Genestealer Update 20: Getting into the Meat of It

 In my last update, we'd just started painting the hard shell parts blue:

But you may have noticed there were a lot of holes in them.  Like these little windows in the forearms:


In the reference artwork, those parts are gaps in the hard shells where the soft, meaty parts can be seen.  So we need to start making soft, meaty parts that will be the same color and texture as the head, waist, and hands.

To do this, I had Jeff lay out some flat clay sheets cut to sizes and shapes that would fill each of the windows in the upper arms, forearms, and thighs:


Then we started texturing them to look like a strip steak or a piece of crab meat.  Initially they were just raked with a scrap of corrugated hose from a shop vac:


That gave us an initial set of mostly parallel lines of even-ish size.  Then he went back over them with finer tools to make the pattern a bit more random:


The final touch was a quick pass with a tiny wire brush to give the pieces a fibrous look:


While Jeff was putting the finishing touches on the last of the smaller pieces, I sculpted and textured the biggest piece to fit into the windows on the back of the carapace:


Then the small pieces were mounted to a scrap of plastic and a wall was built around them:


The big back piece was set up the same way:


Since we would be casting these pieces in silicone rubber, we would make a cheap but rigid mold out of urethane resin.  So after spraying on a copious amount of mold release, we poured a batch of Smooth Cast 300 resin into each of the mold boxes:


After a few minutes, the resin started to turn white as it cured:


I always enjoy seeing this transition happen:


Once the resin was cured, it was time to clean out all of the clay.  We had put down a lot of release agent, but since the mold was still warm and I was too impatient to wait, the heat-softened clay had to be picked and scrubbed out of the mold instead of coming out as one solid, clean piece:


Once the molds were cleaned out, they were ready to pour:


I was ready to pour too:


The pieces were poured in Dragon Skin 10 silicone rubber from Smooth-On:


To get the clear-ish, translucent silicone to the proper plurple color, I mixed in tiny bits of Silc Pig Silicone Pigments.  I used what seemed like the tiniest little bits of red, blue, and white, but still managed to make the rubber completely opaque:


Once the rubber was poured, I laid a piece of powermesh fabric over the top of each one for reinforcement:


The silcone rubber is a little easy to tear and very difficult to glue back together if something does rip.  Given how thin these pieces are in some places, it was vital to add fabric to make them less prone to coming apart later.

These were poured at the end of the day and this particular version of Dragon Skin has a 7-hour cure time.  So I left them undisturbed until the following morning before peeling them out of the molds:


The long pot life and cure time means there's plenty of time for any bubbles to work their way out of the part.  So the texture came out perfectly:


The only surface flaws I found were smaller than the head of a pin:


Since I have to mix the color each time we make a batch of these, we made molds for the full set of parts for one side of arms and legs so they'd all come out the same color:


Either way, I'm absolutely thrilled with the resulting texture:


Here's one of the pieces fitted into the upper arm:


And the bit of thigh meat in the thigh window:

So that's the first successful pieces of rubber for this build.  These are the simplest pieces to sculpt, mold, and cast.  So in the interest of graduating through levels of complexity, the next parts we'll tackle will be the knees and elbows and the tail.  Then we can get into the complex shapes like the hands, the feet, the waist/hip section, and then finally the head.  

In the meantime, the head sculpt continues to collect dust hanging on the wall in my office: 

Exciting new things are happening soon.  Stay tuned!

Genestealer Update 19: Starting to See Colors!

 At the end of the last update on this project I'd laid up the lower rib section of the chest.  Here's that piece out of the mold before any trimming or cleanup:

It turns out it fit into place beautifully:


Then the assembly sat around the shop getting in the way a lot:


Meanwhile, we decided to get back to work on the rubber parts.  The misstep with the hands made me realize that, while I understand the principles and processes involved, I might as well start with a simple shape while I'm learning some new materials.  So we dusted off the tail core and layered it up with some clay:


Jeff did all of the work on that.  As you can see, he's very excited about it:


As long as we had some momentum going, we went ahead and pulled out the arm and leg shells:


They all needed a bit more bodyshop work on the seams:


Somewhere in the middle of that process, the creature got posted up out of the way while we hosted our annual holiday party in the workshop:


Then I got back to work, filling over the seams and rounding over the edges with Free Form Air from Smooth-On:


Free Form Air is an epoxy dough that comes in two parts.  When you knead them together in a one to one ration by volume, the resulting lump will cure to a hard, lightweight plastic in about 45 minutes.  Before it cures, you can shape it and sculpt it like Play-Doh, but once it cures, you can cut it and sand it and drill holes in it.  It's pretty nifty stuff and I used it to round out the backside of the edges of the vacformed parts.  This way the edges aren't sharp on the wearer's skin and the shells look like they've got more thickness than they actually do:


After a bit of sanding and fine tuning, they were ready for primer and paint:


These were the first pieces to get their base paint color, but the really exciting part was this piece:


Next up I have to finish smoothing out the upper arm parts and the leg parts and get them in their base blue color (which incidentally is Rustoleum "Ink Blue," a very fine match for old-school genestealer blue).

I'll also make some final texturing on the tail before it's time to pull a mold and cast the first plurple rubber part(s).

Stay tuned...

NOTE: A few of the products I use in this article have their names set as links so you can buy them on Amazon.  There are other places you can buy these products but, full disclosure, I've set up an Amazon Affiliates account so I get a nickel or two whenever someone follows my link and buys something off of that site.  So if you feel like doing me a favor, next time you need to place an order on Amazon, start by clicking one of my links to get to the site, then buy whatever you normally would.  Here's a good one to start with: LINK!

Genestealer Update 18: Getting The Ball Rolling Again

 After a bit of a hiatus, we're finally back to work on the 'stealer. 

There's been a few bits of progress here and there, but at least its progress.  First off, we dusted off the forming bucks for the lower leg parts:



Jeff spent some quality time doing final smoothing on the surface:

Then we went ahead and vacformed two sets of each of the parts, but I didn't take any photos of that process.  In any case, here's the vacformed leg parts rough trimmed and fitted to the stilts, laying on the floor:


It looks like it'll probably work out:


Sometime in the next week or two, we'll strap them all together again and do a bit more tweaking to make sure everything still works while walking.

We also made progress on the bottom rib section of the chest.  Last time I posted an update on the chest, it looked like so:

You may have noticed the last section on the bottom of the chest that closes off the area under the arms is not in the picture.  We separated that to make it easier for the wearer to get in and out of the chest section.  The missing piece has been kicking around the shop looking like so:

In order to make sure it would fit snugly into the bottom of the chest (hopefully without the aid of any fasteners) we started by masking off the areas were it would make contact and gooping them up with a bunch of bondo, then we fitted the lower rib into place:


Then we went through and did a bit more bodyshop work on the outside to make the seam less noticeable:


Once it was all smoothed out and gloss coated, we did a quick test fit to make sure it would slot into place without anything cracking or breaking:


Then the whole thing was mounted to some cardboard and wrapped with plastic wrap:


Then we went through and built up a clay matrix over the top of the plastic:




After applying a release agent, we laid up the fiberglass mothermold in two separate halves.  Once that was all cured, we removed all of the clay, re-placed the mothermold, and sealed up the edges.  Then we went ahead and poured in some Mold Star 30 silicone rubber to fill in the void left behind by the clay:


Once the master was removed and the mothermold was bolted together, the riblet mold was ready to go:


First it got a coat of blue tinted gelcoat:


NOTE: Normally I would just use grey gelcoat since the parts will end up being painted.  But since this piece will get knocked around a bit, I figured it would be good to start with a blue part so any scratches in the paint will be less visible.

I applied the gelcoat in two layers with plenty of time to set up in between.  Then the next morning I laid up the fiberglass layers on the inside:

It was an insanely complex shape with a lot of tight corners and compound curves.  Fortunately, I've gotten pretty good at fiberglass layup at this point:


In short order, I had a nice, strong, bubble-free part curing in the mold:


A few hours later, it popped right out of the mold:


Once we get the edges trimmed up, it should slot right back into place in the chest:


So those are the biggest parts we've made progress on.  We also went ahead and made some new lifecasts so I can sculpt the big 3-fingered hands next.

Now that I've got a new spurt of enthusiasm for this project, I should be making the first of the rubber parts pretty soon here.

Stay tuned...