ROGUE ONE K-2SO Puppet Build

This is great! What was the reasoning for switching to a puppet build, if you don't mind me asking?
 
This is great! What was the reasoning for switching to a puppet build, if you don't mind me asking?

Cost and time. I ended up selling my stilts for some cash a few months back. And overall K2 would be 8-9 feet tall as a suit to fit inside.
I use many of the same principles for the puppet. And I may make a suit as version 2. But for a first build I think going the puppet route is better. 1:1 scale.
Perhaps I'll develop a puppet/suit hybrid.
 
More plans, more progress. My diving fins have arrived, they reach a good distance out from my feet. With K-2SO's stance being wider than I thought I've added pipe to his hips to make the center of his feet sit 18" apart, which will flex between 18" and 22". I'll make a false boot shaft out of foam to blend in my officer uniform.
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Practice, practice, practice. The cool thing is in walking with these on the timing of K2's legs an mine is staggered, which I think will help him appear less "puppeted".
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The foot flange will bolt right onto the fin, but the fin will be trimmed to only connect my foot to K2.
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Working on the foot profile using a variety of images including the Star Wars: Rogue One Visual Dictionary. He has BIG feet. I'm planning on having the toe hinge.
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Many pieces have been ordered, deliveries over the next week.
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I cut a notch in a 45* to move the neck connection to tangent directly into the shoulder bar.
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This keeps the neck pipe in line where it should be, coming directly out of the shoulder line at 45*.
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One of the last steps will be trimming the bottom of the neck pipe to make it the proper length, but for now he is standing at 7' 2", right on target. (Stay on target).
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Acquired 10-24 3/4" bolts for the harness flanges and the feet flanges. Also lock nuts to keep it locked up.
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Tests show I need to add more reenforcement to the harness connector. So I got another 1" T joint and now have two pipes coming out of the harness to K-2.
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[

Harness connection bolted to metal T.
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This will have to support all of K-2SO's weight. I still need to put another bar between the shoulder straps to hold this perpendicular to my torso.
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Plans for the elbow and knee joints. Layers of foam with cloth covering the void in the center third. My 2" mirrors arrived to create the hollow illusion of the joints.
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Standing with K-2SO. Right now the weight is on his feet and on the harness. A new thing I need to dial in is his distance from me. His elbow points are a little far for my arms to reach, so I need to either extend my control handles past his elbows or bring his body closer to me. I really need to get some of these joints glued and screwed together for rigidity.
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Tomorrow I'll pick up the support stand for building and dressing. I also want to get the feet bolted together and maybe K2 will be taking his first steps.

Thank you everyone for your encouragement for this project. 16 days until target completion.

-Darren Moser
Dr. Sci-Fi
 
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Been back to this thread a few times since I've found it. I may try a suit build once I've figured out cost and just what I'm getting myself into. What was your plan for your upper arms? For a puppet head version, your arms are low of K2's shoulders.

Were you planning on having your arms visible or making the shoulder joint larger to accommodate?

It's hard to see in the overlays. But the plan was to have my arms inside his. My elbow becomes his shoulder and my wrist becomes his elbow. His torso would be larger accommodate me inside. Overall he was pushing 9' with the movie one being 7'2"
 
So you'd raise the overall torso height to fit your head in. Did you have a plan for altering your shoulder pivot point to accommodate that? If the shoulder pivots from your human elbow, then there will be a lot of extra K2 shoulder sticking out from the body when you move. Here's a picture of what I mean (faint lines are rough original k2 dimensions, dashed lines are proposed changes):
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(shoulder pivot point arrows should be pointing to the human elbows, not the human shoulders but I realised this after drawing it)
Or were you planning on keeping the original shoulder height but giving the upper torso line a sharper bend? (red line)
 
So you'd raise the overall torso height to fit your head in. Did you have a plan for altering your shoulder pivot point to accommodate that? If the shoulder pivots from your human elbow, then there will be a lot of extra K2 shoulder sticking out from the body when you move. Here's a picture of what I mean (faint lines are rough original k2 dimensions, dashed lines are proposed changes):
View attachment 694245
(shoulder pivot point arrows should be pointing to the human elbows, not the human shoulders but I realised this after drawing it)
Or were you planning on keeping the original shoulder height but giving the upper torso line a sharper bend? (red line)

I was planning on using black fabric to hide my arm and have it in his shoulder below the normal pivot point. That point in his shoulder would be connected to a swivel but my arm would manipulate it. At the end of the day you just have to mess with some proportions to get everything to fit.
 
Happy New Year! It is the year of K-2SO.

Almost all of the supplies I have ordered have arrived. I got my KidzLabs "Robotic" hands. These will serve as the base for K2's hands. I need to beef up the fingers and extend them in foam. I mostly got this because of the price and it provides these great flexible fingers with channels for wires. I've also ordered some clear plastic tubing to run my paracord through to keep it from scratching on a turn.

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The 1" pvc pipe will go into the palm of the hand for rigidity.
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Overall they are small but I think I can beef them up to K2 size. Which I still have to figure out what that size is.
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FOAM! My foam order from TNT Cosplay Supply arrived. I've unrolled the 2'x5' sheets so they can flatten and air out the foam smell.
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I ordered a 10mm for beefy parts, making the joint pucks etc. three 8mm sheets for the skin and a 2mm sheet for detail and raised work.
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TNT Cosplay Supply will send you thickness swatches for free. This was very helpful in choosing what thickness I wanted to order. Here you can also see my design notebook, chock full of K-2SO drawings, and the Rouge One Visual Dictionary, also helpful.
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With no garage I constantly have to set up and tear down my workspace, but you do what you have to do.
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This extended vacation weekend I took over my daughters unused room.
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On New Years eve I was able to have K2 take his first steps into a larger world. I still need to practice a lot but the fact that the torso is supported by the chest harness and his legs move in the manner I wanted them to is incredible! I took off the neck and arms for this test as the feet were the focus. The pvc frame has a good amount of rigidity but also flexes where I need it to. Once the full skeleton is complete I want to film walking and moving around in a dark room to focus on the white pvc.

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I'm still shooting for a 2 week build, and even if I don't hit that deadline it will push the project forward.
Happy New Year, now go see Rouge One again!

-Darren
 
Assembled the arm pieces. A few screws into the slip ring shoulder to secure the 1-1/4" to 1" reduction. Then my plan for the spider joints paid off. Running a 2" bolt through the joint lets the elbow turn about 45*. So this allows K2 to touch his hands together and bend out about a foot or so. The "wrists" or forearm can also twist 45* allowing the hands to move between upright and palms down. This coupled with the shoulder spider joint which lets the arm reach new angles gives K2 quite a bit of mobility.

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Clamped the 1-1/4" coupler in a vise to hacksaw it into two pieces. The thin ring will stop the hip joint from moving. The thicker ring will become the end cap I can remove to remove the whole leg for transport or storage.
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Seeing the two rings that will hold the hip slip ring in place.
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Screwing the pipe together. I didn't use pipe glue as the reduction left some gaps the glue wouldn't fill.
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Added these 4 screws to each arm "shoulder"
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Ran the 2" bolt through the spider joint gaps.
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OMG OMG OMG, I found the best site, http://www.templatemaker.nl has several adjustable templates you can use to make paper boxes, stars, carriers and CONES! K-2SO has some cones that would be tricky to convert onto the foam but this helped immensely. I could add a margin to the pdf or even have it include measurement guides. This will allow me to transfer these templates to my foam directly.

This template will be for the shallow but wide cone that makes up the shoulder.

Shoulder
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Next I made the little cone that the neck stalk plugs into.

Neck
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But this is where I got really excited. K2's forearms are 4" wide at the elbow and 3" wide at the wrist, and will be 15" long. This is just a very tall narrow cone! I seriously can't say enough about this cone calculator. It has been SO helpful

Arm
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I've made myself a nested checklist in todoist to keep the remaining tasks on track. Broken into categories like "Head/Neck", "Torso", "Harness/Stand" and so on. I'll keep working daily on this project. Almost all of my supplies are in hand, including the 1/8" aquarium tubing which I will use to guide the tendons of K2's hand to the control glove. But I'll need to get thinner tendon wire as the paracord I got is too thick.

I'm still pondering a mid January deadline as there I an event I want to take K2 to, but I'm not going to rush him, but he will be done in the next few months none the less.

Happy making.

-Darren
 
That walk looked great! Looked pretty accurate although the body did look like it should be leaning a bit more forward. That will probably be resolved when you work on the upper body!
 
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Picked up the K-2SO big fig yesterday. 31" tall.
He's at 1:2.75 ish scale and functioning as good verification of the dimensions I pulled off of the Black Series figure.
Also handy for detailed shots of the back and feet.
 
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I registered here just because of you man. I want to make a K-2SO too myself. I'll love to see finished your work. May the force be with you!
 
Subscribed! I am wanting to make a K-2SO too myself. I am loving your attention to details and the approach that you are using to tackle this. Watching with much interest.
For your current setup, how many spider joints are you using?
 
Subscribed! I am wanting to make a K-2SO too myself. I am loving your attention to details and the approach that you are using to tackle this. Watching with much interest.
For your current setup, how many spider joints are you using?

Glad your enjoying the build.

One kit from the Halloween store I posted about. 9 total spider joints.
2x shoulders
2x elbows
2x knees
2x ankles
1x connection point

Here's a link to the kit I bought. http://www.spiderhillpropworks.com/Single-Spine-Body-Hardware-Kit_p_19.html
 
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