ShadoKat's Samus Aran (Metroid Prime 3) helmet sculpt - WIP

[ShadoKat]

Monday went not as well as planned, but still, somehow, better than expected. Got about half the mother mold done in Plasti-Paste. I wanted to add another layer of it on for reinforcement, but I was running low, so I decided to try out my trial kit of Shell Shock to slather on top of it. Shell Shock is weird stuff. For anyone wanting a thicker, more brushable resin than Smooth Cast to use for casting, I think it would work very well. As a mother mold material, though, I don't think it's very suitable at all! Part A is the normal brown liquid (maybe even the same stuff as part A of Plasti-Paste), but part B is nasty stuff. My little tub had been sitting for a few months and when I started in mixing it seemed okay... until I got lower into it with the stir stick. Apparently, it had settled to form some kind of clay at the bottom. It took half an hour just to finish mixing part B before I could mix the two together!

Then the fun started... It's much thinner than I thought it would be. Applying it on top of the Plasti-Paste was mostly disastrous. It ran everywhere and dripped all over the place. On its own it is extremely brittle, but I think it might be okay for how it is. It seems to have strengthened up the thinner parts of the Plasti-Paste and, in turn, the Plasti-Paste is helping to reinforce the Shell Shock. It's certainly ugly, though, and difficult to work with for this purpose. Maybe if I had gone with Shell Shock and followed that up with Plasti-Paste instead of the other way around?

At any rate, I had JUST enough Plasti-Paste left to do the other side with a layer as thin as the other side, so I think I'm going to try my hand at the Shell Shock again for some extra support. Now that I have mother mold on both sides, I can handle it a little less delicately.

Pics to follow. Thanks for looking!

 

[BLACKULA727]

Hey man, thats interesting about the shell shock. I was curious because, I've been slowly gathering up supplies for the elite mold. I have a ton of shell shock that I want to use. After reading what you've said though, im kind of nervous. Whats your take on backing it up with fiberglass? like maybe a layer or two of shell shcok and then do subsequent layers of shell shock reinforced with fiberglass. Just curious. I've already got a ton of it now. 4 gallons of it. I plan on molding mine soon. Glad to see you could work around your issues. Also, what kind of plasti paste are you using? Plasti-Paste or Plasti-Paste II? Thanks again for any help!

 

[ShadoKat]

Oy, what a weekend...

 

[Pipinacan]

I've been waiting a long time to see that picture, amazing job man!

 

[ShadoKat]

Hah! You and me both, Pipinacan!! Thanks!

So, about that picture... I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I'm a little afraid the shoulder bells are too small. All that work enlarging them, and they're STILL too small! Either that or the helmet is too big, I can't decide. The scale is a bit off when compared to the references, and I'm not sure how I'm going to remedy the situation. The "scale up" button seems to be missing from this program. Any ideas? I thought about maybe vac-forming ten layers of sheet plastic over it, but they I'll lose detail and definition. Maybe they'll look bigger once I add the fins. They are symmetrical, though, so that's a big plus! Thanks, Symmetrizer!!

To answer two of your questions, Blackula (other questions answered in your Elite sculpt thread)... First, I think backing the upper layers with fiberglass cloth or something will work fine. Second, I was using just plain old Plasti-Paste. Haven't gotten a chance to play with the new version yet, but I'm all out of molding materials now, so I'm going to be placing an order soon! I'm also considering getting Dragon Skin instead of Rebound. Anyone used both that can comment?

In other news, I was wondering what piece to do next, and I think I've stumbled into a solution... I've been approached by an outfit called CRM Studios about having my Samus helmet on a show called Prop Freaks. I'm a little hesitant about mentioning it, since there are so many better projects out there. Still, it does seem legit. Since this has come up, though, I'll be working on getting an actual finished version of the helmet for the forseeable future. Which is good, because it means I have to actually FINISH something LOL!!

Thanks for looking! Happy building, everyone!!

 

[BLACKULA727]

Honestly, I think it looks great. I did however compare the shoulder bells & helmet to a few reference pics and there are a ton out there. I don’t think all the reference materials are consistent with the size of the shoulder bells in relation to the helmet. With that said, I still think you can pull of the look with what you have. At the end of the day it all looks very good. They may be slightly undersized, but then again, you have a regular human body, not a stylized version of one. What I mean is. The way you made each piece looks good on a normal human beings body versus a sci-fi fantasy body that really no one in the natural world looks like. I personally feel that you have done an amazing job with this. Very inspirational.

About the Dragon skin, I will be using it for the Elite sculpt because I need the silicone to stretch pretty far to make it over some of my nutty undercuts in my sculpt. I have heard of people having issues with air bubbles. But I think that has to do a lot with how you mix it. For example if you mix with care, you can avoid whipping in air with each stir of the components. I also think the air bubble issue may come from using the fast curing stuff, which I intend to use. The trapped air doesn’t have enough time to rise because it kicks off so quickly. I personally don’t care to much about that problem, I think it will be minimal. We’ll see, it will be my first time with Dragon skin. Well good luck with the rest, I’m sure it will be phenom!

-Tony

P.S. Thats cool about the show BTW. You should totally do it so I can say I know that guy! lol

 

[IronicTrout]

Looks really good. As an avid nintendo fan I think the Shoulder pads are perfectly sized. And I definitely think that this build is headed in the right direction and deserves to be on "Prop Freaks". Keep it up man!

 

[ShadoKat]

Heya! I wasn't able to do this last weekend (jeez, was it really just last weekend!?!) so I thought I'd just throw out my progress pics from the de-molding! Enjoy!

First, the mother mold, showing how a layer of Shell Shock looks on top of Plasti-Paste. It actually smooths it out a bit, and I didn't have to work as hard sanding it down so as not to tear up my hands during slush casting. You can also see the places on the parting shim where it snapped off as I was trying to de-mold. It probably wouldn't have been so bad but, as I had feared, my registration key placement caused LOTS of problems. Suckers were stuck in there TIGHT! I was actually afraid I would end up breaking the whole thing. Subsequent casts have de-molded slightly easier, but it's still a pain. Speaking of casting, the second pic shows random pieces of plastic that I used as spacers so that I could still screw the thing closed.

The sculpt suffered quite a bit of damage, as well. It didn't help that, for this piece, I decided to try leaving the silicone mold as a single piece, and I didn't cut a seam in it or anything. I'm starting to pay for it now, though, as I'm noticing that the silicone has torn a little bit in a couple of places. Fortunately, I have one perfect cast (the first one has dents from the silicone not being properly seated into the mother mold), so I only need one more. Still, seems like kind of a waste.

And here's a fun shot of the whole shoulder bell family!

Huh... it just occurred to me that, aside from the test fit, I don't have any pictures of the casts yet. I'll try and get some of those eventually.

So, I started on the finishing work for the helmet last week. Due to various circumstances, I only have two casts left, and the mold has met with something of a mishap, so I don't think I'll be getting any more helmet casts out of it any time soon. I might be able to fix it, but my focus is not there at the moment. So, anyway, two casts. The first is the “experiment” cast (just what it sounds like… and I think it’s even the very first cast I made, actually) and the second will be the “final,” that I have been very careful with, and the one from which I hope to eventually make another mold. Neither of them is pretty, but I think the “experiment” may be the only one I can have out of my possession for any length of time, so it's the one I'm working on for the show. They only need it for a couple of days, which is fortunate, as it’s been an invaluable test bed for techniques that I can transfer to the final product, so I’ll need it back before I can continue working on the final.

So, my first bit of finishing work has been trying to make the detail lines look cleaner. First I tried the Dremel, but I do NOT have a steady hand! I filled in the first mistake with Magic Sculpt epoxy clay, and got some vinyl tape that I put down as a sort of guide, coupled with a depth-limiting attachment dealy-thing. The center line turned out LOVELY (except that the tape seems to have taken the paint with it), so, I'm moving on to the second.

Because of the curves, that one didn't turn out quite as nicely as the center line, but it still came out very nicely. Then, I don't know why, maybe I was just lazy, I decided to free-hand the next line down... BIG mistake!! Oh, it was terrible! Thank goodness I have more Magic Sculpt!!

Also problematic on the third line, the depth-limiting thing is so big, it's being blocked by other portions of the helmet, and I can't do the line the whole way. So... Does anyone have any tips on how to make my detail lines a uniform depth and thickness for those of us without steady hands? Also, do you think the lines look too thick? I finished the first two lines with hand files but I think the thinnest files I have are too thin, and this is the only "next size up" I could find.

Thanks for looking, and thanks for any advice!

 

[thorn696]

wow.... looks awesome, Its been a long time since I've seen you're build and it looking great. As for you're line work...I use the back end of my x-knife then use a detail file on them. It takes allot longer but I get 100% more control. Hope that helps.

 

[ShadoKat]

Thanks thorn!! Good tip! I think that because I'm working the cast directly instead of using Bondo I'm having a more difficult time of it than most folks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't yours straight SmoothCast, as well? I checked your thread again (GORGEOUS work, by the way, but you need a better image host ) and I couldn't find whether you have been using Bondo or not... one of these days I'm going to have to read the entire thing from the beginning to find out what is making your build so awesome! I just found out there's a TAP Plastics store in Portland, so I gave it a quick visit. They have some good stuff there, and one the things I bought was one of these babies... It's pretty good at scoring, and helps with some other bits, too!

I really need to update this thread more often, but I find that doing so takes a while, and the time it takes me to actually make an update is typically better spent on the project itself. Maybe I should type less... So, anyway, here's today's update! In my typical fashion, to compensate for my lack of talent, and instead of putting in a lot of work and effort to develop actual skills, I've come up with a couple new methods to help with the detail lines (well, new to me). I've ordered some materials, and I'll let you know how it turns out. while I'm waiting, I took the junk cast and am using it as a test bed for when I start work on the new master (I've got the cast, but I'm holding off on touching it further until I figure out exactly what I'm going to do with it). Step one, refining the shape. I decided there's something wrong with the way the faceplate intersects with the ear bananas so I took some coarse files and some epoxy clay and am trying to work with that...

Seriously, one of these days I'm going to have to learn just how to leave well enough the eff alone!!! Epoxy clay is interesting stuff! With just a little dab of water, it gets really smooth, but it's extremely sticky, and is just as likely to pull away from itself and the piece than to do what you want. Still, when it cures, as long as you've gotten fairly close to getting it how you want, it sands down nice, and is very easy to build up. Bondo is probably better, easier to work with, and more sandable, but I wanted to go with something less toxic so, for now, this is what I have to work with. I've also used it to refine the opening of the helmet, and even up the visor area, as well as some other random uneven spots.

 

[thorn696]

I used Fiberglass resin, bondo, rondo, rondoglass, and smoothcast 321. I tried the smoothcast for the low oder during the winter months. I like the fiberglass resin mix'd hot with a rondoglass inner core best for Pep. As for casting even tho I've done 50+ molds they all have been for Latex. But I think the smooth cast will work great for casting as long as you're not planing on tooling it much.

You're build on the other hand is so much easier to follow and has allot more information as you go along. I find myself looking forward to seeing a update from you, and the longer the wait the better it seems it is. So keep building such awesome projects and I'm be more then happy to watch them.

 

[ShadoKat]

Well, Halloween is over (BOOOOO!!!) Time to get back to work on Samus (YAAAAY!!!) After I clean up this mess (BOOOOO!!!) Wasn't done with Samus (of course... again...) so my backup plan was Nightcrawler, which turned out okay, but I just thought of it like two weeks before Halloween, so it could have been better. Worst case scenario, I have a backup costume for PAX next year, also I tried making the three-fingered Nightcrawler gloves out of silicone, which was mostly disastrous. Also made my wife some Leeloo (Fifth Element) suspenders out of silicone, so that was fun, if time consuming. Pics eventually. No other update, really... I'm just typing this up... you know, procrastinating the post-Halloween-construction cleanup. *sigh* Well, the sooner I'm done, the sooner I can get back to work. Hope everyone else had a great Halloween, too!!

 

[Road Kill]

WOW that looks great man, keep up the fantastic work =D

 

[ironfett]

just read the ENTIRE thread...but awesome, this is something ive been wanting to try out for awhile now and there is loads of good info on here. Kudos man, your amount of perseverance is commendable!

 

[Unity]

Any updates man?

 

[ShadoKat]

May, 2012, in which I attempt to discuss, at great lengths, what I’ve been doing on the Samus project for the last six months.

It's been a long time. How have you been? I've been really busy being dead. You know... after you murdered me? Oh, wait, sorry, wrong game... anyway, I’m actually NOT dead, but progress has been really slow, as usual. I’m sure I’ve said this far too many times, but I don't get a lot of time for myself and, given the choice between working on projects and turning on my computer (which, unfortunately, includes making posts) with that little bit of time I do get, I tend to head for either the workshop or the studio, where I spend too much time just figuring out what I’m going to do. At the moment, I’m waiting for the latest round of epoxy clay to cure… it takes 8 hours, so I’m hoping I can get a post in LOL!! So, please, sit back, grab a drink, and enjoy the post!

Mostly I’ve been working on the helmet, which I really should just consider “good enough” and move on, but I just can’t seem to do that, for some reason. There are just these things about it that have been bothering me, and I just work too slowly. Basically, I don’t think this project is going to be finished any time soon. So, what have I been doing? Well, I have two casts that I am alternating between working on, the “Red Cast” (which is no longer red, but I still call it that), and another, which I call the “Heavy Cast” (because I used too much resin when I cast it… so, it’s… well… heavy). On these casts, I’ve been experimenting with the heat-sink-fin-louver things (seriously, what are those things called?), testing an idea I had about the detail lines, messing with the shape, fixing the symmetry (gawd, THAT again!!!) and basically just doing what I can when I can.

The Fins:

After knee-jerk consideration, I decided that the fins were just not right. They were very difficult to rework as one solid piece, so I am experimenting with two different methods of correcting them. On the Red Cast I removed the back wall, tried to reshape the fins, and added the wall back in with a small bit of Lexan.

On the Heavy Cast, I removed the fins themselves and filled in the holes with epoxy clay.

After having done so, however, it occurred to me that I have no idea how I’m going to add them back. Even though the mold is damaged, it is still intact enough that I was able to create a partial cast for experimentation purposes.

So, we’ll see how that goes, eventually.



The Detail Lines:

I’m pretty excited about this part! The detail lines now have a definite method, I think! First, using a Dremel and a depth-limiting attachment, I totally cored out the detail lines, much deeper and wider than necessary. Then I slathered this funky gunky stuff called Magic Smooth (from the makers of Magic Sculpt) into the channels. After that I laid in some 1/8th inch, square-profile rubber cord extrusion (obtained from McMaster Carr) into that. Using a wooden rib, I smoothed the cord into the resulting mess, being careful to keep the cord aligned in the channel and… VOILA!! Nice, smooth, even detail lines with a consistent depth and shape! I don’t know if you can see how great it is from these pictures, but it’s just GORGEOUS! I’m TOTALLY doing this for ALL my detail line work from now on!

(I seem to have hit some sort of limit on how much I can type/upload in one post, so this will be continued shortly... sorry if that counts as double posting...)

 

[Satchmo III]

This looks awesome. I hope you do start posting more. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ShadoKat]

The Shape:

As I mentioned in my last update, I really didn’t like the way the face plate was looking, so I culled it back and straightened it out a little bit. Here’s a before/after shot on the Red Cast…

In the first pic, you’ll notice that where the ear banana meets the face plate, it kind of curves outward a bit. Hopefully, in the second one, you can see that it now comes straight down. It’s still a bit rough, but that’s where the Red Cast is now. Since I’m using it primarily as a test bed, it can stay like that for a while. Meanwhile, I’ve moved on to working on the Heavy Cast.

Using what I learned from doing the Red Cast, I did the same thing to the Heavy Cast (sorry, no before/after shots there). After that, I did quite a bit of sanding, which seems to have changed the shape WAY too much, and now, much to my bottomless reservoir of chagrin, the helmet is no longer symmetrical. The dome, especially, was just horrid! Because it’s in hard plastic now (and because I have no way to set it up anyway), the Symmetrizer is, unfortunately, not an option at this point. However, taking inspiration from this post right here in thorssoli’s WH40K Space Marine build, I purchased a laser level. Let me tell you, this thing is frickin’ AMAZING!! If you can, I HIGHLY recommend it!! Thanks for the idea, thor!! Right when I got it, I went a little crazy and came up with a couple of things. First, I wanted to see if my reference points were good, so I checked those out, and they seemed to be okay.

Then, in what turned out to be a waste of three entire days (mostly because I ended up sanding most of it off, and it really wasn’t that accurate anyway because I was still trying to figure out how to use it), I did this…

The lack of symmetry is much easier to see this way. You’ll notice the vertical (blue), horizontal (red), and depth (green) lines don’t intersect in the same way on both sides, and that the curves have a definite skew to them. Originally I just got it so I could use it to make straight lines in space on an uneven surface but, after thinking about it for a while, I figured out a way to use it for symmetry, as well. It took me a while to figure out how to adapt it for this purpose, and there are some MAJOR caveats, but I think I’ve finally got the hang of it. I tried to make a “Laser Level Symmetry” video, but it ended up just me babbling for 20 minutes. I managed to edit that down, though…

This shorter version is missing some important caveats, so I will put up the full version eventually.

Doing this on a point-by-point basis is EXTREMELY tedious. To try and speed things along, I tried experimenting with contour gauges and cardstock templates, but I’m having a bit of trouble there, as well.


The Rest:

And then there’s this…

It’s only about two days’ worth of work, total, but I think it’s coming along quite nicely. I have an idea for it that might drastically cut the time it takes for smoothing, if I pull it off correctly, so stay tuned!

I also got sick of sitting around staring at the helmet trying to figure out what to do when I really should be working on it, so I came up with a plan… more an order of operations, really. There are three major problems I have when I’m working. The first is lack of time. The second, lack of direction. The third, lack of knowing what I’m doing. The plan I have now should help with the second, which should also help with the first, as I won’t be throwing away as much time jumping around from part to part and idea to idea.

So, that’s pretty much what I have going on right now. Just working to finish these two helmets, and agonizing over how I’m going to do it. It’s my way. I’ve said before that I really want to make more frequent updates, so I will again endeavor to do so. Tomorrow I'll try to upload a compilation video showing all the pics I've managed to take of my progress so far.

Thanks for stopping by! And, please, do comment, especially if you have any tips or tricks to share!!

 

[ShadoKat]

As promised...

... and the last few pics on their own to show where I am with this right now...

The "beak" has been re-measured and is now symmetrical. Next up on the list, fixing the faceplate. Wish me luck!

 

[Shadowind]

That is amazing work Shadokat.