Domuya Secret Project Nightmare Discussion

Was finally able to get my Nightmare (Rook) yesterday, after more than a week (was on vacation when he arrived)...

He poses like a dream, and I no problem so far with stability, even on only three feet on the ground.
But, there was damage to the armour (and the box), wouldn't blame Domuya, I am pretty sure it is the post here that caused it...

A few pictures:

He is a little bit of pony size together with my Aeslyn (Bel):



Neck looks thin, but I guess that is mostly due to the missing mane


Bel on horseback:

 

And the eyes just don't work...


So I took a look in our collection of glass marbles...
A pair of green translucent ones looked nice:


Dark blue gave an air of mystique:


But the black-brown marbles where best:



Tried on blood-red ones as well, but that was scary...

Sorry for the picture spam...

Edit:
20mm seems to be the largest that fits, using larger causes problems when trying to close the head cap.

 

Wow the marbles worked great! Great idea!

 

Congrats on your awesome Nightmare. Hopefully the damage he received isn't too bad. I agree the black-brown marbles are the best! Thanks for sharing and looking forward to your Domuya Dames riding out together.

 

My nightmare finally arrived. And he is magnificent! He poses like a dream.
But I must say my enthusiasm got tempered by the damage.

The black box was severely damaged, corners are thorn.
One ear is broken. The piece in front of the saddle has 2 hooks broken of that should have been attached to what?
The hooks for the weapon are broken off. The magnet in one leg armor is placed upside down so now it repels the back part.
Several pieces of chain and hooks were laying in the box. Some were of the chain mail that have holes in it but can easily be repaired. Some parts I still need to find out where they belong.

I wish they had made a booklet with pictures of how things should be attached or removed.

There were big red arrows on the outer box. But the man who brought it held it upside down.
I know that is stupid of the postman but it should have been packet much better.
This amount of unrepairable damage isn't fun.

 

hmmm, i don;t know how you guys are getting him to not only stand, but pose.*scratches head* mine is flopsie and dropsie. he will not stand to save his soul....... his legs just buckle at the knees, and he crumbles to the floor. hence, the photos of him lying in a heap. i had a tiny bit of damage as well.... there is a piece of the saddle broken off, i'm not sure what it is, or where it goes, but you can see that it is broken. there is nothing to hook the saddle to as far as i can see, and it just sits on top, not secured. oh well.... he is stunning, and i guess i will have to wire him.

 

Deredere: The boxes are big, and postal service seldom careful, the damage you describe sounds pretty much like the one I got (apart from the ear and magnet).

After a few hours (and some shopping to get new hooks/locks) I repaired all damage (including that on the box), exchanged broken or missing hooks and knitted some damage to the chain mail.
I'll post pictures of the working of the hook mechanism between the saddle and front armour tomorrow (if I get time over), I glued mine with super glue and then reinforced it with weave and epoxy.
When everything is connected the armour is almost one whole piece, it took a while to figure out, and is hard to explain, but I'll try to make some pictures of it during the week.
And yes, I wish they had provided some sort of description

Enjoy a picture of Rook with all the repairs done. ^_^

 

For Deredere, some help with the workings of the armour (and I hope it might help others too)...

The hooks should look like this (this is after I glued and reinforced them), and should go on either side of the ringlet:



Then push it back so it aligns with the armour


The block on this part should go into the saddle



It helps if you lift the back of the saddle somewhat when you press them together


And when done correctly the "side-guides" lock in place like this, and it sits pretty well


The back armour connects with the saddle like this (but put together the two halves first:



And the neck armour I put together like this:

It makes the neck less movable when all parts of the armour are connected, just like it probably was in real-life (where the horses usually did not even see anything through the armour either).

Hope this helped somewhat...

--- EDIT ---

On the neck armour: I don't think my way of putting it together is the same as Domuya's. I added some clasps to my design, and based on tension and movability did two threway connections instead of three straight connections, so far I found that this works better.
By mistake I bought bronze coloured clasps, and found that they looked a lot better, so I'll change the chains and rest of the clasps to bronze colour later on.

Also, disconnect the front armour and saddle when storing him in the box, otherwise the pieces will probably break again!

 

oh thank you for those photos, that is really helpful, and i can see now what pieces have snapped off.... i will have to hunt around in the box, and see if the bits are still in there, so i can glue them back on the saddle.... or i will just epxoy a similar bit on it.

 

Ah thank you very much!

I see that there is also something not right on the placements of the hooks of the neck armor of my horse.
Now I can correct that. I couldn't take it off without having to take some chain apart.

I had contact with Domuya and they have promised me to replace the broken parts.
They were very nice and helpful.

It's great that you have repaired the bits. Hopefully they will stay strong.

 

Just to let people know, I just got an e-mail from Domuya saying my replacement armour parts had shipped, pretty quick there!

 

Same here!

 

I have the replacements! Much sooner than I had expected. My horse is very happy with his new ears.
The armor parts are also perfect. Now I can put everything back together again.

 

GREATTTTT oh i love !!!

 

Has anyone tried taxidermy eyes? That might be a good way to get little white for a lot of iris.

http://www.glasseyes.com/cgi-bin/products.pl?ref=mammal&productcode=190BR

 

I am thinking of buying some horse hair and knotting a horse mane wig for him. Maybe in 3 pieces so the neck can still move.

 

The horse is awesome! = =And it is so expensive……What a pity……

 

deredere - sounds like a good idea! You can get free horse hair sometimes if you offer a service in return for some - I did this on craigslist, I pulled and braided some manes, but you could muck or groom or something too! I did not have money to buy, as it is expensive, but of course buying would be better as it is cleaned and processed for you.

 

Wow love all the great pictures. He's really awesome looking.

Ah. A fellow WoW player in my midst? Nice.

 

What color horse hair do you want? I have a chestnut mare. Think red/gold/brown but mostly red, her mains maybe 5 to 6 inches long. I’d be happy to send you some.