I'm really getting tired of all you guys trying to search and destory me... Nice work though.

To get the approximate hilt size, scaled to your own hands, you can use ratios. I measured the approximate width of SK's hand on my screen from your linked screen shot. I got 1.06" I then measured the length of the hilt on my screen and got 3.42 The width of the hand in the photo over the length of the hilt in the photo has to equal the width of the hand in real life over the length of the hilt in real life. The ratios have to be the same. So we know that 1.06 divided by 3.42 equals the width of your own hand divided by the length of the hilt in real life. My hand when held in that approximate position is about 3.61" across my knuckles. By math this resolves to 1.06 / 3.42 = 3.61 / n Cross multiplying gives 1.06n = 3.42x3.61 = 12.35 or n = 12.35 / 1.06 = 11.65 So if I was to make the hilt to look right in my own hand, it would be a little over 11 5/8" long. ~ Vonnor

Typically, when recreating an EU character whose visual references all agree, the disagreeing non-visual reference (book text) is discounted. Starkiller is primarily a video game character, and only secondarily a book character. But this is my own conclusive opinion, and in no way official. ~ BC

hehe... you're a funny guy, boy. I don't get time during the work-week, but I'll post up one or two more sets on the weekend. Sith stalker armor next. Quite some interesting detail on that one! ~ Old M..... er... I mean Vonnor

You can scale any on-screen costume or armor element to your own body using ratios. If you know any real (your own body) measurement and compare that to the corresponding on-screen measurement (approximate is usually close enough), you get a ratio. You can use that ratio to figure out unknown measurements. For example this is how I would find out how wide to make the bottom edges of the shoulder armor if I was building it for myself... ~ Vonnor

Starkiller Training Gear set is up. I will try to do one costume set a day as time permits. Takes a couple hours per set. http://s107.photobucket.com/albums/m305 ... FU_USE_PC/ Some Details: It seems on Firefox + Vista, the images show WAAAYYY too dark! Don't know if it's from Photoshop Elements, or some issue with FF or Vista. Seem to be closer to real game color in MS Internet Explorer. Stay away from viewing these in FF on Vista, best in MSIE. ~ Vonnor

What you cannot see in your pix due to the lighting Pam, are the 4 vent-slots in the side panel of the gauntlet, and what looks like 4 black capped cylinders near the wrist in line with the text display unit. I will be sure to capture all the details in tomorrow's cap-set. ~ BC

I purchased The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition for PC today. Played it on 1920x1200 to beginning of TIE facility level and popped in the cheat-code for all costumes. Queued up the General and took some screenies in that first corridor. Basically from all points of the compass and 7-8 different vertical angles. I plan on taking the same close-ups for all of the Starkiller costumes, as well as specific element details. There will be 60+ pix for each costume and framing each one can be tedious, so bear with me. Check back here for updates. Here is the General Kota series. I already found some interesting details in the Starkiller gauntlet that to-date have been overlooked in reproduction. Stay tuned, light training gear coming tomorrow. ~ Vonnor

*** Hestia. ***

That's great work, guys. The detail is amazing.

In order for any costume to be approved for the 501st, the following things have to happen: 1. The standards for the character need to be researched and developed. 2. There has to be at least three separate and unique LFL-official visual reference sources for the costume. 3. Someone needs to build the costume exactly accurate to those reference images and present it for 501st approval. The important point here is this: The accurate character reproduction must happen first. 501st approval for that character costume can only happen after that. ~ Vonnor

I'm not sure I agree with the logic. To equate the cost, and only the cost, of a costume project with the likelihood of 501st acceptance would be a non sequitur. Build it; build it exactly matching specific visual character references in every way, from every angle, head to toe; prove the match. it will get approved. It will also be a awesome sight. ~ Vonnor

Just get as many pix of her armor as you can and study them. Then form and shape the clay on your plaster-bandage forms as close as you can to what you think the real armor would look like. Once you get a cool looking oil-clay version of her shoulder armor on the plaster-bandage version of your own shoulder, mask it off with corrugated cardboard and hot-glue (make a box around the clay armor - like I did with the Kota handguards only bigger) and spray it with clear-coat spraypaint, then mix up plaster-o-paris and pour it over the spraypainted clay. When the plaster dries, peel the clay out of it and you'll have your shoulder mold. That much you can do without too much fumes. Also, the Rebound-25 silicone, while being tedious to mix and apply, is not at all fumey and can be used indoors with no prob. If you wanted to paint a dozen or so layers of that orange stuff on the clay-armor-in-da-box before pouring in the plaster. It is much much easier to re-use a mold that is rubber or rubber-lined than it is to re-use an all-plaster mold. I cannot recommend enough that you take your time and make a long-lasting final piece, rather then one that just "gets you by for now." You will be much happier in the long run. With the mold(s) created, you can always transport them to a friend or family member's outdoor work area to do the fiberglass resin & bondo stuff. And molds can be made normally without any nasty fumes. By far the most difficult part of any project is acceptance of the fact that it will take twice as long as you originally thought it would. Words to think about. ~ Vonnor

It looks almost exactly like the Rahm Kota armor concept; breastplate, shoulder bells, and gauntlets (although gaunts look like leather maybe?). I have kind of a step-by-step for the sculpting and plastic fabrication of this type of setup in the "Sculpting Rahm Kota" thread as Pam said. The rough steps were: 1. Plaster bandages made rough forms of my shoulder and chest to sculpt on. 2. Oil-clay sculpts of the armor pieces on the forms. 3. Spray clear-coat on the clay and take plaster molds of the sculpts. 4. Mold-release spray on the molds and lay fiberglass&resin in the molds. 5. Bust the plastic castings outta the mold and shape/sand/paint. More details in the thread. I might recommend a brush-on silicone (www.smooth-on.com) like Rebound-25 to coat the shoulder sculpt real thick before making a plaster mold-backing to support the silicone. Would be easier to make two shoulder bells from a silicone-lined mold. I went and made a hard model of a shoulder bell for the Kota using just clay sculpt and plaster mold, then made a silicone lined two-piece shell mold of the model and used pour-in resin to make the production bells come out kinda thick, but that may be overkill for this character. ~ Vonnor

For his Rahm Kota wall, he replaced my head with that of Mr. Fredrickson the original actor, yet still credited me as the costume builder. I'm thinking maybe laziness on his part. ~ Vonnor