Judge Dread , Judge Death armour build

CatfoodRob

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RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
Im glad to see a fair bit of Judge Dredd stuff appearing here recently , it makes a change from foam Iron men :rolleyes:lol

So to sort of "join the two" Im starting a thread to show my attempts at Dredd armour in FOAM !!

Ive never attempted foam before , but 500 Iron Men cant be wrong :)

I purchased 10 mm thick camping mats from U.K. shop "go outdoors" ,also craft knifes and superglue from the pound shop.

Heres my Judge Dredd shoulder armour , but this thread is really about my Judge Death attempts.

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Judge Death is Dreads arch enemy in the comics. Like most comic book characters, he has been drawn by many artists over the years , I decided upon a version of Death drawn by Carlos Ezquerra as he invented Dredd all those decades ago.

Here is Judge Death for those who dont know what he looks like
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For his Pteradactyle shoulder piece I started with more foam

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Building foam up and using acrylic sealant (pound shop again) for raised details

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Here it is taking shape, the whole thing has been coated in neat PVA glue, and the yellow is plastidip .

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Final look , he (the pteradactyle) looks apropriately cute and comic book like I think . Hes painted with Games Workshop goblin green paint by brush.

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Next I wanted to do Deaths chest badge .
I cut a piece of 1mm foam, for size refrence I used a Dredd badge

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The Death name I cut out from more 1mm foam , took a few attempts to get the letters right .

I used Krea brand clay to make some teeth on the wholely foam structure , but the foam was too soft and the clay too brittle.
Next I traced my badge onto a piece of sign matterial , the foam centered sort of stuff , not sure what its called (foamex ? sintra ?) and made a new backing for it . I then "sculpted" new teeth and a skull top onto the foamex, leaving room in the middle for my foam Death name part (theres no way I was doing those damn letters again !! )

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And the final piece waiting for teh clay to dry :lol

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Outstanding, what a great build. The Dredd pads are amazing and look just like they've been lifted from the comic book. Are those eagle claws sculpted on a wire structure or something similar? Can't wait to see this progress...and yeah you're right it is great to see something stand out amongst all the Ironman stuff ;)
 
This is amazing stuff, nice to see someone else giving Judge Death some love!

I prefer the pointier teeth on your badge to the more rounded ones I went with on mine:

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I take it the helmet is next?!
 
Death badge finished, the name is all foam , the skull parts are clay and it has a backing of foamex sign matterial .
This combination makes it far too fragile for wearing on a costume , but is fine for the display table.
It was painted black all over and drybrushed , two shades of silver for the name , and two shades of white for the skull/teeth.

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and to show how thick it is , a side shot .

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Next project is the left arm armour with the bones , and then the helmet , which will be a fiberglass build from scratch , not a modded judge helmet . The reason is that Deaths helmet has no mohican , and is a strange shape.
 
Outstanding, what a great build. The Dredd pads are amazing and look just like they've been lifted from the comic book. Are those eagle claws sculpted on a wire structure or something similar? Can't wait to see this progress...and yeah you're right it is great to see something stand out amongst all the Ironman stuff ;)

The claws were a problem , then in the loft (where Im working during these cold months) I spied some of the plastic coated wire that is used to secure toy figures into the blisterpacks . (I collect Dr Who figures)
I simply bent some of this wire into shape and covered it with two part epoxy filler . The finger marks and unevenness makes it look o.k. in my opinion . The leg was left long and simply pressed into the foam body , I driped superglue onto the wire before insertion. It holds fine , and once painted I thought it looked apropriately "comicy" .
Nothing Im building in this project is meant to look "real world" , its all based on drawings from the comic.:)
 
Love seeing somebody do this and doing it well... Btw the claws on your Dredd eagle are so much better than the officially licensed costume..they are surprisingly bad I think on what are otherwise excellent costumes. Your Death is shaping up real nice too.
Question..how are you getting the camping foam to hold its curve on the shoulder pads?..i haven't used it yet but I imagine it tries to spring back to a flat shape?
 
The camping mats come rolled up ..they wont stay flat when unrolled , so are already curved . :)
Once you glue a second layer on , the laminate effect seals the curve for good.
Rolled up camping mat foam cant really used for flat foam projects , for that you need the flat pieces that you see being used in all the (yawn) iron man suits..
Luckily everything I am doing on this build is curved .
The Death badge was started on a piece of thin foam that I bought from a craft shop , so was already flat . It comes in a4 paper size pieces, 1mm thick.

Today I boughta cheap kids skateboard helmet , it has the right head profile for the death helmet , but will need the sides extending to get the overall shape correct .
 
The curve of the camping mat is evident in this picture I think .
You can see the large piece of foam in the background .
 
I Started on the Judge Death belt buckle today .
I cut a silhouette of the buckle from 3mm foamex as a backing for the buckle.I used an image from Google to copy .
Once the foamex was ready , I aplied the clay . It isnt finished in these shots , as I need to wait overnight for what I have done already to fully dry , so that I can add details to teh wingtips etc .
 
An amazing build. The original Judge pads our outstanding, better than my first attempt at a similar build. You sir are inspiring!!!!
 
brilliant build, allways loved the death character, planned on sculpting him but never got around to it, good luck!
 
Next , the helmet . stripped the insides and strap off the BMX helmet and used masking tape to cover the holes from the inside , then used a piece of thin plastic (no idea where from , just the spares box) to make the helmet sides . I used hot glue and masking tape for this.

The lined helmet became my mould . I then simply filled the whole shebang with a layer of fiberglass.

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Once the fiberglass had set , I pulled the fiberglass shape out of my "mould" .

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This obviously required a layer of filer over the top of it to fill imperfections and give it its final shape, in fact a fair few layers of filler (bondo) were applied and smoothed/shaped .

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These pictures show it filled but not primered . The two pieces of heat bent foamex will be the basis of the portcullis visor for the helmet , I hope to get this into paint next week , it will be a black helmet with a siver stripe around the bottom edges .

Judge Death has either a red or silver stripe on his helmet depending upon the artist drawing him , to make this helmet different to my Dredd helmet , I have gone with the silver option.
 
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