Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - NEW SUIT DONE Pics on p.17

thorssoli

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Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - NEW HELMET VARIANT - P29

I've been contemplating this build ever since I finished making my vacformed stormtrooper armor in 2002. After discussing it at great length many times, doodling out countless sketches of the pieces and parts, and untold hours of studying the miniatures and source artwork, my friend Matt and I finally started on it yesterday morning.

The beginning was modest enough. We began with a piece of 2" insulation foam:


Then we cut out the outline of the shoulder plate and checked to see how it looked:

The plan is to make a full-scale suit of armor. This means that a normal-sized person will be looking out through the throat of the armored Marine.

Satisfied with the scale and shape of the first slice, we made a series of smaller slices:


Then we laid them all up and glued them together with Gorilla Glue:


After gluing them, we bound them together with a customized strapping system referred to among professionals as "duct tape:"


While waiting for the glue to set up, I did another test fit:


Once the glue was set, the next step was to smooth out the edges with a combination saw, a body rasp, and a flapwheel grinder. Still, there were recesses that needed filling. To fill the grooves I used a little bit of urethane expanding foam:


With a bit more sanding and grinding, the general shape was pretty well established:


In the next day or two I'll be posting pictures of the last little bits of smoothing out the shoulder plate as well as the first couple of pulls on the vacforming table.

Stay tuned...
 
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Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

Looks very good so far. Are you making a personal set, or possibly a kit? The helmet looks awesome, I would love to have one of those.
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

I don't plan on selling these.

I'll be making a few sets for my friends. If you have questions, please feel free to PM me.
 
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Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

So far so good :thumbsup I'm interested to know how you plan on doing the 'inner' suit - are you thinking of a harness or padding...this is always the trouble area with my armour :unsure

Matt
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

I'm interested to know how you plan on doing the 'inner' suit - are you thinking of a harness or padding...

Right now the plan is to go with a harness system. As big as the parts are going to be, it will be imperative to keep the weight down. I'm sure we'll end up changing the plan a few times over the course of this build.


nice! i didnt know foam could really be involved with vaccuforming.

The foam is only for this early stage of the project. I'm using it to get one or two pulls vacformed. Once I have those pulls, I'll reinforce them with fiberglass and use the reinforced pulls as vacforming bucks.


Yesterday I layered over the shaped foam block with some urethane resin. In this case I added enough microballoons to make it into a thick paste that I could trowel over the whole thing. At that point it looked like so:


I also added some red pigment to the resin so it would be a similar shade of pink as the rest of the foam.

Once I'd sanded that smooth I added a bit more resin with fewer microballoons. I was in a hurry at this point, so I switched to the black resin:


Once I had that layer smoothed out, I went ahead and made a pull:


It came out somewhat okay, but it revealed some trouble spots for the form that I'll have to work on. The plan will be to do these things in pairs, so I'll need two good pulls to turn into forming bucks. They'll sit on the forming table like so:


Here's another idiotic test shot for scale:


I'm starting to think I'll have to sculpt a larger helmet.

Stay tuned...
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

From the way you did the helmet a full suit should look great. I'm looking forward to see how this develops
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

Very nice, this has been an idea I've toyed with here and there!
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

Just wondering if you're gonna be using stilts as well as the false-head for added height. Make the boots big enough platforms and you can make a normal person head and shoulders above other people and use the helmet normally.
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

The plan is to do both.

By using the false head I'll be able to put the wearer in the center of the costume. That way I won't have to make the boot platforms quite as tall or the arm extensions quiet as long. This will make the whole character more believable.

If we decide to shoot some short films or something, I may make a more human-sized version to make it more maneuverable. But that's a long way off.
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

I think the size of your helmet is fine.

The shoulder armour is the biggest part/s of a space marine.
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

While early this is looking great so far. I will be following this with heavy interest.
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

This is awesome-I've been waiting a while for someone to make a great looking space marine armor set, and you've done great work so far. looking forward to the rest of it.
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

Thanks. Work has stalled a bit while I've been overwhelmed with people interested in my Combat Garden Gnomes. I've got the shoulder smoothed out, but I'm waiting until I've got the chest and back bucks roughed out before I post another update.
 
Re: Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor

Not too long ago, the good folks at Obscurus Crusade started unfolding the 3D models from the new Space Marine game, so I spent the afternoon today cranking out a full-sized version of the pep model from the game. Here I am test-fitting it while it's in progress;


It's big:


Really big:


I could almost fit two of me in there:


Here I'm wearing the helmet so I can see through the eyes and the chest is sitting down all the way on my shoulders:


Given the way that fits, I'm still confident that my plan to wear the helmet as a hat and look out through the neck will look the best:


Now I need to reinforce this piece with fiberglass, fair everything out so it's nice and smooth, then cut it into segments that I can form copies on my vac table.

Stay tuned...
 
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