A CROWN IS BORN../ The Hobbit Dwarves etc.. WIP's & Finished Builds Part 2

Well, I'm glad they are keeping their violence relatively clean! Thanks for the explanation. And you are certainly knowledgeable enough to rank right there with the biggest experts among the fans.

GubernatorFan wrote:Well, I'm glad they are keeping their violence relatively clean! Thanks for the explanation. And you are certainly knowledgeable enough to rank right there with the biggest experts among the fans.

I don't 'nerd out' on LOTR stuff I just pick up info and backstories whilst researching characters for builds mostly .
Been busy dremelling, sawing, sanding, scalpelling (?) and even drilling to to separate, remove, join and prep stuff for the next phase of building missing armour including the helmet. I'll still need to tidy everything up especially that fist I've turned into a sword holding hand (cut the original moulded kit hand away) as it needs a new index finger for a start! Removed the 'leather' mouldings from the armour.
Just won that weathered chainmail purse for £20 including postage so that bit is hopefully sorted.

Nice progress, very promising. I find making weapons in this scale almost beyond me, whether one does them like you do, or like Ovy and Shazzdan.
And that's (LOTR) what I say about me and Star Wars! Although years ago my college suite-mate Simon put me on some (misleading!) "Everything I know I learned from Star Wars" list which would seem to attest to the opposite.

Dude you are faster than that Urukhai Dude with that bomb running into that wall! Love those molds. Or Legolas sliding down stairs on a shield while shooting arrows. Which twelve year old me found quite cool.

There is this guy who makes 1/6 metal armors who used chainmail purses too. But it's a bit hard to find his pics as many are not hosted on the linked site anymore, haha.

I think the purses will be great for small sections.

And when u said u didn't like the 3d prints texture, do you mean all 3 d prints in general or maybe the PLA/Plastic ones? Because the resin prints can look quite great and super detailed. Maybe I will try the 3d printed chainmail one other day again.

Oh and Thanks Gubeenator.

Ovy wrote:Oh and Thanks Gubeenator.

You're welcome! And Alex (shovelchop) is quite something, isn't he? Something great, that is.

Holy cow, this is coming along so cool. Love the updated head sculpt and the weapons.

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice progress, very promising. I find making weapons in this scale almost beyond me, whether one does them like you do, or like Ovy and Shazzdan.
And that's (LOTR) what I say about me and Star Wars! Although years ago my college suite-mate Simon put me on some (misleading!) "Everything I know I learned from Star Wars" list which would seem to attest to the opposite.

Thanks GTF! Well the weapons for this build and the previous one were pretty much ready made! LOL The Dwarves and The Hobbit version Ring Wraiths are another matter but usually depends on what I have to modify on hand along with materials available at the time that decide how the weapons are made, there's no formula or planning involved, well not much! Also luck is important in coming across the stuff in the first place!
You kind of lost me after saying you don't make 1/6 weapons I'm afraid...

Ovy wrote:Dude you are faster than that Urukhai Dude with that bomb running into that wall! Love those molds. Or Legolas sliding down stairs on a shield while shooting arrows. Which twelve year old me found quite cool.

There is this guy who makes 1/6 metal armors who used chainmail purses too. But it's a bit hard to find his pics as many are not hosted on the linked site anymore, haha.

I think the purses will be great for small sections.

And when u said u didn't like the 3d prints texture, do you mean all 3 d prints in general or maybe the PLA/Plastic ones? Because the resin prints can look quite great and super detailed. Maybe I will try the 3d printed chainmail one other day again.

Oh and Thanks Gubeenator.

Cheers Ovy! I thought the build was going pretty slow tbh because I'm having to wait on the chainmail    I've made real metal armour before but it's never easy to join it together, glue doesn't work and tiny rivets are a nightmare! I also end up cutting myself a lot which sucks.
As for 3D printing most of my experience has been with parts for guns (not 1/6) and oddly enough Transformers fan made parts for upgrades, not sure what polymers they use but they all have the visible layering effect which is also structurally a weak point at each layer which makes them fragile compared to fibre reinforced ballistic polymers or just cast polymers in general.

GubernatorFan wrote:

Ovy wrote:Oh and Thanks Gubeenator.

You're welcome! And Alex (shovelchop) is quite something, isn't he? Something great, that is.

     Okay couldn't resist... well I did grow up in Greece so was called this a lot as a little kid by family friends visiting, probably after they had had a lot of wine!

Stryker2011 wrote:Holy cow, this is coming along so cool. Love the updated head sculpt and the weapons.

Cheers Stryker!

Going faster now that I've decided to ditch the silly idea of trying to use the armour from the kit, it's all wrong for this build and at a weird angle due to the preposed model's shape. Using my traditional method of PVA (basically liquid plastic), fibrecard and sand etc.. for texture like I have done on countless builds back on OSW and here such as all the LOTR/The Hobbit bad guys' armour, helmets etc.. This also means it will all be cohesive in appearance rather than a block of vinyl surrounded by fibrecard, it will look like crude heavily weathered metal but feel like plastic when finished. The kit's armour won't be wasted (like anything anywhere near this house ever is ) but put in my Predator parts draw, sort of Kama for using the Predator hands and feet .







FOLDED EDGE GIVES THE ILLUSION OF THICKER ARMOUR WHEN SEEN AT ITS EDGES/SEAMS

That fibrecard armor looks really great. Neat idea.

Stryker2011 wrote:That fibrecard armor looks really great. Neat idea.

Yeah, I love working with this stuff, it's so easy to cut and glue, can be bent all over the place without tearing or cracking. The only thing I haven't tried is wetting and stretching it to perhaps make bowl like shapes, I've done it with felt but not sure what would happen to this, probably just go soggy and rip but you never know might work like paper Mache? Anyway could have tried that today but didn't since I have a draw full of donor helmets for builds like this. I chose a very cheap helmet that must have come with one of those $20 1/6 'SWAT' figure sets I've bought in the past to get cheap thin bodies and the rest can come in handy for all sorts of builds. It was a bit cracked but with the liner removed it fits the big head of the Uruk-Hai well as a starting point for his iconic helmet (it's really reminding me of an old school BSG Cylon helmet at the moment, I wonder if the designer was a BSG fan ); had to file off all the trim/edging etc..on the helmet too. Done plenty of fibrecard cutting and manipulating using super glue to set bends in place, the exothermic reaction put on quite the smoke plume show to start with! Whish I'd captured it with a picture, looked really eerie and cool! Unlike the prats outside with their bloody noisy fireworks...that time of the year again in the UK..
Anyway waiting for milliput to cure again as I needed to make the linear small crest on top of the helmet with it.

































I STILL HAVE HIS JAW SPIKES AND TRAVERSE CREST TO DO AMONST OTHER DETAILS LIKE RIVETS ETC..

That's looking great so far! I still can't for the life of me figure out what 'fibre card' is though...

I like the progress. The armor and helmet look great, I can see where you are headed with them. But, like Sky, I would love to know more about what fibre card is and how you work with it. Looks like you cut and bend it into shape, then cover it with PVA, but more information about the process and the specific products you use would be very appreciated.

That helmet is so cool. Love how you worked that out.

GubernatorFan wrote:I like the progress. The armor and helmet look great, I can see where you are headed with them. But, like Sky, I would love to know more about what fibre card is and how you work with it. Looks like you cut and bend it into shape, then cover it with PVA, but more information about the process and the specific products you use would be very appreciated.

Trust me I'm trying to find out myself!! I need more of it but can't find it under any of the names I've given it like 'fibre card' or 'fabric card' even 'felt card'. My hope is that my aunt who I believe gave it to me (as I can't remember actually buying it) many years ago, (my supply has lasted well over ten years!!) who is a brilliant crafts artist and artist in general, will firstly get my email with pics and secondly know what the hell I'm talking about! I've also asked some 'girl friends' on FB who like making craft stuff if they know what it's called. Annoyingly being agoraphobic I can't pop into town and show it to any local art supply stores even if they still exist, I'm pretty sure they were shut down by the recession/online businesses years ago and COVID-19 lockdowns would surely have killed any surviving shops off as they are small and very specialised; not to mention all the students on which they depended switched to PC programs like Illustrator, Photoshop, AutoCAD etc.. years back too.
I will go through the steps I take using it to create armour as clearly as I can so that you can copy or even improve on my techniques. I guess blotting paper they use for flower presses is the closest I've come to this stuff so that might work too but I don't think it's as forgiving and more prone to tearing but you won't have to deal with the spider silk like fibres on the surface although that's never bothered me, PVA takes care of that.

Stryker2011 wrote:That helmet is so cool. Love how you worked that out.

Thank you Stryker! Still got plenty to do on it, I need to find my bag of old hairbrush plastic and metal bristles/prongs? that make great rivets in 1/6!

skywalkersaga wrote:That's looking great so far! I still can't for the life of me figure out what 'fibre card' is though...  

Thanks SWS! I'm trying to find out too as explained to GTF above!

Ohh, interesting! Please don't stress if you can't find the exact name, I'm just always curious about learning about different types of supplies. It seems a handy craft item to have around and I hope you can locate more of it. Blotting paper sounds like a possible alternative, I'll look into that.

Speaking of flowers, I was trying to figure out if maybe the type of material is similar to what is used to make miniature paper flowers?

Thanks for trying, Alex, let us know if you find out but no pressure. It would be great to have a practical cardboard-like material that could be turned into something like plastic for modelling purposes in our hobby -- and this sounded like it. I'm sure your aunt would love to hear from you by phone too.

skywalkersaga wrote:Ohh, interesting! Please don't stress if you can't find the exact name, I'm just always curious about learning about different types of supplies. It seems a handy craft item to have around and I hope you can locate more of it. Blotting paper sounds like a possible alternative, I'll look into that.

Speaking of flowers, I was trying to figure out if maybe the type of material is similar to what is used to make miniature paper flowers?

No idea about flowers mate, I think they use loads of different stuff, I'm guessing regular coloured paper and that thinner coloured packing paper.

GubernatorFan wrote:Thanks for trying, Alex, let us know if you find out but no pressure. It would be great to have a practical cardboard-like material that could be turned into something like plastic for modelling purposes in our hobby -- and this sounded like it. I'm sure your aunt would love to hear from you by phone too.

Phoning my Aunt, what?

These are the glues I use with it although I haven't used PVA yet as I use that as a coating not as a glue on this stuff.
Talking of this 'stuff' according to my Aunt it's for stiffening pelmets (yeah I didn't know what the hell they were either) which are curtain top frilly things and rail covers. There are SO many types of pelmet stiffeners though, who'd da thunk it?! I haven't narrowed it down completely yet but the best search words are 'bukram' and 'Vilene' which sound more like military code names to me lol but are closely related to this material although they encompass a large amount of materials too.. it's so much easier making stuff out of my neighbours' trash! It's also used for making hats.



DONE MOST OF THE HELMET NOW, USED BISON GLUE AS AN ADHESIVE AND SUPER GLUE AS A HARDENER FOR SPIKES, EDGES ETC..















HAD TO MODIFY THE HEAD AS IT WAS SITTING TOO HIGH ON THE NECK

























HAD TO CUT DOWN HIS HEELS TO LOOK MORE HUMAN AND FILL IN THE GAPS FROM EARLIER MODS WITH MILLIPUT





STOP THEM COMING OFF TOO





REPAIRING THE MODDED FIST TO SWORD GRIPPING HAND, YES I HAVE A BAG OF CUT OFF 1/6 FINGERS BECAUSE I'M WEIRD! ACTUALLY THEY COME IN HANDY (UGH) FOR HAND MODS. NOT FINISHED







A LOUSEY PIC OF WHERE HE'S AT NOW.

That's pretty slick. That helmet and head turned out awesome. It's hilarious how you have a "bag of fingers" -- but it certainly seems to come in handy.

Handy... I thought it was a charming pun. Thanks for the extra info. The helmet looks excellent, and you've made the head work perfectly with it and with the body. It's a daunting amount of work, but paying off big time.

The bag o' fingers is indeed hilarious, but somehow I would not expect anything less of you.

The bag of fingers is actually a leftover from my scratch built IM3 Mandarin figure I made long before Hot Toys made theirs. He needed the 10 rings so chopped up some cheap Captain Sparrow and Penelope Cruz (Black Beard's daughter) heavily ringed hands and transplanted all the rings onto another pair of hands for the Mandarin, leaving me with a bunch of cut off fingers and fingerless hands! LOL.
Scratch built IM3 Mandarin full build thread
It's a lengthy thread but on of my favourite builds I think, there have been hundreds TBH.

Right, I do have bloody pattern dyslexia (even if it probably doesn't exist), this whole time my Uruk-Hai's abdomen armour has been assembled backwards!! The plates are supposed to be underneath each other as you go down, somehow I'd reversed that... so spent the morning correcting that by totally rebuilding his armour which was nearly as annoying as getting my anti-depression meds mixed up with Ibuprofen and not realising until I was in a dark place this morning and my neighbour (who's fuddy duddy git exbuilder) demanding I cut down my bushes that aren't even next to his property...wanker. Anyway grumpy day, can you tell? LOL. I did progress by adding the final missing armour bits to the cuirass such as the lower breast plates and gorget for protection of his throat.

BEFORE



HOW IT SHOULD BE



REWORKING IT, HAD TO PULL IT APPART THEN UNFOLD ALL THE FOLDS AND REFOLD THE OPOSITE SIDES OF EACH PIECES THEN SWAP EVERYTHING OVER, RE-ALIGHN IT ALL, CUT AND MAKE NEW BITS ETC..NICE THING ABOUT THIS MATERIAL IS YOU CAN DO THIS TO IT.



AFTER

Sometimes an eye to details can be a curse, not just a blessing. But the final result still benefits. Hope you feel better soon. Your Mandarin and Secutor, and Mandarin's throne (I have the same table and chairs) are excellent, thanks for sharing -- I hadn't seen them before. And those mini dragons, Wow!

GubernatorFan wrote:Sometimes an eye to details can be a curse, not just a blessing. But the final result still benefits. Hope you feel better soon. Your Mandarin and Secutor, and Mandarin's throne (I have the same table and chairs) are excellent, thanks for sharing -- I hadn't seen them before. And those mini dragons, Wow!

Cheers GTF! Better now I've taken the correct pills!lol.

Here's the finished Mandarin, guest staring some of my other scratch built Iron Man movie enemies (all mine except for the Ironmonger suit which is HT and the bare chested Whiplash is a heavily modified HT figure with light up whips etc..) The Armoured Whiplash and the Justin Hammer Artillery Drone were like building little cities in their complexity, using real springs and gears etc.. Much shorter thread this time! Thanks for looking at the other one!

Finished Mandarin and other IM custom bad guys

Bummer about the issue, but at least you got it corrected.

Glad to see the finished Mandarin photos too.

I don’t know how I missed this but damn, this is looking incredible! Nothing like some proper scratchbuilding!

Stryker2011 wrote:Bummer about the issue, but at least you got it corrected.

It wasn't that big of a deal I was just having a bad day. If I'd noticed after I'd PVA'd and painted it then it would have been a bit of a disaster for me as if I left it incorrectly assembled it would drive me nuts, but to correct it I'd have to start over completely.

GubernatorFan wrote:Glad to see the finished Mandarin photos too.

Cheers GTF! Did you see my other IM bad guys towards the bottom of the first page?

Lynkhart wrote:I don’t know how I missed this but damn, this is looking incredible! Nothing like some proper scratchbuilding!

Thanks Lynkhart!

Made his leg and foot armour today, I can't make his pauldrons until I get the chainmail so I know what size they need to be to fit over it; I can make his gauntlet armour etc.. though.
Fixed his finger and sprayed him head to toe with black matte primmer (stuck the wrong hose from the second paintbooth out the window by mistake and wondered why the hell the room still stank of spray paint! DOH) missed a few spots but I'll correct that. I now need to add all the rivets/studs then PVA all the armour so far to stiffen it and give it that smooth plastic texture while still being a bit rough for weathering and their utilitarian production finish, these are definitely made as function over form but are still brilliantly stylised in design as all Peter Jackson's costumes and 'worlds' are in LOTR.





























HEY! IT'S THE NEW "SECOND ORDER" STORMTROOPER UNIFORM/ARMOUR!

Cool progress. The repainted body looks totally professionally made now, all the pieces like they were designed to fit together from the get go. Nice to see the armor expand in coverage. Yes, I saw the other bad guys, on second viewing, was too focused on the Mandarin to really appreciate them at first. Your collection has a very good coverage of these characters. I just ordered a knock off hulk -- we'll see what it's like if and when it gets here.

I really liked how you made that armor, everything is starting to look great.