At first I started with the plan of a weapon, I'm building for my boyfriends Druid T9 costume. I wanted to build a 1-hand mace, but wasn't sure, which one I should choose. Therefore I asked my friends and followers on facebook and the most of them wanted to see number 4 in real life. My boyfriend liked this one the most, too, so I begun with my new project: Snappy! (I still don't know it's real name... XD)
This time I wanted to work with a blueprint, because of Snappy's very detailed design. So Benny (my boyfriend) made a nice blueprint in Adobe Illustrator for me.
I copied the outlines on a pink insulation foam sheet and added a wooden staff inside. Maybe it would work also without the staff, but I'm always afraid that my props can break. It's better to be safe than sorry!
Then I clayed a further sheet on both sides. Snappy needed a bit of thickness and I had to cover the wood inside. Maybe you wondering now, why I didn't used expanding foam this time. I guess, I just wanted to try something new and I need something more durable than expanding foam. Snappy's model have some small and fine details like the buttom or the mouth and expanding foam would be break very easiely at this tiny parts.
But at the end, I was sick of carving pink insulation foam! It's harder and so it's much more difficult to work with it. So, I'll try to finish it's final form with expanding foam. Ha ha, sometimes I really don't know what I do, how I start and how I finish a project. But I love to experiment!
And then I had no longer any desire for Snappy... I needed something different, again!
So I keept on working on my Druid T9 pauldrons for me and Benny. The first one was already done and so I saw my mistake. The ones for me were too huge! The pauldrons in my reference are also very large, but these things looked like gigantic monsters on my shoulders! So I carved a bit, I cutted some cardboard and some foam away and was finally satiesfied. Then I added some card board pieces, because I need to find the right shape inside of expanding foam later.
And then I sprayed again!
And carved!
Ha ha, many of you guys told me, that they would love to see how I work, especially how I carve my expanding foam. You wished, you got it! I filmed my complete carving progress and my computer rendered the video 3!!! days until I could upload it on youtube. So, if you're interested, just enjoy! :)
Now I have to prepare the next tutorial, FAQ or... eh... I don't really know, what this will be. I just want to show you some new and very nice themorplastic material I discovered in the last time: Fossshape, Kobracast and Polysterol! Argh, and I also wanted to film a paper mache tutorial! I need more time! Hopefully I can show it to you soon!
So, stay busy and creative guys, and see you next time! :)