Re: 3D Printed Samus Varia Suit
Not a lot to post about recently; my sister came up to visit me for a week and we mostly just got a lot of sanding done...oh and we made another creepy duct tape body part - this time, a disembodied arm! :Þ
The other thing I've been doing is attempting to fix the stupid shin armor. You may recall that I removed the foam from some areas to create more space on the inside. Well, it wasn't enough. No matter what I did I couldn't get the shin to fit - even worse, every time I have to heat it up to fix an area I risk warping the entire thing. So frustrating. With no other options left, I chose to slice the shin down the back and add a spacer. Now, this may seem like, "duh, just add more to it and it'll fit". Oh, but it is
not that simple. Because of the way the grooves are positioned, adding a spacer to the front, for example, would mean that the knee spike would no longer match up with the other half it's not connected to, not to mention there would be a gaping groove down the front center which would look dumb.
The back, however, is a slightly different story. The top center groove would get super wide but since its angles are 90 degrees (the front is a V shape, not a rectangular groove) that means I can easily expand it, then fill it back in with Apoxie Sculpt or even just leave it as is. Since the seam for the two halves already runs along that top groove I only had to cut the bottom section. Down there it splits into two grooves which angle apart from each other. This makes things a bit tricky. I can't just cut down one groove and add the spacer on that one side; things would no longer match up, same as the front knee spike. So instead I cut straight through the center. This destroys the point at the top of that section, but I can easily rebuild it with Apoxie just like the top groove.
The back before cutting, line showing where I will cut:
After the cut:
Spacer added in:
It still looks a little wonky because I have to go in and fix warped areas.
And finally, IT FITS!!
I guess that's my first official "I'm wearing multiple pieces of my costume" picture! Yay!
It's still quite painful since the inside bits haven't been fully smoothed out, but it's the right size now.
Obviously that's not the Samus shoe. I couldn't put on the real one since it's currently filled with tin foil to protect from painting (never ended up putting the clear coat on it last summer so it's still all masked off). That thigh is the problematic/peeling second thigh. My sister sanded all the bondo off of it and applied a new coat of gesso. I'll be bondo'ing it soon.
I'll be using Apoxie on at least some of the shin, but I haven't decided if I want to do the entire thing with it. The shin isn't really the strongest, even with double layered worbla. I may try to just strengthen it in key areas and bondo the rest (unless bondo also peels off of Apoxie, ugh).