Arthas The Litch King Build. (WIP with Pics.)

[TonySingh]

Arthas The Fallen Prince...Litch King...And all around bad ass.
With a Con in less than a week I roll up my sleeves to Complete and Compete with my Arthas Budget Build.

Materials :
EVA FOAM
Cloth : Linen.
Wire.
Random Accessories.

Overall pic



General Referance Material for Cosplay
http://news.mmosite.com/content/201...h_king_arthas_deluxe_collector_figure,1.shtml

So lets get started.
Its day one, so im starting from the ground up. Starting with the boots.

In additions to toy refance I pulled images from the Cinematic trailer for Arthas.




From these I worked out that with mid-evil placing of straps he would use a circle type latch to hold everything together to the front. I worked out the sides baldrics and ankle guards from the image and toy referance.
Then it was time to get started.

I start of with the general material. This is ALL the material i will be using or rather all the material i can afford >:



Using some paper i sketched out the general shape, then traced onto the foam. Cut and using the rotary tool, etched and sanded out the shape of the skull head onto it.


After embellishing it a bit worked on the second as well. After I worked out the size of the Ankle guards and cut them out as well. I also place general guide line as to where I would want effects like bumps , etc.


Once it was dremeled out and I heated with a heat gun. 1. to edge of the furry finish. and two semi prep for priming and painting later on. IT also help close in the open cells in the foam. its a science thing


Here I worked out the two main horns that are seen in the ankle. From my own expirance with EVA foam is that certain points that carry stress rip or tear. To fix this I cut out a outline shape of the part in linen cloth and spray glue it to the back of the prop. ITs a really cheap and easy way to help from tearing parts that hold stress.



Then I placed the first pieaces together. Again from experiance , using glue alone doesnt help hold pieces together, So i also hand sew pieaces with twine



Next up are the baldrics which i just eye balled and hand drew in the skull. It was a bit of a trick to shape it but after the first one.


They came out pretty well.



Next was the Toe guard. I used a sheet of paper (off shot) to get the shape i would need over a boot im using as the base. then just went with whatever felt right to me to make it.






Now was time for the toe guard assembly. I nitched and notched the parts that would be hot glued so it would have some *bite* when they joined.


Once done, i prepped material for leather straps.
for this I used 2mm foam, destressed, and painted in brown leather. TO give it strenght, I lined the back with linen coth. its a easy diy for leather like straps.



Stabbed in the horns for the front by making a notch and stuck them in instead of just placing them ontop. also just did a course check to make sure everything was working out.


Time for painting.
For this I used Concete black primer. I brought a gallon for this purpose and have used several cosplays and props with this and it have never failed to be a cheap and easy way to prep my work for painting or stand alone. in this case its a stand alone.




To give it an ageing effect heres a trick that i use.
I sprayed the sliver paint onto a pieace of glass till it makes a small pool. then using some tissue paper, with the edges torn. i light seep it with paint then rub and buff it lightly or heavily onto the prop. its really a great way ( in my case) to make it ageing easy and no fuss.


And finally the end...


heres the lot of them


DAY ONE COMPLETE!
Im going to rest tonight before finall assembly and move on the the thigh guards .
1 sheet used : 7 sheets left.

 

[Grimwood]

Wow! Excellent start! Am subscribing to this one. Thanks!

 

[TonySingh]

Thanks man!
Well i had a really late start today but oh man...the boots took longer than I thought to get out the way ;/ but here they are finished.

So using the leather straps i made i tied up them up. Rather than relying on glue alone, i did my best to add some sewing treads in there to hold them without worring about them breaking loose when i walked


Running the straps in the front in and through a central ring ( a slice of PVC pipe XD ) i wrapped and tied the down.


With some of the scraps leather i made some stud looking thingies to put on top the thread to cover them over. Though I realized tumb tacks heads would look much better , but i dont have enough at this point, so ill get some soon to add it in


Now to keep it from slipping up over my boot from walking i strapped some strapping below., glued and tread tied to make sure it held.


And heres one boot completed, time to work on the next.


Here's the finish look with one in boot and the other without ...im really pleased so far ^^...alot of thinking when into this..for just a boot XD





ON TO THE SHINS! ///// hopefully they will be easier.. >:

 

[TonySingh]

As any prop maker i think is worth his /her salt...when crafting a constant supply of the essential vitamins and nutrition is needed before and during crafting ...-w-



So i decided to do a clean sweep of the easy parts of the armor so that only the harder curved areas will be left.
Cardboard template to get the size


Hand drew in the designs and dremel/carved them out. Its pretty much the same all through


Thigh Guards.


Rear Guard


Belt Template.


Belt Skull and dremel. I AM CHAMPION *Does Rock Balboa Pose*


Hand PLates


Forearm plates.


Waiting for the Glue primer to dry, then paint job and making straps and buckles will be the next set of pics.

 

[Shadeling]

Love your work

 

[TonySingh]

So 3 days left...and alot of work to get done..

So for the look, buckles and straps need to look the part, so i vented to making them from 15 guage wire for the buckles. and my DIY leather from 2mm eva foam.




Also got into painting the primer in. Here using old faithful concrete primer. for the coating.


From experiance I dont just glueing things by themselves so took the effort and hand sewed in all the straps into the armor.


Next worked on all the nits and bits that make up the finish look of the armor.


And started to make the last touches to the armor. mind though, when its all attached, it will be painted and buffed tommrow when the primer fully dries.






Tommrow ..chest, sword to be done....the stress is real ><

 

[DJdrummer]

I love the foam sculpting. I'm currently doing a bit of that in my current progress but your pieces look super intricate. Looks like a lot of dremel fun . I'm digging the paint job so far and can't wait to see more progress.

 

[TonySingh]

Thanks my friend. Ill come by and check out your work too!
OK so day job got me in stitches in how much work left to do...i have a ton of pics to upload but im just going to post what i can for now.

So here some of the finished polished work.






Now that that is out of the way ive been dedicating my time to one of the more important pieaces, Frostmourne.

So for this ive decided to stick to the basics.

Getting the average lenght of the sword in to my own lenght (did not follow actual as i think this just makes it look out of place in my hands ) I heated a lenght of pvc and just above where the handle would be i began flattening it.


I planned adhead and cut two of the handle lips and inserted them into the sword, this was covered over in some fiberglass rondo to hold it in place permantly.


Once this was done, i layed it over some fiberboard and sketched out the blade from referance pics, then transfered onto cardboard. Did it twice and wrapped them both around the pipe core.


To not compromise the tip i slipped in a few popicile sticks so it wont bend to much. as the pvc pipe was harder to wrap around the broad surface.


Next up, i placed the sword over some eva foam and just traced it over. Its good to get it a bit bigger then cut back to seal the part in.


I also added a second layer on top to give it the dept layer the sword has. Then i hand drew the runes and eye scaled them to measure where to place them on the sword.


Then i cut them out into stencil format and did a light dust over and began using a soldering iron to burn the runes into the foam.


Next i began work on the dog heads i guess? that are on the sides of the handle. I double layered the foam and dremeled to the best of my ability the shape of them xp


Then making some more leather from 2mm foam, i handle wrapped them in.



Using some thick solder wire i did some wraps as well as took some scrap to work out the size of the head for the hilt.


I decided not to take chances and averaged with a pieace of cardboard, then onto foam.


After making one with large horns that is often seen i made the second with smaller horn and used the heat gun to wrap them around. im leaving them open instead of glueing them in.


Handle wrapped the hilt, added some tumbtacks for studding and ite ready for painting.


onto the next phase. the chest and elbows and shoulders.

 

[asgardianhammer]

Great build with lots of details. Very impressive and we'll thought out and documented.

 

[jarroth]

very nice build.

play WoW for years, well actualy, since it came out and LK is my favorite character.

 

[gothic]

really good attention to detail :thumbsup

 

[rawxee]

Really nice work so far!

 

[TonySingh]

Thank you so much for the support Guys. This will be the last post of this build. It was Competed on Time. With one Exceptiion. The Helmet was proven too much for me so I decided to finish the build as Prince Arthas the Death Knight of the Scourge.



So moving on from this point I present the last few hours before the Compitition~

I had to look into some of the orginal cgi shots to find a close up of his glove to work out how the hand plate was held in place.
Using a slice of pvc i wrapped 5 strips of foam leather then attached it through the fingers of the glove



I also decided to get busy with it and prep Frostmourne in primer concete paint.


No self-rightous knight..dead or alive for that manner would be found without his banner. So using some linen, i drew in the outline for the Scourge banner. then painted over via paint brush with concrete black primer. I SWEAR THIS STUFF IS AWESOME! . Off shot, i had aged and blooded it. And ran a T set up with a pvc lenght for the handle and another at the top inserted and looped into the fabic.


For a while i was busting my head on how and what to do for the chain mail undergarment! Then while browseing through a fabic store I found this loopy, shiny material and POINT!~ chain mail.
Using an old coverall i had, i practically overlayed it, traced it over TWICE, and stitched both sides into the coverall. I swear it is the more Macguyver attempt at a chain-mail suit in the history of cosplay XD


Back to Frostmourne. Paint work was straight forward. using sliver and black paint to weather and age it. Painting the runes was a different story. I use a trick where i pray enough spraypaint into a little pool and then use a brush to seep it in.


From this point Im in the last 12 or so hours.... The process is going to be sped up, but the same applications as before. Sketch over bristol, measure, trace cut, heat, dremel details, prep for painting.




Here are the shoulder guards, If your wondering how i atttached them youll see in a bit .



For the Chest PLate I went into using Cardboard Foam. Where I traced and cut to my own scale and preferances till i got it right, then covered over with 2mm foam.


Here are the front and back layed out.


Ive learned from my own experiance that when stress in involved in armor , nothing beats a Srew and nut. In the shoulders youll them holding the armor in place along with the sides.


This is my last progess picture... I know i know..its a sudden stop but it 1 in the morning..and im dead..tired...so ill do my best to explain what i did.
Using Black Burlap, i cornered out to points and overlapped the shoulders. These where held in place via steel wires embedded and wrapped into the armor plate. Then over this I attached the shoulder armor so it became a one piece suit.



So thats the end of my build. ...
Care to find out what happened after here are some shots of the day ^^

Its the weee hours in the morning XD


I have my own booth this time so im behind the scenes setting up my own table



Here I am at mine with my Boba Fett Helmet and Ironman Helmet. Both made in progess and posted here in the Rpf ^^


And finally heres me in all my Fanboy Glory XD



Hers one with one of my good buddies. LOTR vs WOW


Hmm...An angel on my left...and a Devil on my right...?


In the end..after it was all said and done. All the work. the hours. the time...and effort.
....^^....i couldnt be happer.


The next con is a just month or two away....
Perhaps this time....ill get to work EARLY...instead of last minute...heheh..Thank you so much for the support and joining me on my journey. I hoped i shared any ideas i used and tips. Dont let your creative spirit die~



PEACE~

- - - Updated - - -

 

[HammyDribbler]

Nice work and thanks for all the detailed photographs of the WIP. Well deserved 1st place. Only negative is I now have "I need to make a Tauran Druid" in my head!

 

[TonySingh]

Dont Give me Ideas XD
I still intend to finish the helmet. soon ....well as soon as i finish cleaning up the mess i made making it lol, That is the one pic I WONT be uploading lol

 

[Alpha Proto]

Awesome documentation of this build! I think I learned a few things.