Entice's Gray Fox build

[Ikras]

Been there as well with shin parts, looks great but they aint designed to have a hope of getting a foot through. Glad you found a good solution for it.

I've got to the point with scaling that I never just take my judgement from the numbers on screen. I've got into the habit to just tape a quick version together from the paper templates before it goes near foam. Saves me time (and foam) after parts scaled off entirely.

They were still useful (the miss-sized foam), used them for paint testing in the end.

It can be disheartening when it comes to that point and you realise the size is all off but it just makes it that much better once you get it right. And you now have more experience with working with it, how it all goes together etc, so that new version will just end up looking better anyway.

 

[Entice]

Thanks guys

Yeah, I could have tested it first, but the shins and thighs fit so well, I was surprised that the abs were so far off. I think I'm going to scale it up to 11 or so and give it another go. I don't think extending it will look very good.

I had to re-cut the ab piece quite a bit and couldn't save it, so I'll have to re-do that again before I can print it out.

On another note, I sealed the seams and got 2 coats of plastidip on one of the shins and it is looking good. You can definitely see the different textures where I put the seam sealant and where the hot glue got on the surface. Hopefully 1-2 more layers should hide that pretty well. (Sorry, no pictures. It was pretty dark by the time I finished)

 

[laellee]

Entice knows this already, but video game people are NOTHING like us in proportion. The easiest adjustment (if I were building this) would be to add inserts on the sides to fill the gaps, and then do the same on the upper torso section; you can flare under your arms a bit, and also milk an inch or 2 out of the back center where the spine sits.

If it makes you feel better, I'm 6'3+, with a 31 inch waist, and I would still have to mod the center section to make it fit on me. :facepalm

 

[George]

Are you still building this suit,Entice?opcorn

 

[Entice]

Yeah, it's still occupying my front room. lol. I did get 2 more layers of plastidip on the right shin, but I can still kinda see the seams and the filler I used. My next hope is that the acrylic paint will hide the rest of it.

I promise I'll work on it a bunch this weekend

 

[Entice]

Woo, progress! I spent nearly 4 hours re-cutting the upper chest piece in Pepakura. Boy that was a mess, but it's printed out and ready to be cut. I was tired of looking at it, though, so I decided to tackle the abs.

Large extension added to both front left and front right.

Small extension added to back left and back right. (ignore the gaps, they'll be filled in later)

Test fit, looking good! Fits all the way around.

And of course, a full test fit with all current pieces. Note the right shin is much darker because it is covered in plastidip.

 

[George]

Back in the saddle,Entice :thumbsup good progress.
I hope your build will be a great success.Don't let anything discourage you anymore

 

[Entice]

So I've been trying to figure out the colors to use with this. The white is obvious, and I'll probably just get a matte white.

For the blue, I think I like Rust-Oleum's metallic blue the most. I've got a test square I painted one coat on last night, but I'll need to get 1 more coat on it before I'm sure it's the color I want.

The yellow/orange, I'm not quite sure. I'm thinking I should stick with another metallic color. Gold is too bright. Copper is too 'rusty'. Rust-Oleum's Burnished Brass seems promising. Looks like it may discontinued or low on stock, though. My local hardware stores were out of them, and Amazon has it at some really odd price. I may just have to bite the bullet and grab a can and see how it looks. It's almost double MSRP, and triple the current cost of the other colors.

Any opinions? Think I should go for a matte color and drop the metallic?

 

[laellee]

That Cobalt blue is pretty bright fyi, I've used it before. I thought they had another darker one (might have been under their 2x line) that might be good. Also, the burnished brass would look pretty great too, the champagne mist is nice but it doesn't have enough copper to it I think. They carry the burnished brass at my local Menards for around 5 1/2 bucks, stuff finishes very nice.

 

[Mockle]

here I thought i was the only Slow one

 

[Entice]

Haha, yeah. I did get the front half of the chest piece cut out (paper and foam), but I'm getting into my vacation months so haven't had much time to work on it.

I also tested that metallic blue on some scrap and I think it should work out great. It doesn't like to bend more than about 45 degrees, but I don't think any of the parts will be doing that much movement.

 

[Entice]

I'm back!

Upper torso was a major pain. Didn't help that I had to restart my computer and lost my custom cut out in pepakura. Had to figure out where everything went. The lower portion of the sides was really difficult as well. I ended up only getting about 50% of the original pieces in. The rest I just filled in with scrap.

The gap between the upper and lower kinda concerns me. I'm not sure if I should attempt to fill it in, or accept it as a void and just leave it. (I'll be wearing a black suit underneath)

 

[laellee]

I'm back!

Upper torso was a major pain. Didn't help that I had to restart my computer and lost my custom cut out in pepakura. Had to figure out where everything went. The lower portion of the sides was really difficult as well. I ended up only getting about 50% of the original pieces in. The rest I just filled in with scrap.

The gap between the upper and lower kinda concerns me. I'm not sure if I should attempt to fill it in, or accept it as a void and just leave it. (I'll be wearing a black suit underneath)

http://i.imgur.com/YetSGgD.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Rwt2LGo.jpg

I think it's looking good.... My big concern with the model on this is that it would look great STATIONARY (like on a mannequin), but movement could be a major concern.

On some of my old Iron Man builds, I used an extended 'skirt' attached to the top inside of the abs, and then tucked into the chest section. Not even full-thickness foam either, I just used 2-3mm craft foam, and then added extra layers to create 'tiers' for detail... No Elmers either, just multiple coats of plastidip before paint. You can just attach the wrap with glue, but I used velcro stripping along the bottom (male side all the way around the wrap section, female velcro squares only every 6 inches on the top inside of the abs so I could adjust it for flexibility). Anyways, It worked well, although honestly I used the velcro so that if it didn't, I could just pull it off. :lol

 

[Entice]

Thanks, I'll definitely give that a try.

 

[George]

Welcome back,Entice:thumbsup armor pieces are looking good

 

[HighlanderFX]

I think if you can fill in the gap, the better it will look. Nothing worse than seeing huge spaces between the armor and wearer, in my opinion, but like laellee's concern, its probably going to be hard to make the armor body-tight while still being able to move freely simply because of its design.

Good to see you are making progress!

 

[Hero of Justice]

Wow, this is looking great, can't wait to see the outcome. subscribed.

 

[Entice]

:ninja

 

[Entice]

Sorry, no pics in this update. Black plastidip coats are done on all but the forearms and upper torso. I ran out so I need to go grab two more cans. Going to do one more test of my blue, brass, and white paints on some larger scraps to make sure they all look good before starting on the actual suit.

Looking ahead to my helmet, I found these little light-up rings which are controlled by a tiny Arduino board. I'll need to diffuse the light a bit, but I think the size should be perfect.

 

[laellee]

Looking forward to it! If I ever get caught up on my stuff I want to have a go at the actuated front mechanism. :thumbsup