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Thursday, January 18, 2024

Genestealer Build Update 3: the Beginning of the Head

At the end of the last update, we'd managed to print, smooth, and hardcoat the chest and back shells. Since then, Jeff finalized the digital sculpt of the arm shells:
Render with Arms Front

Meanwhile, I've hacked up his digital head armature and made the jaw separate:
Jaw Mech DIgital WIP2

The hinge arrangement allows for a full range of motion:
Jaw Mech DIgital WIP

Once I was happy that I wasn't making more work for us, I went ahead and set up the parts for 3D printing.  The jaw printed as a single piece:
Jawn Model

The rest of the head had to be done in multiple parts to fit onto my printers' build plate.  I started with the face:
Head layout Zortrax Screenshot 2024-01-13 125424

Printing at lowest resolution (for speed) the parts came out pretty quickly:
Face Print

Which was very exciting:
Genestealer is Excited Too

Once the rest of the parts were printed, they were seamed together in short order:
YAWP

Just to get an idea of the scale of the thing, I went ahead and clamped the head print in place in the neck hole:
Head Armature in Place

LEEEEEEEAN

Is big:
Is Big

I couldn't resist the urge to pose for silly pics:
Xeno Halitosis is Awful Bad

Silliness achieved, I did a very quick and dirty bit of bondo work to cover the ugliest of seams.  I also went ahead and fixed the jaw in place and sealed up the areas around the neck and mouth hole:
Genestealer Head Core Bondo Front

So now it's sitting on the bench waiting for me to get back to it:
Genestealer Head Core Smoothing Progress on the Bench

Since I'm leaning toward casting the final piece in silicone rubber, I may want to reuse this piece as a mold core later.  With that in mind, it's also going to get a healthy coat of XTC 3D resin to make it shiny and smooth before I layer over it with oil-based clay and start sculpting the final details and texture of the skin.

Now you may ask yourself, "why in the world did he bother making the hinged jaw separately if he was just going to go in and cover over the cake hole like that?"  

It's a good question and it'll make sense in the sooner than later kind of time frame.  

Stay tuned...

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