Making Appliqués
For my lorica cuirass
armor here
Authenticity alert! I should have carved a negative image into stone with a hammer & chisel, melted down a few gold bars and poured the molten metal in... sorry but, that's just a wee bit beyond my abilities so I had to go with a more modern equivalent... cold casting.
Okay, it's time to fabricate gryphons for the right and left abdomen, a gorgon, a candelabra, and a Lupa (she-wolf), Romulus, & Remus appliqué for my Roman armor & Officer's impression. I used a set of very heavy iron Gryphon book ends, a broach, a candle holder, and a small replica of a statue... circa 500BC. Unfortunately, the Lupa statue is facing straight ahead... she really needs to face back... but, I have a plan.
Anyways... to make the molds I softened
the plasteline clay in the microwave for about 60 seconds and then pushed the Gryphon book ends and the
small statue into the clay. With the Lupa, Romulus & Remus statue, I first
pressed it in straight, then filled in the head impression, turned the statue so
that the head was facing back, and pressed it in again... that's a
more typical representation we see on Roman Armor.
I then mixed the cold cast liquid resin together with metal powder and poured it into the clay mold. (Note, I should have used a 1:1 metal powder to liquid resin ratio, unfortunately I didn't have enough metal powder so, the appliqués didn't come out very shinny but, I'm planning on finishing them off in gold and silver anyways.)
Once hardened, they came out of the plasteline clay but with some difficulty and a great deal of the clay was sort of stuck to the appliqués. I had to use a knife and then afterwards, while running it under hot water, I had to use an old toothbrush and soapy water to clean them all off.
There was quite a bit of overlay between the first impression and the second where Lupa's head was facing back so, I used the Dremel to smooth it all out.
I also made Gryphons, similar to what's
seen in sculptures, using the same method. I'm made a candelabra too... which is
also pretty standard Roman lorica iconogy as seen in the examples below.
When the gorgon/Medusa heads are not covered by a cloak, they often appear to have eagles wings commingled with their hair... other times an eagle is perched on top of the Gorgon's head... sometimes it looks as if the eagle is sitting on the back of her neck with it's wings spread, then typically the gorgon's snakes are tied together under the chin like a ribbon... unfortunately my small gorgon broach alone is missing those standard Roman features so, I pressed it into the clay and engraved myself some wings, along with a small eagles head, and a snake ribbon under the chin, using the wood clay tools in the images below.
Over all I think my armor's motif came out pretty good... at the very least the iconogy is accurate to what the high ranking officers and Emperors typically had in sculpture; a Gorgon/Medusa head with wings center top, two gryphons facing left & right while flanking a single stick candelabra with flame, and Lupa with Romulus & Remus nursing toward the bottom.
I still have to finish them off in gold & silver and then paint them in vibrant colors as the originals were... I might have them plated or I might try using gold and silver leaf, I'm not sure yet. Then again, I might just paint them.