Midianx138
New Member
Pardon my ramblings..
On May 4th, a local art gallery hosts a Star Wars art show. This is now an annual event, in its third year. Each year, I try something different in stained glass. The first year, I did an Iron Maiden The Trooper/Stormtrooper mashup panel. Last year, I made two lampshades, one Imperial and one Rebel. In the past 6 months or so, I've gotten into making more 3 dimensional objects. So I decided that this year's piece would be some cool 3d construct. I was thinking maybe the Death Star or I could try my hand at a Stormtrooper helmet.
I decided to start with the bucket. But how to construct it? I'd need some type of base or form to work off of. Plus, there'd be no kiln-formed glass shapes so I would want to make everything angular. My first thought was to borrow someone's helmet and make a quick cast. I'd still have to do a lot of work to sculpt what I wanted, and that would still be just a form. It was actually when I was looking at platonic solid models, that I thought of something. There were some paper models of said solids, and I thought..hmm, these could come in handy. Then it finally clicked, paper models..pepakura. Of course! I'd been looking at some badass Warhammer 40k pep builds for a while, but it didn't register until that moment. My online hunt for a helmet pep model began, and I shortly stumbled upon Space Cowboy's ANH build. Perfect!
I'd never done any type of papercraft like this before (paper airplanes and fortune-tellers were more my speed prior), but I thought I'd give it a shot. I picked up some 110lb cardstock and a bottle of Elmer's Glue.
Yeah..I meant to take a lot more pics as it was being assembled, but alas..
I must say though, even looking at the 3d model, it was a bit of a pain trying to figure out what went where, how it attached, what the final should look like. I used helmet reference pics too. Does it just get easier with practice or do you usually have to eye something?
Now I needed to reinforce it. I didn't want to go the fiberglass/bondo route as it's a bit pricey and I wasn't planning on wearing it. Instead, I started off with plain old paper mache. I found it fitting that the Fry's ad found a new home inside.
I stopped using the paper mache after one layer. Damn, I forgot how long that stuff takes to dry (even with a hairdryer). Plus, it started warping my paper. Bah.
Still needing more reinforcement, I decided to try Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty (a powder you mix with water). The reviews looked good, it's very inexpensive, and come to find out a friend used to use it on his model airplanes.
I made a small batch at a time (after mixing, was maybe 1/2- 1 cup) and just applied it 1/8-1/4" thick. It dries very quickly. If you were too slow applying, it would start hardening in your bowl (was pretty easy to remove though, would just flex the bowl.You're advised not to do a paint-like coat as it will probably crack, due to thinness and flex). I would still hit it with the hairdryer for a min to speed up the process. I did do an extra layer or two around the base, just in case.
I didn't bother sanding the inside as I don't care how it looks, but it is sandable and paintable.
This baby is now as hard as a rock.
That's it for my form. After building it, I realized that quite a few of the polygons would actually be perfect as is for glass shapes! I'll still have to do some modding, but that helps. That now also has me looking into reducing the polygon count on .obj models (playing with decimate in Blender) and seeing how things look. (Argh, I know next to nothing about Blender and 3d modeling! Damn you, learning curve!)
Next up is glass cutting and fitting. More to post soon, I hope!
On May 4th, a local art gallery hosts a Star Wars art show. This is now an annual event, in its third year. Each year, I try something different in stained glass. The first year, I did an Iron Maiden The Trooper/Stormtrooper mashup panel. Last year, I made two lampshades, one Imperial and one Rebel. In the past 6 months or so, I've gotten into making more 3 dimensional objects. So I decided that this year's piece would be some cool 3d construct. I was thinking maybe the Death Star or I could try my hand at a Stormtrooper helmet.
I decided to start with the bucket. But how to construct it? I'd need some type of base or form to work off of. Plus, there'd be no kiln-formed glass shapes so I would want to make everything angular. My first thought was to borrow someone's helmet and make a quick cast. I'd still have to do a lot of work to sculpt what I wanted, and that would still be just a form. It was actually when I was looking at platonic solid models, that I thought of something. There were some paper models of said solids, and I thought..hmm, these could come in handy. Then it finally clicked, paper models..pepakura. Of course! I'd been looking at some badass Warhammer 40k pep builds for a while, but it didn't register until that moment. My online hunt for a helmet pep model began, and I shortly stumbled upon Space Cowboy's ANH build. Perfect!
I'd never done any type of papercraft like this before (paper airplanes and fortune-tellers were more my speed prior), but I thought I'd give it a shot. I picked up some 110lb cardstock and a bottle of Elmer's Glue.
Yeah..I meant to take a lot more pics as it was being assembled, but alas..
I must say though, even looking at the 3d model, it was a bit of a pain trying to figure out what went where, how it attached, what the final should look like. I used helmet reference pics too. Does it just get easier with practice or do you usually have to eye something?
Now I needed to reinforce it. I didn't want to go the fiberglass/bondo route as it's a bit pricey and I wasn't planning on wearing it. Instead, I started off with plain old paper mache. I found it fitting that the Fry's ad found a new home inside.
I stopped using the paper mache after one layer. Damn, I forgot how long that stuff takes to dry (even with a hairdryer). Plus, it started warping my paper. Bah.
Still needing more reinforcement, I decided to try Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty (a powder you mix with water). The reviews looked good, it's very inexpensive, and come to find out a friend used to use it on his model airplanes.
I made a small batch at a time (after mixing, was maybe 1/2- 1 cup) and just applied it 1/8-1/4" thick. It dries very quickly. If you were too slow applying, it would start hardening in your bowl (was pretty easy to remove though, would just flex the bowl.You're advised not to do a paint-like coat as it will probably crack, due to thinness and flex). I would still hit it with the hairdryer for a min to speed up the process. I did do an extra layer or two around the base, just in case.
I didn't bother sanding the inside as I don't care how it looks, but it is sandable and paintable.
This baby is now as hard as a rock.
That's it for my form. After building it, I realized that quite a few of the polygons would actually be perfect as is for glass shapes! I'll still have to do some modding, but that helps. That now also has me looking into reducing the polygon count on .obj models (playing with decimate in Blender) and seeing how things look. (Argh, I know next to nothing about Blender and 3d modeling! Damn you, learning curve!)
Next up is glass cutting and fitting. More to post soon, I hope!
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