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This is how every torso starts. You can see the blank template, the selection of colours below it, and the random useful objects around it. The first step is to get a picture of what you want to do, and stick it somewhere on the picture, like so:
This covers over some medallions and the fancy lace, but neither of them will be needed. Drawing can then begin.
The collar is the first thing I always draw. The lines I use are the second-thickest for most things, with small items done with the third-thickest line.
Then some detail is drawn in with the thinner line:
After that, a button is drawn, then copied to make all of the buttons the same size:
The whole torso is then coloured:
Crossbelts are then added, first by drawing them (in a non-black colour, so filling them in later doesn't interfere with the black lines already drawn). Care is taken to make sure the distance between the lines at both ends is around the same, although I often fail to achieve this. |-/
The belts are then filled in, and once all of the detail is filled in, the belt lines can be chaged to black:
And with that, the torso is done. It can now be cut out, put on a grey background and have its edges cleaned up:
With that, all that's left to do it save (AS A .PNG THIS IS IMPORTANT) it with an illogical difficult-to-remember-later filename and post it here.
Or you could skip all this and just recolour an existing one. If you look at all the torsos I've done, you will find a huge amount of hussar recolours, the original being the French Guard Chasseur. All my mexicans are based off one body, and many of my recent cavalry torsos are recolours or modifications of the colonial British. You have strange ones as well, such as the French Zouaves being re-done as Russian naval artillery, although my favourite is that Peter the Great has to share a body with Charles XII!
Hope this guide helps some people.
If you want to start making your own, the template and official colours are here:
Torso Template and Color Guide
You don't need to use official colours, but it helps if, for example, your torso is mostly green and designed to be used on a green body, that the green used is the official shade of Lego green.
Edited by Mosana, 08 August 2007 - 09:52 AM.
