July UFO Sightings in the Workshop

I try to make sure my blog articles have a complete payoff that includes a finished thing at the end of the write-up.  I'd hate to have someone sift through 3,000 words of me rambling about how I'm building a thing only to get to the end and not get to see the finished product.  I hate posting articles that end on cliffhangers like, "will the paint dry properly? Stay tuned" or, "did the mold rubber leak all over the floor?  Tune in next time." only to forget about it while I get distracted with the next project.

So as usual, I'm nearing the end of a handful of projects all at once and it's that time again where I feel ashamed for not keeping up with my bloggage.  Since I don't have a shiny new finished thing to show off, and have to resort to another show and tell featuring a scattered collection of just some of the UnFinished Objects flying around the workshop.  I assure you there will be more details about each of these sooner than later.

For now, here's what's keeping me from actually writing about what I'm doing in the shop:

Tusken Raider costume(s):

I've been wanting to build one of these for a while.  So I finally got a start on building two.  I started with some vacformed faceshields from studiocreations.com, added some 3D printed greebles that I downloaded here: LINK and then started the wrapping process:

I've also picked up a small collection of appropriately coarse-looking fabric which I've custom dyed to my liking:


Somewhere in the shop is a cardboard box with assorted whatnot such as a few more leather bits, dyed cotton work gloves, most of a gaffi stick, and leather bandolier pouches.  Now all I need is a few more leather bits, a couple pairs of donor boots, and a solid day to focus on finishing the build.  Two if I want to make the rifle they carry.

Soon.

Heavy Infantry Mandalorian Blaster:

Over on the shelf covered with things taking too long, there's this beast:

That's the first complete set of castings for Paz Vizla's heavy blaster as seen in the Mandalorian Chapter 3: The Sin.  I'm planning on making a few copies of this thing for friends, but the main body mold is a big, heavy bastard that I haven't felt like rolling around by hand.  The solution?  I've added wheels to the mold:


Now casting these monsters will be a breeze.

War Machine:

Also on the "taking too long" shelf, is this piece of work.  Back in 2015 I was on a pretty steady Ironman streak, making many of the different helmet variants, including this guy's helmet (LINK).  Then sometime in the tail end of 2016, my friend Jon asked if I wanted to collaborate so we could build the rest of the suit together.  The plan was for me to print or carve all of the prototype parts, then he'd prep and polish and mold everything, take the parts he needed, then give me the molds.  We both made progress at a tinkering pace for a little over a year, but we ran out of steam after making all of the leg parts, waist parts, arm parts, and pelvis parts.  This left me with the chest, back, and minigun parts to finish prepping and mold.

So the other day I decided this project has finally collected enough dust to be properly seasoned.  So I pulled it down and put in a few more minutes sanding and filling the surface.  Yay me:

Since I'm excited about it again and I've lost a few of the pieces I'd already made, it was time to print new and improved copies of the minigun and the mount parts:

Since I'm working with a 3D model that looks like it was intended for animation instead of fabrication, the geometry is an absolute mess.  The minigun body was riddled with self-intersections and open meshes and all sorts of problems that took the better part of a day to iron out before I could feed the model to the printer.  But now that I have those last few virtual pieces out in the real world, it's looking like this guy will finally be back on the road to finishing.

I'm hesitant to guess how soon I'll be able to make these last few molds for fear of jinxing the whole thing.

Fallout New Vegas NCR Ranger Costume:

A while back I decided to print out this guy's helmet on a whim:

Usually these would be the kinds of things that would get put into a box and forgotten relatively quickly, but for some reason this little hobby project has some staying power.  At this point, I've purchased the signature duster to go with it, sourced all of the ammo belts, pouches, and canteen, and even finished the chest armor:


Now I just need to finish the big rifle to carry around and the tank pack that fits onto the back of the coat and it'll be a done thing.

Batman vs Superman Armored Batsuit:

This was another thing I started printing on a whim.  So far I like it:

To date I have the helmet mostly smooth and ready for paint, the chest armor is printed and assembled, and the shoulders are printed and awaiting printing.  Eventually the whole thing will get printed as I find idle time for the printers to finish the job.  But since I'm building it to fit someone five or seven inches taller than me, I'm not entirely in a hurry.

Agent Maine, aka "the Meta:"

This has been a bucket list project ever since he first appeared on screen in Season 6 of Red vs. Blue. The entire costume can mostly be pulled from molds I already had with the exception of his helmet which I made almost nine years ago (LINK) and some new shoulders and chest details.

The helmet suffered a catastrophic fall a few years back (you can see it hanging in the background of the photo below) and I decided I'd rather make a whole new one rather than repairing and repainting the old one.  Since I had to dust off the molds for another build, I went ahead and started pulling the parts to make the rest of this guy's armor:

I also have vacforming bucks to make his signature weapon, the brute shot, and the custom shouldre bits.  In the course of digging out all of these old molds though, I found that there were a few that had deteriorated past the point of usefulness.  Chief among them was the lower leg armor.  So I stole one of the lower legs from an older suit and made a new mold.  Here's Rachel showing the early stages of tuning up the old shin for the new mold:

T-800 Terminator Endoskeleton:

Last, but not least, I've been in the process of making a resin cast Terminator endoskeleton in collaboration with my friend Jon.  He did most of the printing and prep work on the majority of the parts, leaving me to do one femur and the skull.

Here's the current state of the skull:


Originally I printed it a shade too small, so I'm 3/4 of the way to making a new, bigger, better version.
I've got a cup full of teeth somewhere too.  This is the way of things for me.

So be sure to stay tuned for the any minute now when I actually have a finished thing to share...