Dancinfools Mk Vi Armor
- Thread starter Dancin Fool
- Start date
- Status
Tikigod002
Jr Member
Looks like the cricut is really helping speed up the process. Glad to see how fast your costume is coming together...makes me think I might actually get done in time too.
You are amazingly fast and pepping. I am very interested in a tutorial on how to use the cricut for cutting. I have been looking into craftrobo as well as the wishblade, and I did not think it was possible to use a cricut for this application.
Keep us posted with your progress, don't get too rushed and cut a corner and end up making a mistake!
~James
Keep us posted with your progress, don't get too rushed and cut a corner and end up making a mistake!
~James
Dancin Fool
Active Member
Thanks guys, the great thing about the Cricut is the fact that it free's up time. So while it still takes about the same time to cut out all the pieces on a page, it's also scoring the pieces and I can glue while it's cutting.
jlhR2 - It's not commonly known that you can cut out custom shapes with the Cricut, it requires a piece of software called Sure Cuts A Lot which interfaces with the Cricut. Basically what I do is turn off fold lines, print using the windows document printer, which essentially creates images for each page, then I do the same thing with the fold lines, but setting them all to solid. Then I just use these two images as two passes for the cricut, one for regular lines and one for scored lines, just adjusting the blade penetration depth when I do the score lines. I'll do a proper tutorial with images and what not once I'm finished the project.
jlhR2 - It's not commonly known that you can cut out custom shapes with the Cricut, it requires a piece of software called Sure Cuts A Lot which interfaces with the Cricut. Basically what I do is turn off fold lines, print using the windows document printer, which essentially creates images for each page, then I do the same thing with the fold lines, but setting them all to solid. Then I just use these two images as two passes for the cricut, one for regular lines and one for scored lines, just adjusting the blade penetration depth when I do the score lines. I'll do a proper tutorial with images and what not once I'm finished the project.
You will definetly have to post up a tut on how to use the Cricut. I looked into it and it seems way awesome. was the unit/software itself very expensive? And you said you could find it at Walmart?? That would be freaking fantastic. I am also trying to do a speed build of Dutch's ODST armor for "Halo"ween. I work at a bowling alley, and me and my co-worker are going to be fully suited for our shifts that night. If we get them done....Hah but yeah that would be crazy awesome to learn how to get Cricut to work.
Last edited by a moderator:
Sniperbaas
Well-Known Member
Hmmm... you have me intrigued with the craft robo. It seems like an excellent idea, and would save a lot of time (money). I might switch to this for production level armor, if my cnc or prototyper ideas don't work.
Clean and nice looking peps btw
Cheers!
Clean and nice looking peps btw
Cheers!
Dancin_fool..you should be Peppin_Fool, you are putting those things together fast!! I have been back and forth on the CraftRobo and Cricut, if they sold the CraftRobo in stores would you have swung for that, or would you feel the Cricut is a pretty solid choice. Im bout to make the jump here pretty soon on it and I know Pepakura has a version specifically for the CraftRobo which is nice, but by the looks of it you seem pretty confident the Cricut will do the job and obviously if you run outta blades or supplies for the Cricut you can run to wal-mart or whatnot.
Side note, your peps are looking great!!! Cant wait to see the finished product! Looks like you could pull of a Halo-Ween armor build in time!
Side note, your peps are looking great!!! Cant wait to see the finished product! Looks like you could pull of a Halo-Ween armor build in time!
Dancin Fool
Active Member
Hey Doubler24, thanks for all the positive comments. I think if the Craftrobo had the same distribution level as the Cricut, I probably would have gone with the Craftrobo, mostly just because it integrates directly with pepakura so there isn't a need for additional steps. I'm definitely super happy with the Cricut though, it's getting the job done. I'm in bad need of a new blade and another cutting mat though, my cutting mat has a thick coat of spray glue and paper bits. Just need to find the time to make a supply run.
Dancin Fool
Active Member
Apologies for the double post. Just a few updated pictures, I've got the left boot and left shin done, and just starting on the left thigh. I've changed my build process a little bit again. I found pen inserts for the Cricut so I've bypassed the printer entirely. The nice thing about doing this is that I no longer have to worry about lining pieces up. I just spray the placement glue and lay down a fresh sheet of cardstock and let it do it's thang. I'm aiming to have all the pieces built by Sunday, hopefully it all works out.
You can see on the left shin the black outline from using the cricut as a plotter to lay out the outline. The only problem with this method is the nibs on the end of the pens I found is too thick to print numbers, but I haven't found it to really be an issue I just keep pepakura open and can reference where each piece goes.
[attachment=12719
SCN2165.JPG]
[attachment=12720SCN2167.JPG]
You can see on the left shin the black outline from using the cricut as a plotter to lay out the outline. The only problem with this method is the nibs on the end of the pens I found is too thick to print numbers, but I haven't found it to really be an issue I just keep pepakura open and can reference where each piece goes.
[attachment=12719
SCN2165.JPG][attachment=12720
SCN2167.JPG]
Dancin Fool
Active Member
Yeah it definitely speeds up the process since you can build as you're cutting. The most time consuming part is actually importing the cutting info into the Sure Cuts A Lot program. Once I'm finished the costume I'm going to write a little piece of software to take the exported pepakura information and auto-generate the files Sure Cuts A Lot needs, should speed up future development quite a bit. Shouldn't be too difficult program to write, my day job is a rendering programmer for a game company.
Dancin Fool
Active Member
Yup it can score as well, I do it in two passes. I do a pass for all the cuts and then adjust the blade depth and blade pressure and do a second pass for the score lines. The cricut gives you 6 levels of blade depth and then I think around 5 levels of pressure so there's quite a bit of adjustment which can be made. So you can really adjust how much of a score you make. I haven't had any issues with it cutting through.
Dancin Fool
Active Member
Alright quick break time. Managed to get the left thigh put together tonight. Hoping to get a good chunk of the left bicep done before I head off to sleep tonight.
[attachment=12742SCN2168.JPG]
*EDIT*
Alright it's almost 4am here, I got the other bicep finished and much happier with it. Little bit of hot glue strand cleanup and it should be good to go. The spare bedroom is starting to fill with pieces of armor, the costume is really coming together.
[attachment=12742
SCN2168.JPG]*EDIT*
Alright it's almost 4am here, I got the other bicep finished and much happier with it. Little bit of hot glue strand cleanup and it should be good to go. The spare bedroom is starting to fill with pieces of armor, the costume is really coming together.
Jeff Torres
Member
Great work! Why are the mountains/valleys so big? (the dashed lines)
Dancin Fool
Active Member
That's because I've stopped using a printer to print out the lines. I'm using the Cricut with a marker attachment to plot the fold lines, however the nib on the attachment is a little bit thicker so I just scaled up the fold lines in pepakura to make it easier to tell which lines are which.
Time to start trucking along on the last 2 pieces, left forearm and left handplate.
Time to start trucking along on the last 2 pieces, left forearm and left handplate.
Hello, everything looks great and its amazing how fast you are putting this whole thing together. I just have a few questions for you about the cricut,
as Im considering purchasing one of these machines. When you say "score" do you mean perforated lines? Solid cuts? How do you score mountains
and valleys? How has the machine held up with all of the precision cuts? I've read on other threads about the craftrobo having a hard time with smaller
sections of the HD models. What has your experience been? I don't mean to go off topic but it seems as you are the only one using one of these
machines right now and I'd really like to get your opinion on all of this. Thanks!
as Im considering purchasing one of these machines. When you say "score" do you mean perforated lines? Solid cuts? How do you score mountains
and valleys? How has the machine held up with all of the precision cuts? I've read on other threads about the craftrobo having a hard time with smaller
sections of the HD models. What has your experience been? I don't mean to go off topic but it seems as you are the only one using one of these
machines right now and I'd really like to get your opinion on all of this. Thanks!
- Status
