Mass Effect 3: Cerberus Assault Trooper

Yodajammies

Well, we're closing in on March 6th, 2012 (Mass Effect 3 release date), and I'm sure we'll see an explosion in the population of Commander Sheppards around here. Now as any good conversationalist would do, we must cull this herd before they all start saving the world, defeating the Reapers, finishing the fight, etc etc.

Therefore, it's time for the "Earf-first", xenophobic anti-heroes of Mass Effect 2 to rise again as The Cerberus Assault Trooper.




Thus begins the chronicling and overly dramatized build thread for my 2012 showpiece.

First, major props go out to CGJeff who helped out with a lot of the modeling on the helmet. I'm not wet behind the ears when it comes to 3d work, but this cat is a pro.





After the 3d model was properly sized and mocked up, it's off to the 5-axis mill for some quick foam cutting. I'm currently doing all my milling in 15lb density tooling foam (UR150 from theengineerguy.com). It doesn't tap worth a crap, but it holds a very decent edge, doesn't kickup a lot of dust, doesn't generate too much static, and is relatively cheap.

Even though I have full 5-axis capability, I've found that it's much faster to mill the main using 3-axis operations, then seam up the edges of the cuts. If an individual part requires multi-axis machining, it's not as difficult to CAM if you don't have to work around your entire model.



Here is the front and back of the helmet cut separately to make sure I got all of the tiny details that took so long to model out. The bondo spot you see on the right is where the mill thought it might be a good idea to see what China is like this time of year, and decided to go right through my part.



Now that all the parts are cut, it's just a simple matter of expoy-ing them together and feathering out the seams. Since this board is so porous, and I'm fairly impatient when it comes to gluing things, I'm using Smooth-on 5 minute "instant" epoxy.



He's got his ears on so now to mold and cast his little cheek breathers. Once that's done and he gets a little more sanding polish, I think we'll almost be in the ballpark to mold this fella.






Now I don't want to lay all my cards out on the table at once, then not be heard from for a month while I work on other things, so here's just a quick teaser of what else I've got done on this project, that I'll share in the next couple weeks.

RATCHET

Man, I am extremely jealous of the resources you have. Fantastic work!

burn

Im speachless...such a great start and an amazing way of doing the lid.
looking foward to see more!!!!!


Pete

Sakara

EPIC.....simply EPIC.

mosarmini

Amazing...what kind of machine is that exactly? Sorry, noob status right here xD

nog3

That is one nifty CNC buildup you have there.

Yodajammies

Mosarmini - It's a continuous-C, 5-axis DMS mill. The shop I work at bought it to do 5-axis character head clay milling. Here's a video clip that gives a better look at it. 5-axis clay milling the Skyrim DragonPriest - YouTube

Kommissar

must be nice to have a tool like that to play with!
holy crap those things are expensive.

love the helmet so far

crabra comander

This armor blows anything Commander Shepard wears out of the water!

bluerob

AWESOME! Subscribed! Can't wait to see new updates.

Yodajammies

Blarg! I was so close to getting this molded before christmas. I'm heading out today so yall probably won't see anything new until next week.

Sluis Van Shipyards

Sweet! How do you see out of it though?

elro

Awesome work Yodajammies!

Jealous of your damn machine

Wondering where you got the human 3d model from - Have been trying to find one that is humanely correct to model armor pieces around.

Havent got enough skill to make one that is accurate to proportions ><

Would It be possible to obtain a copy please? would be greatly appreciated!

Yodajammies

pfft, yeah man. it's just a stock model from Poser. Shoot my a pm with your email.

Yodajammies

I think I have a mold problem!

Yodajammies

After repouring a side of my mold that I was worried had been inhibited, I then found that my mold wasn't level and left a large void in the top of the piece. Fingers crossed that this will fix it, but I'm thinking that this mold is a wash and I'll have to redo the entire thing when all is said and done. Also, I've just started watching the new BattleStar.

Wes R

Despite the issues it still looks good and i love that helmet.

Jaedena

You have some awesome tools to work with and despite the issue things are looking good!

I'll be following this one as I'm a big ME fan

serija

That's so sweet!
Wish I knew somebody who's got a mill the results are amazing!

Metalfire

That's quite unbelievable! Wow fantastic work, I've been thinking about doing something from ME, but my plate is full with finishing my Halo Spartan, and upgrading my mando, and Ezio. Again fantastic work, looking forward to completion! Subscribed.

Yodajammies

Let's play photo hunt. See if you can find the 5, or 500 differences between the left and right side. Turns out BOTH sides of my mold were FUBAR from the start when I poured them the first time. I went back and redid the right side, but not the left since I was fairly confident that it had not inhibited. That and I did a lousy job of planning out my seam line so the original copy locked itself in and it had to be hacked to bits in order to get it out of the mold. So now I have a destroyed master and an unusable mold. At this point it's a lost cause and I'm throwing in the towel on the helmet until I can recut a new master from tooling board.

I'm pretty sure all the inhibition was coming from the Challenge90 I used as a release agent on the surface of the model. Silicones don't really need to be release and since no good deed goes unpunished, this is what I get for trying to be proactive about making good molds. So long 200$ silicone kit. I would have had more fun turning that cash into quarters and just flushin em down the toilet.




In other news, I finally found the perfect pot for my double boiler. I can't believe I've gone as far as I have without using this fantastic tool. No more scorched clay, no more fire alarms going off in the middle of the night because you left the burners on downstairs in the basement, no more wildly flailing about with the fire extinguisher hosing everything down because you thought your house was being burned down, etc etc. Well, hyperbole, but I'm sure that would have happened eventually.

Rysjin7717

Well i guess ya live an ya burn (JK) sometimes anyways that sucks about all that work ya put into th' helmet only ta find Murphy's Law. Awesome armour though Subscribed.

Yodajammies

Yeah Murph is kicking my ass.

Just for kicks I did a slush cast and this is what came of it. Bleah.

MrFlavaFlave

What an awesome costume!

Jaedena

Yikes! It's a little rough, but it'll be well worth the work when you're holding the completed piece. Keep those updates coming!