40K Tech-Priest Mechanical Arm costume piece

I was commissioned to create a full arm costume piece for a LARP been help at a gaming convention, called Gaelcon.  I was given free range when it came to creating the design of the piece as the guy knew I understood the 40K design elements.

This was a quick build as I got the finally go ahead two weeks before the convention, but I've built these pieces before so I knew I could do it.

The whole arm was made out of 2mm craft foam, with each piece hand cut out. I started with the gauntlet, using a wooly gloves as the base. Each piece was blocky, showing it was good solid metal :

Damaging up the arm was done to show that it this was used, in day to day life, as very little in the 40K universe is very clean & shiny. The extra detail of nuts & caps, on the fingers, gives a better metal feel.

Second was the lower arm. I wanted this to have the feel of layers & depth. Showing that there are working pieces underneath:

 

The next step is once again damaging. This involves taking a dremel, crafting knife & sandpaper to the foam & wires. Not damage is too severe as some of it is going to be lost during painting:

Lastly the upper arm. This I made to be just a simple overlapping armour pieces, to give the feel that it can move but there is also more, important, working pieces underneath:

It was tricky to get the shape & measurements just right for this one so that is would sit correctly on the person, it's why I made it flat first before heat gunning it into shape:

 
Once all the pieces where finished & heat gunned into shaped I added elastic straps, to the inside, so they could be worn without people seeing how they are held on.  Once the glue was set it was onto the third phase, painting:

 

Each piece got a base coat of black then metallic silver was dry brushed on to highlight all the damaged areas.

Then I just kept going over & over the model with darker & darker shades of the metallic sliver, eventually using small amounts of pure black acrylic paint, to weather & dirty the prop to show it is well used & worn.

Lastly I dabbed on some white along the edges & deep scar marks for extras highlights & some brass paint for "metal on metal" damage weathering.

Here is all three pieces layout:

& here it is on the happier customer:

The fit was perfect, which was the one thing I was really worried about this build.  I learn a few things while building this which I am going to use them when I build the Winter Solider arm, which I really hope is soon.



-Matty