# Fabrics - Full Robes 2.3.5 Open/Running Robes



## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

Fabrics - Full Robes 2.3 

Right guys - been a while since i last did a tutorial, sorry for that, been quite busy with comps and life, here is the tool prep, tutorial will follow sat evening, sun mornin (GMT, got a local comp on sat so i cant start sooner), thought id give u a heads up so u can dust off ur tools!

Tool Prep








1). Water cup
2). Sculpting Tool
3). Sharp Knife
4). Thick plasticard
5). Thin plasticard (not essential, but it makes later stuff easier)
6). Greenstuff (or for the colour blind, a big liquerice swirl!)

Full Robes 2.3.5 – Open/Running Robes

Righteo guys, sorry for the delay, I have been busy, and admittedly I have never sculpted full robes in this way before, so I have been avoiding it a little and it took me a few tries to make it easy and looking good enough to teach u guys about it. So!
1.)	Roll yourself a large ball of 50/50 GS , and leave it to cure for 25 mins or 2-4 mins if you are using a putty oven. Nb the ball in this pic isn’t the actual sized ball I used. I ended up redoing this section because I didn’t have enough Gs and forgot to take more pics. You want almost double the size of that ball








2.)	Take the mini your working on while the GS cures and thin the waist, removing/smoothing any potential areas that may protrude (like a SM backside for instance, note I didn’t smooth mine and not its sticking out like a sore thumb, realistic, but does it look good?), it may reduce the realism, but the mini will look a lot better for it.
3.)	Grab a nice large square of thick plasticard, drench the square and the plasticard your going to be using, this is very important because you don’t want the GS to stick, if your having issues try leaving the GS to cure for longer. 








4.)	Using the square and your finger tips slowly rock the square plasticard in a circular motion for about 5 seconds, lift the square up and using your tool slowly and lightly lift the GS off, this shouldn’t take any effort, the large amount of water should make it very easy to lift, flip the Gs and repeat the process until you have roughly double the height of the legs








5.)	Fold the GS in half and repeat the process again. You are now trying to widen the GS enough to fit it around your characters waist. The second picture is roughly the size u want it at, because I repeated this first stage to get a better result the actual size of the GS I am cutting up isn’t correct, so don’t use them as a reference for size, they are the wrong size, the actual size should be almost double the width. Nb you may even want to fold the ends in to make the GS squarer, which will help you gain the largest rectangle possible















6.)	Next you will want to be thinking about the best way to cut the GS to get the maximum sized rectangle possible. Remember the bigger the rectangle is the easier it will be to mold the robe
If you believe you have the right size, pick it up and measure it against the mini, the rectangle in these pictures aren’t wide enough, so I placed them back down and rolled some more 
















Eg pic of potential rectangles, the pink one is the best one, bet you never thought I d be saying that eh? 








7.)	So you’ve got the size, place your mini down and put two small marks down where you want the top to be and where you want the bottom to be








8.)	Grab your small metal ruler and line it up with the mark you have made, bear in mind the top mark, you want it to be as square as possible with this mark. Place your ruler down and softly push it into the GS to make sure it doesn’t move, now slowly draw your scapel along, slowly and gently, cut a second time if you need. Then cut the top and sides until you have a nice rectangle























9.)	Now wrap you GS around your characters waist/legs, your aiming to get the 2 top opposite points together just below his waist, press both down together at that point. You also want to make sure the rest is roughly lined up. Nb in the last pic you can see that my recrtangle is too large, so I removed it and cut some off.























10.)	Next, u need to start bringing the top edges of the GS into his waist. With a wet tool slowly push the edge of the Gs up towards the waist, making it a nice smooth curve. (having clay shaper will help a lot)















11.)	Now you want to work a few creases into the top of robe where it meets the waist, take your tool and push small, short lines into the GS. There are too many in the pic iv got here, and to be honest their a bit crap, I should have redone them, but I didn’t coz am lazy :þ








12.)	So now you want two big wavy folds, and the 2 main areas that would naturally carry these folds are slightly either side of the outer legs, so take your tool and slide it quite far up the robe in the centre and slowly, gently pull the GS out from the legs so you have room to work. Then take your tool (or a thin drill bit like I did) and gently pull each side out to so it looks like a square ‘U’ from underneath 








13.)	Now gently push your wet tool down in between the two creases you have made so it now looks like a wavy ‘M’. This is your folds done, but, to add realism, your going to wet your fingers and slowly pinch and pull the bottom of each fold so it has a nice sharp end it















14.)	Take your tool and slowly push downwards, towards yourself, on the inside of each fold, when you get to the end separate the two sides of the pinched GS, this will give you a nice sharp end to the fold now that looks realistic. Next take a thin drill bit and place it diagonally next to the front edge of bottom of your robes, it should form a triangle with the point of your robe. Now gently, with wet fingers roll it back, so its curved up and away from the leg. You also want to pull the fold next to it (the ones you made in the last step) slightly towards this fold and repeat on the other side. Now leave to cure























15.)	Mix 50/50 GS blob, grab half and strategically ‘plonk’ it on your mini you, roughly want it ¾ from the back of the mini. Using wet thumbs/fingers push the bottom left corner down towards the pubic area, this will help create the diagonal line that we need later. Drag the rest of it backwards and down so it fills up the side of the mini and half of the back of the mini. Make sure you cover every space





























16.)	Using your (very) sharp scalpel, place the blade’s point at the edge of the GS above the pelvis, the point should be slightly to the left as this part of the robe will be going over the part of the robe we will be sculpting on the opposite side. Slowly rock the blade backwards and up and towards the back collar of the space marine. It should look like it flows into the collar, a nice curved line








17.) Now we have that cut, you need to create some creases, place your tool at the bottom of the fabric and rock it backwards to about halfway, make sure it is running parallel to the line you have just cut. Make a few more similar creases, but make sure they go smaller the further they get away from the main crease.















18.)	Using the same method, make a few more creases on the back as well, make sure you start off at the bottom, towards the middle, then sweep the crease up, towards the edge, after you have done that, take a wet tool and gently push the end of the crease up so it blends better into the fabric.








19.)	Nb You may notice that the creases I have made at the back are a lot smoother then the ones I have made at the front, this is because I used my sculpting tool for the front and my ‘cup rounded’ clay shaper for the back, I cannot overstate enough how useful this tool is, it will increase the quality of your work and it will make your work alot smoother. Its soft pointed tip allowed me to lightly draw smooth creases into the GS, the creases were easier to do, were quicker to do and look better.






























20.)	Now all this work may have lost you a sharp edge at the inside of your fold, take you tool and gently smooth the edge out towards the middle. Then using the long side of you tool push the edge in making sure its even, this should restore your sharp edge and is the easiest way to get sharp edges.








21.) Repeat on the opposite side but look to flatten the leading edge that goes towards the pelvis. This side of the robe will be going underneath the first. If you don’t understand the idea try crossing you fingers over each other so your right hand goes underneath your left. As you can see you left hand is raised up of your right hand, this is the effect we are trying to recreate by flattening the leading point. It will make it seem that the first side we sculpted is travelling over the current side we are sculpting















22.)	When you are pulling the GS towards the back you want to pull it so it overlaps the cured GS. Using a wet thumb continue to pull the wet GS over until its nice and smooth over the top of the cured GS. Don’t be concerned if you have used two diff tones of GS, if you have made if nice and smooth you wont be able tell the difference once the paint goes on








23.)	Create some creases in the same way as mentioned before, however, the starting point for the creases in the front should be more in the direction where the newly sculpted fabric travels under the older sculpt, their will be naturally more tension in this area








24.) Leave to cure
25.)	Once fully cured you will need to find the arms sockets, using a sharp pointy object guesstimate where the centre of the arm socket is. Make a small hole and slowly expand that hold until you find the edges, don’t worry if the arm doesn’t sit flush against the socket, just make sure it sits well against the GS, the shoulder pad will cover the rest up! 















26.)	Extra details: this is the point where u may want to add dangly things, purity seals, insignia, chapter markings. The main thing you will need is a belt. I have wound some very thin jewellery making wire in to a tight coil, (by folding a long length in half, placing one end in to the jaws of my pin vice and twisting to my hearts content :þ!) and made a simple rope belt out of it. And that’s it, finished! Closed/standing robes to follow.


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

Whoohoo!!!!!!


All hail Dark Messiah, he who shows us the ways of the mighty sculpting tool . Been awfully quiet lately mate.


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## Anphicar (Dec 31, 2006)

I dont have plasticard. :x


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

well get some! dur! if u follow my previous tutorials, ull realise u dont need plasticard, so dont worry too much about it 
yea been busy, had lots of interviews (hoping to get a proper job), had a GW interview last week which went well, had a big comp last month, been busy helping to establish the North West England painting team (hopefully will turn into Team GB) and iv been too lazy to do more tutorials


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## corukj (Jun 26, 2007)

i'm really looking forward to this tutorial. hopefull it will help me with my robed conversions for my grim reaper themed army.


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## pathwinder14 (Dec 27, 2006)

We need to collect these tutorials of yours and put them in the articles section. They are golden.


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## Cadian81st (Dec 24, 2006)

Agreed. We can't let them get lost in the warp.


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

I shall do just that.


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

right, its done! the beast is slain! enjoy...


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## hephesto (Feb 24, 2007)

And another very cool tutorial, will have to give this a try in a while on some more word bearers


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## DaemonsR'us (Jan 25, 2007)

DM your tutorials seem to get better and better, very awsome tutorial!


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

DM, your amount of awesome is crazy!


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

cccp_one said:


> DM, your amount of awesome is crazy!


i should so copy that and lob in my sig


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Great tutorial Dark, I'm very tempted to try and do that for my Inducted Gaurd but I'm scared I'll start and never finish. Brilliant Stuff.


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

in all honesty this guy took me 2hrs in all, and thats with taken pics, with a bit of practise and messing around u could get a couple done in an evening, its well worth having a play because it isnt that hard


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## Anphicar (Dec 31, 2006)

I dont understand number 5 and the taco-like picture.

what are we doing there...? And how did we go from that to the big flat thing for the square?

Also--in number 16, the cutting off the gs--is that simply to make the robes edge look good?


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

the 'taco' picture is prob misorder, if u read it again i beleive i say that its testing the width of the GS, if u pick it up when ur rolling it, but before u cut it, and place it on in the 'taco' position, ur can test the width of the peice, see if its right or not.

16 - yes and no, you cant get a sharp edge like that though pushin and smoothin alone, if u gentally cut it the way iv described u will get a nice sharp realistic edge, it serves both form and function 


not 100% sure if iv anwered ur first q, so let me know and ill try to reanswer for u


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## Anphicar (Dec 31, 2006)

I still dont understand what the first step after four is for. Perhaps your wording..? Or my brain..?


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

what do u understand exactly??


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## Anphicar (Dec 31, 2006)

I understand that we have to flatten the GS into a circle.

Then for some reason we fold it and repeat the process? --Do we repeat it when its folded?


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

we roll it in to a circle, double the height of the legs, thats how we make the robe tall enough, to gain the width needed without making the GS too thin to use we fold it length ways to keep the height but give us enough GS so we can roll it to the required width, then, when u think its wide enough, u pick it up and do the 'taco' thing

the GS needs to be folded to make sure the GS is thick enough to be used. if we were to carry on rolling the GS and not folding it, the GS would be too thin, tear easily and wouldnt hold its shape,

understand now?  

is this a wide spread thing? coz if it is i need to know so i can edit the tutorial


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## Skcuzzlebumm (Dec 21, 2006)

Darkmessiah said:


> been busy helping to establish the North West England painting team (hopefully will turn into Team GB) and iv been too lazy to do more tutorials


Yeah i've heard about this, my mates Tommie and Mike are part of this plan to destroy team Spain.


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

interestin, and who might u be? a friend of mr soule or mr biggles?
coz iv been hearing alot about random people...


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

Damn I wish I had the time to do this right now. Never fear though, I will do it at some point!


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## Skcuzzlebumm (Dec 21, 2006)

Darkmessiah said:


> interestin, and who might u be? a friend of mr soule or mr biggles?
> coz iv been hearing alot about random people...


Me be Neil, random friend to many and known by more.

Pretty good painter, not in Tommies league but when i bother to pull my finger out and paint can pull off some nice stuff. If you where at Conflict North this year you may have seen (amongst other entries) my big red giant.

Most famous for Pink Tyranids though.

And you?


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## Anphicar (Dec 31, 2006)

Most famous for his GS articles! Woooo!


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## Darkmessiah (Jan 7, 2007)

lol, i was at conflict north! i am the random scouser who thought of the idea whilst chattin to mike when he happened to be in liverpool store, then he made a few phone calls, the team got started and then expanded at conflict. and hopefull we will attract some attention at GD and expand even more!
i came second with the ork kommandos on a round scenic base, and i had ahriman in single 40k


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## Skcuzzlebumm (Dec 21, 2006)

Yeah i recognised the Kommando from here.


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