Lots and lots of work have been put in this puppet and we aren’t halfway yet. Today I made the eyes. Basically what I did was turn some wood eye blanks on the lathe. I reduced their size from the bucks I vacuum formed the sockets. This was done because I planned to vacuum form the actual eyes so I needed to account for the thickness of the plastic once vacuum formed or the eye forms. Follow?
I vacuum formed the eyes. Then I made flat spots on the forms for and iris. Painted them white, added the iris and popped them back into the clear vacuum formed exterior.
Next week’s videos and selfies will show how this all came about and in action but it you look at the series of pictures of the under skull with the eyes you will see the range of movement they have. Next week I’ll hook up the servos and take them for a spin.
I loosely placed the skin on the under skull to see this guy with his eyes open for the first time. Although the skin isn’t fitting tight against the eyes themselves just yet it will be next week after I get the other movements installed and the skin locked down.
Tomorrow we are shooting all day our movie “Martians Attack SNG”.
I got so much done on the TWA Moon Liner today. God I love this rocket. BTW the new canopy vacuum formed perfectly and I made a new point for the nose, opened up the cockpit and built and interior for it with dash boards and seats. The cockpit will be lighted too. All covered in the Selfie that is loading now. This model is 40 inches tall. This model is just big and impressive. Thanks Mike Docken for this wonderful gift!
Great update Steve (will love seeing your movie for sure...you know how to tease for sure)...as for Rosie, well you know what they say in the business: "never work with children or animals". Love the Moon Liner (is it a Scott Alexander's model?) Always loved that rocket! Eager to see that animatronic Martian do his thing in the future.
It’s hard to tell from these over exposed dark pictures but I have a completely lighted cockpit. I’ll take some with the office lights on overhead on Monday but the fiber optics are not as bright as they appear. There’s one shot that has the canopy off to show the entire cockpit minus the seats I will install on Monday.
Now that I have all this sorted out with the electrical I can begin preening the hull, attack the canopy and blend it.
The windows will have to be masked before I paint the hull. I was considering using the cart tape technique to create panel lines. The actual 76 foot full sized rocket did have them if you look at it up close. Hmmm…
More on Monday.
Steve
The base lighting is in. PE grills not on yet until I paint the base. Port holes. Cockpit. Cut the probe to the correct length and but it on the lathe to re shape the tip.
Next step is to panel line tape the hull and put a lot of primer on it to get the panel lines and light block those glows. It cannot be done from the inside since Mike connected the two parts of the hull or fuselage. But primer alone will block it.
Steve
OK. She's light blocked now. A can and a half of gray primer and a bunch of white primer did the job. I added panel lines just like the full sized ship had.
In addition I started started work on the hull parts for the 66 inch TOS Enterprise for www.museumofsciencefiction.org starting with the windows and sanding out all the flash on the parts. Good day. More tomorrow.