Judge Spartan
Sr Member
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
Staying tuned
Staying tuned
Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - NEW SUIT DONE Pics on p.17
- Thread starter thorssoli
- Start date
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
No glass. It'll be too heavy. The shoulders will be suspended from the chest. The upper arms will be strapped to the elbow and forearms and the whole arm will hang from a post inside the shoulder so it pivots in the right place relative to the character instead of the wearer. This will become more clear as time moves on.
In other news, I've got a backpack:
It's hot:
The bolter's coming together too:
Since I've pretty much got forms of all of the pieces now, I've got the crew coming over to crank out a bunch of vacforming today. So my shop is about to get really crowded with pieces. Stay tuned...
No glass. It'll be too heavy. The shoulders will be suspended from the chest. The upper arms will be strapped to the elbow and forearms and the whole arm will hang from a post inside the shoulder so it pivots in the right place relative to the character instead of the wearer. This will become more clear as time moves on.
In other news, I've got a backpack:
It's hot:
The bolter's coming together too:
Since I've pretty much got forms of all of the pieces now, I've got the crew coming over to crank out a bunch of vacforming today. So my shop is about to get really crowded with pieces. Stay tuned...
oota goota
Sr Member
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
looks like its alot of fun. It'll be great having a crew there to speed things along nice work!
looks like its alot of fun. It'll be great having a crew there to speed things along nice work!
BrotherWilliam
Well-Known Member
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
Love that you've got one of the original "beaky" helmets going there. When W40K first came out I remember us calling them "space wombles"
:lol
Love that you've got one of the original "beaky" helmets going there. When W40K first came out I remember us calling them "space wombles"
:lol
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
I actually prefer the beaky death womble helmet over the newer versions. The Mk7 doesn't stand out all that much as anything interesting. The Mk6 on the other hand looks like nothing else in science fiction. When I originally sculpted it (about 5 or 6 years ago) I was actually planning to build the entire suit based on the old plastic miniatures from when I was a kid. It took a lot of reconsidering to talk myself into making this build look like the new miniatures.
Speaking of changing the subject, yesterday was a pretty busy day. I had the crew in the shop, so I oversaw a couple of the guys on the forming machine:
As we made pulls, another one of the guys would do the rough cutting:
Then the rough-cut pieces would be carried out to the rest of the team for some finer cutting:
While they were doing that, I also had one of the girls cutting out the eye holes and grills for the helmets:
We made lots of pieces of armor:
If my count was right, we've got all the parts we need except for the vacformed backpack and boot parts.
We also made lots of scrap:
[/url
Since there's no way the whole project will fit into my workshop, we stacked the pieces in my storage container until we get the kinks worked out of the assembly process:
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/8050182@N06/7127419413/]
I'll be building one suit this week and then take the lessons learned from that one to help build the rest next weekend when I've got everyone back in the shop to help.
Stay tuned...
I actually prefer the beaky death womble helmet over the newer versions. The Mk7 doesn't stand out all that much as anything interesting. The Mk6 on the other hand looks like nothing else in science fiction. When I originally sculpted it (about 5 or 6 years ago) I was actually planning to build the entire suit based on the old plastic miniatures from when I was a kid. It took a lot of reconsidering to talk myself into making this build look like the new miniatures.
Speaking of changing the subject, yesterday was a pretty busy day. I had the crew in the shop, so I oversaw a couple of the guys on the forming machine:
As we made pulls, another one of the guys would do the rough cutting:
Then the rough-cut pieces would be carried out to the rest of the team for some finer cutting:
While they were doing that, I also had one of the girls cutting out the eye holes and grills for the helmets:
We made lots of pieces of armor:
If my count was right, we've got all the parts we need except for the vacformed backpack and boot parts.
We also made lots of scrap:
[/urlSince there's no way the whole project will fit into my workshop, we stacked the pieces in my storage container until we get the kinks worked out of the assembly process:
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/8050182@N06/7127419413/]
I'll be building one suit this week and then take the lessons learned from that one to help build the rest next weekend when I've got everyone back in the shop to help.
Stay tuned...
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Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
Wow, from the amount of parts you have there it looks like you're building an entire army. I would love to get my hands on one of these suits, but I think I'll just keep dreaming. Keep up the good work.
Wow, from the amount of parts you have there it looks like you're building an entire army. I would love to get my hands on one of these suits, but I think I'll just keep dreaming. Keep up the good work.
oota goota
Sr Member
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
yyeeeeeeeeaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
yyeeeeeeeeaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
Sorry for belabouring the point, but what are you using for strapping? Duct tape (so useful for everything)? Would that hold everything together? How are the knees hinged Probably going to do the same there as the elbows (still chuffed over that kickass piece!)?
Kevin
Sorry for belabouring the point, but what are you using for strapping? Duct tape (so useful for everything)? Would that hold everything together? How are the knees hinged Probably going to do the same there as the elbows (still chuffed over that kickass piece!)?
Kevin
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
Thorssoli - The reason I joined theRPF. :thumbsup
Thorssoli - The reason I joined theRPF. :thumbsup
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
I haven't figured out all of the details for the strapping. It'll mostly be nylon webbing. I'll post details as I have them.
In other news, I finished gluing together the first bolter last night:
Now that we've got all of the assembly figured out, it's time to make a few more.
Stay tuned. Or better yet, subscribe so you don't miss any updates.
I haven't figured out all of the details for the strapping. It'll mostly be nylon webbing. I'll post details as I have them.
In other news, I finished gluing together the first bolter last night:
Now that we've got all of the assembly figured out, it's time to make a few more.
Stay tuned. Or better yet, subscribe so you don't miss any updates.
Alric
Well-Known Member
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
I know you are not selling these (with the issues over your beeky helmet) and I am not asking how much one would cost but I would be interested to know how much these beasts cost you to make.
After you get over the cost and 100's of hours to make the bucks (which would add a lot to the sale price of a suit) how do they work out cost wise in relation to casting them.
Is the material and process for vacforming cheaper than casting in molds or is it just an easier / quicker process ?
Once you have make your master is it quicker to make a vac buck or casing mold ?
Due to the size of the suits and the making process does the amount of waste from vacforming make much of an impact on the cost ?
Sorry for all the questions but I was interested in the process and as they are such large items I thought they would show up the differences in the costs of making them.
I know you are not selling these (with the issues over your beeky helmet) and I am not asking how much one would cost but I would be interested to know how much these beasts cost you to make.
After you get over the cost and 100's of hours to make the bucks (which would add a lot to the sale price of a suit) how do they work out cost wise in relation to casting them.
Is the material and process for vacforming cheaper than casting in molds or is it just an easier / quicker process ?
Once you have make your master is it quicker to make a vac buck or casing mold ?
Due to the size of the suits and the making process does the amount of waste from vacforming make much of an impact on the cost ?
Sorry for all the questions but I was interested in the process and as they are such large items I thought they would show up the differences in the costs of making them.
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
I haven't really been keeping track of the costs. I do know that I dropped $1200 on sheet styrene and ABS last week to get ready for the crew to come by over the weekend. That's probably most of what I'll need for five suits. There's also the cost of moldmaking silicone (I'll probably burn through 44lbs by the time I'm done) and casting resin (about a gallon worth of cast parts per suit) and finally the stilts that I'll be building into the legs. I've gone through about a dozen gallons of fiberglass resin since the beginning of this project and probably at least as much bondo.
The reason for vacforming them is to save on weight. If I was rotocasting all of the parts, this rig would weigh hundreds of pounds. My Halo Spartan suits weigh around 50lbs when they're fully assembled, so extrapolate that out to a character that's eight feet tall and four feet wide and you've got a costume that nobody could wear.
Both. For the Halo project I went with cast parts because of the much greater volume of details involved in those suits. Since the Space Marines have large, smooth areas, there's no need for the fine detail reproduction afforded by silicone molds.
If I get really insane somewhere down the line, I may graduate to making fiberglass molds and blow in the parts with a chopped strand gun. That'd be years from now though.
The masters are the forming bucks. Making a mold would require more work and materials after the masters were made.
We've been trying to minimize waste by arranging the parts as efficiently as possible on each pull. It still takes somewhere between 20 and 30 pulls to make a full suit though, so waste is inevitable.
For an idea of what something like this should cost, think of the price of a suit of stormtrooper armor. Now realize that that would only be six or seven pulls at the most on a machine like mine. The full-sized Space Marine will take 4-5 times the plastic sheet plus whatever cast parts are involved...
You can do your own math, but if someone tells you they can build you a costume like this for less than $2k-$3k, hold onto your wallet.
I haven't really been keeping track of the costs. I do know that I dropped $1200 on sheet styrene and ABS last week to get ready for the crew to come by over the weekend. That's probably most of what I'll need for five suits. There's also the cost of moldmaking silicone (I'll probably burn through 44lbs by the time I'm done) and casting resin (about a gallon worth of cast parts per suit) and finally the stilts that I'll be building into the legs. I've gone through about a dozen gallons of fiberglass resin since the beginning of this project and probably at least as much bondo.
The reason for vacforming them is to save on weight. If I was rotocasting all of the parts, this rig would weigh hundreds of pounds. My Halo Spartan suits weigh around 50lbs when they're fully assembled, so extrapolate that out to a character that's eight feet tall and four feet wide and you've got a costume that nobody could wear.
Both. For the Halo project I went with cast parts because of the much greater volume of details involved in those suits. Since the Space Marines have large, smooth areas, there's no need for the fine detail reproduction afforded by silicone molds.
If I get really insane somewhere down the line, I may graduate to making fiberglass molds and blow in the parts with a chopped strand gun. That'd be years from now though.
The masters are the forming bucks. Making a mold would require more work and materials after the masters were made.
We've been trying to minimize waste by arranging the parts as efficiently as possible on each pull. It still takes somewhere between 20 and 30 pulls to make a full suit though, so waste is inevitable.
For an idea of what something like this should cost, think of the price of a suit of stormtrooper armor. Now realize that that would only be six or seven pulls at the most on a machine like mine. The full-sized Space Marine will take 4-5 times the plastic sheet plus whatever cast parts are involved...
You can do your own math, but if someone tells you they can build you a costume like this for less than $2k-$3k, hold onto your wallet.
Alric
Well-Known Member
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
Thanks for the info, it's always interesting to learn more about the production methods used for these projects.
I'm looking forward to see the five of you all suited up for a troop. You are going to need a lot of space for all of you
Thanks for the info, it's always interesting to learn more about the production methods used for these projects.
I'm looking forward to see the five of you all suited up for a troop. You are going to need a lot of space for all of you
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - New Helmet Prototype on p. 14
Hey, loved the shots of those high powered sanders you have on your flickr (sp?) account. Awesome.
And I finally figured out what that pink widget you posted was... it is part of the knee joint? Man, where did you get the steel for that? Did you canabalise it from something else?
Hey, loved the shots of those high powered sanders you have on your flickr (sp?) account. Awesome.
And I finally figured out what that pink widget you posted was... it is part of the knee joint? Man, where did you get the steel for that? Did you canabalise it from something else?
