December UFO Sightings in the Workshop

I've been doing better about actually finishing blog entries about completed project lately, but there's also a chance that people are missing the occasional chance to see UnFinished Objects (UFOs) I'm not currently finishing in the shop.  So I figured why not write up a few of my works in progress.

Every once in a while someone will ask me the ill-advised question, "how many projects do you currently have in the works?"  The answer: no idea at all.  While I usually only have one or two primary paying projects for clients going on at a time, I also have a significant stack of hobby projects in some stage of completion.  

How many hobby projects?  Still no idea.  The closest thing I can come up with was a list I started a few weeks ago.  I was talking with one of my shop assistants about the photo spread we did for Make Magazine volume 32 back in the day.  It was when we shot this pic:

This image was actually a composite of a whole bunch of separate photos.  Most of the characters were shot individually and the separate images were combined into this one big photo.  All of those characters were shot in one long day.  We loaded up three or four pickup trucks with costumes, drove out to Make's studio (then located down the road in Sebastopol, CA) and strapped people into costumes one or three at a time to pose for the camera.  It was a long day, and by the end of it my crew and I were pretty worn out.  By the time the staff from Make called it done we still had another eight costumes that were never even taken out of their crates.

Ever since then, I've thought it would be a good idea to do another photoshoot day to add onto this composite image of all of my finished stuff.  The only problem is that whenever I think of scheduling the big photoshoot day, I keep thinking it'll be better to wait until I finish the next big thing I'm working on.  After all, it'd be terrible to go through all that effort and not have, say, the Mark I War Machine costume in the lineup.  So if I just put if off for another month, it'll finally seem complete.  As a result, I have now been kicking that particular can down the street for years.  So how many things are on the list that need some time in front of the camera?  I started noodling it over and wrote down a list:

  

Later I sat down and generated a nice, neat spreadsheet version of the list and added even more things I didn't think of the first time.  Along the way I came up with a few fun facts.  First off, I have 23 unique costumes that are camera-ready right now and weren't in the Make spread.  I have more than one example of 6 out of those 23 (i.e., I have 5 Deathwatch Mandalorians and 8 Sisters of Battle.  Those are only two of the twenty-three line items on the list).  In addition to those 23 finished costumes, I have another 53 costumes or free-standing props (such as ED-209 or my BB-8 build) that would be welcome additions to the next photo spread.  Of those 53, 22 could be ready for camera in a week or less.  Of course, that's each one of them taking a week or less to finish and it would require me to be able to focus on one thing at a time and not start working on something else.  

So I guess I have a problem.

I also came to realize that I have a new problem.  When we did the Make spread, there was one photographer with his lighting setup and backdrop.  I brought a crew of fourteen or so people to alternate between being in costumes and helping each other get in and out of costumes.  Even with all of that support, we only had time to shoot seventeen costumes (some of which we shot two at a time).  So even if I was to just pull out everything that's ready to go tomorrow, I'd still probably not have enough time to get good photos of everything in a single day.  So I'm starting to think I'll have to just plan for a big photo session every couple of months until I'm caught up.  Hopefully by the time the pandemic is under control and I can start getting large groups together I'll be able to make it all happen.

With that in mind, here's a few of the things that are out on the bench taking up much of my time and thought when I'm not working on the things that pay my bills.

First up, the Havoc Trooper:

A few years back, I made a Shae Vizla costume and a handful of Sith Acolytes to attend Star Wars Celebration Anaheim.  These were characters from the trailers for the Old Republic MMO.  I had a lot of fun building these and have been wanting to bring more things to life from that era of the Star Wars universe.  So when a very talented 3D modeler name Marko Makaj offered up 3D printing files to create the complete Havoc Squad Trooper, I figured it would be a good thing to keep my printers busy instead of letting them sit idle between more important projects.  The results have been great:

At this point I've printed all of the armor parts and done about half of the sanding and prep work to get them ready to paint.  I may still re-print the thigh armor though since they're a bit tight on me.  I've also printed the blaster rifle, knife, shield generator (the black thing with the red light pictured above) and the pistol and sheath.  I'm not sure if I'll go through the added trouble of printing any of the big heavy blasters, but it's tempting.  The best part is that Marko included all of the files to print every piece of gear these guys are shown carrying in each of the trailers:

This includes the backpack (not pictured).  If you'd like more info about how to get a hold of these files to print your own copies of this ensemble, Marko has started a Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/mysterymakers.

As long as I'm plugging his work, I should also bring up my Heavy Infantry Mandalorian build.  You might remember this helmet I made a while back: 

While the helmet was based on a heavily-modified file from Do3D.com, I've been building the rest of the parts from Marko's files:



This includes the jetpack:

While I've been making slow and steady progress on all the parts, the next thing I'm about to finish molding is the main body for his heavy blaster:


That big chunk of plastic will be the final portion of this beauty: 

Fully assembled, the complete blaster will be just a hair under five feet long (or 1523.17mm if you're one of those people).  So it's not small.

While I'm on the subject of Mandalorians, I need to mention another 3D modeler who's been doing some great work.  Sean Fields of Project 842 has made all kinds of amazingly accurate models of various Star Wars things.  His file was the starting point for my Sabine Wren helmet from Rebels:       

I've molded and cast a few copies and, because I can't make up my mind, I'll probably make enough copies to match her ever changing color scheme from each season of that show.

In the same vein, I started with Sean's model and built the helmet belonging to Sabine's mother, Ursa Wren:

Sean was also responsible for the models used to print my Battle Droid which is now tucked into a box awaiting a week's worth of sanding to prep it for paint:

As long as I was in a helmet casting mood, I figured I might as well go ahead and mess around with a custom paintjob on at least one of them.  So I rolled out a cast of my Heavy Mando and started messing around with camouflage patterns:

It's still early on, but I think it'll be a fun thing when it's all said and done.

So that's a lot of Star Wars stuff, but as usual my complete distractibility means there are plenty of other franchises I'm making things from as well.  Case in point, a while back I finished up the helmet for Locus from Red vs. Blue:

As much as the helmet looks cool all by itself just sitting on the shelf, I still feel compelled to make the rest of his outfit.  While I've made plenty of Halo 3 armor, the newer stuff from Halo 4 and 5 requires much more detailed and elaborate undersuits than the previous iterations.  So I decided to start with that as a base before making the armor parts to wear over it.  While a lot of it will be custom sewn with panels of neoprene and scuba hex fabric, there are a few pieces that just need to be custom cast sculptural parts.  So I've been making stone molds and slipcasting them in latex just like halloween masks, but with fabric backing cast into the rubber.  Here's the parts I've made so far:

What you're seeing here is the crotch, knees, elbows, shoulders, and hip pads.  There's another half dozen or so bits that still need to be molded and cast, but they're coming right along.

Finally, some time ago I started tinkering with making a Mouser from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  My plan was to make one, but due to an odd set of miscalculations, I now have a handful of boxes squirreled away in the darkest corners of my shop which contain all of the parts I need to make at least seven of them.  Needing more things to do with my hands a while back, I broke out one of the boxes and started the final assembly for one of them:

I'm still not done deciding exactly how much articulation I want to give the neck, but once I get that sorted out, I'll somewhat rapidly have a squad of these guys standing around.  For now they're just kinda hanging out in pieces:

So that's a few of the current UFOs cluttering the workshop.  As you can see from the background of most of these photos, there's still plenty of other things I'm tinkering with.  Be sure to stay tuned so you don't miss the next exciting installment of me actually getting around to writing about things that are getting finished.