3 foot tall lego minifig ... Making Frank an Operation Game, and adding animatronics

[Meadowhawk]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

AWESOME!!!

These are great, you'll have to tell us how the trick-or-treaters reacted after tonight. My son is already wanting to know when I'm making him some... Maybe it's not a good idea to show my kids everything I think is cool on this site.. I'll never get to my own TODO list. (Yea, Megafigs just went on my list as well though...)

I'm looking forward to the write up as well. Since the painting really makes the finished product it would be cool to hear about your painting process.

Anyway, great work, thanks for sharing the process!

 

[runnothide]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Great work Targus, I've been watching this build and I have to say they came out beautifully.

 

[JANDERS10]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

My son has seen a lego Frankenstein, but it was no way near as good as this!!!
Perfect timing for Halloween.:devil
Would like to see a person next to them for scale?

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Bravo, Sir, bravo!

 

[targus]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

This is FAN-FRAKKING-TASTIC!

I'm really looking forward to your next write up on the tips, tricks, or "lessons learned" you had during your build. As awesome and inspiring as it is to see the amazing finished things people churn out here, it's threads like those that end up giving me that next push to finish something that's been sitting on my workbench for the last week or two.

Great job sir. Kudos and such!

I checked out your ME3 builds ... Looking good. glad I could give you that extra push :cool

AWESOME!!!

These are great, you'll have to tell us how the trick-or-treaters reacted after tonight. My son is already wanting to know when I'm making him some... Maybe it's not a good idea to show my kids everything I think is cool on this site.. I'll never get to my own TODO list. (Yea, Megafigs just went on my list as well though...)

I'm looking forward to the write up as well. Since the painting really makes the finished product it would be cool to hear about your painting process.

Anyway, great work, thanks for sharing the process!

Thanks. I'm glad your kid likes them, and sorry to create more work for you.

Great work Targus, I've been watching this build and I have to say they came out beautifully.

Thanks

My son has seen a lego Frankenstein, but it was no way near as good as this!!!
Perfect timing for Halloween.:devil
Would like to see a person next to them for scale?

Cool, and as requested. (I'm 5'9"

Bravo, Sir, bravo!

thanks

And here are some pictures in better light.

 

[stromo]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Ha ha. Your outfit's awesome too. Love the hair.

 

[targus]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

you'll have to tell us how the trick-or-treaters reacted after tonight.

They went over pretty well. Lots of kids thought they were awesome. Some didn't comment or really take notice of them, but the majority liked them. A few of the adults really loved them. All in all, we had about 60 kids stop by before we ran out of candy, I need to make sure we buy a bit more candy next year.

Ha ha. Your outfit's awesome too. Love the hair.

Thanks, It was a last minute throw together. I already had the goggles from a steampunk costume. I had to wash my hair three times to get all the hairspray out. Next year I will have to get a real lab coat, instead of a disposable paper painters coat.

 

[Meadowhawk]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Some didn't comment or really take notice of them, but the majority liked them.

Guess some kids aren't going to recognize them... poor kids. Makes you question their upbringing... :lol

 

[lovelyandy]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Amazing work

 

[geomod]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

These figures are outstanding. If I hadn't read the entire thread, I would be convinced that they are from some LEGO secret promotional run.

Your costume completes the effect. Both you and your wife should be very proud of an excellent result.

 

[Evil Imp]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Outstanding stuff! But did you forget the 'nub' on top of the scientists head, or do lego heads not have those any more?

 

[OldSkoolEffects]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Outstanding stuff! But did you forget the 'nub' on top of the scientists head, or do lego heads not have those any more?

http://www.therpf.com/f9/3-foot-tall-lego-minifig-finished-195101/index3.html#post3096588

 

[JANDERS10]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

"Thanks for your pictures. I really like your Frankenstein with its great detail." From my son.:cool

 

[DanShannon]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

very impressive. Both figures look amazing!

 

[targus]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Amazing work

Thanks

These figures are outstanding. If I hadn't read the entire thread, I would be convinced that they are from some LEGO secret promotional run.

Your costume completes the effect. Both you and your wife should be very proud of an excellent result.

Thanks. I'm glad they came out professional looking.

Outstanding stuff! But did you forget the 'nub' on top of the scientists head, or do lego heads not have those any more?

Originally, the scientist was going to have hair, so I didn't build the top nub. But I started running out of time, so i decided to forgo the hair, and use a head with a top nub. While I was masking the head with the nub for painting, it rolled off the table and broke apart. I was able to patch him up, but when I shot another coat of primer on, the primer reacted with the yellow paint, and cracked all up. With no time to fix this major issue, I went back to using the original nubless head. This will be fixed before next Halloween

The original nubbed head prior to disaster.

"Thanks for your pictures. I really like your Frankenstein with its great detail." From my son.:cool

I'm really glad your son likes it.

very impressive. Both figures look amazing!

Thanks.

 

[targus]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Lessons Learned ... as promised

Mold Making:

· Plaster cast material makes an awful mold jacket. There was no way to reinforce it (fiberglass and bondo would not stick to it). It was not sturdy enough. And the silicone mold was locked inside the jacket, making removal of cast parts difficult. The edges used for clamping were damaged more and more with each cast.

· The box mold worked great. It used A LOT of silicone though. Maybe in the future, find ways to reduce the amount of silicone by closing off some of the box.

· Smooth clay work will pay dividends in the end. I had some small issues with flashing due to not smooth clay. On the arms, besides the issues with the plaster jacket, I had many issues with mold alignment. I think these issues would have been eliminated or lessened if I would have spent more time on the clay.

· Really think about how much resin you want to pour for a slush cast, and make sure one side of your mold can accommodate that amount of resin. I wish I could have gotten a bit more resin into those arm casts.

Casting:

· For slush casts, turning slowly worked a lot better than turning briskly.

· Molds filled with resin are heavy and awkward to rotate.

· The binder clips worked pretty well.



Paint:

· Make sure different brands of paint are compatible. Paint cracking sucks

· Don’t drop parts (or let parts roll off the table).



Clay Sculpting:

· Don’t ever use self drying clay. It shrinks and cracks way more than I ever thought it would.

· Don’t leave your sculpts out in the rain.



PVC:

· Obtain your PVC from one store only. PVC sizes are universal, but as I found out, they are not. Some fittings fit tighter from one store than from the other.

· Painted PVC does not fit inside a painted PVC joint smoothly. Should be common sense, but apparently for me, it wasn’t.

· Using double stick tape to hold down PVC and fill with resin worked great. I used this method for the hand and wrist parts.

o When using the above method, scuff the inside (anywhere the resin will touch) of the PVC so that the resin will bond to it.

o When using the above method, wait until the parts are cool to the touch before working with them, they will warp out of round.



MDF:

· Painting MDF edges sucks, they absorb the paint. Brush some epoxy resin over all the raw MDF edges to seal them, Sand them down, and then paint. Touch up any rough spots with some more resin.

 

[BigRiverBricks]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

I don't mean to revive an old thread, but this is amazing work!

MOD EDIT: Project runs take place in the Classifieds forums and only Premium Members are allowed to sell on the RPF, thanks.

 

[targus]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

I don't mean to revive an old thread, but this is amazing work! It was asked before; I'm interested in having you build me a minifigure for my son and I, interested?

Revive away. I am in the planning stages of reviving this project for round two, using more cast parts, and CNC milling all the flat parts.

MOD EDIT: Project runs take place in the Classifieds forums and only Premium Members are allowed to sell on the RPF, thanks.

 

[BigRiverBricks]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

Well, good luck with the remodel.

MOD EDIT: Project runs take place in the Classifieds forums and only Premium Members are allowed to sell on the RPF, thanks.

 

[targus]

Re: 3 foot tall lego minifig ... Finished

well, its getting close to Halloween again, so I figured I would finish up the Mad Scientist be fabricating him some hair.

I was hoping to redesign the megafigs, and make them easier to build so i could build some more, but time and a shoulder injury have prevented me from doing that this year. But I am feeling well enough to make a foam toupee.

The plan is to block the hair out with tooling foam, the coat it is smoothcast, sand it smooth, fill in the gaps with epoxy sculpt, and prime and paint. Lets see how this all works out.

Blocking out the hair shapes

Adding detail to the back

Test Fitting

Next step will be some more sanding, and then a coat of smoothcast 300.