Hey everyone! I’ve been teaching myself Nomad for the last year or so, and this was the biggest project I’ve done with it so far.
I 3D modelled this entire suit of costume armour in Nomad and printed the pieces in PLA and resin, then combined that with gems cast in epoxy with metal powders, hand weaved chainmail and the dress which I sewed (the sword is made from foam and was from an old cosplay, just needed a prop for the model to hold!). The design was based on traditional Islamic armour.
I was so pleased by how much I could really do with Nomad, as at first I thought I’d have to utilise another program like Z-Brush for a project this large. But I was able to sculpt every piece in Nomad in the end.
I posted more photos of this design and other projects on my Instagram (here) if anyone is interested
Yeah, I got a scan done of the model who would wear the armour, and then modelled the pieces on top of copies of that scan. So as long as I knew the scan was the right size, the armour pieces would be too.
The method I ended up working out was to sculpt onto the scan to bulk it out into the general shape I wanted the armour to be, then extract base shapes from the bulked out scan to work on. I also had to mesh those extracted shapes back into another copy of the bulked out scan, as having them hollow made the pieces collapse inwards when adding detial. Then when they were done, boolean the pieces with another copy of the bulked out version to get the right shapes for the inside of the armour.
Here’s an example from when I was figuring that out:
I guess the main other thing would be that I’m used to making armour and props from foam, so not only was there a new challenge in 3D modelling it, but the 3D prints themselves behave differently as costume pieces. Foam is soft and has an amount of give in terms of fit, whereas PLA/resin have none at all. It’s not that it’s worse or better, just different. It’s also a little nerve wracking having to wait for a whole print to be done before you can fit it on the model, as opposed to with foam where I pattern directly onto the person wearing it and can check how it fits at every stage of fabrication.
However the pieces being so solid definitely has its benefits. They’re way more durable of course. And with prints you can get such clean finishes, sharp edges and easily get symmetrical and really detailed pieces that would take far longer by hand.
The sanding and painting process is also a bit more involved than what I’d do with foam. I was prepared for sanding to be arduous but it still took longer than I thought, and I think I used about 4 cans of filler primer. Next time I’m definitely buying a palm sander as I sanded all these pieces by hand and my arms really didn’t enjoy that
Very nice job ! Clever to do the scan of the model ! I was wondering how you came up with the armour size, I saw your answer above. Once again, very good job
