Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Hoplites shield

  I noticed that the detail stamped in the middle of the shield was off center. There's an ornamental forearm grip down the center and around the circumference there is some kind of hook that rope gets tied to. This was all off center, so when I tried attaching the braided rope it looked all messed up and out of proportion.

 So I decided to make a cast of the details, then sand them off and realign them properly. I used Castin Craft's mold builder and some casting epoxy mixed with purple paint so I can see what I was doing (it dries clear on its own, hard to see detail on a clear piece).

 The mold builder gets put on in thin layers (about 13 layers, depending on the size of the mold). The first two or three layers are what counts the most as these are the layers that have the detail. The rest of the layers are for support so the mold doesn't tear. You can use a hair dryer to make each layer dry faster.





Still some fine detail stuff to work out, but it will look a lot better.

 As for the hand that I screwed up awhile ago, I wasn't sure how to repair it. I tried to sculpt new fingers but it wasn't coming out even close to mediocre. So I went with the simple solution, drilled holes and used wire to secure it in place. This also allows me to bend the fingers at the knuckles so I can make it look like the hand is actually grabbing the spear. Which I had to fix since it snapped in half. Brass rod and some small diameter wire for the hand grip in the middle.


4 comments:

RoBoT SheKeiB said...

Based on your other work in previous posts, I can't wait to see this one finished. Great work and keep it up!

Gryt said...

13 Layers? Wow. As for the spear, I bet its easy for things so delicate to break.

Anonymous said...

Looks pretty nice. Can't wait to see it all done.

Laser said...

Looks like grip was the hardest thing to make.

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