Third Time's the Charm

After I took some photos of Matias with his leg armour...

I decided it was way too 'chunky', except maybe in 3/4 views with just the tops showing....

It was really bugging me, and even though I really didn't feel like sculpting another pair, I knew I would never be happy leaving it as it was. The big problem was that I'd sculpted the armour over his boots, and they were already hefty boots to start with.  I wondered if there could be a way to make narrower, better scale looking leg armour. Then I remembered I had two pairs of Peter Pevesie boots.  They were a lot smaller and finer than his SartoriaJ boots.

Building armour over the much smaller black boots would result in armour roughly the same size proportionate to the bigger, brown boots. So I sewed Matias some long black socks to hold his pants tight to his legs, put the black boots on him, wrapped him back up in plastic wrap, and set about redesigning the armour boot pattern and making a pair out of card stock.

But that's as far as I got. We went for our Covid booster shots a week ago today, and the very next day I came down with Covid. Coincidence or what? They say you can't get Covid from the vaccine, and I had no idea where I might have picked it up. The next few days were rough, and I did nothing at all. Then just when I started to feel a little better, Jan came down with it as well.

​Anyways, once I started to feel like doing something again, I turned my attention back to Matias' armour. I started work sculpting the lower sections of the armour boot. I was hopeful that with the smaller boots and his pant legs wrapped tight, there new set would turn out much better.

Work was slow, and I didn't feel all that great, so it took two days just to get the bottom sections done....

The next day I finished them....

I was starting to think maybe I'd made them too long, and when I posed Matias into a sitting position after they'd cured, sure enough, I'd made them much too tall....

 But the lower parts were nice and slender, and the perfect size...

So I asked Jan to cut the tops off, and I'd remake them AGAIN.

So I made new card stock sections and glued them in.  The new tops would end up at least a centimetre shorter, and I hope the third time they'd be better.

Yes!  Finally leg armour the right size!  Although I didn't like the way the tops dented inwards, so added a bit more Apoxie to round them out. The right one was already done, and the left one still needed some rounding out.

The new, sanded leg armour with one from the original pair. The new ones are a lot better shape. They are narrower, and with a much better shaped 'boot'.  I wasn't sure about the more rounded tops on the new pair, thinking I preferred the flatter more pointed version on the very first pair, but I really wasn't going to redo them a fourth time. 

After sanding, I glued in all the tiny bead 'rivets'. You may wonder why I glue the beads in afterwards, instead of inserting them into the uncured Apoxie. After all it would seem a lot easier.  But I need to be able to sand the Apoxie. It's not the easiest to get nice flat edges, so I rely on doing the final shaping by sanding after the Apoxie has cured, and the beads would stick out of the surface, and prevent smooth sanding. So they have to get glued in afterwards.

 Now I need to make leather straps to secure the armour around Matias' legs. And then wait for a decent weather day to take some photos. Hopely, we'd be recovered from Covid by then.

One Final Paint Job

And then there was just one more final paint job. Every time I had mixed up Apoxie, there were always some leftovers, which I then shaped into chicken or mutton legs, and roast potatoes. They all needed to be painted. I find it's always better to have an actual item to match colours to, instead of guessing. Real food often is quite a different colour than what you assume it is.  

So two weeks ago when I first started on the armour, and started making 'roast potatoes' out of the leftover Apoxie, I had saved two pieces of actual roast potato to colour match. The real potatoes had dried and shrivelled up over that time, but they had still stayed their original colour.

​So I painted the Apoxie potatoes to match. It's always a challenge to paint a 3-D object, since you can only paint one side at a time. Then, eventually, after I was done, I'd apply some satin varnish, and sprinkle some real pepper and garlic powder on them. I figured real spices would look infinitely more real than if I tried splatter painting 'spices' on. Plus the real spices would provide texture. Then after the varnish dried, I'd go over the spices again to help seal them in.

Then I painted all the meat....

So now with his armour almost done, Matias will soon be able to go gallivanting about, doing his knightly thing, while also staying reasonably well fed.