Props Christmas Came Early...

[SPARTAN II]

This arrived in the mail yesterday around mid-day:



M6C Socom - Pic 01



M6C Socom - Pic 02



This came to me from LeeKegan, and let me say how wonderful a piece this is. It's huge (didn't really know how big to expect it to be, lol), and is rotocast so that even though it does have some weight to it, it's not rediculously heavy as it would if made of solid-cast resin.



For anyone curious to know, I decided to take a couple pics comparing the size of this to the M6C I got from Ithica (not Lee's M6C, but one available on eBay):



M6C Comparison - Pic 01



M6C Comparison - Pic 02



As you can see, there's a big difference in size and details between the two. Holding this beauty in my hands made me realize how large Lee's standard M6C would be (really only a few inches shorter, I think).



The detail on this is amazing, with little to no excess flashing to remove. I can't wait to get started on finishing this to add to my humbly small HALO prop collection.



I'm going to finish it in the same colour scheme as what Ithica/Lovebug did for the one in their vid, and now that I have the use of my gf's garage for doing my prop work, I should be able to get to work on this soon.



Many thanks, my friend!

 

[LeeKegan]

Your welcome, hope you have many fun hours with it.

 

[SPARTAN II]

I don't doubt I will buddy, lol. The gf thought it was pretty kewl, too. Just have to do a little bit of clean-up work on it, fix up a couple of the seam lines and details, then it'll be good to go for priming and painting



Though I indicate in the thread title it's the second item in my HALO prop collection, I actually consider it my first, given the high-calibre quality of it (the other M6C just doesn't compare to it, lol)

 

[SPARTAN II]

A bit of an update. No, I haven't actually started on it yet, lol. Buuut... I have come up with a few ideas for incorporating additional details into Lee's model.



Don't anyone get me wrong, here. I've always been a huge advocate of Lee's work, and am of the opinion of that his work is outstanding and very detailed, but after looking at my casting of the M6C Socom I noticed there were one or two minor details missing, and I'd like to have those present on the finished build.



I hope Lee doesn't take offense, as that is not my intent with posting this. It's just, well... as everyone here knows, I tend to be annoyingly OCD for accuracy and detail (hence why my Mk VI helmet is still not done, and the schematics I draw take forever to finish).



Right now I haven't the time to take/post any pics to describe what I mean, but I will say that some of the revisionary work includes adding the details on the back of the slide, as well as adding some details to the top of the pistol (that area seemed kinda plain, imho). There will also be other work involving refining some of the already-present details.



Anyway, shortly I will post a few pics of the areas I intend to re-work. For now, I've got to be heading out the door...

 

[LeeKegan]

I'M DESTROYED, Not really. It is yours and make all the changes you want. Love to see how you modify it.

 

[SPARTAN II]

I'M DESTROYED, Not really. It is yours and make all the changes you want. Love to see how you modify it.

LMAO! :lol



I hope the modifications I make to it will do it justice, buddy. Plan on starting work on it this coming weekend, when I'm over at the gf's place. If all goes well, I'll have a few WiP pics to post soon after

 

[SPARTAN II]

Okay, here are a few "before" pics I took to better show what I plan on doing for the additional details. The areas I plan on modifying are indicated by black Sharpie marker. First pic is a scan of the ODST pistol for comparison against the details to be added to my pistol:

The first detail that I felt needed to be revised was along the bottom of the barrel extension at the front:



M6C Socom -- Pic 03



M6C Socom -- Pic 04



Upon closer inspection of the above-posted reference pic, that detail appears to be recessed, not raised. Therefore, I intend to sand that down smooth and then recess the detail into the resin.



The next detail is on the back of the slide:



M6C Socom -- Pic 05



For that one, I will simply adhere some thin sheet styrene to the back of the slide, using the detail on the back of Lee's M6G as a guide.



Another detail I want to add is on top of the pistol, as I found there was something missing there:



M6C Socom -- Pic 06



M6C Socom -- Pic 07



From what I can see in the reference pic posted, there is a recessed strip going from the front to the back of the barrel extension. Also, I noticed the little side notches at the top-front of the extension actually extend a little further, past the top edge. I'll apply some styrene to the top of the extension to achieve the recessed strip detail, and use my Dremel tool to etch the notches.



Again based on the above reference pic, there does appear to be some detailing closer to the back of the slide, on top. I decided to use the detailing present on Lee's M6G build as a guide for that as well, which would probably be easiest to do by using my Dremel tool to etch in that detail.



Anyway, that's pretty much it. Just wanted to give everyone a better idea of what I had in mind for revisions/alterations to this piece. As I said in my last post, I should be able to do some work on this over the weekend, so hopefully I will have some actual WiP pics to show next week :cool

 

[SPARTAN II]

Alright, update time!



Over the course of the last week, with the use of the gf's garage as a proper work space I've thus far managed to sand down the bottom details of the barrel extension at the front:



M6C Socom -- Pic 08



M6C Socom -- Pic 09



Using my trusty Dremel tool I was able to sand the area smooth and level for the most part, and puttied over a few spots that dug a little deeper into the resin than expected. There were also some imperfections on the underside of the laser sight housing, so I leveled that off with a little model putty, sanded smooth:



M6C Socom -- Pic 10



I puttied and levelled off the back of the grip as well, along with the back and bottom of the ammo clip:



M6C Socom -- Pic 11



For the details to be added to the top of the pistol closer to the rear, I simply used an X-acto knife to etch in the details (sprayed some black primer on there to better show them). Now, I have to level off the top of the pistol as the mold was slightly misaligned, but at least this gives me an idea of what it'll look like:



M6C Socom -- Pic 12



M6C Socom -- Pic 13



Then came the really fun part; reapplying the details on the bottom-forward section of the barrel extension. I decided to apply them on top of the existing model as it's a roto-cast (hollow) piece, and I didn't want to accidentally completely cut through the resin, which would've made it far more difficult to apply the recessed details.



Since I didn't have my usual paper over at the gf's place, I used what paper was available and drew up some templates for the new detailing:



M6C Socom -- Pic 14



Which, if looking at the scanned pic shown in the last post, is fairly representative of the in-game model. I made sure to cut out the recessed areas behind the ribbed detailing so as not to obscure what Lee incorporated into the model:



M6C Socom -- Pic 15



M6C Socom -- Pic 16



Given the thickness of the styrene I used for reapplying the above details (.040), I will have to adhere additional same-thickness styrene to the top portion of the barrel extension to beef it up so that it looks uniform.



That will result in a complete cosmetic rebuild of the extension, and pretty much match up the thickness of the barrel extension to the rear portion of the slide.



Though I don't have a pic to show this, I've also applied a piece of .020-thick sheet styrene to the front of the grip to close-in the indent shape on the sides of the grip, based on what I saw of the details on the in-game model. My next update will display such a pic.



Anyway, that's my progress up to this point. I think it's coming along well, and should look good all around once done

 

[LastSpartan]

I hope you know you can come use my Garage and leave your props here, eh?



Looks like the customs opened your package and cleared it, you are lucky

 

[SPARTAN II]

I hope you know you can come use my Garage and leave your props here, eh?



Looks like the customs opened your package and cleared it, you are lucky

Yeah, well... I think I'll keep them at the gf's place, thank you very much I think they'll be safer over there, lol.



I kinda expected Canadian Customs would've opened it up (everything props-wise I've received from the US they've done that with), but have never had a problem with receiving anything, so I knew there was nothing to worry about :cool

 

[SPARTAN II]

Another update!



As promised in my last post, here are a couple pics showing the .020 styrene I adhered to the front of the grip to close in the indent details on the side:



M6C Socom -- Pic 17



M6C Socom -- Pic 18



Next, I decided to fill in the recessed details on the top-front of the barrel extension, so as to make them more symmetrical (I inserted styrene cut-outs to level them off, then used some modelling putty to finish evening it out and sanded it smooth):



M6C Socom -- Pic 19



As you can begin to see, when I said I'd be doing a complete cosmetic rebuild of the extension/silencer, I really meant complete, lol.



Once the original recessed details were covered and smoothed over, I then went about applying the new details:



M6C Socom -- Pic 20



M6C Socom -- Pic 21



That's all I've got for updates at the moment, but so far I think these upgrades/accurizations are coming along pretty well. Just have to figure out what I'm going to do to level off the top of the extension (if you look closely, you can see the left side is a little higher than the right side):



M6C Socom -- Pic 22



I'm thinking either planing the one side down using my Dremel tool, or raise the other side using either very thin sheet styrene or perhaps putty. We'll see what happens with that, anyway.



Once done, this should be a rather unique "one of a kind" representation of Lee's model. Questions and/or comments are welcome, as always