This is  E.L.M.er

The Concept

  Since I have alot of experience at armor an and decoration the actual outer shell I’m not worried about at this time. The mechanics though are driving me nuts. So far I’ve built several items and drawn out several designs that work on paper, but then are not needed in application. Get use to it.. because it’s part of discovery and experimenting. Puppet making has been fun though. I’ve learned to appreciate not just puppeteers, but also engineers. You have to always think several steps ahead in the process to make sure any problems are covered.

On the arm I have marked and will make the shell capable.. but can’t the mechanics. I new to this… so I’m having a tough time with it as it is. I will more then likely make a separate set of arms with extra functions so that the attachment to the body will not impede them from working. More then likely we will shoot those in close-ups.

  On the hands are I carved groove channels and placed 

  The shoulders are made from treated 4X4′s my dad had laying 

So I decided to do like an avocado and split the shoulder, carve it out more and put a wooden sphere in it. I drilled through the wooden sphere and added a longer rod for not only the arm, but for the wrist as well. I am also working on a control mechanism for the fingers attached to the back end of the rod. It will be spring loaded so that it resets itself. I had a different one I built with aluminum slide rails, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to work. This spring button device works much easier and is easier to build. The spring loaded control system is attached to the backside of the arm on a longer rod. Anything on the backside will be covered with a green screen colored casing.

 

  

  

So this will be my last armor commission for a while. Plan to move to NYC. So here are some pics for it. I will alter this post again with more information when it’s not 2 in the morning. This armor was commissioned by Nick Popio who is pictured wearing it at the bottom.

Back in January I posted pics of the armor. I know have pics of the glove to go with it and the guy who commissioned it in costume.

The glove was an interesting experiment. I used 3 mm plastic and then formed and carved into it. I attached the plates with round leather cord to the leather glove and attached the ones around the knuckles to each other to keep them from moving forward when clinching a fist. Also the fingers have good movement and you can grip things. The first three of Daniel he is wearing a glove of his making. The last two are the glove I made. He did say he was able to grab items alot better with the one I made.

I also made in June a hip armor belt for a young lady in the UK. The armor belt comes from the game Heavenly Swords and the character Nariko.  I think the belt came out rather well, just wish the detail was better. I was only able to find  pictures showing the front half of the belt and not the back, so I had to fudge design it and go from there. Paint job is decent.

Before I left Savannah I ok’d a commission for a star trek parody for a plasma company. They wanted to show it to their customers and other people at a convention. I was requested to make a data pad, a badge and watch like devices.

In this time I had to teach myself how to work on a circuit board. I am still know expert, but I know rudimentary connections. It helps that I worked on arcade games when I worked for Time out.

The watch device I am like, but I did not make the translucent screen. That was suppose to be done by the art director and I have yet to receive pictures of the finished product. They wanted clean. So I made it clean. I personally like a little dirt with my projects. I had to build a separate battery housing inside the device since I had three different L.E.D.s and one of those had to blink. So I took a pen cap, trimmed it and glued the coils and battery in with hot glue. I did make a switch for the two non blinking L.E.D.’s since they had the cap battery case. I didn’t want the batteries to get used up before the  shoot or during shipping and I didn’t want them to screw it up trying to replace the battery. The blinking L.E.D. though had a flat battery holder and it can be replaced.

The data pad was fun. I did that one fairly quickly and enjoyed the peripheral attachments. I wanted to do something similar to the watches, but was advised against it by the art director. The front of the data board is not seen in the video, so I did not focus heavily on it. But we do see the back and I wanted to reflect one of the symbols for the company in it by using a E.L. wire glowing cable. The other thing I like about it was building a handle design into the shape of the device. One thing about lap tops, I pads, i books or whatever is the lack of a convenient way to carry them without an extra case. I felt and it was agreed that the crew member should have the ability to do his work with something that they can actually grip.

I also made a badge. Yes it is a rip of from the Star Trek symbol but I did get the CSL logo in it. I hand carved it and painted it.. but they didn’t like the paint scheme and changed it, so here it is without the color scheme.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated.  I’ve been moving and looking for work and will be moving again soon. But I did some work recently for a music video by Paula Woods. She wanted swat/scifi armor for a character for her music video.

I used EVA foam. Due to time constraints we only had time for the chest and shoulders, but that is the fastest turn around for an armor build I’ve done.

I just finished today some bird skulls for a students music video. Jordan Morris requested that I make the bird skull heads for her final thesis film. http://beautifulsuicideblog.blogspot.com/
They are to be used for the heads of Harpy’s in a mystical, dead world scene which plays out in the music video about the famous photograph from the 1940′s.

http://kottke.org/08/07/the-most-beautiful-suicide

Here pics of them and will have more pics when the costumes are complete. I am only doing the skulls.

In October I made a Boba Fett costume and a Princess Leia costume.

Bob: I have for a while been fusing pieces of the plastic together and carving down. I went step further and did it with the gauntlets this time and they worked out well. The top parts were fused plastic while I attached them to the gauntlet plastic bands with bondo. The top flame thrower device is also plastic separately done. I normally strap gauntlet pieces onto the arm, but this time I just made it one whole piece with slight over lap for easy on off entry. If I were a more technical engineer I would make the snap together. I was happy with the paint job on this next. I spent a lot of time trying to duplicate the exact battle damage from pictures with layers of paint.

The princess Leia costume is made form the same pvc material. I did spend more time carving it and it was hard getting it to conform to the female chest. I hid the pins that hold he cloth material on by embedding it into the plastic.

A commission for Dragon Age II armor of the main Character Hawke. The greaves are probably my favorite part. The video game is not out yet, but it was requested based off of the trailer.
Most of the armor is made from pvc sign plastic and bondo. I learned to bend the shapes in the feet plates with my Lorax Axe. It is painted a darker gray armor color then what I normally do, but this adds an edge to it. The spray paint was a hammered dark bronze which I enhanced with black acrylic paint. I hand wiped the black into the little hammered spots and some of the wear marks to make them stand out. Texture gives an object believability.
These plates will ride a little higher then pictured. They are made for a guy who is 6’8. He will be attaching it directly to the leather costume a leatherer is making for him. Other plates include knee armor, vambracers, gauntlet, spauldron and collar armor. The large pyramid/spikes are made from fusing plastic sheets together and carving them down. The fake welds are made from using a hot glue gun.
Since we were doing the armor based off of the trailer a few shapes were hard to discern. The gauntlet in the trailer for instance looks like 3 or 4 plates. I tried that first and then after discussion with the commissioner and finding a concept art piece we went with a full vambracer with one plate on top. I think it looks better. But both representations are placed below.

Recently I was asked to make a reproduction of  Mola Ram’s Blood Cup from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for a Classy Hand’s skit. You can see the video here:

I started this project in September and finished it in October.  I spent some time studying clips from the film since I never fully trust stills from the web. There are several production houses that make the cup. I learned alot about latex while working on this project. I have only used it minimally in make up work for student shoots. This though was  pretty exciting.

Let’s start from the beginning. I used a sulphur based clay I have laying around in order to make the skull and then I created a mold from half alginate and other half plaster of paris. I needed detail for one half(alginate) and just base shape for the other. You could say I was being stingy with the plaster. Tight budget.

I attempted to do the same with the jaw and armature wire, but I wanted to explore another material I’ve used recently. I used Smooth-ons Task 9 to create the skull. If I had the color mixes I would’ve colored it when casting, but I had to airbrush it instead. Since I did not have a releasing agent spray for the mold I had to petroleum jelly it. The skull came out, but it had some bubbles it pot marking it. I used the bondo spot on putty and filled in the holes.

After I puttied the head I worked on the jaw. I fused together several pieces of PVC sign plastic and then carved into it. For my first time carving teeth I think I did a good job. There are few spots I wold do different. I would like to get better at clay sculpting. It might save time even though the cost of molding it is higher then fusing some plastic together. I did also carve out the upper teeth from plastic as well so I could inset them into the resin skull.

Next I had to consider all of the parts for the cup. The jaw is going to be glued on under the tongue(made of plastic) and the skull will be held on tight by a long threaded bolt attached through the top to the bottom of the cup.  The rest of the cup is made from a plastic bowl, cake pan center, a piece of wood, plastic handle and all of it bondo-ed together. I tried to place the tongue so it would not spill a drop, but once you tilt it beyond a point it does pour out more. When we shot the skit I did have to stuff the area around the tongue with foam to block the excess pour. I also had to show the actress the correct angle to pour.

Before attachment though I had to sand and paint the skull and jaw. I used an airbrush and acrylic paint. This is probably the 2nd time I’ve ever used my airbrush. The first being for the Portuguese Man-O-Wars for NQOS. I do not know what to used to protect it from coming off. When I spray paint armor I just use an enamel protective coat. I need to figure this out when it comes to latex. The latex kept the paint on the skull and jaw ok, but it was the paint on the latex that came off during the shooting of the skit. Not all of it, but when I cleaned the fake blood off during setups a little paint came off. Oh well. I did make the paint job on the skull and jaw browner since i want it to have a burnt on or dirty look. The person is of darker skin and since in the film they are in a volcanic area, the heat would affect it some. Just my opinion. I also made alginate molds of my ears to make latex ears. Creeepppy.=)

After assembling all of these parts I had to latex the skull to give it that fleshy look.  I will say this much… latexing is more time consuming then it sounds. You have to layer it one layer at a time and clean your brush in between each layer to give that layer time to dry. Day one I started around 1 pm and was up till 2 am latexing. When I got up the next morning I realized how off the ears looked. So I had to cut the ears out from the skull, trim another set down and then re-latex those areas and blend with the others. Spent most of the day doing that. Finally when done I decided to airbrush it. Here is the final product.