UPDATE: Torso Pep Complete
UPDATE: FINISHING PEPPING THE TORSO
I finally finished the torso pep for Master Chief last night. So far, I'm pretty pleased with the results.
Here's the front of the torso before I connected the bottom edges.
And the back.
After final gluing.
And the back.
It's nice to have the largest part out of the way, but I have a feeling the helmet will be a little more complicated. Lots of tiny parts.
I might do a forearm next, though, so I can practice with resin and bondo before doing it on something as complicated as the torso. I've been watching lots of videos and reading lots of posts, so I think I'm ready to give it a shot. I guess the only way to learn is by doing it, right?
LESSONS LEARNED:
1. Start small. By this, I mean that when you're gluing two pieces together, don't start by gluing the longest tab on the piece. I find it's easier to hot glue the longer tabs after a smaller tab next to it has already been glued. It's easier to keep things aligned properly that way.
2. Practice before gluing. This one may seem weird, but it REALLY helps. Hot glue dries REALLY fast. Once you apply it, you only have a couple seconds to get your pieces aligned properly before the glue sets. So what I do for especially tricky pieces is I practice putting the pieces together before I actually apply the glue. I'll find a way to hold the pieces close together, then I'll mime grabbing the glue gun, applying the glue, putting the glue gun down, and fitting the pieces together. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it has saved me many times and helped me keep everything aligned accurately.
3. It's worth the time it takes to fix problems. If you glue a piece together and the glue dries with the pieces out of alignment, it's worth the effort to VERY GENTLY peel the two pieces apart, cut away the dried glue with a razor/xacto and reglue. If one piece gets out of alignment, it WILL affect the pieces next to it, so even though it's a pain, it's worth the effort to redo it.
4. If at first it doesn't seem to fit, try, try again. While pepping, I came across a piece that didn't seem to fit. I got so frustrated that I was tempted to throw away all my work and start from scratch. But I double-checked all the work I had already done, and everything seemed to be in alignment, so I decided not to give up quite yet. And it's a good thing I did, because after some finagling, I discovered that it DID fit. It just needed to be folded at a sharper angle than I had assumed. I'm so relieved I didn't give up on it!
5. Keep your computer next to you. I had Pepakura Designer open in front of me the entire time, and it saved me tons of time. Sometimes, if I couldn't tell which way a fold was supposed to go, the lines in Pepakura Designer were usually clearer than the ones on the cardstock.
6. Turn off the flaps. On some of the smaller, trickier pieces where flaps were overlapping, it was sometimes difficult to tell where I was supposed to cut. When this happens, I go to the 2D menu in Pepakura and click on the option to turn off the flaps. This gives you a better idea of what the surfaces of the pieces are supposed to look like. Analyzing the pieces on your computer this way really helps you figure out where the best places to cut are.
7. Label your pieces. I like to cut out all my pieces before I start gluing. If you do this, make sure to write the page number somewhere on every single piece you cut out. This makes it MUCH easier to find the pieces you need when you're looking at Pepakura to figure out where the next piece goes.
One concern I have is that the torso is a snug fit. Everything connected when I put it over my head before gluing the bottom pieces together, but it was snug. However, I WAS wearing a loose-fitting t-shirt when trying it on, so hopefully it won't be an issue. If it is, I might need to figure out a way to add an inch or two on the pieces that connect under and over the arms.
What lessons have YOU learned while pepping out your pieces??
keep it up. If you need any help, please feel free to ask and i'd do my best to answer and help you out.
