Star Wars The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

I love how a little edging can give a boring part a new facelift. :D

My aim on the skew was to have it match the taper of the truncated cone. It came pretty close (see third pic).

Ran out of double-sided tape last night so will edge the other half today.

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~ Vonnor
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

Koda Vonnor said:
Wow Fierfek yes, I am very interested in the source model and the cinematic version for references.

The reason I haven't embraced pep' builds is the scaling and form-fitting flexibility that scratch-builds allow. With a clay sculpt I can contour a part to my own 6'6" 220lb body, regardless of the size and shape of the CG model. Things like how much ease distance off the skin to allow for the vambraces or the upper slope of the breastplate can be adjusted independently of the overall height/width scaling of the part. Scratch builds allow for a much more personalized fit, and let the builder decide how far to stretch accuracy in deference to motion range, comfort, and wearability.

~ Bill C.
Click to expand...

I too am 6'6" (but 265) and I agree with what you said.
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

Holy crap Kota!!! I just read through your whole thread for the first time and am really blown away by what you are accomplishing with your project. I am subscribing to your thread as of now and patiently wait for more updates. Keep with the vision!
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

Thanks for the support, guys. This project is about 30% completed, and targeted for CVI and D*Con. I really want it to be a clean and polished build, and it may still be a WIP but I'll show it at those two cons either way.

Stick around. I'm thankful for spectators. :D

~ Bill C.
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

Definetly have a spectator here. I really dig the look of Kota, so different from most every other jedi out there.

Keep it up, I'll be watching with great interest!
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

I cut the main belt blank and painted the belt hardware to better match the CG model. These are some photos for my leather crafter's reference. I also trimmed down the edges of the vambrace plates and filled in a lot of gaps and bubbles using PC-11 White Epoxy Paste as a filler putty. I got it at a local ACE hardware. It's not toxic like Bondo is and it's a lot creamier. You also get almost an hour working time before it starts getting thick. The down side is it takes 12 hours to harden enough to sand down, and that's with a couple 75 watt bulbs shining on it.

Next the right vambrace halves get primed and the three cross-straps added.

Stay tuned.

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kota_vambraces52.png


~ Vonnor
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

I primed the right vambrace halves and glued up a temporary jig with 5/8" spacers to hold the piece in it's shape. I marked and cut the holes for the three cross straps. I did it by hand using a dremel and left a bit of garbage that I'll have to fill in after the straps are in place.

The idea was to file the holes on a steep angle to help the Sintra straps lay down as flat as possible. I ran out of steam and want to watch the Bronco's play the Patriots tonight, so It'll probably be tomorrow for the straps.

One note, the straps need to hold to the contour of the tapered cone, so they can't be cut as simple flat parallel strips. I'll do my best to approximate the curve for the cuts and leave them a little big, then heat curve them and take down the edges as needed.

I also did a dye test on the suede used for the loin guard and hip pad (dye shown in photos) to try out some weathering. The brown strip in the foreground will be the mounting straps for the loin guard.

More later.

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~ Vonnor
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

I cut 3mm Sintra straps to individually calculated curves (see template in background) for each strap position. The photos show them loosely heat-formed and placed in the slots.

This week I'm in need of help.

There must be a trick to bending Sintra with a heat gun, because no matter what I did I kept getting uneven bends and even finger compression dents from where I was pressing on the hot straps. I tried putting an initial curve in the straps by wrapping them around an empty wine bottle as I heated them up, but still got a lot of uneven curves. I have enough Sintra to cut many more straps if needed, but if someone knows an easier way to bend the straps I would be extremely grateful for advice.

See the closeups I also got an unwanted concavity in the cross sections. :(

Ideally I want an even curve across the straps with a sharper bend as the strap goes into the slot. The CG images suggest that contour.

Also of note: The fiberglass resin and Bondo gets very hot and flexible under the gun. I discovered this after seriously distorting one of the strap slots! :eek Not that I can't take advantage of that physical property to micro-adjust some of the overall contours, but it was scary to find out by accident. I fixed the strap slot with heat by the way. Not perfect but close enough for where the strap goes into the slot.

Many thanks!

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~ Bill C
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

I know it's not accurate to the game but to me the logical way to do those straps would be to use wide dark brown leather straps. It would certainly work with the rest of the outfit as there is alot of leather on his outfit. That's just my opinion. Best of luck.
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

The cross straps need to be rigid since they will be glued in place to hold the bottom of the piece closed and maintain the uniform gap between halves. When worn, it won't be pulled tight to my arm over it's entire length, only at the wrist. There will be a bit of space between my upper forearm and the inside surface of the armor to allow it to rotate as my forearm rotates. Does that make sense?

I could make leather straps look accurate, but they wouldn't be rigid enough to do the job unfortunately.

~ BC
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

I did a bunch of little stuff today. I put the mounting on the loin guard and a start to some weathering. That's just light brown suede dye applied with a foam Q-tip. I will touch it here and there with dark brown for a little variance in the edging, and will try thinning some leather paint for the rubbed areas.

I also discovered a Sintra bending trick over at The Dented Helmet. Here is a step-by-step. I cut three new straps being very careful to get the edges square and the curves round. I made a ductwork mandrel about the same taper as the vambraces. Using a sofa pillow and a heat gun I heated up the strip 'til it was like a floppy noodle, then pressed the mandrel onto the strap and wrapped the pillow around the whole thing. After a minute or so the strap was nicely curved. I have to get the first weathered paint coat on the parts before I can glue on the straps, so that'll wait for a warmer day.

I think the three side-by-side straps look like a little shield generator model. :p

Next it's back to the hands.

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~ Vonnor
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

Oh yeah, I also sent the main belt blueprints to my leather crafter along with some hardware.

TFU2_MainBelt.jpg

TFU2_BeltClosure.jpg


~ BC
 
Re: The Force Unleashed II - General Rahm Kota WIP

Really looking forward to seeing this one finished, thought about doing it myself but then remembered I already have a project on the go :lol:
 
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