Ursus is Coming Along

You will recognize the saddle bags and saddle from a previous post, but yes, the mighty Ursus is coming along rather handsomely! I am so excited at the way the costume is transforming into what I imagined. I only hope that I can do the movie justice. I think this might be my most favorite custom ever completed to date. I will need to sculpt a gun, a rifle, sew a rifle holster, and then whip up some kind of bridle.


Fun fun fun!!

Can't wait to get my hands back onto the crafting of General Ursus.

State of Ursus Armor

This is the state of the General's armor. The pieces have been sewn onto him because I think they were attached by leather string to him in the movie. I will probably re-do the collar--I'm just not happy with the placement of the little dots, plus I think the collar needs to be a bit wider. I actually added two little horizontal lines on the metal plates of the armor, but you can't really see it because of the flash. When I take his portrait, I will make sure that the camera captures it. This outfit is looking almost like the way I wanted it to be! Just some minor tweaking to do. I will also have to sculpt a pistol for him. I ordered some Chips black hands, so hopefully somebody can show me how to replace his hands...or I could read up about it.

Armor update

The metal pieces I had bent last night (the left sleeve on the picture) and glued into place are in my opinion really too big for the scale. From another mad dash through the craft store during lunchtime, I encountered something that will work. It is aluminum that is soft enough to bend without too much effort, and it's practically trimmed for me to begin with, so all I had to really do was roll it into shape, and then glue it. I must have rolled these little tin shapes for quite some time when my dulled senses were beckoned to sleep by the toll of the midnight hour. So another night has come to pass and there is much to do for the armor but I am happy at the results now. I wrapped the armored sleeve around the ape's upper arm and it looks wonderful. The studs will not be overwhelmed by the size of the metal plating and there is no need for me to paint this. Both sleeves are now done. This costume is promising to be a good one. After the glue has dried, I am going to place the sleeves face down on my kitchen counter and rub down the metal out so they are flattened. At that point, I will decide if I should add the horizontal bars on each metal plate--if they add or detract to the overall outlook of the outfit.

Ursus pieces falling into shape

I am taking artistic liberties and have decided to use these metal pieces for the armor plating. I know they are not to scale but I love how they are already made out of metal and add an ominous weight to the fabric. He will really look menacing wearing this outfit. Now to fit the studs onto the collar, finish up the rest of the metal pieces (if I can find more of these guys)...glue them and sew the outfit onto Ursus. I hope the outfit looks good when it's done. I would really hate to put so much effort in this thing with the end product not looking as spectacular as I imagined. If I am not happy with the end product, I will probably start all over again. I hope I don't have to do that--I want to see this costume done.

Ursus purple outfit

Underneath the armor is a plain purple outfit. I resewed the outfit today. I could have re-used the same pants from the soldier ape but I was not happy with the fit. I decided to place the snaps in the front of the outfit instead of the back, so that General Ursus would have an easier time putting on his outfit. The outfit came out really well I think and will look superb underneath the cuirass.

Ursus Armor Plating

I didn't know how to start this. First, I was going to create a die so that I could stamp out the pattern for the plating. That didn't work, as the die kept gunking up. Then, I decided to try to cut out the plating and then poke holes. These would be used for fastening to the leather. I spent probably a good hour at the hobby store looking for something to create these with.

Don't they look like graham crackers? The problem with this is that not only did I have to sew them down to the leather, but I also had to paint them silver. The size is perfect for the body, too, but I was not happy with the way the pieces were not uniform. I was going to sew the pieces down with wire, which required additional work...or attach the wire, spray paint the pieces, and then glue them down. I was worried about finding the perfect silver paint so that the pieces looked metallic.

Hieroglyphs on Ursus hat fixed

At first I tried to whittle down the hieroglyphs, but they popped off the hat. I didn't want to wait for the glue to dry before I could whittle them down again, so I decided to just remove them and start all over. The second time around, I created the hieroglyphs but made sure they were already thin to begin with so that they didn't need fixing. The second photo is a closeup of the collar's hieroglyph. It needs to be painted black, and probably will need a gloss cover so that it could match the fake leather. the hat will probably have to be glossy too.

Revised helmet. The first is a closeup of the glyphs. The second photo shows the two helmets together. The newest helmet is not as tall as the first helmet. I might shave down the glyphs later before painting by sanding them down.

I also noticed some black paint marks stuck on the helmet when i pried it off the soldier ape. Oh well. I am not really into getting these Megos in perfect, carded condition. My MO is just creating their outfits and playing with them and photographing them.

For my final portrait of General Ursus when done I will do something totally drastic that I have seen on 1/6 scale figures...but I dare not tell because I don't know if it will work or not.

General Ursus Helmet

Soldier ape wearing the helmet. Not really sure if the helmet is a bit too big. Need to find some more photos of Ursus as a reference and not rely solely on my single print-out. I want to find various poses so I can see a 360 of his helmet.

OK...I've thought it over and I have decided that his helmet is too tall. I will verify with a few more Ursus printouts, and then start shaving down the helmet. If that is too difficult, I will resculpt a smaller one. Good for practice, you know. I hope I find some good screen shots.

Crickey!

Major burns from the toaster oven! Gaahhhhhhhh! That's what happens when you try to multi-task! Should have been watching the baking process more closely, but the dishes were calling out to me...

The last photo shows the area where the burn marks were shaved off with a sharp knife.