So after I applied the rondo to the horns and some bondo to the helm, I got down to sanding. I hated sanding. The shape of the horns and the size of the helmet made it very difficult for me to get in to some areas with my palm sander, and there was way too much sanding for me to do it all by hand. This led me to the acquisition of....
... this beauty. He made my life so much easier through the build process. I'm actually not sure how I was intending to complete the helmet on time without the belt sander. So with the additional power, and a few more rounds of bondo and sanding, the helmet looked like this:
My face was also covered in dust in the places my mask and goggles didn't cover, but that's the price I had to pay for the awesomeness. I did a lot of detailing and beveling with my dremel after the bulk of the sanding was done on the belt sander before I moved on to painting.
I didn't take pictures of the painting process, but it was fairly simple. I used black automotive primer on the inside and outside of the helmet. I did a few rounds of priming and sanding to perfect the exterior before the metallic paint went on.
I got an airbrush to help with the painting process, but that ended up causing a whole other set of problems, mainly that I couldn't find the right color of gold. I ended up having to blend three different colors of gold and bronze airbrush and acrylic paints with an airbrush medium to get the color I was after. Once I got the color right, I ended up laying down 7 to 10 thin coats of paint and clear coat. The final product looked something like this
Once I finished with the helmet (and went on a trip to Emerald City Comic-Con) I tackled Loki's scepter. I went back and forth on which model I was going to use, since there were only 2 pepakura files for the staff available when I started my build. I built one out of paper before I decided that I hated the way it was constructed and I switched to the other. The second build was much better for me, and ended up being more to scale. I decided to keep the head and shaft separate until the end of the process, so I sat about the stiffening process.
Because of the shape of the staff, I knew I wasn't going to be able to use fiberglass effectively, so after the resin coat on the exterior, I pour rondo inside the model. The head of the staff took me 4 pours, and the staff took 5. I had to pour extra rondo in to the base of the shaft to counter balance the weight of the head. I also poured rondo in to the blade models, but after they cured, they were far too warped and sharp for me to use. I decided to make templates for the blades and cut them from wood instead. I did the bulk of the shaping on my belt sander, with the detailing done with the dremel. Once I had the new blades finished and set in to the head, it looked something like this
I was actually very happy with the way the wood and rondo bits looked together. I was worried that the blades would be too bulky, but they came out nicely. For the little details, I actually used the pepakura struts and supports (which were hell to assemble, but ended up working nicely). The glowing orb at the center of the staff was a bit of a puzzle for me, but I had a moment of brilliance when I found a light up key chain and some plastic Easter eggs. I cast the orb in blue resin inside one of the eggs and embedded the key chain in it. The overall effect was just what I had wanted. In the end, with all of the detailing and weathering, my staff looked great.
And I think we did too
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