Well I think I’ve worked out what to do on the front of the torso. After some discussion (and concept art) with my mecha design advisor Xeones on the RA forums I started putting knife to styrene. It’s really difficult to design polysurface shapes like this in styrene so I decided to go one step back and mashed a big blob of clay to the front. From there it’s really easy to sculpt shapes and modify them.
I did this until I came up with the following. Please excuse the terrible photography!
The lighting makes it hard to really get a feel for the shape, but I’m really pleased with it. Ignore those weird looking plates either side of the waist – that is just an experiment for waste armour. It’s a bit dumb like that but I like the general direction of having a small plate either side.
I’ve got one of the shoulder pads mostly finished – it takes ages gluing on all of the banding! I’ve added three large dome rivets recessed into holes. I imagine these would be what fixes the shoulderpad to the shoulder.
I’ll probably make a mould of the shoulderpads as soon as they’re finished. I’d like to also do an alternative shoulderpad for one side with some iconography sculpted onto it but I’ll do that to a resin copy, not one of the masters 