Hey guys, I'm back. And I've got a new project, or rather I should say a project I've wanted to do I'm finally working on. I'm a bit into it actually but I didn't want to post anything about it until I was sure I was going to seriously work on it. After making most of the fingers and buying a square foot sheet at 1/8in thick of solid copper I'm pretty sure I'm going through with it all the way
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On to the nitty gritty. I'm making Wraithguard from Elder Scrolls III Morrowind (never coulda guessed that eh?). I never actually got around to it because I originally wanted to make it from polycarbonate like most my other things and, long story short, I had no feesible way of forming the plastic without compromising the plastic both structurally and visually even if the forming went perfectly.
Here's an album on my photobucket containing some renders of my 3d model of it that has been modified and sized to fit my arm and hand. There's also a picture of what Wraithguard looks like directly from ingame Morrowind. The white lines are outlines of details. I'm trying to decipher the surface topology since the original texture is very blurry and incoherent.
http://s1151.beta.photobucket.com/user/MosesofEgypt/library/Wraithguard/Refs and Blueprints
After pondering for a while I came to the conclusion that I might be able to make it from solid copper instead. It won't require any sort of paint to get the look I want, it will be the most durable and badass prop I have ever made, I done have to worry about 4 days of necessary prep work for ONE SINGLE HEAT FORMING, and I will finally be getting into metalworking like I've wanted to for a while.
This is the point where you can follow along in my photobucket album. Everything in it is in order from newest at the top to oldest at the bottom.
Progress pictures by MosesofEgypt - Photobucket
My dad already works with copper and was happy to lend me his blowtorch so I could experiment and test. He gave me some scrap pieces of 1/8in copper plate which I proceeded to experiment on with his propane blowtorch, heavy antique forming hammer, and my small anvil. I was able to put some nice sharp bends in the piece so he stepped me up to 1/4in thick at my request.
I could barely do anything to this sucker. It was too damn hard and the propane fueled blowtorch was not turning it into taffy like I had hoped. My dad told me that MAPP gas might get hot enough to bend 1/4in so I took a look into it. It gets about 3x hotter than propane and will actually melt copper if held to it long enough.
Went out, bought a mapp gas blowtorch with a spare canister, tried it out, and was able to put a nice 90 degree bend in the 1/4in piece. This was done using only the hammer on a 15 pound anvil which, at the time wasn't mounted to anything so it would bounce around.
I also had the idea that I might be able to make a wooden mold to form the copper over for the larger complex surface parts like the back of the hand and back of the forearm. Since it's actually quite difficult to ignite solid wood without a large active flame this is possible to an extent. I was able to heat the copper up with the PROPANE torch and form it over a piece of wood with no issues other than a little discoloring of the wood. The mapp gas torch however, got the copper hot enough to instantanously set the wood aflame in the half a second the copper was touching. It managed to burn a visible crater in the wood.
That idea is out the window and as of right now the only viable replacement idea I have is to make a mold from pourable concrete >_>.
So after all this testing I was ready to start making parts. I took the largest scrap pieces of copper my dad gave me, HEAVILY zip tied my anvil to the railing of the outside deck, and started drawing the 1/8in pieces out to about 1/16in, making them a fair bit larger as well. All the finger armor pieces will be 1/16in thick wheras the handplate, forearm side wings, and forearm underside are all 1/8in thick and the spike bridge over the knuckles as well as the largest piece on the back of the forearm are 1/4in thick.
After I had sheets the right thickness I needed I started figuring out measurements, outlining the parts on the sheets, cut them out with my dremel, and started bending them into shape.
The middle fingertip is pretty much done, I've just gotta fold it up. The pinky tip is needing to be cut out and folded so it's not as close. I took that 1/4in thick piece of copper I was testing with and flattened it out to about 1/16in like the rest of the pieces. It will be the thumb tip. The bar in which part of it's been drawn out will be the middle and lower sections of the pinky as well as the thumbs lower piece. The first fingertip piece I made didn't turn out that great and I had to modify it to get the current thumb tip design I'm using. Unfortunately, the constant folding/unfolding/cutting/refolding/unfolding has caused the first thumb tip I made to start to break down and become scrap. I've got enough copper to finish the fingers as long as I don't eff up again. Wish me luck lol.
