Arden "Lucky" Fisk

I don't think you should get rid of the spikes, but you might want to angle them a bit more forward so that they are easier to use as a weapon.
 
Looks great. I dont mind the toe spikes, but I think you should find some boots with buckles or velco. I just dont like the laces.

And you have done an excelent job of creating the fabric in your artwork. I can really appreciate how difficult that is.

I can honestly say theres only one thing that looks awkward to me about the custom art, and thats the sword position. It seems like its in a strange position in the hand.

It almost seems like its flipped, and the blade should be up, with the serates down.

I do love your work thougn. Especially the cloth and hands. Two areas I always struggled with in art school.
 
Okay, so I lied, I couldn't wait to start until I had the helmet, so here I am joining the 'garbage pail kids'...

I cut out all my pieces last week from a black sterilite garbage can. Although the plastic from these is rugged and pretty thick, it still *looked* flimsy... I fixed that by beveling the edges a bit. Makes it look a lot more weighty just by adding those few extra angles in there. I also used my dremel to carve in some battle damage, mostly scrapes and scuffs, but a few blaster impacts as well just for spits and giggles.

I cut my knees from the bend section of a PVC pipe elbow. Thick, Thick stuff that should hold up really well.

fisk1.jpg


For the dark gray part, I was originally going to paint an opaque grey but while I was shopping for paints I found the absolute coolest stuff, Krylon Fusion hammered metal finish. It fuses to plastic and it really does make an actual textured, gorgeous hammered metal look with just the right amount of metallicness. My garbage cans were finally really starting to look like metal!

fisk2.jpg


I wasn't too pleased with the shoulder bells you saw above, so before I started painting, I trashed them and cut out a new set in a curved medieval shield shape. I painted those metallic, let the whole shebang dry for a few hours, then taped off and painted my yellow stripes. I wanted them raised slightly from the surrounding metal so I laid on like six coats.

fisk3.jpg


When I peeled off the tape, They stood up slightly from the surrounding surface, yet still showed the underlying 'hammered metal' texture, and they looked GREAT!

fisk4.jpg
 
Man, that looks pretty sweet. Good job on the painting. I was looking at the hammered metallic paint too, but it wouldn't really go with my "Desert Mando" theme. :p
 
Alright, four hours and a few much better photos later, we've got weathering! I used a combo of misting black and brown flat spraypaint, using a brush to splatter on some flat black and patina green, using a brush to paint on and then a rag to wipe off while it was still wet some flat black, some flat black wash in the old scratches, some 'aged oak' polyurethane wood stain smudged on with a rag, and some chips on the yellow and highlight in the new scratches with some nice shiny silver.

The right shoulder has the 'white fist' in the picture above as well as the number 25 in Aurabesh (my lucky number) although the flash washes it out a little. Anyways, let the photos commence!

fiskshoulders.jpg


fiskchest.jpg


fiskknees.jpg


fiskshins.jpg
 
I hate you too. You are just way to good, you'll make us all look bad. So we've got a nice spot for you, out in on Tatooine. We think you'll love it there!

(Anyone get the Hot Fuzz connection?

Really girl, that stuff is amazing. You have shamed my attempts at prepro drawings. I bow at your feet.

Could I possibly get a pic of the uncolored and finished helmet pic you did. I'd love to maybe use it as a template for coloring my own designs on. If you don't mind that is....
 
Very cool, excellent transition from your concept to execution...so many people who do customs start out with a cool idea, then when they end up, have boba or Jango with different colors. You've managed to adapt as your going while remaining true to you concept art...outstanding work.
 
Fantiastic weathering. Looks like all those years of model painting have paid off. ;) Weathering is the one thing I just can't seem to get to look right.
 
really, weathering is pretty much the funnest thing in the world for me. I get to make a huge mess while still being artistic about it. I get to cut things up, destroy their paintjobs, bend, fray, stain, and dent.

I always thought it'd be kinda fun to do a weathering tutorial, but I don't presume to know everything about it and wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes.
 
One thing about weathering there are thousands of ways to do it, so your not going to step on any ones toes. I say make one, all your going to do is add your knowledge to the community.
 
Alrighty, had another couple productive days, so I made myself a vest to put the armor on.

I started with some rich brown duck fabric. It's very similar to canvas... except that duck has a higher thread count.

Because I wanted it to FEEL like a real protective garment, I made the vest with a double thickness of the fabric. Now, it wouldn't stop a bullet, but it IS pretty resistant to slicing. So if I get in a knife fight I should be all good. :p

I'm no seamstress, so I don't bother making patterns. I just kinda dive right in, and trust my experience and knowledge of sewing tricks to pull me through. Usually, I have pretty good luck, especially on simple garments like this vest, which turned out well!

I applied snaps to the back of my armor and the matching snaps to the vest, then tossed the vest into the wash to soften it up. I SHOULD have washed the fabric before I even began, because the wash shrunk the darn thing by an inch or so, so now it's pretty tight on me. Not so tight that it's unwearable, but tight enough that it's noticeable. The solution to this problem is for me to lose some #$%^&* weight!

vest1.jpg


vestfront.jpg


vestback.jpg


And then we moved onto my favorite part, the weathering. Again, it's all in the layers. I started with a few spritzes and drips of bleach. The duck sucked up the bleach like crazy, and actually turned white... a bit overkill, I didn't like that result, so I used some brown shoe polish and wiped it over the worst of the bleach spots to tone the white down a hair.

I continued with the brown shoe polish, using a pighair bristle shoe polishing brush, rubbing it in the polish, then gently wiping it over the areas where there would be sweat stains-- under the pits, around the neck, where my fingers touch the fasteners along the sides. By wiping gently with a large, stiff bristled brush, you get the stain on the high points of your fabric, providing a natural grime look.

With a sandpaper block, I scraped away at the seams, edges, and other areas that experience heavy wear. this dulls the fabric out and frays it slightly, giving that 'years of use' look.

To further years of use, a few drops of black liquid shoe polish simulated oil stains, and I used the same stiff bristle brush trick to add a bit more dark grime over the whole surface.

A light misting of maroon spray paint toned everything down a notch.

Finally, my favorite part, the sunbleached effect. To simulate years of sun beating down on the vest, I mixed a solution of about 1/5 bleach, 4/5 water and used a perfume sprayer to get a very fine mist. I used this over the whole vest, but especially around the shoulders, where the sun would have hit the hardest and longest.

Finally, a very dull knife was dragged over the fabric a bunch of times, not sharp enough to cut but sharp enough to wear the fabric and dent it for battle damage.

The result:
weathered.jpg


And with the armor plates snapped into place: (The plates look crooked laid out flat, but when the vest is worn, they sit correctly)

finalvest.jpg
 
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