I know a bunch of you guys have been patiently waiting for me to get my head out of my ass and get going on this long awaited project. It seems there's never enough hours in the day to do this stuff, something always comes up. I had promised several of you that I would have this thing done in time for Halloween. It may indeed happen, but I've got to be honest, it'll be a friggin' miracle---even if Scott A. can lend me a hend with his hectic work schedule these days.
What set me back was a guy I work with who was supposed to help me create the frame and trays for the backpack out of bent styrene. Since I work in the retail display business, I have access to neat things like CAD driven routers, vacforming and heat bending of plastics. Well, the guy had a hernea that went critical on him in August and he's been laid up ever scince.
Last Saturday I finally said F it---and created the under structure and trays with foam core and hot glue as a stand in for the plastic versions. Since this will be a functional backpack like in the film, I had to literally build this thing from the inside out. That meant acquiring all of the Medpack tools and arranging them using screen caps as a guide. Once that was done, I knew exactly what the shape and outer dimensions of the trays would be. From that schematic I was able to construct the under structure seen in the photos below onto which clay would be applied. In the first photo you can see the tray assembly sits right inside the frame just like a cradle. This really is the best way to do this project, making an under structure skeleton that will give you the rough dimensions of the item you're sculpting rather than slapping on solid slabs of clay, adding unecessary weight to the thing. This way, you undersize the foam core under structure and apply clay to it which should be somewhere around an inch thick (I went a little too big on the skeleton in some areas-causing the clay to be a little thin in those spots).
You'll notice the backpack understructure is not quite finished, I have been focusing on Scott Andrew's torso armor. In laying out and measuring the backpack, I noticed Scott's torso armor curved up a little too high in the back, which would not have aligned properly with the backpack. It's funny, you never know how these things will turn out, I thought he had nailed it when I saw the sculpt in his basement last year. He had all of the same ref pix I have, the torso looked right on, yet each of the 2 louvered edges around the backside are about a 1/2" too shallow in depth---I never would have noticed this had I not started this project. I had to deepen these before starting the backpack.
So, I proceeded to cut off the lower section of Scott's torso armor, using features on it that form natural seam lines. I then hot glued some foam core together for the vertical ridge and slathered on my new shipment of Chavant medium NSP. I use a crock pot set on low, and it keeps the clay in a perfect liquid like state. Using a paint scraper, I troweled on the hot clay layer after layer, shaping it while it was still warm---saves time sculpting. Tonight I finally finished adding in all the details and smoothed it down with rubbing alcohol. Before I seal the clay and cover it with a membrane in preparation for continuing on to the backpack, I took a couple of photos.
As far as what the finished pieces will be, I'm thinking of a composite solution much like DB's. The bulk of the backpack will be latex skinned with a foam backing. The removable tray assembly will be resin, with latex/ foam or urethane rubber louvers attached. The torso extender seen in the photos below will be part of the kit when this project is done---made of latex and foam like the rest of the torso. The remainder including the gun platform, etc. will be resin. That's about it for now, thanks for looking. I will be updating this post as I progress---
carlart
What set me back was a guy I work with who was supposed to help me create the frame and trays for the backpack out of bent styrene. Since I work in the retail display business, I have access to neat things like CAD driven routers, vacforming and heat bending of plastics. Well, the guy had a hernea that went critical on him in August and he's been laid up ever scince.
Last Saturday I finally said F it---and created the under structure and trays with foam core and hot glue as a stand in for the plastic versions. Since this will be a functional backpack like in the film, I had to literally build this thing from the inside out. That meant acquiring all of the Medpack tools and arranging them using screen caps as a guide. Once that was done, I knew exactly what the shape and outer dimensions of the trays would be. From that schematic I was able to construct the under structure seen in the photos below onto which clay would be applied. In the first photo you can see the tray assembly sits right inside the frame just like a cradle. This really is the best way to do this project, making an under structure skeleton that will give you the rough dimensions of the item you're sculpting rather than slapping on solid slabs of clay, adding unecessary weight to the thing. This way, you undersize the foam core under structure and apply clay to it which should be somewhere around an inch thick (I went a little too big on the skeleton in some areas-causing the clay to be a little thin in those spots).
You'll notice the backpack understructure is not quite finished, I have been focusing on Scott Andrew's torso armor. In laying out and measuring the backpack, I noticed Scott's torso armor curved up a little too high in the back, which would not have aligned properly with the backpack. It's funny, you never know how these things will turn out, I thought he had nailed it when I saw the sculpt in his basement last year. He had all of the same ref pix I have, the torso looked right on, yet each of the 2 louvered edges around the backside are about a 1/2" too shallow in depth---I never would have noticed this had I not started this project. I had to deepen these before starting the backpack.
So, I proceeded to cut off the lower section of Scott's torso armor, using features on it that form natural seam lines. I then hot glued some foam core together for the vertical ridge and slathered on my new shipment of Chavant medium NSP. I use a crock pot set on low, and it keeps the clay in a perfect liquid like state. Using a paint scraper, I troweled on the hot clay layer after layer, shaping it while it was still warm---saves time sculpting. Tonight I finally finished adding in all the details and smoothed it down with rubbing alcohol. Before I seal the clay and cover it with a membrane in preparation for continuing on to the backpack, I took a couple of photos.
As far as what the finished pieces will be, I'm thinking of a composite solution much like DB's. The bulk of the backpack will be latex skinned with a foam backing. The removable tray assembly will be resin, with latex/ foam or urethane rubber louvers attached. The torso extender seen in the photos below will be part of the kit when this project is done---made of latex and foam like the rest of the torso. The remainder including the gun platform, etc. will be resin. That's about it for now, thanks for looking. I will be updating this post as I progress---
carlart
