Saber from Fate/Stay Night- fiberglass armor

[SailorEarth]

I've decided to finally try my hand at armor and have picked Saber to be my test subject. I'm using a tutorial from Digital Emerald as my guide for my first foray into fiberglass but I'm open to any suggestions anyone may have as I move along with this project so please jump in if there's a better way to go about it.


Here are a couple reference pictures for the legs, I decided to start with them. Not the clearest in the world so when I have a chance to take my own pics I'll replace these. As you can see there are no visible means of getting into the greaves. They do have seams up the sides so making them in two pieces could be a possibility but I'd have to figure out a secure way to hold them together. I've heard of a technique called clamshelling also, but I believe that was in reference to vacuform plastic. Fiberglass may be too rigid for that.

Here's the plaster cast of my leg.

Support structure.

I fiberglassed my support structure to the inside of my casting.

I fiberglassed the outside, used a Dremel to smooth down the sharp spots and now I'm ready to start sculpting the greaves. I'm hoping to make some headway on that this weekend.

 

[SailorEarth]

I didn't get as much time to work on this as I would have liked, but I worked on it long enough to determine that sculpting with this stuff is difficult. I've never worked with plasteline before so I thought I'd put a base layer on to get a feel for it. I had it in a pyrex bowl on a candle warmer and used a clay tool to scoop it up and spread it on my casting. I smoothed it out a little with a heat gun and my thumbs. Probably not the best way to go about it. I may end up trying klean clay or WED instead but for now I'll try to finish this piece with the plasteline :confused

 

[Garuda]

really can`t wait for the progress!