Ok, so here's what's been happening with the latest project.
I want one of these:
I don't have the disposable income to buy one outright, and I don't have the moral fibre to ignore my wife's raised eyebrows when it arrives and I try to explain why I need it.
So, building, then.
I've mentioned before that I don't have the fine control or experience to try pepping a full helmet, but the previous trooper helmet build made me think I could use the Atlanthia bargain basement method to build one of these. The first bit was easy - just get a front shot (like the one above) and a side shot, and map them onto a scaled grid. Then cut out the resulting pieces on card, and make a dome to sit on top.
This time around I made the dome slightly longer than it is wide, and I reinforced the inside with packing foam. I thought I was being clever.
Then I take the side shot and front shot and slot them together. Yay, it's looking pretty good. I've even gone as far as to take a piece of toilet roll tube and sit it where the "beak" goes.
And then it all goes to hell because I do not have a single CLUE how to build the rest of the support structure. I need some way to tell how those side pieces run, the angle, the curve.... Look, what I'm trying to build is the First Order version of this:
This is Atlanthia's picture of the support structure he built for the original stormtrooper bucket. Those tubes and the eye shapes supported all the paper mache that went on top, giving it the right form. I got the dome, I got the central tube to shape the beak, but I am at a flippin' loss about the side pieces.
So, time for desperate measures. I download a set of Pep files (I forget which, sorry...) What I'm planning is to build a pep helmet and use that as a 3d reference. Maybe even cobble the pep pieces into my support frame?
Except, this is ME. So when I print off the pages they're the wrong size. This helmet, if I can build it, might fit my cat. Or it might not, she's got a pretty big head for a cat. I'm going to go ahead and try and build it anyway because:
1. I'm stupidly stubborn about unimportant things.
2. I'm curious as to how tricky pepping really is.
3. I can't figure out how to print the pieces out full-size on my piddly printer.
4. Haven't you read any of these posts before? This is my standard approach: Inferior materials? Check! Head in the sand? Check! Hopelessly inflated goals? CHECK!
But, as I've mentioned, sick wife, bathroom, etc etc. There are more people around the house who are saying things like "Take my temperature! Fetch me dinner! Change the channell! Don't you ever vacuum? Why the hell would you want another sodding lightsabre?" and so on.