Thorssoli's Isaac Clarke Engineering Rig from Dead Space 2

[Starvinartist80]

Awesome work with the molds. And I just looked up the book you mentioned earlier. It is now on my amazon wish list. I have been looking for good prop and fx books for a while but have had NO luck. Thank you for sharing that. Now I just need to find more. LOL I'm really looking forward to seeing the first pulls of the face plate. I know one of your threads showed the different layers of the mother mold in detail but for the life of me I can't find it again. If you get a chance can you PM me the link?

 

[JUSTINIAN 117]

I love how you name all of your stuff. Good work by the way.

 

[thorssoli]

Awesome work with the molds. And I just looked up the book you mentioned earlier. It is now on my amazon wish list. I have been looking for good prop and fx books for a while but have had NO luck. Thank you for sharing that. Now I just need to find more. LOL I'm really looking forward to seeing the first pulls of the face plate. I know one of your threads showed the different layers of the mother mold in detail but for the life of me I can't find it again. If you get a chance can you PM me the link?

I'm not sure which layers you're talking about. The whole mold system is basically two layers. The "jacket" or "glove" is the rubber portion that goes right against the original model. The "mother mold" is the rigid shell that keeps the jacket from warping or collapsing under its own weight.

I'm writing a detailed blog entry all about the moldmaking process with my Republic Commando helmet. I'll post a link once I've published it.

The Thurston James book will explain all of this in great detail and it's practically a bible in my workshop. Some of it is a bit outdated, but it's great for general guidelines. If you don't own it already, you need to buy it before you make expensive moldmaking mistakes.

 

[thorssoli]

Here's the blog entry I mentioned: http://protagonist4hire.blogspot.com/2011/07/star-wars-republic-commando-helmet-part_22.html

 

[Roadkiller]

Thanks for sharing both your builds and the techniques you use to make them. I'm looking at "mass producing" a costume for the entire family for Halloween and a follow on local Sci-Fi convention so your current topic regarding molding is timely. I will endevour to track down a copy of the "James" bible

Keep us up to date on all your work!

 

[ShadoKat]

Exceptional work as always! Thanks for the recommendation on the book, btw, I put it on my Amazon wish list and got a copy for my birthday this year (super yay!)... Great stuff in there, for true!! However, it's always nice to see someone actually putting this stuff into practice with such wonderful step-by-step detail as you tend to. Thanks much, and keep it up!

 

[Rosh]

as usual, everything looks amazing- my brother's a big dead space fan and i showed him this thread. i only let him see the picture of the partially completed face grille and he immediately knew what it was. cant wait to see the finished product!

 

[thorssoli]

Let your brother know that if he wants one of these helmets, he can email me at sthorsson99@yahoo.com and we can work something out.

Yesterday I finished the faceplate mold:


Once I had the first cast out of the mold I couldn't resist the urge to try it on:


Then I gave the whole thing a quick shot of black primer:


Then a coat of Model Masters Metalizer in "magnesium"

I've also formed blue tinted acrylic to fit the slots in the faceshield.

Here's a detail shot showing the back of the helmet:


Stay tuned...

 

[Starvinartist80]

great work Thor. Really crisp details throughout the helmet.

 

[thorssoli]

Thanks. I'm pretty happy with the sculpt.

Yesterday I fitted magnets to the faceplate:


In the process I also tried to shake hands with one of my Forstner bits:

Again.

Then, even though it's too early in paintjob to do any weathering, I went ahead and did a black wash over the whole thing:






The first cast has a few trouble spots, but I'm still planning on finishing the paintjob on it just so I can reassure myself that the paintjob will look right when I've finished it. Then I'll paint three more of them. One for me, one for the guy that asked me to do this build, and one for the eBay.

Stay tuned...

 

[BLACKULA727]

This is straight up the Hotness!

 

[thorssoli]

Thank you.

Today I lined up three casts of the faceplate and the two casts of the dome that I had on hand and started painting them. The first step was a basecoat of Rustoleum "classic bronze":


Then I broke out the airbrush and went over the silver parts of the helmet with Model Masters metalizer in "magnesium":


Once that had a few minutes to dry, the next step was to pick out the lighter shaded areas of silver tone in "steel" from the Model Masters metalizer line:


Then I went back over the bronze parts and touched them up with a mixture of gold and brown enamel to neaten up the edges. Once that had dried, I treated the edges with "burnt iron" metalizer to add a bit of age to the whole thing:


I painted the domes with the same process, but I didn't take as many pictures:


Once the paint dried, I took all sorts of pictures though:










I also had to try it on:


I still need to install lights, but I'm on a roll so far.

Stay tuned...

 

[BLACKULA727]

Man, really good job! This is one of the best Dead Space helmets I've seen. I really like how interesting the helmets look. Again, you did a fantastic job. Keep it up!

 

[Starvinartist80]

You know, I was all excited to see the pics of myself wearing my completed armor, but then I came to check out your progress.... and now I i'm stuck almost speechless at how great the helmet turned out. And to think, you have several completed at such high quality. Yet again you have raised the bar. Keep up the awesome work Thor.

 

[Statyk]

youre making me cry dude.... i want to make this costume for the upcoming halloween but everything youre doing here is blowing me out of the park... it looks PHENOMENAL and i am so jealous of you for it. they look PERFECT... im not kidding when i say i want to try this. but i dont have the materials or the experience... damn it...

 

[thorn696]

Oh! Yeah! Epic. Just as I knew it would be. You're work with clay, molds, and paint are always so much to watch. Thank again for posting this build, and I for one looking forward to seeing many more.

 

[thorssoli]

I went ahead and did a bit more weathering on one of the helmets. Here's what it looks like now:


In case you didn't notice any difference between this picture and the previous ones, here's a comparison shot with one of the other helmets which hasn't gotten the extra weathering yet:


I started with a wash of black acrylic paint to get the greasy look and accentuate all of the seams. Then I gave it all a misting of red and black primer to tone down the bright metallic colors a bit. I'm very happy with the results.

Now I just have to get to work on the rest of the suit and get some electroluminescent stuff to light up the eye slits.

As always, comments and criticisms welcome.

 

[vshore100]

The weathering really brings it all together. Awesome job!

 

[Erikm1811]

Awesome build as usual Thor, I really enjoy your well written and very descriptive posts. Your posts are giving me the courage to jump into the sculpting and molding world. One quick question tho, is the book you mentioned "Thurston James Theater props handbook"?

edit: Actually, I bet it is the Prop Builder's Molding and Casting Handbook, sorry, Google is my freind as well...;-)

 

[thorssoli]

Yep. The second one is what you want.

Apologies to all for not having any real update for this thread. I'm waiting on my shipment of EL wire (should arrive Monday) so I can wire it up, turn on the lights, and take some decent pictures of it again.

Stay tuned...