Monday, January 24, 2011

COATS FOR KIDS 2011

One more quick post update, another Vader appearance in December at the local shopping mall for News10 and their 2010 Coats for Kids project. A great night was had by all! Here's a shot of us and the news crew!

RECENT PROJECTS

So, while you wait for some new updates to my blog as far as current projects, here's some of my work from the past 7 months that I hadn't sent to my blog. First up, the update and finals on my Episode II Clone Trooper Helmet.

Here's a link to the last post on August 22nd, 2010

Well, without getting into TOO much boring detail, here's the finished helmet that's now sitting in my home office.





Next up, I'm gonna show you the last helmet build, an Episode III Clone Trooper. This one is known as a "Grunt", I hope to be doing a Shock Trooper soon.

Here's some photos showing the progress, start to finish. The initial resin casting was a bit of a bad pull and I had to do some reconstruction around the teeth and fix some bad spots with putty and bondo. Thus, all the splotches you see prior to paint.


"Raw Resin Cast"




"Sanded and Bondo Applied"




"Back of Helmet"




"Faceplate Cut Out"




"Main Helmet Primered"




"Faceplate Primered"




"Test Assembly"




"Final Paint and Assembly Sitting on Shelf"



The Next helmet on the workbench is a Clone Pilot from Episode II. This is not mine, but a friend who finished his. My raw cast was pulled from the same mold and I'll be going for either this look, or something very similiar. I'll probably go with a straight dark visor though instead of the gold reflective and I may change my color scheme to red or blue instead of the yellow seen here. We'll see.


"Clone6 Clone Pilot"



I recently obtained a Hyperfirm E11 from ANH (the 1st Star Wars in 1977). For those who don't know, the E11 was the weapon carried by the Original Stormtroopers seen in the film. A modified Sterling Machine Gun, they became icons in movie history. Well, a few months back, I built one using a kit from England and a Hasbro toy. In the end, with weathering and all, it turned out pretty nice.

"Modified Hasbro E11 Blaster with Weathering"



Then I was able to obtain the Hyperfirm Replica E11 which is cast from a real Sterling. The intent here is to show the size comparison which, in my humble opinion, is pretty darn close. The toy is just a BIT smaller, but not bad for a $17.00 kids toy, some paint and a resin add on kit. The Hyperfirm is made of Solid Rubber and manufactured by a company that makes replica firearms for Hollywood. In this picture, the 1:1 casting of the Hyperfirm is on the left and the Hasbro is on the right. Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

"Hyperfirm & Modified Hasbro"


As for a few other projects I'm working on, Here's another one! Thanks to Finhead in Canada for this fantastic resin/fiberglass casting of his custom Ironman Helmet. It actually comes in three pieces, but I only took the faceplate off for the last photo.





And there ya have it...a few updates for the followers of this blog. Sorry it took so long for me to catch up. I've got a few more things I'm researching and acquiring right now, but for the moment, I don't want to get into too much detail. Thanks for stickin' around!

G'nite all!

Saturday, January 22, 2011

UNINTENDED ABSENCE

Sorry for being AWOL lately, but a lot has been happening in other parts of my life that have kept me from doing some of my hobbies and the things I love. Between challenges at work and being in a car accident, I've been pretty distracted.

Believe me, I'll be back here with more soon! Things in the works that I don't want to say much about yet, and a few costume updates for various projects I have, including R2.

Anyway, just wanted to touch in a let everyone know I'm not gone...just postponed...