Shae Vizla Shae Vizla, SWTOR

Can't wait for more pictures! I really love her as a bad girl in SWTOR. I really love combination of her hair colour and merciless face. I hope you are enjoying building this awesome project as we do! Keep us informed. Have fun with building :)
 
I like this armour for that very reason :) Less pin up more functional (a lot of armour makers can tell you why it's not a good idea to have a concave in the middle of the chest plate.)

And the next exciting stage. Bogging.
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I managed to find a source for good fairing powder (it's still fumed silica but doesn't blow about too badly) and mixed up a nice thick paste and smoothed that on the legs and front of the chest armour. I need to attack it with a sander of course but it is slowly building up.

I still have to take my antihistamines before work and a break of a few days between so it's going to be a bit of a slow progress ;) It may wind up the last armour project I do which is incredibly frustrating to say the least.
 
just out of curiosity, why don't you fiberglass the inside, then use bondo to fill it?
 
I'm not sure what you mean- the previous photo post shows that I did FG the back. That's what I need to cut out once the top layer is all smoothed. I wasn't intending on using the second layer of card, it's wound up changing plans a bit.

As for not using Bondo- it's too soft and brittle for lasting wear. Good for making a master to mold from but it's way too soft for real wear over time. Using fairing powder and resin is much stronger. It doesn't go off so quickly either so you have more working time. It's still faster that plain resin. it'll take longer to sand but it would take more money, time and room to make molds to cast in.
Also I'm using epoxy resin as it is more flexible than polyester. Easier to get proportions right too as it is a 1:4 mixing ratio. And doesn't stink so badly either.

I got interrupted while getting the paste on. I wanted it a bit smoother but ah well. Next layer will be smoothed with a silicon spatula when I find it again.

And having a boat builder (actually super yacht builder) in the family means I got a lot of information on safety and good practice before I even bought my first lot of resin ;).
 
I have finally bought a mouse (droid) sander after a year or more of checking them out. I think the local hardware stores were getting annoyed with me going around lifting all the detail sanders and waving them about. In the end I have the cheapest Predator (grr argh) which is so budget it has no fan to suck away the dust. But it was that or by what would be a paper weight as I wouldn't be able to use it ;)

So in one evening I have got the greaves nice and smooth and almost even. And got to work on the chest plate:


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Greaves. one side bogged the other sanded back. I kept the bog fairly smooth by spreading it on with a silicon spatula. That thing is never going near the kitchen again obviously... I also mix my resin with a silicon pasty brush. I let the resin cure and pull the brush out of it after. It leaves little tunnels in the resin. It saves on buying new mixing tools and reduces landfill. I have horrible guilt issues over the waste in this process. I even reuse the same plastic container where I can. If excess cured resin could be reused I'd be all on it.

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Chest plate sanded back. I may have to give it a spray of paint just to see where the dimples are. But she is starting to look nice and crisp again :)

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Greaves fully sanded. Well as far as the mouse could go. I kept hitting the on/off switch when trying to sand the inners. Please ignore the bloomers and vest. There are for my Steampunk outfit (at last- it's been unfinished for two years) and I just needed something to hold the chest plate in place. It stays in place with friction, but when worn I will have clasps on the sides.

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Also the PVC piping is so easy to mold and work with. It's a lot less prone to scratching than foamed PVC (Sintra et al) and less prone to warping like styrene. I really like it. But I know from building my Vibro Axe I will need to get a good primer on before painting or it will chip off easily.
Now that the basic panels are shaped I can trim them to fit properly. Still one or two spots where I need to curve it a little more.

I've also heat shaped the shoulders of the chest piece to fit more closely.

Still debating on the greaves. I think I will keep the fibreglassed pieces as a base to sculpt/mold from in the future as I want to upgrade my Mara and I have some other projects I'd like to work on too :) And my Mannequin is too alienly shaped to be terribly helpful as is.
 
What ever happend with the bucket? How did you plan to make the visor as its VERY curved been throwing the idea of building this also for my wife, she not a big fan of the heavily padded mando we all know
 
One thing I'll mention to you is that when painting PVC pipe you can "flash" it with acetone and it will stick a lot better.
 
Thanks for the tip catal :) I will definitely be using that as I have a fair few bits of PVC on this project!

Sorry I haven't replied to everyone until now :) I had to reformant my netbook twice (I think the first try created an additional problem) which left me a little behind on my communication ;)

Progress is happening :) In fact I have a spot of dust up my nose and in my clothes from sanding today :) The helmet is still in the mold as I kind of messed up the fg jacket so I need to sand it back and get it fixed up.

I have many of the smaller parts modeled and molded, first set of casting are curing over night. I am on three types of antihistamines to be able to work with the stuff, so I'm hoping this project is worth it ;)

A few more goes with bogging and sanding before I can start to cut the details into the chest armour. The back plate needs another layer of fg inside.

I templated the shoulder bells yesterday and have got the first layer of resin on tonight.

FG cloth is so much easier to work with than matting so I'm going to have to order some more very soon.

The base shape of the flame thrower for the gauntlet was roughly modeled yesterday as well. Currently covered in silicon and tomorrow I will get a cast from that to smooth up and get a final mold from.
Mini rocket launchers are a littler harder to model but I think I have a cunning plan...

Oh and how awesome is PVC weld type glue! I have some that is red tinted, it was on sale so now I wish I'd bought more.... Wish I'd used it from the start on my jetpack...



Oh and all patterns are created by me. Nothng ripped from anywhere or modeled digitally. It is sort of better sort of harder this way. So some pieces are resined card some are layers of plastic laminated and carved to shape and some are sculpted from clay.
 
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