sidheman
New Member
Hi all! This year will be my first year attending DragonCon, and I wanted to make something really cool to bring along so that I wasn't wearing just my Terminus armor I made last year for it. At that same time, the N7 Elite costuming group posted that they wanted to do something epic for the parade: a gigantic Thresher Maw done in the style of a Chinese Dragon! So, being a masochist, I volunteered to make the head.
Finding references were remarkably easy, though at the same time I have very little time between starting and DragonCon, so I opted for a quicker route: foam pep. Took forever finding even a basic 3D file, but finally I managed a couple versions made for use in Gary's Mod. After discovering you could set up the pages to a custom measurement (only been using the program for 3 years and STILL learning the useful stuff), I set it up to the width of the foam sheets and started unfolding!
Having everything organazied to fit a sheet of foam made things much easier to organize, rather than guess where to cut a piece so that it'd fit on it. I still had to print it out on regular paper, but this made things soooooo much easier. This also gave me a good guestimate on how much foam I was going to need, so I went out and bought 18 packs of it!
That's right: I'm going to need at least 70 sheets of foam to make this monstrosity, give or take a few. Not truly full size, but still friggin huge! Going to chop up this write-up into the five rows of 7 pairs, just to make it easier for you guys to follow along where I'm at.
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Row 1
Got the first row printed, taped, and cut for each foam sheet. Each row of paper is 22 pages long, ending at 66 pages for the first row and **264** for all the parts. I doubled up as many parts as humanly possible, though some of them aren't doubled and others, like the claws, will need more. Now that the first row is ready, time to trace!
Due to the fact that I can't work in the garage as much as I used to, since I'm watching our son while my wife is at work, I'll be cutting the whole thing out with an xacto knife (with some exceptions, again the claws and whatnot). I organized the unfold as best I could, keeping sections that went together as close to each other as possible. First came the shoulders, then what I originally thought were the eyes, then the upper carapace.
Small flat-rate box for scale, to give you an idea of how big this is going to be. Once all the next sheet was cut and assembled, all the parts could finally begin being attached:
Now we're starting to see some resemblance! After that was done, all that was left were more fake eye things (yay survival thingies!), the section where the small pair of claws attach, and some other bits and bobs that can't quite be attached as of yet.
And that brings us to the End of Row 1! 14 sheets down, 56 remain.
Finding references were remarkably easy, though at the same time I have very little time between starting and DragonCon, so I opted for a quicker route: foam pep. Took forever finding even a basic 3D file, but finally I managed a couple versions made for use in Gary's Mod. After discovering you could set up the pages to a custom measurement (only been using the program for 3 years and STILL learning the useful stuff), I set it up to the width of the foam sheets and started unfolding!
Having everything organazied to fit a sheet of foam made things much easier to organize, rather than guess where to cut a piece so that it'd fit on it. I still had to print it out on regular paper, but this made things soooooo much easier. This also gave me a good guestimate on how much foam I was going to need, so I went out and bought 18 packs of it!
That's right: I'm going to need at least 70 sheets of foam to make this monstrosity, give or take a few. Not truly full size, but still friggin huge! Going to chop up this write-up into the five rows of 7 pairs, just to make it easier for you guys to follow along where I'm at.
***********************************
Row 1
Got the first row printed, taped, and cut for each foam sheet. Each row of paper is 22 pages long, ending at 66 pages for the first row and **264** for all the parts. I doubled up as many parts as humanly possible, though some of them aren't doubled and others, like the claws, will need more. Now that the first row is ready, time to trace!
Due to the fact that I can't work in the garage as much as I used to, since I'm watching our son while my wife is at work, I'll be cutting the whole thing out with an xacto knife (with some exceptions, again the claws and whatnot). I organized the unfold as best I could, keeping sections that went together as close to each other as possible. First came the shoulders, then what I originally thought were the eyes, then the upper carapace.
Small flat-rate box for scale, to give you an idea of how big this is going to be. Once all the next sheet was cut and assembled, all the parts could finally begin being attached:
Now we're starting to see some resemblance! After that was done, all that was left were more fake eye things (yay survival thingies!), the section where the small pair of claws attach, and some other bits and bobs that can't quite be attached as of yet.
And that brings us to the End of Row 1! 14 sheets down, 56 remain.
