Sculpting Rahm Kota Armor

[Koda Vonnor]

Thanks Maestro.

 

The first go will be a bit of a hybrid between the action fig and the CG references. I scaled the shoulder bells off the renders rather than the toy, although I did round the corners a bit. The clips on the bracers are modeled more after the action figure, as that was the only good reference available when I started. I'm changing the clay form chestplate to look more like the latest rendering. Luckily that hasn't gone to mold yet.

 

Oh and the hair? That'd be my own, plus super-mega-gel/pomade and spray color (brush-in BN for the beard/brows).

 

So far I plan on redoing the bracer clips, saber pommel, belly box, and handguards for version 2.0

 

May God have mercy on my wallet.

 

~ Bill C.

[Koda Vonnor]

Weekend update:

 

I scratch-weathered the shoulders, and formed/re-formed and shaped the vambraces. I painted them up for weathering but need to wait a couple days before I start scratching them (damn mid-Atlantic humidity). Note the bracers have an elliptical cross-section at the wrist. This, in conjunction with the planned neoprene wrist-seals will lock them in place radially. They will rotate as my wrist rotates. It will also lend the illusion of the stepped-down edge seen in the reference pix, as well as hold the sleeves and glove closures in place.

 

I'm moderately happy with the right shoulder bell. The left one I will eventually re-spritz with the darker tones and scratch again. They both came out a bit too mottled for my taste, but the right one is good enough for long shots.

 

See ya's next week.

 

 

~ Vonnor

[Koda Vonnor]

...Threw a little preview together, with the parts I've completed so far...

 

 

~ Vonnor

[ghostred7]

Lookin' good! As for "starting to hate the project" ....at least you have the skills to do it

 

I think it looks great.

[Koda Vonnor]

Thanks MH.

[Koda Vonnor]

Here's a weekend update:

 

I didn't do much 'cause I had family in from out of town, but here's all the stuff you won't see once the armor gets on there.

 

One thing though, these pants are 37" waist and were very tight when I started this project (Nov). I have dropped a bit of weight and these are just too baggy around the middle. I will now have to buy another pair in a 36" or 35" and doctor them up (removing the back pockets was a bich - had to pick at each needle hole to blend it in). :-/

 

Also, these are not the Rahm Kota boots. I have yet to receive those.

 

 

~ Koda

[Koda Vonnor]

Small update...

 

Just have to tweak the edges a bit and smooth it all out, then lay on the left and right slabs. The belly box is just for reference, I'll take the mold without it and attach it after casting.

 

 

~ Vonnor

[Koda Vonnor]

I laid on the left and right sides today. Rolled out little tiles of clay to 6mm thickness and cut them to shape, then sort of built a jigsaw puzzle and smoothed all the joints. The upper half was looking a bit bloated on the sides so I did some major reshaping. It's not perfect, but then my body ain't at all like that CG dude either.

 

Almost ready to take a mold. Couple more rounds of smoothing and microscopic inspection and it'll be good to go.

 

 

~ Koda

[Twi'lek Pam]

.

 

Thank you for continuing to share your progress with us. I smile every time I spot a new posting from you, knowing that there's going to be something great to see. You're doing a fantastic job with this costume!

 

Pam

[Koda Vonnor]

Thanks Pam. Comments like these definitely help keep the project going.

 

I put together the tunic last night from just the perfect color dark-brown fabric. Unfortunately it turned out WAY too thin and flimsy. I reinforced the yoke with a thin, non-stretchy twill to help hold the shoulder bells, but just couldn't get the collar and front to lay right. I have some 65/35 calcutta in a close-but-not-exact brown that is much heavier and stronger. I will have to make the tunic out of that so it holds the bells.

 

I have the face and hair make-up coming tomorrow. Got some rigid collodion to do the scars and some silver ben nye and spray-color for the hair.

 

Only about 3/4 of my hair will reach the top-knot by D*Con, so I bought both petrolatum and non-petrolatum based pomade. Hopefully one of those two will glue the stray strands flat to my noggin. The top-knot itself will not be a canon form until mid next year in any case.

 

I'm anxious to try out the scars and hairdo.

 

~ Vonnor

[Guest bassclarinets]

the collodian works very well..

 

if you are trying to "pink" up the scars.. i would suggest you use a HIGH quality lip liner pencil (we use lancome).. and go over top of the collodian.. if you do it underneath the collodian, it then tends to cause the collodian to loosen up easier after the fact (as you are wearing them)..

 

if you have questions, let me know.. (anthony does the scar for his anakin)

 

we use actually a light red lancome, a darker red lancome, and then a brown (eyeliner) lancome to give the real blood look... when we are going for a more settled scar.. then you can use a few shades of concealer pencil (thin) to really get a nice natural look

 

jen

[Guest bassclarinets]

oh and for "gluing" your hair down,. the john fredia gel (in a pump type bottle) that is fairly expensive (i got mine at walgreens) works VERY well for making hair stick down.. i used it on my amidala headdress to kinda glue it down.. its just now starting to release a bit (i've had the headdress done for a LONG time now..).

 

jen

[Guest bassclarinets]

3d times a charm -

 

have you tried (at all) before giving up on getting your shoulder bells to stay.. using some fusible interfacing underneath (even the thin flimsy stuff works great) but if you can find craft fuse (its a type of fusible that i have seen and used) it works REALLY REALLY well for stiffining up fabrics.. it usually doesnt show through too terribly.. and sometimes you can find it in a black so it really hides well..

 

if you are fusing to a crinkle fabric.. make sure you throw a towel between your ironing board cover and the fabric so you can hopefully have the crinkles lay in a bit better.. but yeah..

 

jen

[Koda Vonnor]

oh and for "gluing" your hair down,. the john fredia gel (in a pump type bottle) that is fairly expensive (i got mine at walgreens) works VERY well for making hair stick down.. i used it on my amidala headdress to kinda glue it down.. its just now starting to release a bit (i've had the headdress done for a LONG time now..).

 

jen

That's the kinda thing I need, I think. Something I can spritz on damp hair as I smooth it down and have it STAY down. I tried pulling in the ponytail the other night with totally dry hair and only caught to within 3" of my hairline all around. I'll have to really gunk that part up and try to make it stick flat to the hair that's actually IN the ponytail. Then let all that dry stiff and finish the knot, then spray-color the whole ball-o-wax (pun intended ).

 

For the bells, my plan is to reinforce the yoke area of the tunic (maybe even velcro it to the underarmor - seen above) and down the tops of the sleeves a couple inches, then velcro inside the top-middle of the bell and attach to the reinforced tunic yoke. That point would rely on gravity to hold flat to my shoulder. The other anchor point would be an elastic strap that runs from inside the bell near it's bottom, through buttonholes in the sleeve and around the upper arm under the armpit. Because of the curve of the bell at it's bottom, and the thinness of my arm, the velcro would be pulling almost perpendicular to the gripping surface. I found a cool way to transfer the pull direction from perpendicular to almost parallel to the velcro's grip. I'll post pix when I get to that.

 

I fear that the bells may be too wobbly with this solution, but I can't think of another way. Except maybe velcroing the tunic to the underarmor, which is pretty stretchy-snug.

 

~ Koda

[Koda Vonnor]

Weekend Update:

 

I took a plaster mold of the BP today. Had to layer on the plaster, and as such I got some striation lines in the mold. I don't think they will cause much trouble though, I can sand them smooth after the casting.

 

The weather report looks good for laying the fiberglass next Saturday.

 

I also made the template for the bandoleer today, and drew up a bunch of sketches and notes for Mel Mattson, and adjusted the saber hilt to better represent the CG images.

 

Tomorrow I will heat-form the sintra saber holster and box everything up to send to Mel.

 

See ya's next week.

 

 

~ Koda

[Guest Anonymous]

Looking great so far. Really enjoying this thread, and it's giving me some pointers with regards to my apprentice project. Keep up the good work!

[Koda Vonnor]

Thanks Havoc!

 

Here is the rough saber holster made from heat-formed sintra 3mm. It will attach to the bandoleer with two Chicago screws and have a leather strap going 'round the middle. I had to make it this morning to send to my leather crafter tomorrow so she can make the bando.

 

It's shown here laying on the bandoleer cut-out template.

 

 

~ Vonnor

[Koda Vonnor]

This morning I laid up the fiberglass on the chest plate. I had some difficulty. I poured in a gray gel-coat first, keeping it as thin as possible, but because it was a very warm day, and I waited too long before starting the resin/fiberglass, the gel-coat hardened and shrunk away from the mold. I suspect there will be several ripples in the surface, some quite large.

 

I also ran out of resin after only 3.5 layers of fiberglass or so. Due to the heat, the stuff I mixed up went solid WAY too fast and I ended up wasting half the resin. I also wasn't able to add fiberglass along the center ridge, so I put on a few heavy layers of resin and finished the whole thing with a bondo/gel-coat reinforcement along all the edges and the center ridge. No doubt I still have to fill in those wavy ripples mentioned earlier.

 

When I discovered the ripples it was too late to do anything about them. It was either keep going or scrap the whole BP back to the body cast.

 

I'll pop it out of the mold tonight and see how bad it is. If I can fill in the ripples with bondo and smooth it all out then I'll wear this one. If not, I may have to use it as a hard model and take another mold.

 

I really wish the polyester resin wasn't such a pain in the a$$.

 

[Koda Vonnor]

OK guys, that's it.

 

I'm giving up on this costume.

 

I've found a MUCH cooler character to portray!

 

JEDI UMPIRE!!

 

[Koda Vonnor]

To cure all the nasty surface waves, I added a bondo icing and a little epoxy patchwork. Almost looks good enough to eat. I'll sand all that down to shape.

 

Also thanks to my brother for coming up with the killer solution to harnessing the shoulder bells. Worked like a charm. I'll explain how I did it later with the full costume pix.

 

See ya's next week.

 

 

~ Vonnor

[Koda Vonnor]

Here's the chest plate ready for painting (almost). I still have to do some final touch-ups with the emery boards. I wanted to show it 'cuz of those two images that somehow got in the casting when I sanded in the final contours.

 

I'm calling them "Demon" the Hutt (on your left) and "LAUGH-LAC" the duck (on your right). I thought they were funny, and since I'll always know they're in there, now everybody else will too... hehehe

 

 

I know it don't look like much, but check it out tomorrow.

 

~ Vonnor

[Koda Vonnor]

Weekend Update part 2:

 

So I'm out in my front yard this morning painting this mug, and my neighbor comes by walking his dog. He stops to watch me for a minute, then says, "Tony Stark?"

 

I said, "close."

 

 

I'm not really likin' the overall contours. I really borked it up doing the final shaping. I went by touch mostly and not enough by sight, and the symmetry is horrendous. It's really noticeable at about 3 metres or farther. I will matte it down as much as possible in the weathering so it doesn't show so bad.

 

I also wanted to show the attachment system for the bells. I don't see too many crafters showing the mechanical guts of their stuff. Maybe it'll give someone else some ideas.

 

There's a short (10cm) strap that attaches to the top velcro strip and to the reinforced yoke of the shirt. The bell hangs from that, and the non-stretch canvas yoke in the shirt keeps the bells from sagging. They sorta pull against each other's weight.

 

The lower contraption has two raised plastic strips with slot openings in the sides, and soft neoprene padding. The padding cradles the upper arm and keeps the bell in position laterally. There's an elastic strap that runs around the underarm and threads through those slots to stick on that center velcro pad. The slots transfer the velcro's sticky force from tensile to shear and it holds much better.

 

For now, I'll run the strap over the shirt, as it is almost an exact color match to the shirt. Eventually I will put big button-holes in the sleeves and run the anchor strap through the holes so it doesn't show and doesn't scrunch up the sleeve.

 

 

Next week: full costume pix.

 

~ Vonnor

[Koda Vonnor]

I got some good news and some bad news...

 

The bad news is I had a major glitch in the shoulder bell anchor system. The way I had the top strap holding the weight made it impossible for the bell to sit straight on the shoulder. I'm going to have to redo the attachment system.

 

The good news is I picked up my scraper this afternoon and just started scraping and scratching at the BP. Before I knew what was happening, I had finished the stupid thing.

 

I can't do a full costume pic. I forgot the belt is still in Colorado with the bando (plus I got one bell all taken apart ).

 

Here's a little teaser I threw together with what I have (sorry for the graininess, the setting and lighting weren't too good):

 

 

Only things left are the boots, the bando, and the hair.

 

~ BC

[Twi'lek Pam]

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Looking fantastic! I can't wait to see the final results.

 

Pam

[Koda Vonnor]

Thanks Pam.

 

Compared to your work, it's actually very crude and sloppy. I just know how to pick the camera angles.