Skyrim: Amulet of Mara WIP

[MrGreene]

Here's another little item I've wanted to make ever since I first saw it: the warm and fuzzy let's-get-hitched amulet from the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

(Restoration spells cost 10% less to cast, and NPCs suddenly find you irresistible.)

As usual, I've started digitally by ripping some reference elements from the game and re-modeling them. Unfortunately, the models in Skyrim are so low-poly that they're basically only useful for rough scale and element placement, so I ended up using just the raw textures and modeling around them. Luckily they're detailed enough to work with:



So with the perfect source material, I started modeling the main amulet. After some fiddling around, I ended up with this (conveniently colored to estimate the look of the final piece):


The final piece will be cold-cast bronze, strategically textured and polished to add a lot of depth to the piece.
Now, when modeling for a 3D print, the tricky part is figuring out the best way to orient the pieces to maximize detail. In this case, I printed the amulet vertically at .1mm resolution, which took about 8 hours, but preserved every bit of surface detail:


The final amulet is about 3.5 inches in diameter, as it's pretty hefty in-game. It fits perfectly in my hand.
Of course, it still needs a lot of cleaning up and polishing before it's ready for molding and casting, so I'll be cleaning it up over the next few days.
I'll also be modeling the smaller disks and ornamental pieces for the rest of the necklace.

More to come soon!

 

[GhostMinion]

Sweet. Keep it up! :thumbsup

 

[MrGreene]

I spent a day going over the amulet with needle files and various grits of sandpaper (down to 400), then put on a few coats of filler primer and shined it up by wet-sanding down to 1000 grit. This left it extremely shiny. Too shiny for my taste, so I hit it with some Rustoleum multicolored texturizer:

As you can see, this gave the entire piece a gross sand-cast look, but since all I cared about was the texture, it worked fine. I just had to go back over it and sand down all the high edges back to a smooth, weathered finish (and propmaking is 90% sanding anyway).
A coat of flat black lets you see the texture as it's going to look in the final product, and I couldn't be happier with the results.


Perfect sand-cast/polished bronze texture!
Now I just have to let this slow-ass paint cure for the full 48 hours before I can do one final pass of touch-ups and start molding.

 

[justanuthercap]

Very nice, good call on the texturizer. Looks perfect.

 

[ItzBren]

The thing looks awesome! I'm more of a Talos kinda guy but you know...mara is okay... :cool. What did you use to Rip the models?

 

[MrGreene]

What did you use to Rip the models?

There are a few tools available and dozens of ways to do it, but I used a utility for Fallout 3 to rip the textures, since they use the same file system.

I realized I haven't updated this thread as I've been going, so let's fix that!
I've molded the master and cold-cast the main body of the amulet in bronze, which comes out looking like chocolate, but polishes to a brilliant finish:


The gem and setting are both cast as a solid piece of tinted smooth-cast 325, so they come out translucent. I hand-painted liquid gold leafing onto the setting to define it.


I'm modeling the smaller disks, gem beads, and chain clasps now, so the final product will look exactly as it does in-game.

 

[nick daring]

Fantastic work. I really need to play with some 3d printing soon.

 

[Vrogy]

This is very excellent use of 3d printing, the use of textured spray and a slight sanding to emulate a fine, worn casting is a great touch. What printer & process are you using?

 

[godzilla6337]

How may I download this? I'm trying to recreate my skyrim oc and I'm looking for Dragonscale Armor, DBone Warhammer, and The Amulet of Mara