Originally posted by emopainterguy
Ok I\'ve had moderate success with this a while back... Theres a good tutorial somewhere but I have absolutely no idea where it is (and its french). Heres how I did it.
1. Sketch the shape of the armor plate on paper, cut it out and make sure it fits where you want it to.
2. tape the cut out paper to some sort of thicker plastic (plasticard, or even something like a plastic margarine/butter container lid).
3. cut out the plastic in the shape of paper sketch
4a. Use an air curing modelling clay (milliput works best I hear), make a block larger than your plastic shape, and press it into the surface of the milliput, and let it cure, and remove the plastic shape after (or before if you are careful)
-or-
4b. Use a bakeable clay (sculpy or fimo), make a block larger than your plastic shape, and press it into the surface of the clay, remove the plastic shape carefully. Bake the clay as instructed on the package
5. Take your cured block and sketch the design you want to have raised on the suface in pencil.
6. using a sharp tool (any cutting tool will work but one with a v shaped blade will be best) carve out the lines you sketched. You can also use a pin vise to make small holes that serve as bolts.
7. Once youve carved out all the lines you\'ll need to lubricate your block mold (canola or vegetable oil works best I find), mix some green stuff and press it into the mold so that its flush with the top of the block.
8. Wait 30 min to an hour for the green stuff to start to cure, remove it carefully from the mold and you can apply it to the model now, it should still have a little bend to it so you can shape it to the surface you are applying it to (but be carefull not to mash your details).
Heres one of the things I made a year or so ago (barding for GW skeletal horses):
You could probably make the mold with greenstuff too but i think it gets a little trickier to do it that way. There a couple different ways you can vary the technique but thats the easiest way I think.
Its also worth noting you can do text this way too, but remember to reverse it or it\'ll come out backwards on you.
Hope I\'ve helped a little.