Re: Thorssoli's Episode VII Builds (TIE Pilot Nearing Completion of Page 14)
Don't blow my cover. You're going to make it very difficult for me to kill Sarah Connor.
Mainly I'm making them a bit bigger so they'll fit forearms with more girth. Other than that, I'm fixing a few things I didn't like about the original sculpt and making the seam narrower so there's less material wasted when they're cut apart and slotted back together. They'll still be rotocast the same way as the previous version, so finishing will be pretty much the same.
As before, I started with a nice, clean casting of my Episode VII stormtrooper/Phasma forearms and added a bunch of Bondo change the contours of the outer side as shown in those two pics in my last post.
When the shape was mostly smoothed out, I buffed out a couple of patches near the elbow and added a pair of rectangles of mounting tape where the recessed rectangles needed to be. Then I built up more Bondo over the whole surface. When it cured, I sanded it back down until the tape was exposed. Removing the tape left behind a nice, smooth, rectangular recess:
Here's a closeup of one of them before I'd removed the second piece of mounting tape:
Next I drilled holes and installed these little peg details that (for some reason) weren't in the stormtrooper forearms before I molded them:
After that, it was just a matter of fixing a couple of minor bubbles with spot putty:
Once they were sanded nice and smooth (220-grit, if memory serves) I gave them a couple of coats of primer:
After it dried, they got a little more sanding, then a glossy coat of lightish red:
Yesterday I split them lenghtwise, added a piece of 1/4" stock to make a gap between the two halves, and mounted them for molding:
Here's what they looked like just moments before I started pouring rubber:
After pouring on a coat of silicone, I spent some quality time troweling the rubber up the sides of the gauntlets:
Note the intense focus:
Intense.
Here's what they looked like when I finally quit last night:
Today I'll be thickening the molds and adding registration keys. So with any luck, tomorrow I'll finish the mothermolds and possibly get a casting or two out of the molds.
Stay tuned...
Thorssoli...you are a machine!!!
Don't blow my cover. You're going to make it very difficult for me to kill Sarah Connor.
Awesome ! What will be the main difference between the first version I have and this one? Will it be easier to open the squares ans the coin slot ?
Mainly I'm making them a bit bigger so they'll fit forearms with more girth. Other than that, I'm fixing a few things I didn't like about the original sculpt and making the seam narrower so there's less material wasted when they're cut apart and slotted back together. They'll still be rotocast the same way as the previous version, so finishing will be pretty much the same.
As before, I started with a nice, clean casting of my Episode VII stormtrooper/Phasma forearms and added a bunch of Bondo change the contours of the outer side as shown in those two pics in my last post.
When the shape was mostly smoothed out, I buffed out a couple of patches near the elbow and added a pair of rectangles of mounting tape where the recessed rectangles needed to be. Then I built up more Bondo over the whole surface. When it cured, I sanded it back down until the tape was exposed. Removing the tape left behind a nice, smooth, rectangular recess:
Here's a closeup of one of them before I'd removed the second piece of mounting tape:
Next I drilled holes and installed these little peg details that (for some reason) weren't in the stormtrooper forearms before I molded them:
After that, it was just a matter of fixing a couple of minor bubbles with spot putty:
Once they were sanded nice and smooth (220-grit, if memory serves) I gave them a couple of coats of primer:
After it dried, they got a little more sanding, then a glossy coat of lightish red:
Yesterday I split them lenghtwise, added a piece of 1/4" stock to make a gap between the two halves, and mounted them for molding:
Here's what they looked like just moments before I started pouring rubber:
After pouring on a coat of silicone, I spent some quality time troweling the rubber up the sides of the gauntlets:
Note the intense focus:
Intense.
Here's what they looked like when I finally quit last night:
Today I'll be thickening the molds and adding registration keys. So with any luck, tomorrow I'll finish the mothermolds and possibly get a casting or two out of the molds.
Stay tuned...