Life Size 1:1 REAL METAL Machined General Greivous

[Eaglewood]

Clay Here,
This project is possible--I can show all who are interested some of the machining things that I am capable of upon request via email. Way too many to show here. I will try to post a few. If you go to my Blog Applied Metal Blog it would be easier. I am going to be posting some new ones there very shortly.
The main problem I see is this--We need to either have original blueprints to work from, or we need to have the actual parts or dimensionally accurate reproductions to Laser scan and then we can produce the parts. Reproducing the parts is not a problem after we have a master.
I did another post regarding rubber and latex items that will explain the reproduction process with the exception of the casting material. It would be the Applied Metal Product. We could do resin and then coat it too--that is also a possibility.
At any rate--If we have to start from scratch and try to accurately reproduce the pieces and components by measuring and drawing, etc,. It will be a time intensive enterprise to say the least. Whatever we can do to get the dimensions and or/ actual parts or drawings would be a boon.
I do have a program whereby we can scan a jpeg an dgenerate a cad drawing, but the drawback to that is that we would need individual drawings fo reach part.
Put our resources together and may the Force be with us...

Originally posted by xmart@Dec 9 2005, 02:05 PM
Quick Update Guys.

Todays I was able to talk with our computer engineer and CNC Machinist who is the best in his field.

I'm told that, this project is not impossible.

We decided to do a complete Master Prototype copy (steel) for the Greivous, to have an idea what will the final product look like, than we can have the casts out of it..in resin, to cheapen the cost, however if one likes to have a steel movie like copy than there will be files in the computer, than it won't cost that expensive to have it CNC machined as far as we will have the copy.

Now since we let this project a "go", there will be some stuff that we'll need..I need some real quality pictures of Greivous. Anything.

I'll order some official studio photos from Official Pix, and I ordered my 2nd Sideshow 1/4 Greivous to a possible breakdown of the pieces, to study the design.
Any help will be higly appreciated. I'm in contact with Clay, he is a real professional in this CNC engineering, along with some other sources that might be a possible help.

After we have all the referances sent to the studio and studied by the engineers, we will have the costs for a possible run, which all you look forward to.
Any referance image help will be HIGHLY APPRECIATED.

Once again guys, this will be a RPF only project. If it finalizes, it will be a limited run, and it is A NON-PROFIT project between the fellas in this website. Everything will be sold at cost, and the items should not be resold for profit as it is a custom project. 

May the force be with us.
We want to do this for Star Wars and our love for Greivous, not for money.

[snapback]1132365[/snapback]​

 

[xmart]

Clay, can you please check the pictures that I sent on page 3 regarding the original prints from www.officialpix.com . It's an official source with the best quality resolution pictures. We have a chance to order prints up to 16"x20" which should be a good resource for us. Should I order them and send them to you? Since 16x20 prints are $30 each..it may cost quite a bit cause there are about 15 photos of the character that shows specific details. Smaller pictures are cheaper..but I don't want to lose any details. Photo sizes are given on the website. Which size is OK for you to study the character?

Also for the articulation and screen capture details , incase you haven't seen the movie, I can aso send you the EPIII DVD.

BTW I never thought of resin casting and aplying metal afterwards as the coat. That sound cool too Especially on some parts that real metal won't be able to hold well due to weight.

Oh and also for some other specific details that we might not capture, studying the breakdown of Sideshow 1/4 Statue parts m,ght be a good idea. That statue is killer, and I have 2 on order. I may gladly part with one for the good of the project

 

[ortiz34]

So your already DONATING a $500 statue , to be broken up, for this project?
As well as purchasing dozens of $30- 'reference photos' as well?

How bad exactly do you want this thing?

No offense but by that calculation youve already dropped a cool grand and nothing has even been anywhere near designed or built yet.

Frankly this almost sounds like
A. a scam
B. a $10,000 statue

If its legit good luck with this, but I cant roll that high.

 

[PHArchivist]

This I gotta see,,,

 

[xmart]

You know the accuracy is what we are looking for so those photos and a good 3-d referance is what we need. He doesn't have to aually broke the thing into pieces So I'll get it back afterwards and still display it proudly.

For how bad I want this "thing"..I want it (hopefully) to be the MASTERPIECE of props and collectibles ever produced

 

[QuartZ]

As someone who works on life size replicas of movie characters, I can definately tell you that $1000 is just the beginning. It's very easy for a project of this magnitude to be in the thousands of dollars. $10K is not a lot if you are talking about machining a metal master of this character. The molds alone could run you a few thousand dollars with all the pieces. Then casting all the parts and plating them is a fair chunk of change.

I advise doing as much planning and number crunching before you begin. I can't tell you how dangerous your initial idea of start on one piece, dump money in, then move one sounded to me. Your budget could skyrocket like you wouldn't believe. Know how much you can afford to spend on the project as a whole and decide if you think it's worth it.

I'm currently working on a lifesize figure that is my holy grail of props and I know that to add everything I want to it is going to run up a tab of between $8500-9000 in total, only 30% of which I have already invested in. BUT, I know the big picture.

Good luck.

Originally posted by xmart@Dec 10 2005, 07:33 AM
You know the accuracy is what we are looking for so those photos and a good 3-d referance is what we need. He doesn't have to aually broke the thing into pieces So I'll get it back afterwards and still display it proudly.

For how bad I want this "thing"..I want it (hopefully) to be the MASTERPIECE of props and collectibles ever produced

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[Stormy320]

I'm interested in the project too.

Quartz - please tell us what your holy grail lifesize figure is.

I too wish this was an IG88 project. I hope all those interested in IG88 can start a board or something so we can share ideas and get started on this project.

 

[zorg]

can you offer a discount if i buy more than one?


possibly 8 or 9


z

 

[xmart]

Well I suppose you are joking but still I need to say that run will be strictly limited as this will be custom project, and nobody wants to get into trouble with anyone..Lucasfilm..It must be a fan to fan project..non-profit..just for fun and our love for Greivous. It won't be mass produced and once the run is completed all the molds and other leftover production units must be destroyed in order to prevent another run and unwanted trouble. We will try to keep the run in minimum aiming it to be a highly limited piece offered at a reasonable price for the size.

If you'll ask my dream..it is to keep the final price at around $5000 for the perfect, completed piece..and produce only 10.

Still we don't have any idea on the costs so that might be "little over" or "well over" the limit. Once we complete the pre-production and design parts. I hope we will be able to see what the final cost willl be.

And as far as he is a droid, I really do hope he is symetrical on the arms and legs. That will be great to reduce the cost. If there are some specific scratches or damages on the movie Greivous, I believe it won't be diffucult to add those afterwards the final pull, rather than having a complete new design and engineering proccess.

If the project finalizes, my only profit will be my very own Greivous statue, not any kind of money.

 

[Eaglewood]

Originally posted by xmart@Dec 9 2005, 08:08 PM
Clay, can you please check the pictures that I sent on page 3 regarding the original prints from www.officialpix.com . It's an official source with the best quality resolution pictures. We have a chance to order prints up to 16"x20" which should be a good resource for us. Should I order them and send them to you? Since 16x20 prints are $30 each..it may cost quite a bit cause there are about 15 photos of the character that shows specific details. Smaller pictures are cheaper..but I don't want to lose any details. Photo sizes are given on the website. Which size is OK for you to study the character?

Also for the articulation and screen capture details , incase you haven't seen the movie, I can aso send you the EPIII DVD.

BTW I never thought of resin casting and aplying metal afterwards as the coat. That sound cool too Especially on some parts that real metal won't be able to hold well due to weight.

Oh and also for some other specific details that we might not capture, studying the breakdown of Sideshow 1/4 Statue parts m,ght be a good idea. That statue is killer, and I have 2 on order. I may gladly part with one for the good of the project

[snapback]1132651[/snapback]​

As long as I can see the details, that will help. But what is really needed are dimensioned drawings or individual drawings. It would save enourmous amounts of time that way.--Unless someone out there has other ideas. Whatever you feel comfortable with sending me at this point would be ok and I can start trying to get some drawings done on the computer. Shoot me an email and I will give yo my shipping address.

I think what we need to do is for everyone that is truly interested in this to get together and lets put a game plan down.

What are we going to start with?
What will the scale be?
Who is going to do what?
What are the cost limitations going to be?
Who is going to coordinate everything?
Where are the pieces going to be shipped for the master?
Who is going to assemble it?

There are more questions than this too--

There are many questions that I dont have answers to at this point. I am willing to do whatever we need for the successful completion of this project, but we need to be careful that we dont dive in too fast until everything is thought out. Some one posted earlier that this could get upwards to $10,000. If you think about what is involved here for a metal master, he may not be far off. Once you have the master files in the computer , the cost would not be quite as much, but I think that we are still looking at a good chunk even in resin coated with Applied Metal.

Lets make sure that all of our ducks are in a row before we proceed. I dont want to discourage anyone, but I dont want anyone to think that this is going to be a walk in the park either.

Clay

 

[ortiz34]

Not to be a killjoy but:

maybe for starters, stick with just the head.
Figure out just what the head would cost, time and effortwise, and try to get just that part done.

Id buy one...and if that went smooth, the rest could be considered.

I llike to eat but i dont order a whole cake at the diner.

One piece at a time.

 

[Eaglewood]

Originally posted by ortiz34@Dec 11 2005, 12:10 AM
Not to be a killjoy but:

maybe for starters, stick with just the head.
Figure out just what the head would cost, time and effortwise, and try to get just that part done.

Id buy one...and if that went smooth, the rest could be considered.

I llike to eat but i dont order a whole cake at the diner.

One piece at a time.

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I think that I agree with you on this one--Lets go for a full scale head and decide if we want to continue from there--
How does everyone else feel about that as a starting point??
Clay

 

[ortiz34]

how much effort/dough would a decent head replica cost?


Im betting it would be well under 200- since most of it is bone(resin)
and (from a non expert) fairly simply designed.

who would put $ towards a nice general full size bust?

 

[ortiz34]

...and from a project management background that show 'proof of concept'...

 

[ortiz34]

Originally posted by xmart@Dec 10 2005, 03:33 AM
For how bad I want this "thing"..I want it (hopefully) to be the MASTERPIECE of props and collectibles ever produced

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Do you really thing this can be done that conceptually?
Im betting the statue would need to be ripped apart and scaled to get some kind of dimensions for the individual pieces for this.

 

[ortiz34]

...and are u prepared to 'throw away' one of your statues for this venture?

Im not suggesting you do , its just a question...

 

[xmart]

Well, I saw it in person at CIII and it's obvious that this statue shows some great detail..and it's well done.

Since it will be released in few months, we'll see. I have 2 on Pre-Order however if I will be able to track down a damaged statue of some sort for a lower price, I might drop on of them and go in that route. Still it's obvious that the statue has the detail, that anyone will want.

BTW what's the lowest price on the Greivous statue so far. Mine I have on Pre-Order cost me $450 each. Still I'm sure that for a fragile piece like this..we will definetaly see some damaged ones on eBay soon.

 

[Benkenove]

I also think that the best starting point should be the HEAD...
I would be fine to know how much do you think would cost the whole proyect... to make an idea...

I would say that I´m interested, but, also would need to know how much would be the grand total .

At least, I will get the head for sure ...

Good luck men ... and keep this rolling .

 

[xmart]

Well Benkenove, we WILL have the final cost of EACH part before we start the project. So we will have our umbrella ready for a possible rain, so we wont get wet

I want to say, if we can make a total of 10 statues head to toe..and another 10 for just the head bust..we will have the final cost. Oh also EVERYONE can be sure that you will get the exact cost. If it's $4011 it's $4011 etc. If project gets a possible go you will have real time cost breakdowns listed here immediatly..

For example lets say $1000 spent for the master metal copy of the head..$500 for the mold..$100 for each resin cast. It makes $1500 to create the head let's say and we will have 20 final copies..

$1500 (master) + $500 (mold) + $2000 (Total 20 final casts at $100 each) = $3500/20=$175 each

than the head would be $175 + whatever it costs to ship it to you. These are just the estimates..so you will know what you will have to pay before you get on the road. I hope I'm pretty clear on this.

ALSO before you pay for ANYTHING..You will get to see the FINAL PRODUCT. So you won't get suprised when you receive it.

 

[Benkenove]

1 question...

Are you planing to make the statue (and head) in resin or FG ?? or will you make it in Metal as you told first ???

I think it would be great to get this statue done in all metal parts, but up to you ...

I will keep an eye on this cause I´m interested ...