This was just supposed to be a fun little contest. I decided to enter, just because. And then the professional illustrators from the Muddy Colors blog came in and the stress level went up. At this moment, they are looking over all of the thumbs on the WIP thread for the contest and will post comments and possibly do paintovers... More stress. And they might be giving away some of their art to whomever they like.... ( and this is where I flatline and lose all artistic inspritation)
Even in school, I never had this much trouble trying to produce a thumb that I was happy with. After a good week and the need for a new sketchbook, I might have it. But I'm not committing until I read the comments tomorrow. They could change everything.
But this is the WIP I've got right now.

Also, here's my entry for a quick contest on CGHub concerning Epic Swords. Didn't win, but I learned a lot about conte jour and painting metal.

My brother. Only 7 more to go.

Since I just started work on my Jun helmet, I'll be documenting the process at more of a depth than I have with any of the others. Pictures with explainations will be posted here, with the final tutorial being posted in the Prop Work section. At the moment, I have modeled a low res helmet in 3ds Max. It's not the most beautiful thing of course. I don't want to spend a lot of time on something I can do later with bondo.

I exported the file as an .obj and opened it in Pepakura viewer. I unfolded the model and arranged the parts on the proper paper size, making sure that nothing overlaps. The mess in the picture is what it looks like at the beginning of the unfolding. It looked nothing like that at the end. Everything had been cut and placed in an organzied fashion.

The next step was to build it using hot glue and xacto knives.

To help the paper craft keep it's shape, I like to add a layer of resin. Can't really tell from the picture. It usually soaks into the paper and makes it a bit darker.

And now the fun part! Smooth Cast 320 mixed and poured in smal amounts to coat the interior. It usually leaks out of cracks if you aren't careful. This can be a problem if it leaks and hardens on to a detailed exterior. But this helmet lacks any super detail on the outside. Yay!
Cause it did leak. lol. I coated it enough that it doesn't  bend, but doesn't get too heavy. I made that mistake with my Tali helmet. I had to sand out part of the interior or risk falling over backwards.

And that's all I have so far. I hope to start with the bondo and sanding, weather permiting.
Oh, a bit of art news too I guess. I'm starting on yet another portrait. And I've found myself a  new art community over at cghub. I'm liking it so far, as well as all the art challenges. Got one due on the 13th. Will post some of the WIP when I feel like it.