COMPLETE! "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Jim Raynor Armor *PIC HEAVY*

[Dabboy]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

your suit is getting better everyday!! its so awesome!
for the amplifier question i usually just tie it around my waist and im fine with it. mic sits confortably on my head and i also used the Input line for sound effect.
for my starcraft ghost costume I wired it to a geekshirt soundboard so i had like 20 sounds option to choose from.
you could also use a bluetooth receiver and have a friend control the sound remotely via a free soundboard app on his smartphone. i did that with my hydralisk since i had my hands full already.
ull be on stilt so most probably the sound will pierce right throught someones ear if attached at the waist level.
cant wait to see this bad boy painted!!!

 

[MWiggs]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Howdy again y'all! Back for more. Servo time!
Spent the past few mornings working on the helmet and servos! I wired up my servos with a simple switch activation so switching polarity would switch the direction the gears turn. I ordered a smooth pulley and hub from ServoCity.com along with some 1/8" belts. I got em assembled and moved on to the mounts. For those I've used some of the leftover 1/4" ABS sheet I used for the hands. I cut out a section just big enough to mount the servo, then cut and bent the top piece to match the contour of the neck surround and sliced a slot into it for the belt to pass thru. I bonded the two pieces together using acetone (holds stronger than super glue BTW) and attached the servos.



Next, after carefully measuring several times I cut into the mount location on the chest. SCARY! Hollowed out a space just big enough for the servo to fit and got lucky enough that the mount makes perfect contact with the PVC frame of the torso, providing a nice solid location for it. YAY! Next I'll just need to wire it up, glue it down, and stick the helmet on top. That and do the other side too. Also I will be putting a foam surround over the gap so you can't see the things at all. When I have time of course.



That's it for now, been busy lately. More to come in the future! And speaking of the future (Yeah I set that up) Happy BTTF Day (a couple days ago)!! From this moment on, the entire series of BTTF takes place in the past! Wow, mind blown. Anyone else spend Wednesday watching the movies??

Thanks for watching. We're back in hardware mode boys!

 

[Mithosphere]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Your design for the arms is interesting, it reminds me of the Silver Samurai concept art:



Have you progressed any further on the arm design?

Also, seeing the hand mechanism in the StarCraft video reminds me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmERU5bPdaA

It'd be more work on top of what you've already done, but might stay a bit more true to the rest of the design. You might be able to even pick up things more reliably than hoping the strings/cable holds. The above design does seem to have some limitations in the mobility of the fingers near the tips. That and the design is rather small for an extension needed like on the Terran Marine.

 

[Khaylain]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

The hands he has made already perfectly replicates a human hand in that it uses a sort of tendon for each finger. The hands/arms in the cinematic seems to be more computer-controlled with the input from analog to digital where he puts his hands. So if he were to get it just like the cinematic I believe he'd have to use a lot of servomotors (1 for each joint of each finger) and a lot of wiring and programming. It'd be a nightmare. It's doable, but complicated. Usually it's better to keep things simple if you can.

That silver samurai looks cool.

 

[MWiggs]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Your design for the arms is interesting, it reminds me of the Silver Samurai concept art:

Have you progressed any further on the arm design?

Also, seeing the hand mechanism in the StarCraft video reminds me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmERU5bPdaA

It'd be more work on top of what you've already done, but might stay a bit more true to the rest of the design. You might be able to even pick up things more reliably than hoping the strings/cable holds. The above design does seem to have some limitations in the mobility of the fingers near the tips. That and the design is rather small for an extension needed like on the Terran Marine.

The hands he has made already perfectly replicates a human hand in that it uses a sort of tendon for each finger. The hands/arms in the cinematic seems to be more computer-controlled with the input from analog to digital where he puts his hands. So if he were to get it just like the cinematic I believe he'd have to use a lot of servomotors (1 for each joint of each finger) and a lot of wiring and programming. It'd be a nightmare. It's doable, but complicated. Usually it's better to keep things simple if you can.

That silver samurai looks cool.

I actually used that mech hand as a reference when I first conceived my version! The guy who built it (or maybe someone else) uploaded the model to GrabCAD and you can download the whole thing and print it out or build it out of plate like in the video. Very cool but yeah, too complicated for my taste. As it so happens, there's a guy in the UK who was building his own version a couple years back and was actually making his with servos and sensors on gloves and it was pretty impressive! I don't think he ever finished it tho... as far as strength goes, I can pick stuff up with them and have a video showing how they work, just haven't uploaded it yet. I managed to break one of the finger tabs due to the 3D print cooling too fast between layers, but a quick acetone fix strengthened it right back up. I glued the knots in the strings and elastics so I'm fairly certain they won't come loose. However, nothing is perfect and I'm ready for any further breaks. Thanks!

 

[Mithosphere]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

I actually used that mech hand as a reference when I first conceived my version! The guy who built it (or maybe someone else) uploaded the model to GrabCAD and you can download the whole thing and print it out or build it out of plate like in the video. Very cool but yeah, too complicated for my taste. As it so happens, there's a guy in the UK who was building his own version a couple years back and was actually making his with servos and sensors on gloves and it was pretty impressive! I don't think he ever finished it tho... as far as strength goes, I can pick stuff up with them and have a video showing how they work, just haven't uploaded it yet. I managed to break one of the finger tabs due to the 3D print cooling too fast between layers, but a quick acetone fix strengthened it right back up. I glued the knots in the strings and elastics so I'm fairly certain they won't come loose. However, nothing is perfect and I'm ready for any further breaks. Thanks!

There's always Roy The Robot's hand:
http://roytherobot.com/

https://grabcad.com/library/roy-robot-s-hand-1

 

[MWiggs]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Didn't make as much progress as I would have liked this week, mainly because my water heater decided it would much happier as a geyser than a sealed tank. Solving that issue, I did get a few more things done. I finished mounting the servos and added magnets to the mounts as well as the underside of the helmet. I decided I wanted to be able to remove the helmet in case I get too hot or something, but also make transport a tad easier. That way, I only need to detach the belts from the pulleys and lift the helmet out of the way. Fit is nice and snug because I've used rare-earth magnets so it doesn't slide around at all when mounted.



I tested the movement of the visor out a bit but without the correct switches it made it a tad cumbersome, so I didn't get a good video showing the movement. I'll try again after I've acquired the right switch. Anyone have a suggestion on where I could find just a simple momentary DPDT rocker? Found a couple on EvilBay from China but I was hoping for something local. Meaning, this side of the planet.

Next, I've started on the shoulders and how to mount them. I felt inspired by 1TCRKN's remark about the cages, so I built a frame out of my flexy PVC and some 1/2" tees. They support the inside of the shoulder to keep their shape (they're the flimsiest piece I've built so far) and create an awesome rounded mount for the ball of the shoulder on the torso. I've been messing around with different ways to get the shoulder to rotate and one of the trials I mocked up seems to be (so far) the most effective. I made a strip of EVA and formed it to the outside of the dome, then another for the inside to kind of sandwich the dome between. Next I connected the two with fabric elastic straps so they'd grip each other tightly but still have some flex to allow for movement. I mounted the PVC frame to the outer ring which helped stiffen up the frame as well, and was able to get some good rotation out the the joint. I'm still open to suggestions on alternate mounting methods, but for now this seems to be working. Once I suit up and start moving around I may have to alter the attachment a bit.



Finally, just for fun, I mounted the shoulder bell onto the frame (fits quite perfectly! dunno how I pulled that off...) to see how it'd look and let my excitement get the better of me. I built the other side really quick and mounted that one up as well then took some glamour shots. Probably getting ahead of myself 'cuz I still don't have any idea if the joints will work, but it's seriously cool to finally see parts of this thing fitting together! And yes, there will be gap-covers for those humungo spaces at the top of the shoulder bells. That comes next! Anyone else think the shoulders look a little too high? Guess it's hard to tell without the rest of the arms attached... Luckily my frames are easily chopped shorter and retain the snug fit.



And lastly, I've started testing/practicing the seam sealing method as told by Evil Ted, Kwik Seal! I couldn't find the regular stuff at my local Lowe's but I did find the "PLUS" version. We'll see how well it works, supposedly it's paintable and more flexible than the regular so we'll see! I did two different ones so I can test coatings next. I'll do one with the PVA glue method topped with plastidip, and the other with just straight Plasti. I'll keep ya'll posted!



P.S. My vinyl pattern for the visor should be here soon so I should be able to finish up painting that and mount it permanently into the helmet! Up til now the inner visor (gold) is still just set into the mounts, but not glued down, so it flops around kind of uselessly so far. That's up later too. Thanks for watching and any tips are greatly appreciated!

 

[1TCRKN]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

So - The "cages" that I was speaking of, were cages that bolted to certain places so that the armor pieces could bolt to the cages and remain in place through motion. The shoulder pieces (according to the video) do *not* look attached in any way, shape, or form - to the rest of the torso. They are freely moveable pieces. Perhaps if you built a sleeve of some sort (the actual armor has a movable mechanical "sleeve" that goes down the arm (look at the screenshots again) with mounting points for the yellow cage - which has snap-in mounting points for the shoulders.

I wouldn't (this is just my opinion) attach the shoulders to the torso - but rather come up with a support that holds your arms up in the torso (your arms are going to get really tired without proper support) and then make some kind of cage out of something more rigid (3d printed plastic?) that is a cage like the one shown in the screenshots i posted. It doesnt have to flex, looks like it sits just a bit above (closer to the body) the elbow and is fixed. The shoulder bell should mount to that and it'll give you 100% freedom of movement of your elbow/joint as opposed to the limited rotational movement that mounting the cage like you did is going to give you.



Just saying

-RK

 

[MWiggs]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

1TCRKN - Very good point! Thank you! I just had a brainwave.... I was finishing off mounting the frame inside the shoulder bell just this morning and mounting that to the socket, but the movement (like you say) is very limited. Not only does it only rotate forward to back, it doesn't do it easily. Lots of friction. I haven't really been all that happy with it from the get-go but I couldn't think of another way. Now I have! Also, as you said, it would be exhausting to try and hold that all up at that weird angle for any length of time. I do have a frame that I built out of PVC that spans the length of my shoulders and upper arms so that my arms can be suspended from it, thus eliminating any need for me to hold anything up. It also doubles as a very convenient place to route wires thru. I'll upload some pics as time permits.

My new idea, inspired by your explanation above, will use the suspension frame as a mount for the shoulder instead of the dome. I'll leave the dome there simply as a gap cover, it's not in the way of anything, but I'll do away with the "ball joint" attachments. Instead, since the frame is already PVC, I'll build a two axis joint that simply slides onto the end of that frame, then mount the shoulder onto that, making the movement much more fluid and make the shoulder far easier to install! I'll get to work on this ASAP to see if it'll work and I'll let you know. Thanks for the advise!

 

[1TCRKN]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Happy to help Just want to help this turn out AWESOME!

Edit:

Did some poking around on the starcraft2.com site, in the media section - also found these (dunno how much help they will be but it seems this is the repo for your ideas, so...)





Hope this helps!

-RK

 

[CLOTHAR]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Wow! Great progress since I last checked in. The glamour shots are gorgeous!

I like the ideas RK has for the shoulders. Might take some extra engineering, but I bet it will be well worth it.

 

[MWiggs]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

As promised here's the photos I got of the arm suspension frame. I attached it with hose clamps to the inner frame of the torso, then added contact cement and hot glue for strength. It's got to support the weight of my arms as well as the hands so that's important. Also routed all my wiring thru it. I've got mounts in the hands for the switches that will control the chest lights and servos, just need to attach the shoulders and upper arms to know how long those wires need to be. Also a prelim pic of the gap covers I was talking about to block off the shoulder bells. These covers do a great job of strengthening the bells as well. I received the new switches yesterday so I'll be able to wire those up this weekend and hopefully get a video shot of the helmet in action!



I ran out of hot glue again so I'll be picking up some more hardware for the new shoulder mounts at the same time. Hopefully I can come up with something functional this weekend. I was looking at the layout this morning and the pivot point of the shoulder might make it difficult to pull off my original idea, but I'll try anyway! I'll keep ya posted!

 

[1TCRKN]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

also found this while digging around:



Shows some of the under-armor (if you look closely enough) and the routing of hoses.
(I say some of the under-armor -- some of it is the armature for the pose-able collectible -- but there is good detail there in areas)

 

[MWiggs]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

also found this while digging around:

View attachment 551767

Shows some of the under-armor (if you look closely enough) and the routing of hoses.
(I say some of the under-armor -- some of it is the armature for the pose-able collectible -- but there is good detail there in areas)

I saw that too! Wish I had a bigger size, but I'm using that very pic as reference to run all the hoses. Which, btw I received quite a while ago. I used THESE from McMaster Carr, they're for insulating pipes but they're lightweight soft foam rubber with a smooth outer surface which makes them look like heavy rubber hose. I got several different sizes for using in various spots around the suit. Attaching all of them will be near the end of the build, after sealing, painting, and weathering because they have the perfect look to them already. Thanks for that!

As the weather grows colder, I'm able to spend less time out in the garage as it's not very well insulated. I have however re-worked the mounts for the shoulders. I've built a pivot joint out of PVC and I'm attaching it to the suspension frame. I found a few of those spring pins used for adjustable tent poles and incorporated those into the pivots so the shoulders can still be removable for transport. Fun fact, using the same heat gun as for the foam, you can heat up sections of PVC pipe and bend it (slowly so as not to kink it) into whatever shape you want. However, you can also stick a small piece into a larger piece and expand the diameter of the larger to provide enough clearance between the two that they'll rotate freely! If that makes any sense... Anyway, I cut a slot into the shoulder side mount so it can spin around the torso side mount but still be limited to a certain degree of freedom. The inner section still rests on the half dome of the original design. The axis of rotation was tricky because it still had to be in the center of the dome for proper movement, so yes at the moment you can see the mount from the outside, but I have a whole bunch of stuff that should cover that, or at least blend it in to look like structural robotics.




Because of all this, the torso has become rather wide. I'd love to modify the suspension frame to be at least partially removable, but that will have to be a bit later. Plus I worry that modifying that will weaken that section, or let it work its way out of the joint as I'm walking around. Be kind of awkward for my whole arm to suddenly fall off.. I'd need a sign that said "CAUTION: Leprosy!" or something...

Indoors I worked up a full scale model of Jim Raynor's HEV Sniper Rifle! My good friends at Hyperion Armory provided me some reference photos of the gun, big thanks to them! They're building a Jim Raynor version of the suit and making fantastic progress! Go check 'em out on BookFace. We're hoping to storm Blizzcon next year in force! Y'all are invited to come too! I haven't had time to start working on details of the gun or prepping it for an actual build, but I've got the scaling down and the basic overalls. And I think it's pretty close to this photo from Sideshow on their 1:6 scale Raynor figure (on sale now for the LOW low price of $499.99!)



Which is which??? MwaHAHAHA!!

Also, just for fun an HD wallpaper for any of you Starcraft fans out there! Enjoy!



As always, more to come in the near future, keep watching and may the odds be... whatever. TTFN

 

[Div87]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Wow! When you think you seen it all guess again.
Amazing work!!

 

[MWiggs]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Sorry for the lack of updates! The temperature here at home just took a dive which makes it much more difficult to work in the garage for any decent length of time. I did however get a couple small things accomplished. First, I got the little side flaps and "hinges" attached to the shoulder bells. I'll try to get some pictures up this weekend. Also, I had a local vinyl company cut me a pattern of hexagons that I stuck to the inner layer of the visor in a honeycomb pattern. I'm leery about painting in such cold weather, but eventually the vinyl will serve as a mask to get the hex pattern onto the outside of the visor. After that I can finally assemble the rest of the helmet and mount everything up to play with the servos! I've got a bit more foam work to finish on the visor after the paint, so that's forthcoming pending slightly warmer temps.



Next up is some work on the upper arms, mounting the forearms to the hands, mounting the upper arms to the shoulders, finishing the wiring and switches on the hands (they'll control the chest lights and helmet servos) and getting moving on the spine piece. Seems like a lot left to do when I put it that way... And that's not even to the weathering/painting step! Whew.. if only I had a clone to go to work for me...

 

[ClintKent]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

One word..............WOW!

 

[Bloo]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

One more word...... SPEECHLESS!!!

 

[WireFox]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Fantastic build so far, can't wait to see more.

 

[Kcv7129]

Re: "It's About Time!" Starcraft II Terran Marine CMC Armor WIP *PIC HEAVY*

Sir....this is amazing. I was concerning myself with only paper because I didn't think foam would give me the detail I needed....you have changed my mind.