Sculpting test!
Trying to sculpt Vader's leather suit is damn hard. There are folds, there are wrinkles and there are sewn lines and all have to be there and not diminish the folds.
The spacing on the sewn lines are too wide in this early attempt and are corrected in a future attempts, and I will have it follow the contours more instead of being so straight
I am still too scared and take too long to try sculpting it in the self-hardening Apoxie Sculpt, but I'll keep plugging away at it. If it ends up being done in super sculpey, then I'll have to mold and cast it onto the body. Or maybe cast it thinly, as a shell, so things remain separate.
Afterwards, in the same evening I sculpted a test on his left leg as well. Much more pleased with the look. Not hitting the material as hard as before made the wrinkles look more like they should and not too puffy and the closer spacing between the sewn lines looks better. I was so fast with this that I think with a little more practice I might even be able to do it with Apoxie Sculpt. However, I'll have to test sculpt with Apoxie Sculpt on something unrelated first, since the two materials doesn't exactly work the same when sculpting with it.
Then I redid the right leg with the less puffy look and narrower sewn lines. Looks much better. Shapes look a little extreme because of the shadows. Tried taking a picture of it out of direct sunlight, but it didn't turn out so great.
The two last pictures shows revisions after some feedback. Made the ribs thinner, as well as a little bit straighter from top to bottom, following the reference more. I am still uncertain whether I should go costume accurate or in-universe accurate - for ESB that means regular fabric for the rear section of the legs and not ribbed leather.
The question simply is: does it look convincing as leather fabric?