kroenen chest armor **TEMPLATES** PICTURE HEAVY

Tattoo Box

New Hunter
I was hijacking the other thread so I thought I'd post this one.

here is the entire DIY blog I dropped on www.IndyMogul.com Templates are at the bottom of page. enjoy.

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I know there are a TON of people trying to find a cheap way to make this. I did a cheapish build I want to share.

Parts:

  • compressed cardboard sheet 24X38 (found at work but the backing of an old drawing pad could work)
  • 5 packs of Tamiya "smooth surface"epoxy putty (it has the longest working time of their putty products and like to stick to cardboard) $3 a pack so, $15 (ebay)
  • tube wood filler $6 (hardware store)
  • antique gold leaf paint$6 (hardware store)
  • 2oz acrylic varnish $3 (hobby store)
  • 2-2inch brass hinges $1 (dollar store)
  • assorted clock cogs and rachets $8 (ebay junk)
  • sheet acetate $1 (hobby store)
  • 1 yard brown faux leather (way more than you'll need but great for straps and sheaths)(hobby store) $18
  • 3 bottles of velcro brand glue $4each so $12 (hobby store or fabric store. again way more than needed but if you make a mistake you'll need more. I did.)
  • super glue $1
  • 12 inches velcro tape $1 (dollar store)
  • 2 matching 1inch belt buckles. $1 (hobby store)
  • 2 matching 4 inch belt buckles. $3 (hobby store)
  • 100 pack brass gromets $3 (hobby store)
  • gromet tool $5 (hobby store)
  • 1 pair dollar store 36 inch shoelaces $1
  • assorted greebles, washers and plastic $? (I usually pick this stuff up off the street while walking to work)
total $82ish plus taxes, some of this stuff I already had so the price was really about $50

Referrence:

there are a few images of the chestplate floating around the web, the best being from the art book of the hellboy movie but I was only able to find 1 pic of the back plates. (a long shot and a little blurry and taken from a DelToro exhibit at a comic book convention in spain, talk about a lucky find.) I made templates for the chest and back armor, the leather harness, straps sheaths and belt. I'll post links to the pdf versions after I make pdf versions.

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this next step was a time suck so I really recommend against it. touch deco is a puffy paint product that takes 24 hours to set. after I applied the varnish it was barely noticable so I re-did it all with tamiya epoxyputty
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the end result is much better.
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after the greebles and putty match the reference photos I painted the varnish on with a large hobby brush. you have to paint the fron then the back as the varnish dries it contracts and warps the cardstock( 2 coats in front and 1 on the back will do) so both sides is better. the varnish fills the small gaps that line the epoxy putty and greebles.

After letting it dry for a couple days (and to avoid any mistakes) I painted on the antique gold with 2 coats. I set aside the armor

The faux leather, I made 2 different templates for this part and had to redo it so the working one is what I will show. The armor template was made from a photo and size comparison but its relatively flat. the leather wraps around you so photo comparison doesn't really cut it. I took chest measurements and waist measurements. then drew up the whole thing in adobe illustrator. there are shoulder straps that are seperate from the chest so I set up for a velcro release there and the back straps. now my plan was worked out I printed out 8 sheets of paper for the front template and 6 for the back and connected it all. I lightly taped the templates together and tried it on, relatively a good fit. the armor allowed the leather to poke out in the wrong places so I marked and cut those areas then seperated the templates and used them to mark and cut out the faux leather.

The clockwork. the clockwork required more preparation. i needed to have a way of floating these to look kinda workable. I printed a reference sheet of the clockwork solely to scale with my armor plate. I place a sheet of acetate over the clock template, superglued the clock parts that matched(I had to dremel grind down some of the clock parts to make this work). I made the metal frame housing from the template using the remaining cardstock and a quick paint job of antique gold then glued it directly to the clockwork. I glued black paper to back of the acetate sheet.

On the armor clock ports, I super glued(from the back) a small piece of acetate. then took the clock assembly and flipped it over to place into the ports(again from the back), with the black paper in place it was a little tricky to line up but I got it. I then glued the edges around it and for extra support I took 2 more pieces of cardstock to glue around the edges this time with the velcro glue.

The chest armor was complete.

I got to go to work right now. I'll write the rest from there.

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okay. i'm at work.

the chest and back armor was finished. now the glueing to the faux leather. this doesnt take long but I like to give velcro glue time to set. below is just a disection of the finished harness with the velcro in place. I added a strip of black faux leather to the back straps for reinforcement, on a black jumpsuit it's invisible. you can see from the pics that the shoulder straps are not the same. I found a store selling as-is 3inch belts for $1 each. the gromets were already in place. so it was $2 for laziness tax. the velcro strips really do not matter you can make it with snaps, bachelor buttons, rivets, etc. I just had some so I used it. once the harness is on it's hard to identify the seams. I wore this to The Comic-Con in Montreal 2 weeks ago and it was very comfortable, did not tear or seperate anywhere. all the sheaths were made the same way. faux leather and velcro glue. the sword sheaths were stitched because I worried it would tear after repeated use. The belt was made custom to match the screenworn one. the original belt was a german heavy machine gunners belt from WW2. so it's actually easy to find on ebay. just pricey. mine was $30 from a cobbler who sells premade belts for $60, I bought my boots from him as well. they're Montreal Police boots $70. the mask is from a good friend Jarvis at www.thedentedhelmet.com It's a project helmet kit, and serious time should be taken in construction. The jumpsuit I'm wearing in the previous post is lame. I bought a new one on ebay from the chinese lycra costume guys in china. the gloves are also available on ebay under the search "knuckle gloves". total spent so far is around $500. not on the cheap but pretty **** close to the original. I'm off to make the pdf templates. peace folks.


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templates are done


TEMPLATE ONE
TEMPLATE TWO


these are hosted at www.mediafire.com
pdfs made at www.blockposters.com
 
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I only came across this site today with no idea what it was about, now, people like you have given me a new-found interest with what you guys do. Kroenen was an awesome character in Hellboy btw - nice job.
 
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