Centurion Mecha

[mangozac]

New Years and the recovery in the days following hindered my progress a little but I'm back into it now (admittedly not for long though - I'm heading away for the last few days of my holidays). I ended up drawing a really basic 3D model of the shin and then creating the knee armour around that in Rhino. The armour was then broken up, flattened and exported to be cut out by my router. I was originally planning to use 2mm thick styrene, but instead decided 1.5mm would be adequate.

Here's what it turned out like:

I'll admit that it seems a little too wide at the top, however in some strange way I feel like that actually works as some kind of over-accentuated Roman theming. Like old Asterix comics! Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though! Also, in the pictures it's sitting a little lower than it's supposed to - it should protect more of the knee joint.

Both the knee armour and thigh armour plating will have banding added (the thigh armour already had banding applied earlier, but it was too thick so I removed it all).

I made up some little access panels for detailing areas, and used square styrene rod as the mounting screw heads. It looks OK but I think I need to get some fine scale hex rod for bolts in other places...

[Vaaish]

I've gotta say I don't think it really works on the model. Even raised up a bit you've got armor plate that doesn't really do much outside of create a bullet trap on the knee. Without it there you don't lose anything, and I think you gain interest with the added visibility of the hydraulics.

Seeing the direct side view like that, I also think that the forward piston needs to be parallel to the strut at the rear to make it work as a system to manipulate the the foot or perpendicular to the the ground to create a shock system. I think the way it looked in the previous version worked a bit better.

[Lane]

[mangozac]

[Lane]

[mangozac]

Yeah I guess in the future I should do 2D mockups. And in my defence I did draw up some of the shapes in Inkscape while trying to come up with the design; I just never used them to test out ranges of motion.

I've been slowly working on the thigh armour; the next step is to sort out the banding. I did have banding applied to one of them before, however I decided it was too thick (about 1mm thick). Also, since I've done the curved sections from putty they weren't as geometric as I'd have liked.

Now that I have a CNC router though I can cheat when it comes to bits like these! I simply took a scan of the sides of the parts I wanted to add the banding to, imported into Inkscape, drew the banding and then generated G-code. 5 Minutes with the router and a 1mm cutter and I had a set of banding cut out in 0.5mm styrene:

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Excuse the raggy edges - that's just kind of like flash and will easily remove with a knife. Also note that I kept a few tabs holding each band in place - this stops them from moving around as the cut is completed. Hopefully I'll get them on tonight. On the weekend I plan to start hitting all of the completed parts with Mr Surfacer in preparation for moulding

[mangozac]

Over the past couple of nights I've been slowly applying the banding to the thigh armour and it's turning out quite nicely. I will admit that in the pics the banding looks a little on the thin side, however in person it looks way better than when I had the 1mm thick stuff previously! At this rate I'm planning to fire up the airbrush on the weekend so I can prime all of the current parts with Mr Surfacer. It gives a nice, uniform finish to everything and will provide a base from which I can go around with some Milliput and seal up all of the little flaws and gaps (of which admittedly there are a few...).

After some postage delays I also finally received a package from Bec (to clarify, the delays were due to Australia Post, not her) with a squillion little laser cut cog icons in a bunch of sizes. I'll admit that the finish from the laser wasn't as fine as I'd planned, so the results on such tiny pieces aren't perfect. Here you can see an icon I've glued to the bottom of the foot:

At first I was really excited about it but now to be honest I'm not so much. I'm going to try cutting one out on the router tomorrow and see what kind of result I can get. I'm also thinking of changing it back the same as the original drawing of the tread pattern, with the cog being a negative relief inside a circular piece...

[blind pig]

[mangozac]

[mangozac]

I've just realised that I forgot to take a photo of the completed underside of the foot! Dammit! Next time!

As planned, I've done a lot of work towards completing the legs over the weekend. I've even primed everything with Mr Surfacer 500 in order to get a good feel for how everything looks. Of course that step always shows up heaps of flaws so I'm now slowly going around with Tamiya putty and sandpaper and cleaning everything up

I'm almost ready to cast up all of the foot parts - will hopefully get that done tonight. Here's a spread of all of the currently completed parts in their pretty, primed state:

I've also taken a couple of pics of the knee/shin guard. It's coming together quite nicely, although I do feel that it will need something to add a bit of interest (not sure what). Note the cast iron texture I have applied to the rear of it. That little circular piece on the back plugs into a corresponding point before the knee in order to mount the piece.

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Centurion_WIP_31.jpg (28.78 KiB) Viewed 18813 times

Moving on, I've started mentally planning the hip joints and researching the best technique to use there. For ease of construction (and a lower number of final parts) I'm going to stick with a ball joint but probably team it up with a piston setup of some kind. It would be pretty cool to incorporate some geared pieces or something too that I cut out on the router (although I don't want to get all steampunk looking)

I know I'm not getting many replies because people are hesitant to comment on just these disjointed pieces, but once I cast up the leg parts I'll be able to start giving you a better idea of where this is going!

[mangozac]

I've been making some nice progress and only just now realised that I haven't taken photos of any of it! Over the course of the past week I've:

- Moulded and cast the feet and pistons
- Finished prepping the rest of the leg parts for moulding
- 60% completed the hip joints
- Designed and begun building the pelvis (including making a mockup of the pelvis front armour plate)

Hopefully tomorrow I will make moulds for the rest of the leg parts (thigh, lower leg and knee armour), so should have them all cast up on Sunday. It's been exciting seeing the final cast foot components glued together (as opposed to just held with blue-tack) so I'm really eager to see the rest of the legs cast!

I'll try to post some pics tonight of the hip and pelvis progress.

Anyway with the construction fast approaching the torso, the primary point of this post is to bring up the matter of the pilot. I have planned to do a detailed (and cramped) cockpit for the model, and this will need a pilot figure to occupy it. My figure sculpting skills are far from great so I'm weighing up my options here. The best option would be to modify an existing figure, but then I wouldn't be able to recast it (unless there are such recastable figures available somewhere?). Also, I need to decide on the pilot's suit/clothing. I'm guessing control would be via a neural link, (either in a helmet or plug-in Matrix style). I guess he'd need to strap into place also.

Anybody have any suggestions here?

[TokyoKampai]

Weeellll, without a concept art piece I can 100% say for certain. But I'd go with a combination of the Epyon System helmet from the Epyon (See: Any Gundam Wing episode with Epyon in it) and the Entry Plug from Evangelion, just because those are both bad-ass concepts for neural control. (Also, any kind of standard control just grates on my suspension of disbelief because any kind of non-neural control scheme just doesn't work no matter what Gundam tells you), if you're going a more low-tech/hands on neural connector route, I'd say do something like the plugs from The Matrix, e.g. fetal position with thick cabals everywhere.

[paulson games]

Hasslefree lets their heads be used as bases for recast models. Might email them and ask if they'd be ok with you modifying and recasting one of their figures?

They have a couple sci fi minis that might be close enough to a pilot or could be with some greenstuff work to make jump suits or armor.

[mangozac]

[mangozac]

Finally the update we've all been waiting for........ it stands (well almost)!

Due to lack of social or other engagements I've had a wonderful weekend of modelling and have now got something serious to show for it. All of the leg components (excluding the knee armour plate) have been moulded and duplicated in resin. The hip piece is almost done (just waiting for the hex styrene rod to arrive so I can add the final bolt heads necessary). And I've made a lot of progress on the pelvis.

First up, the photographic proof of an assembled set of resin components. They assemble very easily with a few drops of super glue. Some of the moulds have a couple of small bubble air issues so I'm cutting wider/extra air channels into them, but these test parts are still a little bubbly. And have some more-than-slight mould slip in areas.

Note that the left leg isn't attached to the pelvis - the hip piece will be a duplicate of the right leg hip piece (so I only need to master the one).

The next shot shows what the leg looks like side on. Pretty much the same as it always has, I know, but everything looks better in monotone grey resin. Also included is a shot of the foot showing the resulting tread pattern - very happy with how this turned out!

And finally we have a montage of the pelvis progress. It's kind of hard to see in this state, especially with the ball joint sections made from clear perspex. The ribbed hoses are a great product from . Although I assume they are just casts of regular wound guitar strings, being pewter they are so easy to bend into the desired shape and they stay there!.

Also on the bottom left is the proposed groin armour plate design. The actual one will be about 25% taller, but the design may change before I'm done.

So I expect to get the pelvis done over the next week. It's just a process of packing in more details, and then I'll run around with some Milliput and fill in all the gaps. And then prime it to check for uniformity before casting. The hip piece I'll cast at the same time as the knee armour panel (I'm still contemplating whether to add more features to the knee armour), but as I said earlier I've got to wait for the hex rods to arrive before I can finish the hip.

I want to do a few features like tow eyelets around the place too (for example one hanging from the bottom of the pelvis) and am tossing up whether they should be separate pieces.

I have to say, any reservations I have had about this project have well and truly evaporated following the assembly of the resin parts like this! I'm really excited about where it's going! Once the hip is completed and cast I'll be able to start playing with torso mockups made of clay. I've got some cool ideas for that too!