Thorssoli's Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marines

[thorssoli]

The ball vent was cobbled together from found items. I started with a 10" syrofoam sphere, flattened two sides on the belt sander, added a cylinder cut from 2" thick foam, then coated it with casting resin so I could smooth it out and paint it without the paint eating the foam.

For the tapered vent end, I cut a couple more circles out of 3/4" MDF, cut the middle out of one of them, and glued them together. Then I set the bench sander up on an angle so I could grind an appropriate taper to the sides. The louvers were 1/4" strips of 1/4" MDF that were cut to length and glued into place. The whole thing needs a bit more sanding and smoothing, then I need to paint it all shiny so I can mold it.

[Nessy]

Tell me honestly, does this suit make my butt look big?

No, that suit makes your everything look small. Though I imagine you will look considerably larger when you are wearing the full suit rather than standing beside it.

[thorssoli]

Last night I had a couple of the guys over and we made some shoulders:


After a quick trimming, we had them cleaned up and ready for costuming:


Then we moved on to making backpack parts:






Trimming and assembly went much smoother than I'd expected:


The worst part was a bit of webbing on the front piece, but it will be obscured behind the character's back and shoulder:


Here's a shot of it stacked together with the ball vent prototype:


And me holding it for scale:


The absolute best part though, is how ridiculously heavy it's not:


All I need to do now is cobble together forming bucks for the lower vents and mold the ball vents. Then make templates for the cutouts on the back of the cowling.

Today I'm not feeling well, so I'm going to be taking it easy, staying in, and sculpting the last bits of the fingers. Stay tuned...

[Mstruvmgc]

WOW... The build is coming together very nicely. :-) I am loving all the pics of details and of the pulls you are doing. Your right, that is ridiculous how light that giant backpack is. Amazing job, keep up the great work :-)

[Dreadnaught]

Are you going to have a sergeant or captain with a banner-pole?

[Toja]

Once more awesome, I like having fun at work

[Starvinartist80]

I am really impressed with how light the pieces are turning out. That will make the size of this thing really managable in long term. Congrats on even more great work.

[thorssoli]

Thanks for the compliments guys. I apologize for not posting updates lately, but I've been under the weather and I've been having motivational problems.

Today I finally got back to work on this guy for real (instead of the mild tinkering I've been doing lately) and I ironed out all of the little details I wanted on the grip for the bolt pistol:


It looks ridiculously ginormous in my hand, but it's exactly the right size for the Space Marine's hand:


Looking at the reference images I'm using, the pistol grip for the bolt pistol is the exact same grip used on the other weapons. So it'll fit just fine on the bolter that I started laying out:


Once I mold the pistol grip, I'll be pulling the rest of the pieces for the pistol in the same manner as the chainsword. The main body will be made up of a series of vacfomed pieces with a few cast resin details added on as needed.

On the subject of molding, I started the glove mold for the backpack's ball vent:


I also did the final smoothing on the neck piece:


This part will be slipcast using black latex in much the same manner as a halloween mask. Since I'm making a flexible rubber piece, this means I can get away with using a rigid mold. The best moldmaking material for slipcasting latex is Ultracal 30. Here's the print coat after I'd laid it on:


Here's a shot of the finished mold after it was built up to the proper thickness and reinforced with burlap strips:


It's been pretty cold here these past couple of nights, but I'm hoping that the mold will cure to full strength so I can pull the original sculpt and clean all of the clay out of it, let it dry out, and then start pouring latex copies.

Stay tuned...

[Mstruvmgc]

Wow thats awesome! Still moving along smoothly :-)

[higdog827]

Hey thor,absolutely amazing work. I do have a question though. I want to vacform a helmet (iron helmet from skyrim) and i was wondering, would the 1/16th inch ABS you use have enough give to it to allow for vacforming a helmet? Or would you suggest something different for a first time vacformer? Thanks!