Recent content by nathancarter

Or, if you want inexpensive, lightweight, mostly-foolproof, but still labor-intensive, make scales out of craft foam and glue them together using barge cement. Some people use a guitar-pick punch to make scales, but I don't think the shape is quite right.

Personally, I wouldn't use Worbla for this. It's a bit of a learning curve and not inexpensive. If you're going through all that effort, why not buy pre-cut scales from theringlord and weave actual scale mail? Aluminum isn't too heavy; large-size scales cover a pretty good area per scale...

Also in for updates - my wife has a couple different Barbarella costumes and this would be great for her. Right now she just has a plastic toy gun with a mediocre repaint. Her tongue box is the first thing I ever built out of Sintra, I've gotten so much better since then and need to revisit...

I've personally had good experiences with the Rustoleum 2-in-1 Sandable Filler Primer, however, I've NEVER had good luck with any metallic or chrome spray paint. They are extremely delicate to the touch, even after curing for a long time. If you want a shiny chrome finish, consider using a...

Rit recently released a dye for synthetics, but if the iDye doesn't do it, I doubt the Rit poly dye would work either. I'd probably pursue the spray-on tint as described above. if you're just going for gray, there's taillight spray in the automotive section of walmart or at the auto parts...

Heard good things about Angelus but have never used it personally. Another option is Meltonian Nu-Life color spray, which is intended for shoes and boots. We used their Gold on these boots which were originally matte black leather. Two light coats is all it took, no cracking or flaking, and...

Something unexpected: The filler primer did NOT like any little smears of hotglue, where I had wiped off the excess. On visible blobs of hotglue it was just fine, but on the little smears that were invisible before paint, it looked pretty rough, it peeled and cracked. This is in a place where...

OK, picking back up after a successful DragonCon. Did a ton of seam patching with Apoxie Sculpt. This stuff plays very nice with the Sintra; it sands and takes paint very similarly. For a seam that's "pretty good", I'll mix up the Apoxie, roll out a little thin snake (1/16" to 1/8" in...

Acrylic won't stretch much, so it's difficult to do compound curves or vacforming. However, it will bend just fine to do simple curves such as cylinders. I used OPTIX acrylic sheet from the local hardware store to make this tube on a wizard staff, using a cheap heat gun and forming it around a...

Bumping an old thread to add my two cents. I haven't used Kilz but it sounds like a great solution, and somewhat inexpensive. In my experience, Plasti-Dip will work - even the spray-can stuff, just make sure your first couple coats are very light so the propellant doesn't get at the foam...

I think it'll snap if OP tries to bend it too much without heat.

Build a form out of cardboard discs that you cut yourself. That's kinda what I did when I needed to make a big cylinder out of Sintra, I used the discs and rings that would be later inserted into the cylinder, taped them together with foam spacers, and formed my cylinder around that. Here's my...

Looking great so far! The Sintra that I've been using seems to distort a little bit when I heat-form it - as I work it, it stretches in one direction and shrinks along the other direction. This is based on the direction that the Sintra sheet was originally formed/extruded. So, when making a...

Victor Voyeur photography (Nathan) here, y'all looked great. I'm glad you stuck around for photos after everyone else was dispersing, I didn't have energy to chase anyone else down. I'm also a huge fan of PVC foam board (Sintra), almost my whole helmet was made from it. I'm working on a build...

If you've already built the tail without consideration on how to mount it, this might not be of much help to you. Or, you might be able to use this to modify your existing design for a sturdy mount. I've lately gotten to be a big fan of Dritz heavy-duty snaps (#5 3/8" snaps, applied with the...