How far ahead of the curve do I want to be...?

.
.. should I...?I mean... it's only really a paint job, right?
I could switch it back to the old red-and-gold anytime, right?

Somebody stop me... O.O

ABsolutely ABominable ABsenteeism!

Well now... I've been a bit busy. 
Too busy to regularly update?
I got no excuse.
That said, there's progress!
More snags... sorta... and a lot more detail into the pieces.
Case in point - the torso.
Some patterns have separated the abdominals and the lumbar from the sides... but this particular pattern has them all connected.
I have to say it works... to a point.
The point IS... if I screw up putting it all together, I'm gonna be hella PISSED OFF!
... it took night on almost two full days to do these pieces... 42-ish pages of print to cut and paste... so just about a complete day of cutting ALONE.
I do NOT want to have to redo any of it.  =(
I'l be buzzing in and out of my workshop like an anxious parent until the resin dries and I can feel reassured that the pieces won't fall apart.

The detail? Fantastic! Seriously... this is going to look SICK when it's done.
The problem is... (as always) finishing it.

The good thing is that the cutting and pasting is the longest and most arduous part... having tried a few Bondo-plus-sanding attempts already, that is the fastest part of the process... it helps that Bondo actually dries within a few hours of you applying it... so i could conceivably do two layers in one day!
The GREAT part about this Mk VII pattern is that the detail is done FOR me already! Just keep the gobs of Bondo out of the tiny crevasses and smooth it all out like putty when it's drying... and I should be good to go!

That said... here's a tally of where I'm at, in terms of resin progress:
The chest, back, upper forearm (R & L), lower forearm (R & L), palm (R & L), bicep (R), upper shoulder (R & L), lower shoulder (R & L)
... are all finished (and ready for Bondo!)
I HOPE to get to them by tomorrow at the earliest, if not find some time in the early part of the week to slather some Bondo around... this time in small layers.
/grumble
/irritated
/makingashowofprotestingbutsecretlylovesit
The cod piece and torso levels will (hopefully) be dry enough tomorrow to add a quickie internal layer of resin so I can ensure their stability... and while it's drying I might try to be sneaky and cut slices of fiberglass cloth out and stick them to the drying internal surfaces... it should be light enough to not interfere weight-wise, and sticky enough to hold them in place so that I can slather the resin into them for the strength with the subsequent layer.

A Quick Update To Get Something Off My Chest

Nothing fancy... just a quick update so I'm not deluging a single post with a boat-load of pics.
Gotta keep you lot coming back, yeh?  LOL
First, some before and after.
The first pic was the original forearm (as printed) straight out of the pattern in the Pepakura pdo file.
Notice how the top area near the crook of my elbow seems like it might split apart at any moment?
It did.

I flexed my arm. /sigh
So obviously it wasn't going to work at that size... expecially considering these parts are the 'Upper Forearm' pieces and see the rounded area near the bend at the elbow?
That's where the rounded pod of the Upper Arm (Bicep) piece will articulate.
The hinge is AT the elbow... so the smaller piece simply would need to be bigger.

So I scaled the forearm pieces up - keeping the same scale for both upper and lower forearm pieces and the bicep pieces.
The larger unit (pic #2) seemed okay... but I honestly felt (perception-wise) that it was too big.
Appearances can - as they say - be deceiving.
My hand ft through fine and when I slid it up my arm, it went to where it was supposed to and fit well enough that I should be able to slide it up over my elbow joint unit.

And my progress so far:
Two upper forearms, two lower forearms, two elbows, two hand plates, a bicep and two palms (back and front).
All have two outer coats of resin and will receive an inner resin coat in a day or so.

Oh... and the chest:

=)

Two Weeks Too Long!

Hey gang!

Yeah yeah it's been a while.

Lower forearms

I have results, though.
Left arm is complete (minus the fingers) and the Right arm is almost done to the same point.
I'll be applying the first outer layer of resin tomorrow, and probably the first inner layer the following day.

I hit a bit of a snag again, though...despite the fact that I have the brand-spankin' new Pepakura Mk VII pattern, apparently a lot of the armor was drawn from proportion and movie stills; I failed to take into consideration that I am not 5'8" and 175lbs (as Robert Downey Jr. is).
Far from it.
6'2" and 205lb makes me a linebacker by comparison... I can only imagine how I'm going to look when I'm in the suit. LOL

Hand plates

So a chunk of the time between now and the last post was me printing the forearms, realizing how they didn't quite fit and redoing them.
Also the fingers... which were nit-picky as hell... and still have to be redone... I have shorter, blunter fingers and need to resize the gauntlets accordingly.
Luckily, the palms fit fine, so it's only the fingers I need to redo, and then only the middle joints - the fingertips are fine as well.
I have to use a bit of a spot-fix on the technique I'm using to resize them, though... I'll detail that in an upcoming post.

As for proportioning the armor properly, I found a way to do so that seems to work... and props to 'Xtreme Tactics 101' on the 401st forum for pointing this out.

Elbows

- Get as many reference photos as you can of the movie-version of the armor...  and print a good one that shows the bodypart you want to size.
- Measure (or have a friend measure) your height and the height of the 'movie' picture you printed (all in centimetres)... and compare the two... find the ratio (and round up)... 'Xtreme Tactics 101' says to round off, but it's better to estimate a little bigger than have it fit too snugly, in my opinion.

Chest (inside)

Try to get a picture that's as large as possible, it makes the ratio conversion a little easier.- Measure the height of the picture )and add a few (5-10) centimetres here and there for the bottom of the boots and the height in the helmet, and all the rest of the 'extras' that will make the armor a little bigger than you are... and measure your own height (if you measure in inches, multiply by 2.54 to get your height in centimetres).

Biceps

 

- divide the height of the picture into the height you found for yourself, and there's your ratio number.

Okay... so the movie picture, with the applied ratio gives you a solid centimetre measurement for the estimated size you will need the armor piece to be to fit your body personally... if it helps, picture YOU in the armor that you see on the page in front of you. How long/broad would it have to be to fit YOU underneath it?
- Measure each bodypart (getyermindoutofthegutter!) that you want to print and apply the ratio between the 'movie' measurement and the 'you' measurement.
... now multiply that centimetre measurement by 10... now it's in millimetres (which is what Pepakura uses)

Upper Forearms

In Pepakura Designer, there is a way to apply a scale change to the 2D model... take your estimated number (in millimetres) and plug it into the appropriate X-Y-Z axis selection (for example, head height, forearm length, etc.)
That should be enough to size the piece appropriately.

More on this later.

But yeah... like I said... I've not been idle: