Hey guys, I haven't been around here much in the last year, I've been prepping my backpack for molding. Yes, I know, you've all heard it umpteen times. I had to stop, because the "Holy Grail" of photograph collections of the original P1 Backpack that I had been searching for years had surfaced just as I literally had put the order in for the silicone. George (PTGreek) was kind enough to obtain some photos from a friend of his at The Prop Store. Kudos to Brandon, George, and Art for taking and providing me with the photos I've needed from every possible angle for so long. (More on this, and other details in my backpack thread).
Things have been crazy lately, it seems everything is coming together at once. No screen accurate backpack could be as good without an "accurized" cannon to go with it. I've been promising people that my final Gen 3. cannon would come soon after the backpack…I just didn't realize how soon.
My budzo Scott Andrews (Scott AS), recently purchased a state of the art 3D printer, whose outputs have to be seen to be believed. As George and others in the biz have said, this is where the industry is going, digital. So, since I design stuff in 3D at my job, what better way to shift the cannon revamp into high gear than to built it 100% digitally and print it out on Scott's printer? Well, that's exactly what I'm doing.
For the first time on the Lair as far as I know, this thread will detail a pred-prop being built from scratch in the computer from original reference photos, and then output on a state of the art 3D printer, and then molded. For those who know how painfully slow I can be, this new method is a God-send. As you can see, I'm almost done building the cannon, and then the arm to go with it. The beauty of this method over traditional sculpting is that I can build in screw bosses, and other things that will allow for removable panels to insert animatronics (oh-yes) and other things.
You will no doubt notice as I post more pix, that some of the details on my new cannon don't exactly match those on the Wang cannon in the reference photos. That is mainly because you are not looking at the same cannon you saw in P1. For instance, the metal wires you see were added for P2. Winston & co. tried to subtly change the look of the P1 cannon and backpack by stripping off some of the greeblies, and adding some new ones, including the wires. Using other P1 ref pix, I restored those, like the tank track on the right side of the barrel (hidden in this angle). Rushed water based clay details have been replaced with crisp, more symmetrical features.
I should be finished building the gun and arm by this weekend, or the beginning of next week. I will be molding the backpack this weekend, and then the new cannon the following week. Thanks for staying tuned, guys. Much more to come.
Things have been crazy lately, it seems everything is coming together at once. No screen accurate backpack could be as good without an "accurized" cannon to go with it. I've been promising people that my final Gen 3. cannon would come soon after the backpack…I just didn't realize how soon.
My budzo Scott Andrews (Scott AS), recently purchased a state of the art 3D printer, whose outputs have to be seen to be believed. As George and others in the biz have said, this is where the industry is going, digital. So, since I design stuff in 3D at my job, what better way to shift the cannon revamp into high gear than to built it 100% digitally and print it out on Scott's printer? Well, that's exactly what I'm doing.
For the first time on the Lair as far as I know, this thread will detail a pred-prop being built from scratch in the computer from original reference photos, and then output on a state of the art 3D printer, and then molded. For those who know how painfully slow I can be, this new method is a God-send. As you can see, I'm almost done building the cannon, and then the arm to go with it. The beauty of this method over traditional sculpting is that I can build in screw bosses, and other things that will allow for removable panels to insert animatronics (oh-yes) and other things.
You will no doubt notice as I post more pix, that some of the details on my new cannon don't exactly match those on the Wang cannon in the reference photos. That is mainly because you are not looking at the same cannon you saw in P1. For instance, the metal wires you see were added for P2. Winston & co. tried to subtly change the look of the P1 cannon and backpack by stripping off some of the greeblies, and adding some new ones, including the wires. Using other P1 ref pix, I restored those, like the tank track on the right side of the barrel (hidden in this angle). Rushed water based clay details have been replaced with crisp, more symmetrical features.
I should be finished building the gun and arm by this weekend, or the beginning of next week. I will be molding the backpack this weekend, and then the new cannon the following week. Thanks for staying tuned, guys. Much more to come.
