TEN Days to Maker Faire!

I'm going to be returning for the third year in a row to the Bay Area Maker Faire on the weekend of May 18th and 19th.  If you're anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, or indeed the entire West Coast, you really ought to head over and check it out.  The whole thing keeps getting bigger and better.  

If you've never heard of it, you should check out the website.  There will be art, science, and tech projects everywhere.  The organizers bill it as the "greatest show and tell on Earth" and they're probably right.  There will be giant bicycles, flame-belching sculptures, an electronic giraffe, and countless other things to see, do, and learn.  Heck, last year there was a guy who'd turned a DeLorean into a hovercraft. 

For my part, I'll be setting up my display booth and have a handful of characters walking around in costume.  I'll also be bringing a stack of molds, unfinished pieces, and photo albums so I can spend all day hanging out and answering how-to questions for anyone who stops by.  So this is usually the view I have while I'm there:


I'll also have a booth set up to sell some Combat Garden Gnomes:


So come out and see some awesome stuff, get inspired, and have a great time.  

Oh, and if you happen to bump into one of my Space Marines, be sure to apologize:
 

Rapid Prototyping and the MkIII Ironman Helmet

A while back I won an Objet30 3D Printer in a contest on instructables.com.  This is an amazing machine that turns a digital 3D model into physical object by slicing it into very fine layers, then printing layer after layer of a photosensitive resin on top of one another until it has built the entire thing.

I've been watching 3D printing technology develop over the past couple of years, but this is the first one I've seen that has high enough resolution and seems reliable enough to make it worth owning.  I named mine "Jarvis."

Because it seemed apropos, this is the first thing I had Jarvis build:


In case you don't recognize it, this is the Mark 3 Ironman helmet from the first movie. 

On that note, if you don't recognize it, you're wrong.  What rock have you been living under?  If you've been living in a country with electricity at any point in the past five years you should've seen at least one of the three movies that have come out with this character.  If not, get yourself a copy of each film by clicking HERE, HERE, and HERE, lock yourself in a room, watch them all, and catch up with the rest of the planet.  There's a fourth one coming out this weekend, so get yourself educated.

For more details on the build process for my helmet, read on...

Showing Off for the Bay Area Young Makers

Not too long ago I was asked to be a featured maker at the April monthly meeting of Young Makers. This is a program that matches young people aged 12-17 with adult mentors who coach and inspire them to become innovators and craft a variety of projects to exhibit at the Bay Area Maker Faire (which is coming up fast).

The group meets once a month to discuss their progress and exchange ideas.  At the tail end of their monthly meetings, they invite folks like myself who make a variety of art and tech projects come and give a brief presentation to spark potential ideas for projects the kids can take on.

The task: give a 20-minute talk about my various projects and hobbies.

The challenge: talk about myself and all of my toys and limit it to only 20 minutes.

It was tricky, but I managed to pull it off.

Keeping people's attention is never really all that hard for me.  In this case, I started with a simple Powerpoint presentation showing pictures of various projects I've finished over the years:


I talked a lot:

But no matter how fascinating I can make a slideshow, it pales by comparison to having costumed characters actually walk in and interact with the audience:


That was the Predator costume I made for Halloween back in 2005.  Here's a close-up shot:


It's looking a bit worse for wear, so this might be the last time that guy goes out in public.  Here's a detail pic from behind while he was waiting to enter the auditorium:


I also brought along one of my HALO Spartans:


And the Dead Space 2 Isaac Clarke costume I made a couple of years ago:


Which looks good from any angle:


Still, the real showstopper was my latest Warhammer 40K Space Marine build:

The suit looks a little stocky when I wear it, but with my 6' 4" friend Eric wearing it, it's almost lanky:


Because I was in a mad rush all day, I neglected to have all four characters pose for a photo.  The best I got was three of them:


They also spent some quality time taking photos of themselves:


The Dead Space costume was worn by Dani Yuan who, despite wearing the bulk of the suit, managed to shoot a short video showing Eric being built into the Space Marine suit:


Everybody had a pretty good time, but the fun part was answering questions and interacting with the youth:


I was hoping to get a shot of some of the characters with the kids, but they were swarmed enough that I couldn't fit down the hall with a camera:


Good times.

Making the STA-52 Light Assault Rifle From Killzone

A while back, I got a message from a very talented 3D modeller named Hugh Holder who had made a pretty decent digital model of one of these:
 
 
This is the STA-52 light assault rifle used by the Light Assault Infantry troops of the Helghan Empire.  From one title to the next in the Killzone series there are some minor changes in the design, but nothing significant.

With the 3D modelling  done, he asked me if I'd be willing to build it for him.  No problem.

Here's a couple of copies of the finished piece:


To see how they were made, read on.

Need to Stir Up Some Cash

A little while ago I spilled a glass of wine on m keboard and now I can't tpe that letter that comes between "X" and "Z" anmore.  So, after almost five ears of faithful service, it's time to replace the laptop.

I've also got to get m dog Bain some significant dental work, some expensive maintenance is coming due on the car, and m annual airfare budget is going to increase dramaticall in the near future.

So, for a limited time,* I'm offering a 10% discount on everthing in the Ets shop.  Just enter the coupon code "blogger" when checking out and the savings will be applied to the order.

Also, the new pose is in stock:

 
I've just updated the Combat Garden Gnome listings to reflect current stock on hand, so I'll be able to turn orders around prett quickl.  CLICK HERE TO PLACE ORDERS.

*This offer will onl be valid until I reach m current sales goal, so don't dela.

Coming Soon: Bayonet Attack Gnome!!

I've finally got the first batch of these angry little guys out of the mold:


As you can see, painting is still in progress:


The first few should be ready to deploy in about a week.  Then they can harass your other lawn gnomes:


They'll be joining the other nine Combat Garden Gnome variants already available in my Etsy shop at http://etsy.com/shop/thorssoli.

Thanks for looking.

I'm still working on a back story for the new bayonet gnome.  Any suggestions?
 

RvB Caboose Helmet Casting

I've written about the building of the prototype helmet for this project here and here. The prototype was a relatively easy build, but the end result was an MDF helmet that was a bit heavy and could potentially be damaged by moisture of any kind including mere humidity. On top of that, I'd made the visor so it was impossible to see through.

The solution to all of these problems:  make a mold and cast a copy in resin.

A while back I started making the mold:

As usual for me, the jacket mold was silicone rubber from aeromarineproducts.com.  The plurple stuff is the pourable version while the pink stuff is the brushable version:

If you noticed the ice cube tray full of silicone in the above picture and wondered "WTF?" good for you.  I was forming blocks of silicone to use as registration keys.  These were embedded in the second-to-last layer of silicone so that the rubber jacket would have nubs sticking out to keep it properly aligned within the mothermold.

Once I had enough layers of rubber to make it strong enough for the strain of casting, it was time to lay up the fiberglass mothermold.  Here you can make out the outline of the rubber blocks from the ice cube tray:

Once the fiberglass had set, it looked about like so:

The mold on the right was for my Warhammer 40k Chaplain helmet. 

Before pulling the two halves of the mothermold apart, I drilled holes around the flange that sticks out around the helmet so I could bolt the two halves together.  Then I unbolted them, separated the halves of the mothermold, and removed the prototype.

Casting copies of something hollow (like most helmets are) involves a process called rotocasting or slushcasting.  Basically you mix a small batch of resin and pour it into the mold.  Then you rotate the mold so that the resin flows over the entire surface and leaves a layer of material throughout.  Once the resin cures, you repeat the process a few times until you have built up enough thickness for the part to be strong enough to use.  Then you separate the halves of the mothermold, peel off the rubber jacket mold, and marvel at the shiny new helmet you've made. 

Repeat as necessary until you have enough helmets for your whole army.

Here I am pulling the first casting out of the jacket mold:

Here's the first casting next to one of my MkVI Master Chief helmets:

Once I had that cast cleaned up, I gave it a quick coat of blue paint and it promptly fell off my list of things to do.  To keep it out of the way, I hung it up in the rafters with all of the other unfinished helmets.  

Then, months later, I got an email from Adam Grumbo, founder of the 405th Infantry Division.*  He was working on a rushed hush-hush project and in dire need of a MkV helmet such as Caboose wears in seasons 6-10 of Red vs Blue. 

I pulled the blue helmet down from the rafters, knocked the dust off of it, and mailed it to him.  Some time later, he sent me a snapshot of it all painted up and it looked good.  

Then I forgot all about it.

Fast forward a few months, I'd bought the DVD of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.  Mixed in with the special features was a live action Red vs. Blue skit by Rooster Teeth.  At some point in the skit, in walks none other than Private Michael J. Caboose wearing a very familiar helmet:



So now one of my helmets is famous.  Cool.

It was enough to convince me to grab the mold, pull another casting out of it, prep it, spray on a coat of blue paint, and hang the unfinished helmet up in the rafters again.

I'm sure I'll finish one of these sooner or later. 

*The 405th is the central costuming forum for all things Halo-related.  Check it out at 405th.com.