Imperius : Archangel of Valor (Diablo 3)
- Thread starter Fabricator Djinn
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Fabricator Djinn
Active Member
Thank you! I actually have made a lot of progress since this last post. My plan is to have it completed for Blizzcon in November.
I'm using a mixture of freehand and pep for my patterns, the in game model is pretty significantly different then the cinematic version so I have to freehand quite a bit.
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Fabricator Djinn
Active Member
I am planning to have this costume fully completed (minus the wings and upper crown.. dont have time) before Blizzcon this year! This thread is finally gonna be getting busy.
I started working on the Thigh armor a bit ago, and have gotten them nearly to completion.
This and some screen grabs from cutscenes were the references I used. These pieces were significantly thicker then any of the other armor plates on this suit, so I tried something new to get the thickness I wanted without excessive cost or weight - EVA foam!
I wanted the finish to be the same as the rest of the suit, so I decided to skin the foam with a thin 1mm layer of PVC instead of try to get the foam smooth. I glued a fat square down to the eVA foam mats and traced on design on the opposit side. I wanted my bevel to be built in so I didnt have to hand do it later, so I set my bandsaw to a 30 degree angle and cut the shapes out on the reverse side, cutting right through the PVC and leaving it intact on the face.
I didnt take any pictures of this process (woops), but after I cut the peices out, I used an old paint can and a heat gun to shape the two upper thigh pieces into a nice clean curve. The pvc warped a small amount when I flared out the top part (XPVC hates compound curves) but I was able to sand it down pretty smooth. It would be covered anyways so... who cares! I also ran a strip of 1MM PVC down the sides of it, were the foam was exposed due to the bandsaw. This left me with a pretty clean shaped PVC foam backed piece to work with!
Then goes the first layer, cut out of 1mm PVC and angled to make a nice seam in the middle. Covered up those warped areas nicely!
Made the top section out of two pieces of 3mm PVC, bevelled and angled to shape.
Mounted in place and the cleanup begins! I also added the little strip at the bottom that pokes out from the upper section, along with a strip of PVC that follows the edge. This section I'm not very happy with, but there wasnt much I could do since the beveling process from the bandsaw rendered my templates useless and I had to freehand the edge.
Filled in the upper section with bondo and sanded it to shape. The exposed foam is problematic, but I got it pretty smooth in the enxt step. I may end up coating it further to improve the finish though.
Using the same steps as above, I created two more slightly modified thigh plates for the lower section, and after a whole hell of a lot of filling, sanding, and cleanup work.. I hit them with filler primer and set them aside till the main painting phase.
Next up.. the dreaded war skirt
I started working on the Thigh armor a bit ago, and have gotten them nearly to completion.
This and some screen grabs from cutscenes were the references I used. These pieces were significantly thicker then any of the other armor plates on this suit, so I tried something new to get the thickness I wanted without excessive cost or weight - EVA foam!
I wanted the finish to be the same as the rest of the suit, so I decided to skin the foam with a thin 1mm layer of PVC instead of try to get the foam smooth. I glued a fat square down to the eVA foam mats and traced on design on the opposit side. I wanted my bevel to be built in so I didnt have to hand do it later, so I set my bandsaw to a 30 degree angle and cut the shapes out on the reverse side, cutting right through the PVC and leaving it intact on the face.
I didnt take any pictures of this process (woops), but after I cut the peices out, I used an old paint can and a heat gun to shape the two upper thigh pieces into a nice clean curve. The pvc warped a small amount when I flared out the top part (XPVC hates compound curves) but I was able to sand it down pretty smooth. It would be covered anyways so... who cares! I also ran a strip of 1MM PVC down the sides of it, were the foam was exposed due to the bandsaw. This left me with a pretty clean shaped PVC foam backed piece to work with!
Then goes the first layer, cut out of 1mm PVC and angled to make a nice seam in the middle. Covered up those warped areas nicely!
Made the top section out of two pieces of 3mm PVC, bevelled and angled to shape.
Mounted in place and the cleanup begins! I also added the little strip at the bottom that pokes out from the upper section, along with a strip of PVC that follows the edge. This section I'm not very happy with, but there wasnt much I could do since the beveling process from the bandsaw rendered my templates useless and I had to freehand the edge.
Filled in the upper section with bondo and sanded it to shape. The exposed foam is problematic, but I got it pretty smooth in the enxt step. I may end up coating it further to improve the finish though.
Using the same steps as above, I created two more slightly modified thigh plates for the lower section, and after a whole hell of a lot of filling, sanding, and cleanup work.. I hit them with filler primer and set them aside till the main painting phase.
Next up.. the dreaded war skirt
Fabricator Djinn
Active Member
Skirt Happens indeed!
Since there is some heavy disparity between the cinematic and ingame versions of this skirt, I ended up with a ******* child of both design wise. Using the enfolded texture, I opened up Illustrator for the first time and made a full sized template for the entire skirt. Having never used Illustrator for anything before (DRAWING IT BY HAND?! WHAT AM I A SADIST?) it turned out pretty rough, but worked real well as a template for the skirt pieces. I do believe I will be using Illustrator to design things as often as I can now.
After these were done, I printed them out and transferred the shapes to the Vinyl I chose for this project. I wanted to use leather for this but.. it ended up not being in the budget so im trying something new for me.
I wanted the detailing on the outer edge of the skirt to be 3d, aswell as both flexible and lightweight - Since I wasnt using leather this left me with craft foam. I dont have much experience with craft foam, and my initial attempts at cutting it out were disastrous. I ended up buying a hot knife (the low heat wood burner xacto type) which cut through the foam like a lightsaber, leaving as clean of an edge as I could have hoped to get from something as flimsy as craft foam. I was cutting at an angle to get a heavy bevel on the edge for more detail, and this is what I came up with.
Just keep cutting. This was exactly as tedious as you imagine.
Layered foam to create the levels of detail I wanted. After hours of cutting...
Bases done!
Next I'll be sealing the foam to try and smooth it out a bit more, and covering all of the foam in gold rub n buff (KILL ME)
Steady progress!
Since there is some heavy disparity between the cinematic and ingame versions of this skirt, I ended up with a ******* child of both design wise. Using the enfolded texture, I opened up Illustrator for the first time and made a full sized template for the entire skirt. Having never used Illustrator for anything before (DRAWING IT BY HAND?! WHAT AM I A SADIST?) it turned out pretty rough, but worked real well as a template for the skirt pieces. I do believe I will be using Illustrator to design things as often as I can now.
After these were done, I printed them out and transferred the shapes to the Vinyl I chose for this project. I wanted to use leather for this but.. it ended up not being in the budget so im trying something new for me.
I wanted the detailing on the outer edge of the skirt to be 3d, aswell as both flexible and lightweight - Since I wasnt using leather this left me with craft foam. I dont have much experience with craft foam, and my initial attempts at cutting it out were disastrous. I ended up buying a hot knife (the low heat wood burner xacto type) which cut through the foam like a lightsaber, leaving as clean of an edge as I could have hoped to get from something as flimsy as craft foam. I was cutting at an angle to get a heavy bevel on the edge for more detail, and this is what I came up with.
Just keep cutting. This was exactly as tedious as you imagine.
Layered foam to create the levels of detail I wanted. After hours of cutting...
Bases done!
Next I'll be sealing the foam to try and smooth it out a bit more, and covering all of the foam in gold rub n buff (KILL ME)
Steady progress!
Fabricator Djinn
Active Member
More frantic progress as Blizzcon looms ever closer... Gonna be pretty infrequent with posts until the con due to PANIC.
Had to figure out a way to cleanly do the inner detailing while keeping it flexible. I really didnt want to use foam so I ended up, after a number of failed tests, using gold puffy paint. The normal method of putting on puffy paint was pretty messy and uneven, so I instead stencilled out my design, transferred it to 1mm sintra, glued it down to the vinyl and puffy painted into the stencil. To further even it out, I levelled off the top with a bondo spreader so it was marginally smooth. This ended up working pretty well, and I will likely be using it for the rest of this armors filigree.
Two down
Pretty tedious.
After the detail was done, I sealed the foam with Plastidip and sanded it flush as best I could. This is honestly the first time I've used foam for anything external and I failed pretty hard on the learning curve. The surface fought me every step of the way and I had multiple cracks and gaps that needed careful filling after the fact. After much struggle using filler primer and more plastidip.. I got it to a serviceable state.
The take away from this is.. Spray heavy, spray very close to the piece, make ******** sure you wear gloves and dont touch the foam with your dirty greasy fingers.
After a day or two of fixing everything I could, I finally got it golden.
After gluing everything down with barge and superglue, it was ready for weathering! I haven't gotten to it yet as I started on another part, but the skirt is almost done!
Fancy!
Had to figure out a way to cleanly do the inner detailing while keeping it flexible. I really didnt want to use foam so I ended up, after a number of failed tests, using gold puffy paint. The normal method of putting on puffy paint was pretty messy and uneven, so I instead stencilled out my design, transferred it to 1mm sintra, glued it down to the vinyl and puffy painted into the stencil. To further even it out, I levelled off the top with a bondo spreader so it was marginally smooth. This ended up working pretty well, and I will likely be using it for the rest of this armors filigree.
Two down
Pretty tedious.
After the detail was done, I sealed the foam with Plastidip and sanded it flush as best I could. This is honestly the first time I've used foam for anything external and I failed pretty hard on the learning curve. The surface fought me every step of the way and I had multiple cracks and gaps that needed careful filling after the fact. After much struggle using filler primer and more plastidip.. I got it to a serviceable state.
The take away from this is.. Spray heavy, spray very close to the piece, make ******** sure you wear gloves and dont touch the foam with your dirty greasy fingers.
After a day or two of fixing everything I could, I finally got it golden.
After gluing everything down with barge and superglue, it was ready for weathering! I haven't gotten to it yet as I started on another part, but the skirt is almost done!
Fancy!
steekbaard66
Active Member
Looking foward to see more!
Fabricator Djinn
Active Member
I havent had time to do write ups on my rapid progress because the debut is TWO WEEKS AWAY KILL ME
I'll update this thread after Blizzcon, but it is happening! Head over to one of my other pages (FB/Insta) for more progress pics otherwise I'll fill out this thread when everything calms down.
Excited!
Zalkegeroth
New Member
Hey great work and congrats at 3rd at blizzcon! 
always thought about doing imp, but have not had the time.
always thought about doing imp, but have not had the time.
Fabricator Djinn
Active Member
Hey guys,
Thanks for the support! The progress log will continue as I get my wind back from this weekend but.. here are some finished shots of the suit! I will be adding chainmail and wing mounts later on down the road, but with what I had I managed to place 3rd in the costume contest this year at Blizzcon. Hope you like the VERY long time coming finished product.
Thanks for the support! The progress log will continue as I get my wind back from this weekend but.. here are some finished shots of the suit! I will be adding chainmail and wing mounts later on down the road, but with what I had I managed to place 3rd in the costume contest this year at Blizzcon. Hope you like the VERY long time coming finished product.
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