The Mighty Thor by Thorssoli FINISHED PICS, P4!!

Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

This may be a dumb question, but putting a plexiglass case over it would keep it clean, would it affect the paint job at all? I'm loving this build!

Not a dumb question.

While the paint is still new, there are a lot of solvents and such that are still evaporating out of it. This is why the body shop tells you to wait a week or so before waxing your car after they put paint on it. You want the paint to be able to off-gas so it can be as hard as it's going to get. In my shop whenever I'm going to be spraying high-gloss automotive paints like this I usually rig up a plastic tent and water down the floor to keep the dust out. The whole arrangement includes a fan that slowly removes the air in the tent in order to help out the whole process.

After the curing is thoroughly done, putting the whole thing in a display case won't affect the paint at all.
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

LOL, you answered exactly what I thought I was asking. I was wondering how you kept the helmet clean after painting to let it cure. Good info and again, looks great!

Wes
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

Here's the first pass with the chrome:


It's not bad:


The ears though:


Those I'm really proud of:




Someone's going to ask what I used for the chrome. It's this stuff: LINK. It'll need a clearcoat in order to make it more durable, but that shouldn't be an issue.

Now I really need to get to work on the other parts of the armor.

Stay tuned...
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

a word of warning. only use water based clear with that stuff. Any solvent based clear will re-activate the lacquer and it will dull immediately! I prefer "Liquitex Acrylic Gloss medium/Varnish". It comes out ultra thick, but you can thin it with water to a consistency almost of 2k clear. That's where I like it. You can then put any solvent clear on top of that after it dries.
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

I've been traveling for the past week or so, but that doesn't mean I haven't been making progress while I was on the road. Admittedly, most of it amounted to shopping and waiting for the mail. Still, when I got back to the shop the other day, I was thrilled to find these beauties waiting for me:
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That's a raw cast Mjolnir kit from the RPF's very own JUSTINIAN. (You can read the build thread here: LINK) It's a gorgeous kit, so if you're thinking of getting one, hurry up and buy it now. The rest of the new stuff was the wide array of sample fabric swatches I picked up from fabric.com.

After looking at all of the swatches in a variety of lighting, here's my final fabric selections:
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From left to right: the lower leg wraps, the rear/main skirt, skirt front panel option A, skirt front panel option B, and the cape.

Last week I picked up a wet-look catsuit to modify into the base garment under all of the rest of the parts. I had the Lady Shawnon try it on. Sadly, I neglected to take any photos. I apologize for this clear failure on my part.

I've also got a bunch of leather carving tools I need to hurry up and learn how to use:
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So that's about to be a thing.

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Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

Looking awesome Shawn. Can't wait to see what you do with the hammers.
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

You mean to tell us that you've never done leather carving before:eek?? Wow, talkin' 'bout the learning curve...but, seeing what you've done in the past, I wouldn't be surprised that you'll pull it off in no time!
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

I have your MAKE book on molding and casting. LOVE IT. Still, reading this post is both a great refresher for the techniques and just plain fun. I always love seeing your work.

Cheers!

Ted.
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

So I picked up a zipper-front wet-look catsuit from Amazon (link) and handed it off to a seamstress friend of mine to remove the zipper and the sleeves. The plan is to make a frog closure for the one visible spot in the middle of the abdomen and then probably fit it with velcro at the top in order to keep it from being uncomfortable under the pressure of the chest armor. A few days after I gave it to her, she tells me that she decided to have her daughter try it on in order to see how it would look. Then she shows me the photos:


This poor kid. Then her little brother decided that the rubber toy hammer and the Viking helmet weren't enough to gauge the complete look. So they went ahead and made her a chestplate:


And finally, a cape:


Oh dear.

As it happens, this kid is a little skinnier than the woman who I'm building this to fit. So I figure it'll be just about perfect once all of the closures are added.

In other news, today I got started on the sculpt for the chest. Since I don't have a lifecast of my girlfriend's chest to work off of (note to self: lifecast girlfriend's chest) I've got to make do with an old duct tape dummy I pulled off of her a couple of years ago:


It's now covered in dust and was never a very good sculpting armature to begin with. Instead, I pulled out a copy of the chestplate from another old project:


Without all of the add-ons, the plain vacformed chest looks about like so:


Since I know it'll fit without any real modification, I went ahead and coated the inside of an untrimmed pull with release agent:


Then filled it with expanding urethane foam:


Once the foam had cured, I popped it out of the vacformed chest piece and started roughing out the new shape with a hand saw:


After an hour or so with the saw, body rasps, and sandpaper, I was pretty happy with the new shape:


Eyeballing it next to the duct-tape dummy, it looks like it ought to fit:


So I put a skim coat of Bondo over the whole thing and started smoothing it out. Here's about how it looks right now:


Now that I've started putting a shell over the top of the rough shape, it's only a matter of time before I've got the whole thing smoothed out. Somewhere along the way I'll be adding the collar ridges and extending the shoulders up an out in order to make a nice sturdy attachment point for the cape.

Stay tuned...
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

Damn it hurry up and finish this will ya!!! lol ;)

I'm going as fast as I can, but there's like eleventy-billion other things in the shop right now.

Looking awesome Shawn. Can't wait to see what you do with the hammers.

Soon. For now I'm trying to decide if the handles should look like wood or leather. More research is needed.

You mean to tell us that you've never done leather carving before:eek??

I know, right?! How have I lived so long without it?

I have your MAKE book on molding and casting. LOVE IT.

It's not just molding and casting, it's everything! EVERYTHING! Actually, I was trying to make it a good introductory book for all of this sort of thing. Essentially a springboard for folks looking to learn how to do the stuff I do without having to waste the first five or ten years on the expensive mistakes I made when I was starting out.

If you don't know what he's talking about, it's this book here: LINK.
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

Soon. For now I'm trying to decide if the handles should look like wood or leather. More research is needed.
I'm pretty sure it is supposed to be leather. At least that is what most people try to do. I painted mine brown, and then did a light blackwash with a sponge to give it some texture.
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

The thought of rasps, files, saw and sand paper near a chest made me shiver:D but, besides that, good work for sure...what's the brand of urethane expending foam you're using?
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

Made a bit more progress on the chest armor. I started by bulking up the collar area with a bit more insulation foam:


Then I skinned over that with more Bondo and added the ridges:


Here it is in red primer after a bit more filing and sanding:




In other news, I've made a bit more progress on the hammer. Two of them actually. I started by gluing the faces onto the heads and doing a bit of sanding:


Then they got a bit of spot putty to hide the seams and some scratches I'd made by getting overzealous with the sanding:


The metal parts were all painted with a basecoat of gunmetal color:




Then I gave the handles a coat of their base color as well:


Tomorrow I'll finish the faux leather effect on the handle and make a bit more progress on the metallic effect for the heads.

Stay tuned...
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

Beauty all around. That bust is looking spiffy as well as those hammers!
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

The hammers are fast approaching the finish line. Today I worked out the faux leather finish for the handles:




Then I masked off everything but the silver bits:


The silver I sprayed on was three different metallic shades that probably only indicate I put way too much thought into this:


So here's about how they look right now:


In other news, I sanded down the chest sculpt and added a whole mess of spot putty to cover a few remaining flaws:


Then it got a bit more sanding and a fresh coat of primer:


Satisfied that it was adequately smooth, I sprayed on my standard coat of lightish red gloss enamel:


Next up: molding the chest.
 
Re: Thorssoli Finally Decided to Start a Thor Costume

They look beautiful :cheers

- - - Updated - - -

Everything , Helmet , Hammer etc , etc ....
 
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