Draenai Vindicator (World of Warcraft)

[Duskrose]

Since the announcement last year of the new expansion for World of Warcraft, I decided I wanted to tackle the Vindicator armour, the typical armour of draenai paladins. I'm not a huge fan of the in-game look of that set, so instead, I used the art book and cinematic trailer for the Burning Crusade expansion, where the draenai race is first introduced.


This has been my go-to image for most of the design, with many screen-caps from the game trailer to help with some details. I made masking tape patterns off body parts, or in the case of the torso, off my tailor dummy. I cut those pieces from craft foam, checked the fit, then covered the pieces with a layer of Worbla on the front and Wonderflex on the back. I'm using a mixture, since I want to take advantage of the mesh of the Wonderflex to help give the numerous plates a little more sturdiness, but use the flexibility of the Worbla for the detailing.



Hours of cutting later, and the result is the following:



I've started with all the pieces flat, so I could roller them, to ensure good adhesion and to help smooth the surface of the Worbla, which I'm hoping will make priming and painting go a little easier. Also, I'm missing a few pieces, specifically the lower leg plates, which I'll make after I plan exactly how I'll be going to accomplish the draenai digitigrade legs.

First pieces I put together were the pauldrons, built with the help of a large Pyrex kitchen bowl to help them keep their shape as the pieces cooled.


And now to start adding the details!

 

[Duskrose]

The chest piece is completed!


I've lost count how many hours I've spent adding all the edging, but I'm really looking forward to painting this!

 

[Talaaya]

Oooh, nice technique! How much smoother does rolling them get them? It's a little hard to tell from just pictures. What do you use to roll them? Do you feed them through a pasta maker or just use a rolling pin? Do you use something to keep it from sticking to the roller?

So far it all looks fabulous. Can't wait to see it completed! Draenei are my favorite. : D

 

[Duskrose]

Thanks! This is actually the first time I've built armour this way, and I'm also a fan of draenai, the ladies are so elegant.

I've found that rolling can smush the texture down to a very smooth surface, almost glassy, if I can get enough pressure on it. I actually use an empty wine bottle with the labels stripped off, although I imagine a rolling pin would be fine as well, especially if you happen to have one of those beautiful heavy marble ones. I hadn't considered a pasta machine, simply because most of the pieces are too big to feed through the one I have.

As for preventing sticking, I put wax paper on my work surface, although if you have a silicone baking mat, those are awesome for preventing sticking. I did end up with the worbla stuck to the bottle a time or two, and every time it was because I had heated the worbla a bit too much. The good news is, no matter how badly it stuck, I was always able to peel the part off the bottle, and repair the damage. It's a neat little side effect of going for a rolled smooth surface, that after gently flattening out (or in one case, patching!) the damaged areas, rolling over the damage helps smooth and blend it, to the point that once you've got your primer / paint on, you'll never see it.

 

[Mr Giant]

looks amazing, keep up the good work and i cant wait to see how this finishes up

 

[Duskrose]

Whew, another week of singed fingers, and the shoulder armour is detailed and assembled.

There will be some gems in the obvious diamond shaped sockets, and I still need to figure the exact attachments to keep these balanced, but I'm loving how they turned out!

 

[agirlcalledbob]

WOW!! The detailing is GORGEOUS! Looking forward to watching your build come together

 

[Kroforce]

Cool!
I have been thinking of making this one myself. But I was thinking of building it in foam and not worbla. Since worbla is crazy expensive.

Really good job sofar!

Adding lights to the gems? Facial prostetics to make the dranei looks?

 

[Duskrose]

WOW!! The detailing is GORGEOUS! Looking forward to watching your build come together

Thank you! I'm loving seeing how each piece turns out, so far, I'm extremely happy with the results.

Cool!
I have been thinking of making this one myself. But I was thinking of building it in foam and not worbla. Since worbla is crazy expensive.

Really good job sofar!

Adding lights to the gems? Facial prostetics to make the dranei looks?

When planning my materials for this build, I already had some Worbla on hand, bought for a different project that ended up not going anywhere. Had I not been in that position, I may well have chosen to go with a foam build, as EVA mats are so much more cost efficient. But this is also the reason behind the details NOT being made out of solid Worbla scraps. The details are actually formed from either Model Magic clay, which I pushed through an extruder to get uniform sizes and shapes (all the lines around the edges) or pieces of craft foam, glued together to give raised areas (such as the raised but flat details on the pauldrons). I can then cover these bits with a piece of Worbla from my scraps bag. I get a nice uniform size and finish, it adds a little less weight than adding solid Worbla details, and gives me a use for all the scraps, which I've hoarded.

Yes, I do plan to add lights to the gems, and as for the draenai looks, yup, there's prosthetics to figure out - I've never made any before, so that's a nice challenge. Also, there's the horns to sculpt, which I have some ideas in mind for, and of course, the legs. Those, I'm having a little help with, as the plan is for a sturdy set of digitigrade stilts, and that's proving to be an extremely interesting part of the project!

 

[Duskrose]

Got a couple more armour progress pictures to share!

Here's my progress on the upper body parts, showing the breast plate, pauldrons, arm cuffs, elbow cups, and vambraces. Just the gauntlets to go as far as upper body pieces, and then there's all the leg plates to finish. Planning getting started with priming these soon.

Managed to get a nice close up shot of the fit of the vambrace, while taped to my arm, as I was figuring out where to add D-rings and straps.

In the meantime, my husband has been super busy with ordering and working on the various parts required for the digitigrade stilts. That part of this costume could pretty much justify it's own build thread, but to keep it concise, we are using this set of patterns/ instructions: http://www.instructables.com/id/Werewolf-Stilts-digitigrade-legs/, and a LOT of Google Fu to find some of the parts - they weren't all as quite as easy as the website suggested. If anyone is interested in this part of the process, I'm totally happy to share more info on the process involved here, especially such things as where we sourced some of the parts from, just ask or PM me!

 

[kialna]

This is going to be amazing!

 

[Mandi]

Can't wait to see more progress!

 

[Blackluc]

Can't wait to see more!

 

[Spardax]

Great :thumbsup it is going to be an awesome work!
I was a WoW gamer in TBC and WOTLK and between my secondary pgs i had a draeney paladin (my first pg was a warrior in tbc and a dk in wtlk). I believe that vindicator set (or Tier 4) and Vengeful set (or Tier 6) are the most beautiful armors of the paladin:thumbsup

 

[Duskrose]

Stilts are coming together!

Total kudos to my husband on these, he has been amazing in this part of the project, sourcing the right parts and just quietly working away to get to this point. We're paused on this part for the moment, as we're waiting on a parcel of a different style of the D-ring parts for the straps that will go behind the legs and hold the stilts on - the ones pictured here look fine, but there's a spot where a washer was rubbing against the webbing strap, which gave us a safety concern.
Now that these are all measured, I've been able to finalise my leg armour patterns, so I've been able to get those pieces crafted, and they are just waiting on detailing.

 

[Duskrose]

It's over a month since I last posted any progress here, largely to do with a visit from family putting me on hiatus for a couple weeks, then painting all the armour pieces took sooooo long. Since this costume is for Blizzcon, I'm now down to the last few weeks before everything needs to be finished, and I've finally got a couple more pictures I feel worthy of sharing here!



First, the finished stilts. These are a little shorter than the instructions suggested, but I was nervous about being too tall, and struggling to walk in them. Turns out my fears were unfounded, after feeling like Bambi for the first minute or two, these turned out to be incredibly easy to walk in.



And here is the armour in all it's painted glory. After seeing it in pictures, I may go over the gold areas again, to add a little more highlighting, but right now, that is totally time dependent. Since this picture, I've added D rings and elastic straps to all the pieces, and have worked out how I'm going to light the gemstone sockets. I'm just waiting for my gemstones to cure, so I can get all that set in place.


Not too many fabric pieces to this costume, but that doesn't stop them having tons of detail! This is made from white and purple satins and gold lame. I used fusible webbing to "glue" the layers together to help hold them in place as I sewed around the edges and added the other details. Then I finished the piece by backing it with another piece of satin, to hide the rough looking reverse side.

 

[Lifeburn]

It looks great! I've always been a fan of WoW's armor designs.

 

[arthos]

... But this is also the reason behind the details NOT being made out of solid Worbla scraps. The details are actually formed from either Model Magic clay, which I pushed through an extruder to get uniform sizes and shapes (all the lines around the edges) or pieces of craft foam, glued together to give raised areas (such as the raised but flat details on the pauldrons). I can then cover these bits with a piece of Worbla from my scraps bag.

This is really interesting! I'm clear on the covering the craft foam with Worbla for raised flat edges. How about the coil shapes, are those the extruded clay? If so how did you manage to cover them so nicely?

Great work by the way very clean construction.

 

[Duskrose]

. How about the coil shapes, are those the extruded clay? If so how did you manage to cover them so nicely?

I'm assuming by "coil", you are referring to all the curved ridges around the edges. Here's how I made all of those (the numbers match to the step-by step image below):
1. I put a piece of wax paper over the piece I was detailing, and laid the clay shapes in place.
2. I picked out scraps of Worbla that were about the right size for each section, heated them and laid them over the clay, lining it up with the inside, and leaving a little overhang on the outside. The very curved pieces, I allowed extra on both sides, then trimmed the inside edge to be neat.
3. I removed the wax paper, applied some heat to the area I wanted to work on as well as to the clay piece I was attaching, then lined up the clay with the edges, and used a clay sculpting tool to press the inside edges down onto the armour piece.
4. I reheated the overhanging edges, and folded them over the back, pressing them down firmly.
5. Finally, I went back over the seams and joins to blend them together.


Where you see two or three raised lines together, the process was almost the same, the only difference being I had to press the Worbla down into the ridges, which I did after the piece was in place on the armour. For the lines where they don't have an edge to overhang, I had to trim the Worbla on both sides of the clay, then press it down carefully once it was in place on the armour.

Hope this helps! It was a time consuming process, but well worth it for the end result!

 

[arthos]

I'm assuming by "coil", you are referring to all the curved ridges around the edges. Here's how I made all of those (the numbers match to the step-by step image below):
1. I put a piece of wax paper over the piece I was detailing, and laid the clay shapes in place.
2. I picked out scraps of Worbla that were about the right size for each section, heated them and laid them over the clay, lining it up with the inside, and leaving a little overhang on the outside. The very curved pieces, I allowed extra on both sides, then trimmed the inside edge to be neat.
3. I removed the wax paper, applied some heat to the area I wanted to work on as well as to the clay piece I was attaching, then lined up the clay with the edges, and used a clay sculpting tool to press the inside edges down onto the armour piece.
4. I reheated the overhanging edges, and folded them over the back, pressing them down firmly.
5. Finally, I went back over the seams and joins to blend them together.
View attachment 392816

Where you see two or three raised lines together, the process was almost the same, the only difference being I had to press the Worbla down into the ridges, which I did after the piece was in place on the armour. For the lines where they don't have an edge to overhang, I had to trim the Worbla on both sides of the clay, then press it down carefully once it was in place on the armour.

Hope this helps! It was a time consuming process, but well worth it for the end result!

Thanks for the detailed explanation and the additional images!