Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy) Complete

[Iggy]

A local comicon is coming up here in VA and I will be attending. 2 Weeks to deadline. Lets get this started!
Date Start Saturday June 24th. Comicon Date July 9th!

For this, the wife and I wanted to go BIG!

We are creating a Storm Atronach.
We are also working on a Fire Atronach as well as J'Zargo, but this thread will be mostly dedicated to the Storm.

IMG_1329 by Iggy, on Flickr

First we needed to figure out how to make it huge, but still have mobility. We decided on foam.
A mixture of 1" urethane foam and EVA foam is used. The 1" foam is really flexible and cushions well for this type of costume.

We glued all of the foam together with barge cement and used some hot melt glue on parts of the body to keep the form.

We started with individual pieces. There are no patterns. Everything you see here is made from scratch and eyeballed.

Legs (we scrapped the pex piping...it didn't work out)

IMG_20170622_194637484 by Iggy, on Flickr

Ended up changing them to this

This is a boulder. The foam was cur and shaped into a sort of sphere, then every notch you see is a scissor cut to get a nice rocky texture. (This was a pain and I have many blisters from it).

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Here is the head shaping up nicely:

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A bit more and we have a foot with the head. We made sure to scale the foot to fit over an 18" stilt attached to a base plate and eva foam for the sole.

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Soon enough we had a whole lot of pieces.
It took 2-3 Walmarts and a Hobby lobby to get this much foam in person

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Scale test

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IMG_20170624_213416168 by Iggy, on Flickr

And planning

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Next up painting.

 

[Iggy]

Re: Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy)

For paint, we went to Lowes and purchased a gallon of dark grey latex based exterior house paint, a quart of light grey exterior, and a quart of white exterior house paint. We used 100% of the dark grey base to coat the suit. We still have some white and light grey left, but the dark is gone.

We attempted rolling it on for the larger flat areas, but the smaller nooks and crannies we had to get out little foam brushes to push in the paint.
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Lots of base layer later
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A test of light grey
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The wife is awesome. She painted almost everything for the tonal look. Gives an great granite texture and feel.
IMG_20170627_131614478 by Iggy, on Flickr

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IMG_20170627_133142772 by Iggy, on Flickr
IMG_20170629_193701119_HDR by Iggy, on Flickr

Installed mesh eyes in the helmet
Untitled by Iggy, on Flickr

 

[Iggy]

Re: Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy)

Next I wanted working hands with fingers that move. Without going too complicated and making this thing unbearably heavy I used flexible conduit tubing. The same stuff many people use for their Tie Pilot hoses.

I started the skeleton structure for the hands using small crutches and cut them down. I then added PVC couplings to the ends so I could stick my hand through. 3" was the PVC coupling size I used. To attach, I drilled through and riveted through.

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Planning out the fingers
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I braided string for the tendons in the fingers
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Made a base out of EVA foam and pushed the fingers through. Then I cut notches in each joint to let it bend.
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I then glued a set of gloves inside to the hand and taped/glued the strings to each glove finger. The thumb of the atronach goes to the pinky and the other three go to the other three fingers. The glove thumb is not used because there isn't much movement inside the hand on that.

IMG_20170701_194642583_HDR by Iggy, on Flickr

IMG_20170701_194652391_HDR by Iggy, on Flickr

 

[Iggy]

Re: Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy)

Next the body structure was formed out of Chicken wire to keep things light. I attempted a PVC frame, but it was way too heavy.
I stabbed myself quite a few times...even with welding gloves on

IMG_20170702_153216496 by Iggy, on Flickr

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A test look into arm sizing

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The legs still look bare in the center, so I started working on the shackles.
I used a hot knife and cut all of the symbols out. In ESO / Skyrim, they spell out "Bound In Servitude"

IMG_20170702_164603175 by Iggy, on Flickr

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Poly stuffing was added in between the rocks to make it look like clouds.

IMG_20170702_225313922 by Iggy, on Flickr

Video testing lights and sound

Test fitting (without legs...)

IMG_20170703_130643825 by Iggy, on Flickr

IMG_20170703_130650906 by Iggy, on Flickr

Added velcro to the feet so I could remove to get to the stilt if necessary.

IMG_20170703_105832863 by Iggy, on Flickr

Full picture! Almost there.

IMG_20170703_154721672 by Iggy, on Flickr

IMG_20170703_154741695 by Iggy, on Flickr

Walking test in full suit

After testing walking and scale, I painted up the little scroll work on the body. We mixed some blue into the white paint to offset the color a bit.

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That's it for now. Con is THIS WEEKEND.

Still to do:
Add lights and sound, airbrush all of the clouds, make arm shackles, paint shackles.

 

[dgdve]

Re: Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy)

Always impressive brother!!

 

[Iggy]

Re: Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy)

Always impressive brother!!

Thanks! Long time no chat. Hope you are doing well.


Just finished cutting the upper shackles and coating in some silicone to even stuff out. Will be painting tomorrow.
My wife just airbrushed the clouds and they look great!

 

[dgdve]

Re: Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy)

Yep yep doing well, thx

____

You're really doing it BIG this time. I think its going to turn out awesome!

 

[gothic]

Re: Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy)

wow looks great, very organic

 

[Iggy]

Re: Storm Atronach - Elder Scrolls Online (Pic Heavy)

BOOM!

bringthestorm by Iggy, on Flickr

This was from VA Comicon.

And the Atronach got Judges Pick award!
Untitled by Iggy, on Flickr

Untitled by Iggy, on Flickr
Costumecompetition by Iggy, on Flickr



3 days before the con, we decided we needed a mage, so we built J'Zargo with a working jaw, swinging tail, and all airbrushed to boot! My wife wore J'Zargo and it was a big hit! These were pre-airbrushing the hands and tail for day two.

Untitled by Iggy, on Flickr

Untitled by Iggy, on Flickr

 

[Iggy]

They posted a video of the contest!

 

[dgdve]

Huge congrats on winning that HUGE trophy!! Great build and build log!

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and post some pictures of your amazing wife and her costume too loving that mage (best follower in game IMHO)

 

[Phantom017]

Storm ASTRONAUT..... haha.. Well.... at least we know what it is

 

[Iggy]

Storm ASTRONAUT..... haha.. Well.... at least we know what it is

Yeah...apparently they couldn't spell. :facepalm When announcing my wife they stated Kujit...not Khajiit. :wacko

Taking that into consideration, I am going to create a little card to go with my costumes from now on (especially if it is hard to hear out of my mask / helmet)