Onward with Artemisia’s armour. Mostly it consists of spikes and claws. But we all know that a proper villain can’t have to many spikes for decoration.

I looked for materials in our handicraft store. Actually Fimo (a kind of thermoplastic clay) would have been the best choice since it’s rather flexible when dried. But no one can afford the amounts I would have needed… Instead I found a mould powder which is sold in bigger packages and much cheaper. Basically it’s just a very fine papier mâché. You can work it like potter’s clay, but it isn’t as brittle when dried. And it stays workable quite long if kept in a plastic box.

The small spikes were my first try. They’re rather misshapen. But I could sand them into form without a problem. The big spikes on Artemisia’s back I modeled directly from a picture. Luckily there is movie poster with her visible exactly in the profile. That I enlarged to 1:1 and moulded half of the spikes directly on the paper. After they were dry I just moulded the other half on.

For the small spikes a made a silicon mould and cast them several times with resin. Moulding all of them uniquely would have taken much too long. Like this I only had to correct them a bit with green stuff (ask someone building tabletop miniatures what that is 😛 ).

After that here was the mot fun part. Making everything colourful. For the colour to be durable I started with priming the spikes in white. Then I added the gold colour. And last I added a gloss varnish. Everything was spray painted. The big spikes made from mould powder absorbed all of the paint unfortunately. Now they look rather rough and dull. The small resin spikes on the other hand came out very nice. For the pictures I caught them in the evening sun. 😉

As soon as all the paint layers are dry I have to add the spikes to the armour.