Kamis, 28 Juli 2011

Barriss' belt buckle

As a padawan, Barriss Offee doesn't have many accessories, only the detailed belt buckle. Our version was made mostly from materials we already had, except the gold acrylic paint and embroidery thread had to be bought.

The main materials were thick poster board and craft foam. It's good to remember while drawing on craft foam that every line you press on its surface will be seen. So, note to self: draw on the backside.

After successfully drawing the shapes it was time to cut them off. A scalpel or a thin utility knife works well while scissors are too clumsy, except while cutting bigger shapes like in Luminara's leather cloth and gauntlets. I also trimmed some foam from the boarders of the patterns so that the pieces would fit in nicely.

Note: this wasn't the frame I used in the finished buckle.

An old hair pin proved to be an excellent choice for scraping, poking and dragging different textures to the foam. The Karelian pasties texture on the inner edge of the 'heart' was made by first pressing down then dragging the pin down.

That pin must be over ten years old.

Then it was time for the paintjob, and acrylics never fail you, unless you put too thick layer of it and cover all the textures you made earlier. Note to self: don't take too much paint. Gold, copper, brown, dark grey and their mixtures were used.

The surround was made from four strands of embroidery thread. They were "twisted" twice [due the lack of better term] and clued to place then painted with gold. Finally the parts were clued to the poster board base and weathered with black paint.