Mass Effect - N7 Eagle - Update II

Again, I seem to have strayed away from the blog, but I will update it as I have the time.

Where to start? A lot has happened since my most recent post. Phoenix Comic Con has now concluded and although I wasn't able to accomplish what I would have liked, a lot has been put into motion that makes me think it'll all be alright.

One of those things that didn't get done was the Mass Effect 2 N7 Armor, and the finishing of the N7 Eagle guns.(The guns had been final assembled and sat unpainted for several weeks, never got around to painting them). but hear me out a little on this whole armor shebang. At my former employer we had a laser cutter, I found that laser cutting and etching foam was a very doable, and interesting way to go about the creation of our armor. I found templates, I scaled them, I cut them. a lot of work when into it, but ultimately it came down to the fact that I didn't have enough time. School kept me busy right up until graduation, and then a week later my job was taken away from me. (not a student worker anymore). Pretty lame stuff let me tell you, well my last work week, was the week before PCC. So you get the idea, little to no time left to finish, and now I can't come into work to use the laser cutter... The inevitable cycle of getting nothing done, but oh well, I would still like to finish them at some point even though Commander Shepard is probably the most over done male cosplay, period!

More to the point and the topic of this post, and that's the N7 Eagle Pistol
Like I had said before we've had finished copies for probably a month now, so here's the molds I made to do so. In order are the handle, upper receiver, and lower receiver. I'm not including the junky molds I made for the barrels or the hood, if there is interest in those I can post them later (they are nothing special) 

So each N7 Eagle is 6 pieces, (2 barrels, 1 sight hood, the upper, lower, and grip).
As I'm casting them solid for the time being (no pressure pot) the total weight of the gun comes in at around 3 lbs. Not bad considering the gun is nearly 13 inches long and 6 inches in height.

I guess in the coming posts you should be looking out for painting these guns, I have 4 that are ready for paint, after that they will be up on the store in a limited run of maybe 8 at the most. So keep your eyes peeled: Battosai Props Etsy Shop

Sneak Peak of the gun primed (minus barrels and hood) that you might have seen over at my facebook page.

Thanks, and as always feel free to message me or leave a comment with any questions.  

Skyrim - Dragon Priest Mask - Update II

Here's a quick update on the Dragon Priest Mask. As I mentioned in a previous post, 3D printing is both a gift and a curse, mind you the positives typically outweigh the negatives. In the case of this mask, I may tend to disagree. This mask was printed on a ZCorp 310, an old antiquated piece of technology when it comes to ZCorp, but it what we had that could do the scale of the mask. If you're unfamiliar with the ZCorp, it's a powder based 3d print system that utilizes an ink jet print head to distributes a solution that cures when it touches the powder etc. When it's done printing you basically become an archeologist and dig the print out of the remaining material in the print chamber.

 But back to the point, this printer because it's powder based needs to be infiltrated when it comes out (to give it strength) which is basically apply super glue until the model soaks it all up. With the fact that these layers are powder you can see these defined ridges. After the model is infiltrated with CA, it becomes sandable, but with the fine detail on the mask I got fed up after about 4 coats of priming and sanding and just spot puttied the whole thing and filled in the ridges that way. humph. The pictures below, albeit not the best quality show it before it got its final coats of primer and wet sanding.

 This mold was made from 1 trial size kit of rebound 25 Platinum Cure silicone. addition cured silicone is a fickle beast, and I was worried that my primer would inhibit the curing of this silicone, so I expected I would need to remold it. However, that was not the case thankfully.

 Below are two photos of the mask and clay lay up on a sheet of 3/4 in White Melamine ready for Silicone.

Short of telling you how the process works, I feel that I cannot as this was my first and only quantifiable attempt. Just utilize the internet, there are resources available if you look hard enough, YT is a great one to start with, The RPF another. 

The above pictures are I believe the first and second coats applied with a brush without thickener. The next set of photos are the 2 coats afterwards that utilize thi-vex II silicone thickener to fill in undercut areas and make the mold thicker/stronger (where it needs it).

I opted to go for a fiberglass hardshell, but I would suggest you go with whatever you are most comfortable with. It was particularly cold the weekend I did this, and as a result had a bad experience with the fiberglass. I mixed the resin according to the box, a little on the lightside because I wanted the working time. Later found that on the resin bottle itself the instructions were different and I had mixed it extremely light. Fudge. 32 hours later it still wasn't curing so in a desperate attempt to not have to redo everything. A hot batch of resin (way more hardener than what's recommended) was mixed and applied over the uncured resin, fortunately it was enough to kick all of the resin and cure. Thanks the heavens! Below are some photos from the initial fiber-glassing.

 It's likely there will be 2 more parts to this series if you will, definitely less picture heavy, but if you enjoyed this let me know, any questions feel free, if you'd like to purchase a painted version of my Dragon Priest Mask please check out my etsy store at Painted Dragon Priest Masks

Cheers,
Kevin

Mass Effect - N7 Eagle - Update I

So as the spring semester draws closer I figure I should take the time to address future projects now, as I know I won't have the time to do so in the future. This is something that also has an interesting situation, one that's more positive of course. A friend and co-worker made a ZCorp printed version of this gun and wasn't very happy with the way it turned out. He didn't know how mold making or resin casting worked so I offered my services. A mutual agreement was reached, and work began.

Unfortunately there was a several week waiting period as the original intended 3D printer was down for maintenance. That printer was the Dimensions SST1200 es the same one I used to print my Destiny Knife on. Once back up the pieces were printed (6) of them, each taking several hours, followed by a several hour light acid bath to dissolve the support materials.

There it sits, at my house ready to get minor spot puttying and then primed and prepared for molding. The awesome part about this gun is that it will be cast in 6 separate pieces utilizing built in registration keys, making molding pieces with large undercuts a lot easier as well. If the gun were molded as one whole piece there would be areas were it would be impossible to do a 2 part mold.

More information will be updated as I go, but here's a quick teaser pick, this baby is gonna be awesome when it's finished.

Cheers,
Kevin

Harley Quinn Mallet Write-Up

So this has been a well over due write up.
Having concluded the build several months ago I think it's time I take time to collect my thoughts and document the process.

The specific Harley Quinn Mallet I was attempting to emulate is the DC Universe Online Statue
references can be seen here: DC Universe Harley Quinn Statue

There's an interesting story behind this one which has allowed me a great learning experience. Originally this was being done as a pro-bono piece.  I know there's a lot of argument that could be had with pro-bono work, but in my early understanding of prop making I figured it would be good to help build the portfolio. (In hindsight it wasn't - more later). I met someone who had done previous cosplays and was interested doing a Harley Quinn, after several emails I suggest a mallet wouldn't be too difficult, again my naivete getting the best of me. A lot of the work was simple work, but work I had never done before. Enough with the negatives - onto the process. Having been such a long time I've lost a lot of my images so I will include what I can find.

The most important part here for me was scale, Harley tends to have over the top large scale props, with bigger props comes the challenge of keeping them lightweight. The first photo positioned above is to showcase the inner structure, which was cut on a laser cutter and utilizes a system of rib and notches to provide rigidity throughout the whole structure. In the same regard I wanted to be able to stabilize the handle portion, but the first challenge came in how to incorporate this into the inner structure as it was rounded.

The second picture, pictured above although similar in nature has the PVC connection more in focus. Having made a couple trips to the local hardware store and pondering often about the best was to do it, I found 2 pieces of PVC pipe that slide together (one inside the other) rather nicely, this would have you do. Still the problem presided with how to locate and mount. I had some Styrofoam left over from a previous project and that was something I could drill holes into as well as shape a rounded edge to. The downside, after doing the work was that it's also incredibly difficult to glue as solvent based glues like contact cement can melt the foam. I believe I ended up using a non solvent based PVC glue to adhere the pipe to the foam and the outer layer of foam.

Again to reiterate the goal of the project was to be lightweight, so having recently purchased the Foam Armorsmithing Vol: 1 - Design, Templating, & Fabrication book from Bill Doran of Punished props, I was inspired to work with EVA and other craft foams. (I purchased my foam tiles from Harbor Freight, roughly $7-12 for 4 tiles depending on sales etc) The foam was cut to the length and width of the inner structure, this was calculated with the circumference and then cut slightly longer. The marks along the seam of the foam were a tip from Evil Ted Smith, who does amazing foam work, to be used as a guide to help line your glue seems up. The foam was contact cemented to both itself and the wood inner structure, after having holes cut out [top and bottom] (forcing a sharpened piece of PVC through the foam) to accept the handle end of the PVC.

The ends of the mallet head being complete circles were also cut from EVA foam using a homemade circle cutting jig for my band-saw (pictured below) From there they were glued the same way with contact cement all around the edges and on the inner wooden structure, for a stronger bond.

 

A note about the jig for those interested. It's relatively simple to make, I made mine from scrap 1/2in MDF I had laying around, and a piece of Poplar for the t-slot rail. (Cut it to fit the size of your bandsaw table, I wanted the ability to do 26 inch circles if need be for the Skyrim wood shield inserts) The way the jig works is by finding half of the diameter you want to cut and marking it along the y axis. You bring the saw blade down from the X axis (this is cut the first time you slide the board through) until you contact at effectively 0,0. From there you slowly rotate your piece, pinned to the board around until a circle is cut, pull the job back and remove the piece. This leaves a small circle in your work, but that's a side effect I'm okay with. I can do a write-up on this in more detail if anyone requests it.

This is where I pretty much stopped taking good pictures (I had a lot of work I needed to do to meet a deadline and was also balancing school and work) I'll do my best to include photos as I go, likely iphone pictures.

The handle was cut from a length of 1in PVC. The exact size escapes my mind, but it needed to protrude from the top of the mallet head about 2 inches (to receive the top end of the (tree branch).
From the bottom down, the tree branch tapers. To achieve this effect, I cut a larger circle more than twice the thickness of the eva foam ensuring it's larger than the PVC pipe too. (I think I went with 3 inches overall)

The Handle was patterned out of Eva foam, cut out to incorporate the taper. Again the same markings were used to line the seems up. This was probably one of the harder things that came about from this project, because EVA foam isn't very flexible, I ended up taking a dremel tool with a grinding wheel to the back of the handle and carving a lot of the excess material out of the back so that it would wrap more easily. It got Contact Cemented together, and all of the foam bits were done.

Let's talk about how I got the wood grain into this piece. If you've had a look at the aforementioned reference images, those were the same images that I used in creating this. The weird thing about the mallet head is that it has a grain, it's not just bark, I couldn't just throw one of those images into Illustrator and vector trace to get the right lines. Instead I spent sometime looking in my every day to day life trying to find something that would emulate the grain I was looking for. Weirdly enough this came in the form of a fake wood grained Security Door on the second floor of where I work. I took a high quality picture with a nice DSLR and live traced it in Illustrator. Printed it out to scale roughly 6 sheets of 8.5x11 and lined up the seems (taping the back to prep them for wrapping around the mallet head). the wrap only needed to be temporary as I was going to effectively trace the lines I had given myself in the printed template, this was accomplished using a re-positionable spray adhesive. Below is a shot of the head of the mallet wrapped with the template.

The following picture is the head of the mallet with all of the groves cut into it. I did this with a standard exacto blade, and steady even pressure probably over the course of 20-30 minutes.  You'll notice that it's not very easy to see the seams, that's because its not finished yet. A tip I picked up from Will Morgan, and I intended to do with this piece is to apply heat to the seams (using a heat gun). This effectively shrinks the edges back and reveals the seams you just cut in.

Once heat gunning has been done, it's starting to look a lot better, huh?
And below is a shot of everything together before going into paint. The same cutting and heat gun techniques were used for the cap (not pictured) the front and back of the mallet head and the end of the handle.

Something I won't go into discussing a lot is the way I mended the seams, the contact cement really wasn't enough to hold the pieces together well. For a long time I debated, read articles, and went back and forth on a proper way to resolve this issue. ApoxieSculpt was my original idea and what I should have went with, instead I used a smooth-on product called FreeForm Habitat. I wasn't really happy with the process for mixing this stuff in small batches if I had needed a lot it would have been better. In the same regard spreading it evenly over the seams was a bit challenging (maybe lack of experience). But most importantly, it just might not have been the right tool for the job, the putty dried to a very hard consistency that I had to dremel sand it down, this resulted in several cases where the EVA foam was significantly softer and would be sanded before I got the putty to where I wanted it.  (in reference to sanding etc). It's still by no means perfect, but I got it to the best that I was able to within my means.

The paint is where I believe myself to be the weakest. Weathering, and emulating the different tonalities of wood is rather difficult in my eyes, especially in the case of the original mallet design very dark and neutral pallet.Everything got a coat of Kyrlon Fusion Brown. From there I mixed up a litle brown and brushed it/washed it over the cuts (grain pattern) it the head and handle. The following pictures shows the detail from it being not darkened, to having the black acrylics wash. In my opinion it definitely helps with popping the wood grain.

The only other things that were left to do were the 'metal' bandings. This I also did with foam, a thin craft foam (not 1/4 inch) purchased from Michaels in a large roll. I measured the size, cut and painted it with a metallic spray paint (same I was using for the destiny hunter knifes). They got super glued to the piece, and viola it was finished. Like I said I wanted to add more weathering but wasn't comfortable with the pallet, maybe it's something I will address in the future. 

If you read this far, you're probably still wondering why this piece has such a negative connotation too it. Well you probably could have guessed it, but the person who I was doing this work for, and mind you it took me a decent amount of hours and a bit of money to produce, bailed. I told them the piece was finished (over the course of the build we had been in communication) but once that final email was sent, nothing. Pretty fucked up, but shame on me for thinking the world is the great place I want to believe it to be. Fortunately, It's a piece I can add to my portfolio, and once I know someone (personally) who may want to cosplay that era Harley, I will definitely let them use it, so I can get some good photos.

I will post the finished photos in a separate post, as this one has surely gone on for far to long.

As always if you have any questions, comments, concerns, ideas, etc please feel free to comment, or send me an email.

Cheers,
Kevin