follow-me-eyes




	This page belongs to the subject area “linothorax”. The beginning would be here: composite armour When an imperial paladin notices a handful of eyes opening on his armour this would portend an urgent appointment with the inquisition- but elsewhere there are folks who consider such a mutation an honour of which you can be very proud indeed because it is a visible sign of the esteem of a deity! See the picture below with the zoom on the artificial eyes: they´re looking at the camera!

Epic Empires 2017

I want a handful of natural-sized eyes for my chaos armour. They should look particularly “lifelike” insofar that their pupils shall appear to be moving.

This building- technique is called “follow- me- effect” because that´s what the eyes do: they look after the observer when he changes position.

Above: the armour- plate seen from the right, frontal and from the left. When you pass by the eyes follow you.

This is an invention of the furries (i.e. the owners of fur-suits which is something else entirely than anthropomorphic characters in larp).

The principle is to build a pupil that is located deep in a lense and leave the rest to the laws of optics.

As always I´m running out of time and want it cheap- so off to the next budget furnishing house where we aquire a pouch of yellow, flat glass- decoration- thingies nobody really knows the purpose of (if you don´t intend to incorporate them into a chaos armour, that is)...

left:

on top the glass lens,

beneath: the pupil is painted on the lenses´ underside with black acrylics (seen from above the pupil is on the bottom of the lens)

then paint the lenses´ bottom white for better contrast

below: the finished “eye”.

I´ve opted for vertical pupils which can only “move” to right and left. A round, centered pupil can “see” in every direction but this would mean that my super- armour would potentially be squinting or worse: from a low angle in a cute way be begging for whatever- and Chaos avoids (at any cost) the raising of cuteness parameters.

Also the vertical goat- or octopuslike pupils make do without an iris and look (un)comfortably non- human.



right: The eyes are positioned on the armour- plate using Pattex. This however neither is a reliable attachment nor looks cool: adhesion and impression will result from the sculpting of the lids.



	left: A first layer of “flesh” is applied using glue (D3 wood glue, water resistant, transparent drying) and pieces of as- thin- as- possible cloth (scarves for example). This procedure provides for sufficient adhesion by bonding with the surface forming a very durable composite (“linothorax”). The lentil- shaped eyes still stand out too much from the ground plate but a second layer of cloth will fix that.



right: First the lower, then the upper lids are sculpted. On the picture the glue is already dry. The more precisely one works the less effort it is to scratch glue- remainders off the glass lenses... Between the eyes the cloth imitates skin folds. Junctions between individual pieces of cloth are not visible. Then the surface is painted using acrylics.



		left: Again the follow- me- effect. It looks alien and curious when 8 renownedly artificial eyes follow you with their gaze when you change position. I love it! Subsequently you only have to resist the temptation to plaster your whole armour with eyes- however on the rear neckguard 2 or 3 “backup lights” have cropped up...

The construction with the composite “skin” has successfully met all challenges of the summer campaign: Neither impacts nor multi- day- rain have led to damage.

After the end of the operation the composite is cleaned with a damp, soft cloth, left to dry thoroughly, then stored dry and aired.


	may 2018


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