thelangley
New Member
So after building my first weeping angel ( http://www.therpf.com/f9/weeping-angel-pics-213274/?highlight=weeping+angel ) and then working out some better tactics with the creation of the she-wraith ( http://www.therpf.com/f62/i-call-her-she-wraith-213477/?highlight=weeping+angel ) I thought I'd take another stab a new weeping angel.
The guy who bought the first one asked me to do another one, this time in "attack mode" and not covering its face. Challenge accepted, and here's how it went.
I followed the same basic technique I used in the other projects, which meant hunting down a mannequin that was as close to the pose I wanted as possible. This usually takes some time, but in the process, I did find a couple fixture stores in the city that had old and discounted mannequins. I finally settled on this headless one for about $90. I had a head leftover from the the she-wraith so no big deal about the headlessness.
One of the things that I wanted to do with this one, was make it come apart for ease of transport. This caused some interesting issues to work out when it came to wings, but I'll get ot that later. This particular mannequin was an Anne Taylor dummy. (I was told when I got it. Not that it matters at all but yeah.) Its arms are attached by super crazy strong magnets which was interesting. I kinda wish that it had been one w some kinda clips bc in the end it made one of the arms a slightly unstable.
I put off working on the arms and started doing the lower dress part. This again, like the others, was done with a sheet, draped around the lower torso then slathered with "monster mud" and then a coat or two of fiberglass resin.
Next I went ahead and started cutting the arms into a position I wanted. In an attack pose. I also bought some other "grabby" type hands from the mannequin place for a couple bucks. I cut and taped and plaster bandaged the arms and hands into a rough position. Here she is w the other head stick on too.
Now the part I hate most - Carving wings. Previously I had taken some foam board, loaded up a ton of expanding foam and then carved out the wings. This time I tried something different. I got huge piece of pink styrofoam board from Home Depot, and cut out four wings. I glued two to each other and the other two to each other. Basically to give each wing some width. From there, I drew out the feathers, and started hacking away with the razor blade. Shortly into this method I came up with a better way to shape the wings and feathers - using a power sander. This foam was much denser than the expanding foam so it was able to be sanded away without ripping apart. This made things go much easier and faster.
Now I had to figure out how to attach them so they not only looked good but also could be removed for transportation. I liked the idea of strong magnets like the arms but it just wasn't doable. I eventually went with pvc pipe and connectors.
Here's what the connectors looked like (after slathering the wings with "monster mud" and resin.
I built up the "wing nub" on the body with bondo and glued the pvc into the wing. Worked out rather nicely. I had trouble at first getting the thing to fit just right together, so I drilled out the hole a little more so it was loose fitting, then used a pin to hold the wing in place when it was slid into the body.
I found a dress that was pretty close to the angel's top, so I grabbed that, and then again, more "monster mud" and fiberglass.
Ok, now we were getting somewhere. Or so I thought. I ended up redoing the shirt and dress in the end because I found a wedding dress that flared out more at the bottom, and then I wanted the shirt to hang a little lower. This was a slight issue bc it couldn't be too tight against the body or I couldn't "unscrew" the top torso when taking it apart. But it all eventually worked out.
I wasn't sure how I was going to do the head/face though. I had seen weeping angel masks around online, but most of them were just front shells. There was a shop on Etsy called Needful Things that had a full latex weeping angel mask that didn't look too bad, and I was going to just put that over the head and then fiberglass it to stiffen it up.
DO NOT BUY FROM NEEDFUL THINGS!
I ordered the mask in Aug. At the time of this post, it still has yet to show up. I have attempted several communications that were met with 'oh, I'll ship it next week' and finally I asked for a refund, which hasn't happened either.
Anyway, due to the lack of head, I had to sculpt it myself. Which actually turned out better than I thought it would. It also didn't have to be perfect because any little imperfections would be filled in w mud and paint.
I made a mold and cast the head. I was able to do a little more tweaking w the resin cast (I used Rebound 25 for the mold and Tap Plastics version of Smooth Cast to cast it)
Here it is roughly stuck on the angel's neck.
So I was pretty pleased with how this was turning out but it bothered me that the dress didn't flare out very much, which was my own fault for not fixing that in the beginning. I stopped by Goodwill, which had all kinds of Halloween stuff out at this time of year. I found a cheap wedding dress and cut the top half off. I redid the bottom, this time using chicken wire to make a "bell" shape to rest the dress on while it dried from the "monster mud" then resin. I ended up leaving it under there for support in the end.
The top also looked like it wasn't long enough at this point, so I used another sheet to make it longer. The nice thing about "monster mud" is that you can easily cover seams.
Note: I had also been sorta painting things along the way with just spray paint and experimenting with different techniques.
So at this point I ran into another issue. The bottom "bell" was only attached by fiberglass at the top of the lower torso. Which is fine if I never moved it, but it wasn't very strong and would fall apart for sure if I tried to move it much. So I figured I'd fill the bell with foam and stuffing for support. However, it was hard to get it to turn over w/o falling apart. I had to use a hoist to lift the thing up, shoot some foam up there to make the top sturdy enough to be able to flip over. It was quite a thing. In the future I'd need to find a better way to attach the dress to the legs.
I build a sort of foam wall using the chicken wire for support around the perimeter of the inside, then filled the rest with about four cans of expanding foam and some batting (cotton stuffing) that was lying around. Then more foam. It seemed to build a pretty solid support system. Enough that it could be moved w/o out worry of falling apart.
After all that, I just went over a few soft places with more fiberglass resin, and started work on painting and then detail painting.
Here's how she turned out in the end:
The guy who bought the first one asked me to do another one, this time in "attack mode" and not covering its face. Challenge accepted, and here's how it went.
I followed the same basic technique I used in the other projects, which meant hunting down a mannequin that was as close to the pose I wanted as possible. This usually takes some time, but in the process, I did find a couple fixture stores in the city that had old and discounted mannequins. I finally settled on this headless one for about $90. I had a head leftover from the the she-wraith so no big deal about the headlessness.
One of the things that I wanted to do with this one, was make it come apart for ease of transport. This caused some interesting issues to work out when it came to wings, but I'll get ot that later. This particular mannequin was an Anne Taylor dummy. (I was told when I got it. Not that it matters at all but yeah.) Its arms are attached by super crazy strong magnets which was interesting. I kinda wish that it had been one w some kinda clips bc in the end it made one of the arms a slightly unstable.
I put off working on the arms and started doing the lower dress part. This again, like the others, was done with a sheet, draped around the lower torso then slathered with "monster mud" and then a coat or two of fiberglass resin.
Next I went ahead and started cutting the arms into a position I wanted. In an attack pose. I also bought some other "grabby" type hands from the mannequin place for a couple bucks. I cut and taped and plaster bandaged the arms and hands into a rough position. Here she is w the other head stick on too.
Now the part I hate most - Carving wings. Previously I had taken some foam board, loaded up a ton of expanding foam and then carved out the wings. This time I tried something different. I got huge piece of pink styrofoam board from Home Depot, and cut out four wings. I glued two to each other and the other two to each other. Basically to give each wing some width. From there, I drew out the feathers, and started hacking away with the razor blade. Shortly into this method I came up with a better way to shape the wings and feathers - using a power sander. This foam was much denser than the expanding foam so it was able to be sanded away without ripping apart. This made things go much easier and faster.
Now I had to figure out how to attach them so they not only looked good but also could be removed for transportation. I liked the idea of strong magnets like the arms but it just wasn't doable. I eventually went with pvc pipe and connectors.
Here's what the connectors looked like (after slathering the wings with "monster mud" and resin.
I built up the "wing nub" on the body with bondo and glued the pvc into the wing. Worked out rather nicely. I had trouble at first getting the thing to fit just right together, so I drilled out the hole a little more so it was loose fitting, then used a pin to hold the wing in place when it was slid into the body.
I found a dress that was pretty close to the angel's top, so I grabbed that, and then again, more "monster mud" and fiberglass.
Ok, now we were getting somewhere. Or so I thought. I ended up redoing the shirt and dress in the end because I found a wedding dress that flared out more at the bottom, and then I wanted the shirt to hang a little lower. This was a slight issue bc it couldn't be too tight against the body or I couldn't "unscrew" the top torso when taking it apart. But it all eventually worked out.
I wasn't sure how I was going to do the head/face though. I had seen weeping angel masks around online, but most of them were just front shells. There was a shop on Etsy called Needful Things that had a full latex weeping angel mask that didn't look too bad, and I was going to just put that over the head and then fiberglass it to stiffen it up.
DO NOT BUY FROM NEEDFUL THINGS!
I ordered the mask in Aug. At the time of this post, it still has yet to show up. I have attempted several communications that were met with 'oh, I'll ship it next week' and finally I asked for a refund, which hasn't happened either.
Anyway, due to the lack of head, I had to sculpt it myself. Which actually turned out better than I thought it would. It also didn't have to be perfect because any little imperfections would be filled in w mud and paint.
I made a mold and cast the head. I was able to do a little more tweaking w the resin cast (I used Rebound 25 for the mold and Tap Plastics version of Smooth Cast to cast it)
Here it is roughly stuck on the angel's neck.
So I was pretty pleased with how this was turning out but it bothered me that the dress didn't flare out very much, which was my own fault for not fixing that in the beginning. I stopped by Goodwill, which had all kinds of Halloween stuff out at this time of year. I found a cheap wedding dress and cut the top half off. I redid the bottom, this time using chicken wire to make a "bell" shape to rest the dress on while it dried from the "monster mud" then resin. I ended up leaving it under there for support in the end.
The top also looked like it wasn't long enough at this point, so I used another sheet to make it longer. The nice thing about "monster mud" is that you can easily cover seams.
Note: I had also been sorta painting things along the way with just spray paint and experimenting with different techniques.
So at this point I ran into another issue. The bottom "bell" was only attached by fiberglass at the top of the lower torso. Which is fine if I never moved it, but it wasn't very strong and would fall apart for sure if I tried to move it much. So I figured I'd fill the bell with foam and stuffing for support. However, it was hard to get it to turn over w/o falling apart. I had to use a hoist to lift the thing up, shoot some foam up there to make the top sturdy enough to be able to flip over. It was quite a thing. In the future I'd need to find a better way to attach the dress to the legs.
I build a sort of foam wall using the chicken wire for support around the perimeter of the inside, then filled the rest with about four cans of expanding foam and some batting (cotton stuffing) that was lying around. Then more foam. It seemed to build a pretty solid support system. Enough that it could be moved w/o out worry of falling apart.
After all that, I just went over a few soft places with more fiberglass resin, and started work on painting and then detail painting.
Here's how she turned out in the end:
Very impressive work. I love how the clothing came out, and I think your head/face is pretty spot on. Being statues, they aren't perfect on the show either, and I think you have that reflected here just right. Very well done!
