Genestealer Update 21: New and Improved Sculpting Armatures

So we're back to work on the Genestealer project.  

A while back (update 17) we ran into a bit of a snag because the sculpting armature I was using for one of the lower hands wasn't quite ideal.  It was made from a lifecast of my own hand and there were a few technical details that made it tricky to work with.

So we decided to go a slightly more high-tech route and start by scanning my hands.  Now with our somewhat low-end scanners, this is made a lot easier if the scanner is stationary and the object being scanned is placed on a turntable that will move at a slow, steady pace so the computer can keep track of where everything is easier.

So we sat me on a turntable and scanned my hand:


Tiki was no help at all in this process:


We scanned my right hand with the fingers splayed out flat and wide and then again in the "live long and prosper" pose.  We also scanned my right knee:


We didn't scan my left hand or left knee because it's pretty simple to just mirror them over digitally and my left and right sides happen to be the ideal example of symmetrical human perfection.  I am Adonis.

Or close enough for what we're doing.

After a bit of digital cleanup, the knee was truncated to just the part we'd need to sculpt on top of and the hands were cut into sections like so:


Since we'll be sculpting gloves and the armatures will be used later as mold cores, we have to make sure that the hands can be pulled out through the wrist of the glove.  Since the armatures are rigid, the only way to pull them out is to make them break down into separate parts that have registration keys to slot them together like so:


So once we were happy with the separation points, I started by printing a pair of knees:


Then the hands:

Reassembled, the hands looked like so:


The outer fingers were just pressed into place and will still be able to slide off later.  To use them as sculpting armatures for the Genestealer, they needed a big xeno manicure before we mounted them to bits of wood:


The knees were also mounted to boards as well as an elbow cut from an old lifecast of my arm:


To smooth the surface and reinforce the 3D prints a bit, they were given a coat of Epsilon PRO epoxy from Smooth-On because I'd run out of XTC-3D.  My friend Kate got to do the honors:


The removable fingers were hardcoated separately to keep them from being glued onto the rest of the hand:


Once the epoxy had cured, the fingers were placed back in place and the gaps were taped over:


If you're a keen observer, you'll notice the tail sculpt in the background of that last pic.  My goal has been to graduate to ever increasingly complex parts to mold.  The tail is bigger, but it's going to be a simple two-part mold not much different than the knees or elbows. 

So after layering it up with medium firmness Chavant NSP clay, the whole thing was textured to add the larger wrinkles and creases:


Jeff did the initial texture pass and he did a pretty good job:


Kate also spent a bit of time on it, smoothing out a few of the creases and brushing away some of the tool marks.  Then I got to do the final pass on the texture:


I added a few random lumps here and there to make the silhouette a little less smooth and manufactured-looking.  Then did the final pass with a tiny wire brush and a chip brush to give the whole thing the same final texture as the other fleshy bits we already cast:


The smooth part at the base is where it will mate up with the back of the waist/hip section when we get to making that piece:

So now the tail is pretty much ready to mold and the armatures for the hands and knees are ready for us to start sculpting on top of.

Next I'll have to figure out how to attach the carapace to a human wearer:

Stay tuned...

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...

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