Before i explain that, a bit of back story:
I'd had a hankering to have another outfit other than my Garindan one and i was seeing more and more Judges at Cons i was trooping and, being a massive 2000AD and Dredd fan since Prog 1, there was a connection there.
As much as i'd love to make and wear a Judge outfit, i'm too self-conscious to have any character with my face showing.
But i kept thinking and thinking how a character from the comic Dredd-verse would be a nice change to my existing Star Wars one.
And then i saw someone as Judge Death at a local Con and a lightbulb slightly came on. It grew much brighter as i started thinking about the other three Dark Judges, then grew white hot as it clicked - Judge Fear is to my mind the coolest looking of the lot and he's built like i am - tall and slim. And i'd already got a life-size badge so that's one stumbling block eliminated already.
That's it then - i WILL be Judge Fear :)
First thing to decide on was just which version to go for, as the fella has changed from appearance to appearance over the years.
To my mind, THE best version is the original by Brian Bolland, so i'd be going with that, although i'd be using this excellent B&W image by Cliff Robinson as my blueprint.
Going with that, i then had to make a mental shopping list of just what i'd be needing from head to toe.
That ran:
Helmet - THE potential stumbling block for me. After building and painting so many figure kits i know the head is the focal point that everyone looks at and, if you mess that up, it doesn't matter how the rest looks, its a fail. Having never scratchbuilt a life-size helmet, let alone such an iconic one, there was no way i was going to gamble on cocking it up. So i'd be fielding that out to someone i thought could do it justice.
Shoulder Pads - From reading all the pages and pages on armour builds, it seemed that foam would be the way to go - cheap, light and easy to work with. Trouble was, i'd never used the stuff before and, again, being so large, they'd be a focal point too, so i'd field them out too.
Under garments - nice and easy. Figured a Stormtrooper bodysuit would do.
Cloak - initially i thought i'd just use my Garindan one, but am now thinking a seperate one as i can dirty it up.
Badge - already gotten, just needed painting.
Belt - a nice, interesting mix of objects for me to do.
Knee Pads - again foam, and this was something i reckoned i could do.
Hands/feet - Slip over fancy dress one's sourced from somewhere.
So, that was my shopping list done and this was done about 5 months ago. I started on it almost immediately but i've held off on posting anything as i knew, when i reached the helmet/shoulder pad stage, that everything would grind to a halt while i waited for them to be done and the thing would lose momentum with no updates for ages.
But, happy to say, things are flowing nicely so here we go. I'll be posting an update each day until we're up to speed.
No comments:
Post a Comment