FINISHED Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

[booksandcorsets]

Hi all!

I've been plugging away on this costume for a bit and now it's on my front burner. I'm making Meredith Stannard, of Dragon Age II, for PAX East.

I'll be doing this with a mix of foam, wonderflex, and some pieces in Apoxie sculpt and, of course, the fabric. So here's what I've done already.

Headpiece was sculpted in Apoxie sculpt, sanded down, and attached to a band of Wonderflex.

I've layered up and created some of the armor out of foam. Here's the shoulders (haven't gotten the second layer on yet):

Lots of work to do on that thus far.

In the meantime, I've been working on the sword. Because it's nearly as tall as the character, and I want to transport it, I've decided to make the hilt and the blade separately and use a nut and bolt to attach it ONLY when it's at a convention. Here's an image of the sword:

As you can see, that hilt is gonna be a pain in the butt. So I crafted it out of NSP Chavant on the actual piping I'm going to use for the hilt.

I then threw a few coats of Rebound 25 on it.

I sliced up the back, then created a two-part mothermold, then pulled a cast right onto the piping in Smoothon 300.

Some cleanup on him yet but I'll get to it! And I haven't been slacking on the rest of the sword. The blade was carved out of a block of pink foam:

Here's an image of how large the sword will be at the end:

That's a 36" yardstick. I threw a layer of fiberglass on the blade, then bondo.

With some smoothing of the bondo...

Still a lot left to do on this build, but PAX East is the beginning of April, so lots of things will happen soon!

 

[fevereon]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

subscribed!

Much luck on your project, would LOVE to go to pax!

 

[booksandcorsets]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

I'll probably be bringing her to Dragoncon this year too

 

[booksandcorsets]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

Here's a big pile of armor (all templates cut).

I've started covering some of the pieces with the wonderflex layers, which I'll be doing all throughout the build (and then coating with plastidip to seal the foam). Meredith's armor is a mix of different layers.

Meanwhile, sword and pommel are getting sanded down until smooth.

I'm finally happy with where the blade is, but the circular piece and the upper blade is going to be very difficult. I think I'm going to give up on getting it done in bondo, and will just sand it down further and finish it in apoxie sculpt to allow for finer detail.

 

[Groucher]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

That's looking pretty sweet so far, that sword looks like a pain!

 

[booksandcorsets]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

So I spent a lot of time on this project this weekend. First up, the sword.

Used Apoxie Sculpt to add the detail on the middle section. It's drying now and this week I'll smooth it out and then this will be ready to paint.

Now, the armor has been a bit of a pain, but I curved/cut/glued it up and then (in places) added Wonderflex and nails for detail. Then, three layers of paint (still not 100% happy with it, so I might go back for another pass). Added some layers of leather and details.

Photo spam! The front:

The back:

Looking into the elbow piece (I've connected the pauldron with a strap, so it will move with my arm):

How you'll actually see it:

Arms!

I'm not sure what you call the pieces she has on her waist...

Man, that looks like not all that much for as much time as it took. Here's one last picture.

 

[booksandcorsets]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

So the armor and skirt (minus some detail embroidery) is now done. Here's some beauty shots:

Now, some details. The pauldrons are detachable, and move up and down on a small hinge.

Here's looking down on the snap from the top. NOTE that the hash mark pattern ONLY appears where it's not visible; I sanded down any part where it's visible.

A piece of the armor that's not pictured is the forearm bracers. These are curved EVA foam, but I've additionally included two straps as shown in the reference photo. These straps are covers for elastic straps (that are glued down). Elastic is not visible:

The only pieces left to do on this costume:
*finish hand embroidery on the skirt
*airbrush pattern on shirt
*finish sleeves

And then, of course, there's the sword. I've been working on this but it's been a whole bunch of sand/bondo, sand/bondo, then some primer/sand/bondo. And repeat. I'm approaching the end, though!

 

[booksandcorsets]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

I guess not very many people are really interested in this build

Anyway, here's the sword. Painted, sealed, and wrapped the hilt in leather.

I poured some resin in the hilt to make it heavier to counterbalance the blade. This also helped to seal the threaded rod in place.

That rod screws into the main blade itself, where I have the nut, currently setting in Apoxie Sculpt to seal it in place.

Here's some beauty shots of the blade. I first painted a base coat of gold, then once that dried, taped it up and used white/red/burgandy on the airbrush to create the lyrium "flames."

This is the other side.

And a closeup of the base of the blade.

I'm going to wrap the hilt with some red and yellow ribbons and the blade is officially done.

 

[Nexus6]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

Well, I'm not a gamer, but I am hella-impressed with what you've accomplished. thumbsup

Looking forward to seeing some suited-up pix of the final project. :cool

 

[booksandcorsets]

Re: WIP: Dragon Age II Meredith Stannard

Hi all!

A few beauty shots from the photoshoot. When I get home I'll update again with the problems I had with the sword/hilt connector (and my solution, which is working wonderfully).

 

[booksandcorsets]

So I thought I'd share my solution to the Gigantic Sword. My goal was to make this sword more portable than it is in its finished, huge form (it's 5'6").

As seen in the photos above, I made the hilt and the sword separately, and sank a very long threaded rod into the plastic of the pommel while the resin was curing.

The problem that occurred, however, is that the bolt would work its way out of the bondo I set it in on the blade. My solution was to take very large washers and make a hockey puck-like piece out of metal, and use bondo as filling. Like this:

I also completely hollowed out the base of the sword, right down to the fiberglass:

Then I put in the puck, layered up with bondo and then placed the puck in, and then sealed the top with bondo. I had the rod in place until the bondo started to harden a bit and wasn't liquid, then removed it.

It held up REALLY well and served as a great way to transport giant weapons:

 

[apolifka]

Really cool build

 

[Hermes IPT]

was cool

 

[clancampbell]

Fabulous! The finished costume is amazingly authentic and comes together really well!

Would it be possible to make a sword from the foamy stuff, cover it in adhesive alluminum foil tape, then spray it transparent yellow? Just a thought.....

Rich

 

[booksandcorsets]

Thank you all!

@clancampbell:
I'm not interested in remaking the sword at this time (it's finished dammit! ha!), although your suggestion would work in theory if I (or you!) were. I do have the molds for the skull pommel if anyone wants a giant skull

I have been thinking of ways to cut down on the weight, as this is pretty heavy, and it's occurred to me to cast it into MoldMax and then into FlexFoamIt. However... that's both expensive and time consuming, and I may just roll with a heavy (giant) sword.

 

[TAZNITBR]

Good work your suit is beautiful and very charming. You did a great job!