Lady Sif, Gir and Doctor Doom - Ambitious Noob

[HammyDribbler]

Hi,having really enjoyed the MCM Comicon in Manchester this year (our first) dressed in simple Gravity Falls costumes, I have decided to drag my family all the way down south to the London Super Comicon 2015. Hotel booked, weekend tickets purchased.

Since Manchester I have watched a lot of videos and decided to have a crack at.... well everything really. I have got myself a 10' by 9' shed and kitted it out with power tools, files, shelving, desks, heating, electric etc. and we have made a decision on what we are going to wear.

I plan on being Doctor Doom (my absolute favourite Marvel baddie)
My wife will Lady Sif (as this doesn't require a skin tight leotard)
My son (7) will be Gir from Invader Zim in half robot half dog form.

So to start I decided to have a crack at Pepping inspired by you guys on The RPF. Doctor Doom is not a good starter pep, but I stuck with it (many times thanks to the bloody hot glue) and eventually ended up with a full head that to be honest looked like Doctor Doom post stroke.



Next I had a crack at resin coating my pep using epoxy and fibreglass matting.



Then I found that the helmet didn't fit any more so I Dremelled it in half and built a separate back out of EVA foam using Evil Ted Smiths video.



Then after failing with magnets I used Velcro to attach the foam helmet bit to the resined pep mask.



Then I went to Halfords and grabbed some car filler (we don't have Bondo in the UK) and slapped it on liberally to hide all the hot glue lumps, crap pepping and generally lopsidedness. I then sanded that with a rasp to get it to this and then got sidetracked by Lady Sif....

 

[George]

I couldn't get it to work,but perhaps you can:

http://www.4shared.com/file/uS7X4fgo/Doom_Helmet.html

I hope this will help you.

 

[HammyDribbler]

OK, so where was I... oh yeah Lady Sif.

Doctor Doom is on the back burner for the moment because I have to do all the sanding in my shed and it's cold

Fear not, I have plenty to keep me busy with my wife's Lady Sif costume. Here is the progress so far.

I got some of that card backed foam board from Hobbycraft and decided it would make a good start for Lady Sif's shield.



I then got loads of the 2 or 3 mm craft foam and decided to use that for the layering and detail (her shield has these wierd layers at the bottom).



The ridge bit is made from folded card with modelling clay underneath and craft foam detailing. Next I decided to get some of this Worbla stuff everyone is raving about.



That's my progress thus far. As you can tell I'm a do-er who likes to just get stuck in. I'm learning loads as I go along and trying many new things (several that get scraped).

Nearly forgot to mention the weird skirt thing made by my wife (under some duress )

 

[HammyDribbler]

I think that is the one I used George. Many thanks.

 

[George]

I like the details on the shield :thumbsupKeep posting photos!

 

[HammyDribbler]

Last night I made the metal overlay part for the bracers from good old Worbla. This will sit over a cuff etc. made from Pleather (the same as I used for the skirt panels).



I also made a start on Gir (started stitching an arm and the eyes for the dog overlay suit).



Party on peeps!

 

[KJC]

That shield is looking good.

 

[HammyDribbler]

OK, minor update on the shield and bracers.

I purchased loads of rattle cans to test colours etc. They are Plasti Kote which I thought would be like this Plasti Dip that you all talk about. Not sure it is though. I also got some weird fluff up paint to apply the detailing to Sif's bracers and Gusso for priming the Worbla.



4 coats of Gusso, loads of sanding (probably not enough by the look of things) and the first coat of paint applied to the shield.



I must remind you all that I don't know what I'm doing, so any tips or tricks for next time would be graciously received. Especially anything to help with less sanding

Oh and Gir!

 

[HammyDribbler]

I am happy to announce my first ever cosplay prop build from scratch is now complete. Lady Sif's Shield!



Finished Gessoing (only just realised it is Gesso not Gusso) the bracers ready for sanding and painting after Hobbit 5 Armies tomorrow and I'm about to get kinky with The Wife, some Foil and loads of Gaffer Tape to start on the armour build.

For Gir's head I have applied the 3mm craft foam to the outside of the cut up (and sanded) bucket to get a smoother finish. I'm going to have to do some filling as I couldn't get craft foam bigger than A3 so I had to cut a few bit together to wrap around but on the plus side....

I have order some Plasti Dip (mainly because every seems to rave about it). I plan to fill, sand and then Plasti Dip the whole thing to give it an even plastic looking texture and colour.

Anyhow, I have boobs to sculpt to ttfn peeps.

Ham out.

 

[George]

Shield looks great with the detail and all :thumbsup (too much information on you and the misses though :facepalm)
Good luck crafting!

 

[HammyDribbler]

Bracer are now complete and I have started working on the body armour for Sif. Tomorrow I will be letting my wife know I need to cast on her.



Gir is taking a back seat for a few days while I await my Plasti Dip and I am heading to Leeds Market tomorrow to get some fabric to start on my Dr Doom. Going to try and do the Legendary Scale Model version of Doom with all the curls etc. but I am may have to compromise due to not really knowing how :wacko

 

[HammyDribbler]

Tonight's update...

Been working on all the Pleather parts with the aid of my wife. We now have a full under-jerkin-jacket thingy featuring arm straps (to attach the shoulder pauldrons) and a raised neck (which was an absolutely nightmare).

I have also begun work on Sif's sword.



I had to use my Dremel to do all the cutting out as I don't have a band / table saw or similar. Although noisy and a tad rough, it seems to have worked out fine. Leaving the 2 pieces clamped together while the glue dries and tomorrow I plan on starting the sanding and shaping of the blade angles.

Size-wise it is about 950mm long, 92mm wide (at the widest point) and 12mm thick (2 x 6mm parts). Not sure how this compares to the actual size but I have been using my wife as a scale an she isn't as tall as Sif.

Ham out!

 

[HammyDribbler]

Evening all,

Today has been a very rewarding day where I have tried lots of new things (to varying levels of success).

Firstly I made the under-bracers for Sif's arms to go under the Worbla bracers I have already constructed. These were made from the same Pleather used for the skirt and jerkin and all went well up until I decided I wanted to fasten them with poppers (press studs). They were a lot fiddlier than I gave them credit for and if you messed one up you had to start the whole under-bracer from scratch as it ruined the Pleather. I ruined 2 like this.

Then with my wooden sword now stuck together I decided to shape the blade. I started by using my mouse sander but that soon became monotonous so I dug out my rasps and tore in to it.



Very happy with the results so far and has been a very tactile build. Filling, loads of sanding, some detailing, painting and handle making to go...

Ham out!

 

[HammyDribbler]

Not sure if anyone reads this but... I'm going to keep farting it out there

So... it is all about the sword. Over the last few days I have filled some mistakes, chiseled out the detail areas (with the aid of my Dremel), done more filling. Loads of sanding until I got to this stage.



Then I had to work out how to do all the detailing. Luckily @coregeeknet has loads of images from his build online at www.coregeek.net so (after purchasing a printer) I was able to print out an image of the detailing at the correct scale. I then cut all the detailing out on card then craft foam (2mm).



I'm not very good with a chisel (in fairness I haven't used on for 26 years) so to even out the bottom of my chiseled areas and provide a flat base for sticking the detailing to I cut card stock and used a small amount of hot glue to stick it in place. I then super glued the craft foam detailing to the card stock. I also tried using filler to fill out the handle shape but it didn't set hard (I think I used it too thickly) so I carved all of the filler back out and used hot glue and 2mm craft foam instead. It will be pleathered over so doesn't need to be perfect.

And here we are...



Next I will add Worbla to build up the hilt detail at either end and in the middle. Then it is sealing time and I can finally get some primer on it to see how it looks / where I need to add more filler.

Fun fun fun, Ham out!

 

[George]

Curious to see the end result fingers crossed that your hard work will pay off

 

[HammyDribbler]

Top tip, of you are going to be using Worbla, make sure you do all your Worbla stuff before adding craft foam. As you can see from the below photo the craft foam has changed colour. This is due to the heat gun causing the old yellow detailing to shrink meaning it had to be redone (after all the new Worbla work).

So, I did the hilt using Worbla and paint pens. Took a fair while but happy with the results. A bit of Gesso tonight to smooth the Worbla ends and ready for the "now you can see all your errors" primer layer.

The large areas of purple are solely filler as they will be covered with the same red pleather used for the skirt etc.

 

[HammyDribbler]

Lots of filler, lots of primer, lots of sanding... repeat. Just applied the first coat of metallic and the craft foam where i hit it while sanding looks poop so I may need to redo them a third time argggghhhh!!!!



But on a high note.... Gir is coming along nicely.



The head is 4 parts. 2 halves of a large bowl with a hole cut out for the neck, the main bucket part (single piece) and the lid (foam board). The plan is to have it so that the whole bucket part lifts off and the 2 bowl halves separate. Think I will use some form of pegs but any ideas would be greatly received. The 2 cups will house LEDs and hopefully some form of switching to go from blue to red on command.

Boom! Ham out.

 

[George]

"Dust yourself off and try again" - Aaliyah
Ham-mertime! keep going at it,Ham

 

[HammyDribbler]

Sword has been stripped back to wood (took a lot of sanding etc.) and all detailing from the blade has been removed. I purchased a router setup for my Dremel and have just routed all the recesses and due to the blade even looking like wood grain when covered in primer and metallic paint I have just finished covering the whole thing in a very thin coat of wood filler. Looks pretty **** at the moment but after a lot of sanding I am confident that this wi have been a sound plan.

Also I only have 8 ish weeks and I need to do a full Dr Doom. Finish Gir's head and do the armour parts of my wife's outfit in worbla. Oh and the Nova costume.

How the hell do people overcome their inner perfectionist and get anything finished?

Ham out.

 

[HammyDribbler]

I'm happy to announce I have overcome my inner perfectionist and managed to get the sword finished (I will likely dust it with silver on the blade prior to the con).



I pretty much took it back to just the wood, re-applied filler, re-sanded (a lot) still had the same "it looks like wood" issue when I painted it, sanded, repainted, was happy with it, applied lacquer which ruined the metallic paint and then decided it was as good as it will get prior to some final silver later so I applied the finishing pleather etc.

To keep myself sane I have also been working on Gir with help from my wife.



Need to rectify a bit of a painting issue (sprayed too hard on 1 side so need to sand out some runs) and there are a few finishing touches to add (eye lenses, some form of material to obscure my sons face while still allowing him to see and the small ball on the head spike) but 90% done which is good.

Anyhow, leaving the country for a few days for work so catch up with you all (George ) soon.

Ham out!