Adepta Sororitas Female Power Armour (Sisters of Battle) 40k [Helmet Sculpting!!]

[Vickibrownies]

Hi,

I'm new here, a friend suggested I sign up and look about get a little help on a project I'm starting.
I've had a look through, seen some utterly amazing work that I can't possibly match, but certainly can aspire to and got a whole load of information. Though, there are still some random questions I'm left with and all that.
So, if you will indulge me, I thought I would write up basically my project plan as it sits in my brain now and let some of the pros look over what I intend to do so I get advice, warnings, helpful hints and tricks and feedback as I go along.
Also doesn't help for me to put my ideas down in one location.
Sorry if this ends up as some bad stream of conciousness ramble!

My project is creating a suit (well, 2) or Adepta Sororitas Power Armour, AKA Sisters of Battle, from Warhammer 40k.

Antoher useful image, and another one.
This isn't the first armour, or large costume project of mine as I do feelance costume, prop and prosthetic work for LARP events in the UK
In fact, I've done this style of Armour before on a stupidly tight budget, and if was just about passable: Us at a Larp event!
But I mostly do foam monster costumes and prosthetics, and various sculpted props and of course Pointlessly awesome dragon ponies.

But this time, I want to do this right!!

First of all, this costume is going to be for larp, so my intention was to use Smooth-Cast 65D, or the brush on equivalents that is the high impact one IIRC, reinforced with a layer of glass matt or two.

To try and get myself started I will be making the Helmet first, since that seems to be what most people fascinate over, it also means if I make that first I can get the collar of our chest pieces to fit in with it. That and it's a great, smaller introduction to using proper methods as described in various tutorials.
I've ordered today a nice, featureless safety helmet to use as a base, will be a little small until I rip its own foam out and mount it on my head form.
Because I'm used to doing masks and such, I'll be sculpting it out of Oil Based clay, though I'll be, for the larger pieces, moving on to WED clay that I'm a little nervous about trying.

Until that arrives I am experimenting with sculpting a little mod for my Nerf Gun that I will cast in Silicone, as I have some laying around from a previous project, then back up with plaster and do my first roto-casting experiments.

I've sculpted on the bottom of one of the magazines a banana extension that makes them much stronger resemble Bolt Pistol magazines. Kind of like a conversion kit!
I've started modifying a Stampede to resemble a Bolt Gun more, will be working on it this weekend so photos soon. Going to be using styrene, a glue gun and, probably Kneadatite or Appoxie Sculpt for details, unless I really get into casting things and details for projects.

Armature are something that I'm trying to plan out, how to best use resources, as I have no experience with doing sculpts anything like on this size.
Soon, I'll be stealing my house mate to make a plaster cast of myself and then a Fibreglass body mould for that.
Things like that backpack, erm, I'm not really sure. I think it'll involve a plate of wood with a good number of upright dowling rods and then sculpt in bulk with water based clay to get the overall shape.

This is a project that I've been wanting to do for a long long while, but I haven't had the money, employed, energy or confidence to do it!
If you have any comments, suggestions, advice please comment, and if you're interested I will keep people up to date with how I'm doing down the coming months.

Thanks for reading;
-VickiBrownies

TL-DR
I'm making a sculpted and cast suit of Sisters of Battle Power Armour for larp, it's not something I've done before any hints and tips would be nice.

 

[xaoslord]

Re: Adepta Sororitas Power Armour (Sisters of Battle) Warhmmer 40k

Cool project! I've seen some cool Space Marine projects and this will be a nice compliment to them. It might be a challenge to keep it from becoming too bulky, but I'm sure the members here can help with any issues you may encounter.

 

[Finnlock]

Re: Adepta Sororitas Female Power Armour (Sisters of Battle) Warhmmer 40k

Awesome, Love the SoB. I have made a few, mostly for show. even made a working chainsword and a number of weapons. Nothing up to LARP standards however.

There is a 40k costuming forum you might want to check out in addition to the epic source of knowledge that is the RPF.

Check it out if you have not. If nothing else, you'll gain some more fans for your work
Obscurus Crusade

 

[Vickibrownies]

Re: Adepta Sororitas Female Power Armour (Sisters of Battle) Warhmmer 40k

Cool project! I've seen some cool Space Marine projects and this will be a nice compliment to them. It might be a challenge to keep it from becoming too bulky, but I'm sure the members here can help with any issues you may encounter.

Haha, thank you ^^
I do plan on eventually doing Space Marine Scout armour, nothing as big as their Power Armour, but easier and mostly for some friends at LARP as well.
Well, if you look at the first atempt neither of us that the costumes are for are that, *ahem* Unbulky, heh. However, this being sculpted to a body cast should be able to make it fit nicely.
However, giant bulky shoulders, backpack, detailing of doom is just what 40k is all about! Hehe

Awesome, Love the SoB. I have made a few, mostly for show. even made a working chainsword and a number of weapons. Nothing up to LARP standards however.

There is a 40k costuming forum you might want to check out in addition to the epic source of knowledge that is the RPF.

Check it out if you have not. If nothing else, you'll gain some more fans for your work
Obscurus Crusade

Wait wait wait ... working chainsword?! This requires a link of some kind!!
I've only done LARP safe chaninswords so far as you can see in the links, nothing soild.
I've started a working Bolt-Pistol ... and by that I mean Nerf.

Also, thanks for that link, had a look at it doesn't seem to anything like the funky repository of knowledge that is this forum, more a place to show off stuff, I might start a WIP on there once I'm a bit further along.

Right now I'm working on a better head cast.
Got my helmet through to be a sculpting base for my the Helm of the amour, and it really showed just how tiny my usual Head Form is!
Just waiting for my mould to dry before I fill it full of plaster and then, erm, sculpting when it's ready however long it'll take to be ready.

Should have some progress over the next few days, I can't wait =D

 

[Finnlock]

Re: Adepta Sororitas Female Power Armour (Sisters of Battle) 40k [Pre-Planning stage]

The bolter sculpt you have going on is great!

Okay, some links
My 2010 Gamesday Sister armor made for my GF..
Gamer girl at gamesday baltimore 2010 - YouTube

An other looks at the chainsword build. I won an offical Spacemarine video game chainsword from THQ for entering it in a contest.

Chainsword contest Kotaku" entry - YouTube


The Obscurus Crusade forum isn't as build oriented as the RPF but has a lot of good ideas and people who can help you come up with creative ways to over come problems related to 40k

Keep up the great work!

 

[Vickibrownies]

Re: Adepta Sororitas Female Power Armour (Sisters of Battle) 40k [Pre-Planning stage]

Right right right!!

It has been a long long weekend.
So, after finding out how crap my Head Form was for doing this with, I roped my housemate into doing my head-casting.
Ran around on Saturday buying some materials to do it nice and quick head-cast, and, well, it didn't come out great. But after 4hours of solid sawing chunks off, sanding down and all that today it was /just/ about human shaped and fitted the helmet base.
If won't be much use for anything that isn't based off a helmet, but seems to be a good enough approximation for this.

So, here is what I got done on my first armour sculpt:

I know it's still quite early, I am still getting its shapes and proportions out of the way, and then it'll need a LOT of smoothing out to make it look all fancy, and then it'll have all of it's detailing added in and the vents things. However, I am pretty pleased with its overall look so far.

Any advise for getting nice sharp lines and a smooth finish? My current plan was water/olive oil and my fingers for smoothing and flat sculpting tools and scalpels for the edges.
I am only used to sculpting things with textures.

The bolter sculpt you have going on is great!

Okay, some links
My 2010 Gamesday Sister armor made for my GF..
Gamer girl at gamesday baltimore 2010 - YouTube

An other looks at the chainsword build. I won an offical Spacemarine video game chainsword from THQ for entering it in a contest.

Chainsword contest Kotaku" entry - YouTube


The Obscurus Crusade forum isn't as build oriented as the RPF but has a lot of good ideas and people who can help you come up with creative ways to over come problems related to 40k

Keep up the great work!

HAHA! That's awesome.
As wierd as it sounds I have a bunch of images of that costume already in my reference images file from Google Image search because I just loved the overall look it! (Despite giving her a Power fist, not something Sororitas use =P)

That chainsword is amazing! Such great quality.
When I have a bit more to show for myself I'll show it off on the other forum though they seem to have a lot of Sisters of Battle attention on there as it is.
Thanks for the links. ^_^

 

[Finnlock]

I know it's not "cannon" for sisters to have powerfists, but there is an unproduced mini of a sister with a powerfist and that was all the justification I needed to make one

I'm glad you liked the look of her, she was very happy to wear it!

I'm liking where your sculpt is heading, but I think you will want to make the eyes wider apart and longer so you can really see well out of them. I say this because you said you want to LARP in them and seeing is very helpful

One of the biggest challenges I had was making the helmet and collar work toghter. The collar had to be very large because of the way I made the helmet. Even then she only had limmited motion of her head.

My advice is to make both at the same time so you can get a feel for the size and shape you need.

 

[endo500]

Wow good luck with getting this done. I just recently started my own space wolf build so i'll be keeping an eye on this thread as well.

 

[Vickibrownies]

Hey all,

Last night I spent a few more hours in this sculpt, building up parts, evening out stuff and then experimenting with trying to get it smooth. I concentrated basically on the area pictured below on the face.
Using soapy water, a Sponge, some medium density foam and a heat gun I got a fairly good result, might just need more time and practice to get an ideal result.
What I've seen written is using stuff like Lighter Fluid or Alcohol, but I'm a little bit hesitant since I to my sculpting in my bedroom ... that I share with a Bunny.

I even tried adding a tiny little bit of detail to it too, just for practice.

Also, since this is for a larp events (mostly) that uses Nerf Weapons as firearms I've started to turn a Nerf Stampede rifle into a bolt pistol!
This if course first required cutting off anything that made it any bigger, including getting rid of the stupidly large battery pack, that I have now replaced with a Remote Control Car battery! So it's both a hell of a lot smaller, and rechargeable.

Keeping to Bolt Pistol scale the plunger that sticks out at the back will be a bit longer then the pistol should be, so I'm going to have it sticking out but obscure it by mounting a small shoulder rest/stock thing, taken from the Nerf Recon.

So, helmet Sculpt about half way there, IMHO, Bolt Pistol will get touch upon as and when I I'm waiting for stuff to dry/set/be delivered.
Thanks for any help, advice or feedback

I'm liking where your sculpt is heading, but I think you will want to make the eyes wider apart and longer so you can really see well out of them. I say this because you said you want to LARP in them and seeing is very helpful

One of the biggest challenges I had was making the helmet and collar work toghter. The collar had to be very large because of the way I made the helmet. Even then she only had limmited motion of her head.

My advice is to make both at the same time so you can get a feel for the size and shape you need.

Thanks ^^
It's one reason I'm doing the helmet first, so the chest/collar piece can be made around, that and it's a smaller, cheaper, easier piece for a method that I've never used before!
I've moved the eyes a tiny bit apart, and also made them a little wider and larger, but helmets SUCK at larp at the best of time so they will literally just be for show, not likely to wear them out of combat, more for intimidation and effect! To that ends mobility isn't that much of a hassle for them, more than turning heads slightly left and right. ^_^
The most important part will be having glowing red eyes ... because we're the good guys!

-VBrownies