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...