mostly full size body armatures?

Hi all,

I'm looking to make a near life size robot model, but need a sturdy frame to build it on. The head joint must be able to hold about 25-50 lbs and yet be at least moderately pose-able. The rest of the model will be pretty light - fiberglass or the like. Don't need it to do gymnastics, just a standing model I can bend the arms/legs on - as well as mount cast pieces too. It also needs to be free standing or nearly so (rod to hips should be ok).

Does anybody make something like that? Or do I need to have a shop weld me up something...

Thanks all,
Matt

My first thought would be a sort of PVC-pipe mannequin that some people that makes Stormtrooper armor have. Tried to find a page for you but had no luck.
What sort of robot are you making?

/Conny

You can get lockable ball joints as used on top of camera tripods quite cheaply.

SAS

contec said:

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My first thought would be a sort of PVC-pipe mannequin that some people that makes Stormtrooper armor have. Tried to find a page for you but had no luck.
What sort of robot are you making?

/Conny

Well, it's a robot anime character that I'd rather not say at the moment - but its of normal human form (2 arms/2 legs/1 'normal' size head, about 5-6 feet tall, etc). The majority of the body I'd love to make out of some kind of plastic shell pieces (molded) with no animatronics or the like. Think like a normal static standing storm trooper you mentioned. I guess I could live with static posing.

The only tricky part is that there is going to be some electronics in the head - including a pretty heavy piece of electronics - I think about 30lbs. I just need to make sure the thing doesn't tip over easily because falling over from 5 feet would probably destroy it.

I think if I got a good film-style camera ball joint for the head - that should be enough to hold it without difficulty (thank sidewinder), but the biggest problem is still the body. I need to be able to mount the plastic body parts to it, and provide enough stability to hold the really heavy head up.

I'm not sure PVC will be enough - but maybe it would. I guess I need to do some more research on building the plastic body parts first. Looks like I'll run over to the star wars forum and see how they make their body forms.

Any tips come to mind?

Could you modify this guy?

http://www.studiorox.com/display/image/male/BC8S.html

Seems to be a good start for $149.

Pat

I use fishing line around the neck and waist on my mannequins, and screw the line into a stud in the wall. heavy test fishing line should support it pretty well.

Pat