Greenstuff Coat tutorial (ish)

I've been meaning to get around to writing a tutorial for the way I do coats for a while, but I havent had a model I thought needed one for a bit. fast forward to today and a troublesome Imperial guard vetran sergeant who just won't look right.

I've never tried a coat on a guard before, mainly because the fellow recently posted and the squads to follow here this evening are the first guard I've ever built. yes, really.

So here goes.

(apologies for the quality fo some of the pcitures, it was very dark here today due to the weather and it led to long exposure times and some camera shake I didnt notice untill I was done)

The first thing to do is to prepare the figure, what this means is build it and then trim away any uneccecary bulky detail, on this guard it was the shoulderpads, on marines its those, the elbos and the powerpack stump.



Next, you need tome GS. the trick is to keep it well lubed and roll it out thin. real thin, like paper. youll be frustrated at first, but try not to ever use your fingersm just your tools, and youll tear it less. oh and keep them lubed, I said that, right? :)


When rolling, from time to time check the comparative size of you sheet, you don't want to fall short, or too long, though the latter is easier to rememdy.


The first peices we need are the back panels, they should look something like this, where the top part is roghly the span of 1/2 the shoulders and the bottom can be as big as you like, depending how much "kick out" the coat will have. this guy wont have much so it's about 1/4 the circumfirence of the guy's "personal space"


before we apply the two halves I use a very thin peice of GS to serve as the inside of the split at the rear of the coat.



Then plonk one of the sides where you want it


And begin to form it into place, expecially at the waist, for now this is the main anchor point for the GS


Add the other side


for the front the peices are of similar shape, but the lower portion is thinner as we want the coat to be open


From the front he should look something like this


the principle is the same as the rear, plonk, then shape


(I missed a shot here as it was very blurred)

once the panels are all losely tacked in place at the waist the real shaping can begin, first we add some movement to the rear, at the same time blending the seams together, I've also added a thin strip here to serve as a collar.



next, sleves, these are simple shapes, but need to be very thin or it will be really noticable


plonk, then shape, I left these as quite short, due to the Pfist on the other side, but floppy sleeves are always an option too :)



then we move on to a few bits of detail - these will be a belt and epaulets(sic)


this blurry mess below is an epaulet, plonk then shape, careful not to blend it right in, we want that edge, also pierce it to represent a bullot. If I were being more meticulous I'd add a small disc, but I'm not.

so there.


Place the belt in the furrow you made earlier and shape it around the body, you can leave the ends trail;ing on an open coat, or overlap them for a tied belt.





Last but not least, some Very small peices to serve as belt loops


just plonk these and press lightly top and bottom


Et Voila. A coat. that's how I do them, I'd love to hear of other techniques.

Here he is primed.




To be honest I'm not mad on either the pose or the head, but the coat came out okay :)