WWII Sci-Fi Experimental Nazi Mech Suit

Hey Folks! Been a while since I posted anything here.

Some of you might remember this little short I posted a few months back called 1945A. It's an alternate history WWII sci-fi presentation I did:

YouTube - 1945A - WWII Sci-fi Film

I had to make some supplemental material for this project, which included a 1/6 maquette of an experimental German armored exoskeleton, or a "mech suit" to be simple. It's basically scratch built from PVC pipes and sheet styrene. Some of the greeblies are kitbashed from various German tank models and a few Gemini and Apollo spacecraft models as well. Afterwards I painted the whole thing and gave it some heavy weathering to show up on camera. I took a couple photos of it outdoors.













A little photoshop fun to make it look like a vintage photo:



A work-in-progress shot I took. You can see that the forearms are cannibalized fuel tanks from a 1/18 scale P-51 Mustang. The flamethrower tank is made from a bomb that came with the same model. The claw on his left arm came off a 24" Masudaya Robbie the Robot figure:

Very cool, loved the movie too

Nice build. Very nice weathering.

And I like your walking tank, too.

Very cool concept piece. I really enjoy seeing stuff like this, especially when it is so overwhelmingly well executed!

Ill echo MooCriket!

The upper half of the exoskoleton looks awesome. To me the legs look difficult to wear though, more like a droid.

The pics are great!

Very cool. I love alternate history stories and this is right up my alley.

NAZGÛL said:

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Ill echo MooCriket!

The upper half of the exoskoleton looks awesome. To me the legs look difficult to wear though, more like a droid.

The pics are great!

Yes, definitely an awesome project!!!

I too noticed the legs probably being a little small and probably too tight, but heck, let´s pretend it´s a Nazi-Cyborg, makes it even more creepy!

Looking awesome! Great build and paintjob!

I agree with everyone else, this is a very cool build and concept. The weathering is spot on. The tech represented definitely gives a 1940's "feel" and believeable Sci-Fi look.

The film was great!Nice work.

Is the film part of a larger work? I want to see MORE!

ManfromNaboo said:

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Yes, definitely an awesome project!!!

I too noticed the legs probably being a little small and probably too tight, but heck, let´s pretend it´s a Nazi-Cyborg, makes it even more creepy!

It's more the hips than legs IMO.

Still, looks pretty spiffy nonetheless.

Very cool.

I love the short, and have no problems with the legs. He could be bionic-ish from the waist down. Really nice work.


I think the suits Achille's heel might be the grenade garter. It'd definitely be on my shoot first list.

Thanks, folks. I agree that the anatomy of the suit looks kind of off. I could probably come up with something a little better if I didn't have to get this done in two weeks. Truthfully, the figure's legs CAN fit inside the pipes that I used to make the legs, but he can't wear shoes and his toes need to be pointed downwards like a ballerina to fit properly. So while it can technically fit a body inside, it would be extremely uncomfortable.

Love it! Very good work, especially with the timeframe you had.

Kudos.

Great job! Question: Is this thing posable (like if you wanted to do stop motion) or is it a complete stationary model (without movable joints)?

That is really killer.

How tall is it?

It's minimally posable. There's some metal water heater hose in the joints so they can be bent to some degree for posing, but the paint will chip off if you bend them too much. It's not nearly limber enough for stop motion animation.

And it's about 14" tall.

Thanks for the info, Playskool. I was wondering about this as I know you used PVC on it as well, and I've been toying around with the idea of making a stop motion Mech puppet out of the same material.

The PVC works fine as it's a very sturdy structural material. But you probably want to use actual stop-motion armatures for the joints.

playskool2000 said:

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The PVC works fine as it's a very sturdy structural material. But you probably want to use actual stop-motion armatures for the joints.

Probably a good idea. I came across a tutorial over at the MakeZine blog on how to make the ball sockets for a stop motion armature. Again, thanks for the info.

Great size - will you kit it? What is your technique to do the rust. It looks very realistic.

Dude - who are you? That video is amazing. I hope you are in the business because you are very talented.

Will there be more coming on this subject?

Excellent work on that movie. I'd pay to see it!

Love the exo-skeleton as well. Very creative and a nice build!

Very creative, nice work.