Back To My Roots...

Bend test: successful!

Ignore the spikes, those are just space-holding
pop-rivets to keep the pieces together  temporarily.

Many of you won't know this - and I've sworn the rest of you to secrecy on the details - but I used to do costume work a number of years ago.

Oneof the gigs I did was dress as a Klingon from Star Trek... and the leather battle armor I made was an effort of some epicness...

But that's not important, only the metallic trim I fashioned for the edges of the armor.

Granted it wasn't the most elegant of crafting jobs - I was much younger and quite inexperienced in Costume-Fu... but it got the job done.
My Costume-Fu is greater now.

The elbow and knee 'units' for the armor needed re-doing.
Yes, again.
Shush.
The reason being, they were starting to protest the strain of my a) bending them excessively due to my b) fairly significant mass gain over the past few months.
Seriously.
When I initially fashioned the elbows, for example, I made them a 'tube'... so it was the same diameter hole at one end as it was on the other... which made things really loose for my forearms and - unsurprisingly - tight on the bicep end of things.
And... as it turned out, impossible to fit into my new forearm pieces...


So... I had to do something else... and I was all out of plastic pots. LOL

At the local home-building-type hardware store, you can get aluminum flashing (for roofing) in rolls that are fairly inexpensive ($35 for a roll of 50 feet at 6 inches wide)... and the aluminum is small enough in gauge (thin enough) that cutting it with tin snips is effortless.
Try cutting stove-pipe metal and you'll understand why 'less effort' is crucial.

So what I did was measure the circumference of my arm at various levels... added an inch for comfort and two more inches for an 'overlap bend' for each piece so that they have added strength at the joints... and semi-voila!
New arm unit!

So far, here's the front half of one arm:

The cool part is that I'll be able to simply plunk each piece onto the aluminum strip and trace them... so the second arm-front will take less than half the time... the same cutting and drilling of holes, without the nit-picking and section-measuring.



So far, though, I think it looks pretty spiff!  =)

More progress shots as the weekend goes by (as in 'tomorrow')

Doesn't Have A Leg To Stand On...

... Yet.

Here's the right thigh, though...
Having a closer look at the side panel (it's face-down right now, but it's a hollow on the outside of the leg) gives me a bit of an idea... I've been trying to figure out where to put the 'master control' (as it were) for the helmet and chest plate controls... and it MIGHT work if I put them on the side of the thigh.
At THIS point, though, I'm just thinking out loud... so somebody stop me! ;)


A bit of a hint and trick situation, though... take a look inside the thigh... and here's a closer-pic to show what I mean.
Tape. Masking tape, to be precise (although I'm sure any tape will work...)
The thigh isn't a small piece... and being a big tube, is prone to collapsing even with as little weight as the liquid resin.
Trust me... it will collapse if you're not careful.
Add to that the complication of all the little nit-picky detail lines... which are held on with a small amount of rubber cement... and you have a piece that LOOKS pretty... but is REALLY fragile.
When you go to resin your piece - especially the larger ones - tape the seams ion the inside.
Trust me. You'll thank me later.
THIS piece is the result of a collapse-and-repair effort... where I was basically up to my elbows in resin trying to get the little bits stuck back together. Thankfully I hadn't applied the resin (outside layer #1) that long before... so it hadn't 'moisturized' the inside of the paper (yay for 110lb cardstock!).
But yeah... trust me on this one... tape the fragile lines from the inside... they will hold together WAY better than just trusting in the support pieces alone.


A few more updates, too... got the neck finished on the weekend... and the outside resined... will do the inside tonight, along with the final 'repair' adjustments to the right thigh... and will complete the outside layers of resin on both shins.


The neck wasn't really a concern in terms of sizing... most people have similarly-sized necks... but if you are a little worried, measure from your sternum to your adam's apple (or so) as a rough estimate to see how many millimetres you 'measure up' as compared to the 3D representation in the file.
If it's close, you're fine.  =)


Also... it can't hurt to apply the resin in sections, either, to start with... as I did with the shins.
Notice, as well, that pieces like the shins have the front-and-back ankle sections as separate pieces... do these ones separately... you can always tape them down when you go to Bondo them or - if they are actually meant to be free-moving - connect them with whatever fastening devices you will require for the job.



Oh hey... here's a bit of a 'before-after' shot of the (under) shoulder bells... with a single layer of Bondo.
I will be putting at least two layers per piece and being a bit more careful and smoother with the second layer (probably on the weekend coming) so I can control the lines and keep them 'sharp' or 'smooth' as appropriate.