Aluminum + Green Metal Flake + Thinner = Poisonous Fumes

Finally got around to painting the armor. Used a layer of primer, then a mix of Testors Enamel Aluminum and Green Metal Flake. I tried using a wash of Green Metal Flake over the Aluminum, but that didn't work as well, creating a semi-uneven color at points. Mixing the two together provides a good shade of light green metallic color. I'm not too sure whether the finish is what's considered decent for painting models, but I'm definitely not going to cover it with a layer of gloss lacquer. I've inhaled enough toxic flammable fumes this month. Anyways, here's where Aelia currently stands in terms of construction progress. Still spear-less and sword-less and in need of decent hair.





I'm not liking the gloves too much. I may need to redo them, and that's painfully long and tedious work.

Next stages: going to work on the weaponry and the armor rivets. Someday, I'll find better hair, and fix up the head a bit more.

This Weekend's Project: The Magic Gauntlets

There's a reason why no one sells 1:6 scale gloves with individual fingers. The majority of the dolls you will buy will have molded gloves. Why? First, you'll need the prerequisite of individually movable fingers. Again, you may ask why that's necessary. You can't put on gloves if your fingers are non-flexible. Aelia's hands have wire understructure that allow her to have one set of hands that handle all her poses, rather than make her have multiple hand sets like other dolls.

Second, 1:6 scale gloves with individually separate fingers are a pain to make. Perhaps the most expensive part to make if you were to actually make them for a mass produced figure. It's too much sewing for a small part. Luckily, I'm the only guy willing to try making it, since I only have to do it twice.

The gloves were made by sewing four individual tubes around her fingers, then sewing them together to form a glove. It's infeasible to sew them like gloves done at 1:1 scale, since the size prohibits them from being turned inside out to hide the seams. Therefore, the seams are on the outside of the gloves for all five fingers. Aelia's gloves are armored, which gives me the benefit of hiding the seams with armor plating. A bit of Magic and a bit of hot glue allows me to stick the plating onto her gloves. Each finger has separate armor plating segments that also allow her to retain her finger flexibility.

The only problem I've had so far is that her fingers are too short inside her glove finger length. She can do some limited gestures, but lacks the finger tip dexterity to fully grasp items. Still enough to hold a polearm. They are pretty good looking despite their bulk.


Aelia is nearly complete. Just needs some refinements to her waist armor segments and she'll be ready for priming.

This Weekend's Project: Gauntlets

At last, my last batch of free Magic: the Gathering packs came in the mail. I've gotten a few packs previously with their promotion, and to my dismay, I've yet to see what the contents of a green colored pack was. Seven boxes later, still no green pack.

Not a single green pack. 5 black, 4 blue, 3 red and 2 white packs total. Wizards knows what colors I play, evidently, just by my mailing location. With that out of the way, this weekend was dedicated to doing nothing. After that was done (or, rather, not done in this case), I proceeded to make gauntlets.

I have no idea how to do gloves at 1:6 scale, especially individually articulated fingers. Not to mention, ARMORED fingers. I'll figure that out soon, hopefully. Until that time, I can get the lower arm portions done. Aelia's armor is asymmetrical for the arms, which makes the joy of pattern making useless. Although, that's also a good thing, due to the added complexity of the left arm compared to the right arm...


...because the left arm looks like this. The left arm has a dragon head "protecting" the hand, which seems to limit a lot of the movement instead. The art did not show any indication of moving components to suggest a flexible assembly.


This piece involved a lot of Dremel use to shape the details. Glad I didn't attempt this when I was using crude methods of sandpaper taped around an X-Acto knife handle. There's some whiskers I need to find better materials for, but in the meantime, thin 110lb cardstock strips curled a bit will do.

So far, Aelia's near completion. What's left is skirt plating attachment, gloves, and mostly fasteners. I'm still looking for a good satin ribbon to use to make the belt fasteners, but unfortunately, I don't have the colors I would like.

On a side note, I corrected Aelia's head last week due to her head having a severe case of "made poorly by apathy". Her right eye was 0.055 inches higher than desired, giving her a really bad case of Shunya Yamashita's "beaten on the back of the head with a lead pipe" syndrome. Shunya Yamashita did part of the art for Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria, the sequel to Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, which Aelia is from. Aside from even more ridiculous armor, Yamashita tends to have the problem of drawing all girls with the same face shape, age, and blank stare like they've been beaten over the head a minute beforehand. The art for VP:Silmeria was rendered useless for armormaking purposes due to the bad idea of "Hey! Let's add high heels to EVERY girl in the game regardless of functionality!"

From an engineering standpoint, I can't enjoy impractical armor anymore. Simply because I'm the one who has to figure out how to make it work if I try to replicate it, and it's going to look really bad when I try to make it.

This Week's Project: Greaves and Sabatons

Segmented armor is annoying to make on a small scale with unconventional materials. I opted to go for a new method of gluing armor pieces to a piece of fabric. This allows for flexibility while keeping the thickness low. I may have to redo some other pieces this way, since I really like how it turned out.

The leg assembly consists of two major components: the boot- back greave portion, and the front greave plate. The parts were glued with a hot glue gun on small sections to allow for flexibility. I only glued the upper half of the fabric to the greave so there would be slack on the bottom half to assist movement.

Until I build the straps, I'm holding the front plate together with tape. Masking tape is a wonderful tool.

These parts were created the same way as every other piece of armor. I'm quite pleased in how they turned out in appearance. There's still enough mobility in the feet, which was a big concern for making plate. The winged elements on the boots make me wonder if Aelia was intended to be like the dragoon class from Final Fantasy 3, doing high jumps and impaling enemies with a spear.

Girls always go after the snipers, it seems.

This Weekend's Project: Shoulder Armor

Sometimes, you need to make your own parts. Aelia's entire armor along with the Team Fortress 2 costumes were created by this technique. What you'll need is a lot of masking tape, scissors, paper, and an ability to sculpt. Most of you will have 3 of the 4.

First, I use simple strips of paper to help form the shape needed. The goal is to get the outer shape into one single component that can be cut off/apart to make patterns. I make cuts to flatten down the resulting piece to form a pattern that can be traced.

From the left to right:

• Replicated piece made from duplicating the masking tape formed piece
• The pattern created from the original component
• Patterns for each individual plate for the pauldrons
• Assembled pauldron plates hinged together by wire hooks
  
• Finished right pauldron

This is the finished set of pauldrons. The pauldrons are segmented to allow for articulation and somewhat less restricted movement.

The pauldrons are held onto the main chestplate by a strap looped to the belt holding the front chestplate to the back. A second belt will eventually be added to the bottom of the pauldrons to secure them to the arms.

Motto of the Month: "Plenty more where that came from"

Making armor is quite an interesting experience. It's not much different from making sewing patterns by taping swaths of paper together until you get the right shape. The end result just ends up being solid. The main issue is getting it all to work properly when you have all the plates together. I'm still working on having the armor hold together and what fasteners to use.

Unfortunately, I've had a lot of "reject" parts due to warping, improper lamination, and just out of testing. However, I've acquired a new batch of raw materials that made the process less about optimizing material cost and more about end result. First, let's see where we stand:

Right now, I have the chest plate, waist segments and hips structurally completed. I'm experimenting with the skirt plates and the arm sections. Nothing like using a lot of thermal paper and masking tape to complete my armor. Reminds me of my high school crafting days.

I've bought a sealed box of X-Men Trading Card Game cards for the sole (and silly) purpose of getting three cards from the set for my art collection. A real waste, but no one sells these cards individually since no one plays this trading card game. Luckily, Wizards of the Coast also made these cards, and the card quality is on par with Magic for raw materials. I'll be finding a use for this obscenely large volume of cardstock soon. How big of a volume?

This big.

Sadly, this represents about half my "chaff" reserve. I have in total, something that looks like five to seven times this amount of cards that I can consider "expendable".