Your cast looks really good! Can't wait to see the infinity all finished up!
Coming right up!
HOW DID I MISS THIS!?!?!
Seriously some awesome work. I'm glad to see another space-ferrying fan of the Halo universe building these awesome ship models. Your prints are extremely well done. I love that you're molding them as well. I wish my printer would print with the same quality of yours. I apologize if you already mentioned this but do you use PLA or ABS? I've been a believer of using ABS but it just seems to be so finicky under certain conditions...
ANYway, keep up the awesome work. Can't wait to see more.
Glad to get such high praise from a veteran! but i gotta confess, the secret to the ships is just the "high quality" setting on my slicer's settings board. as for material, i've been using nothing but PLA. it's a tad cheaper, lower temp (which means less chance of clogging, like you mentioned) and makes my workspace smell like waffles when printing! (no seriously, polylactic acid (PLA) is a type of sugar)
Anyway! i've had to abandon the updating (NOT the project) temporarily while i got slammed by finals. but i've limped over the finish line and am ready to dump all the progress pics here! so, first off, at Frosty's request: the infinity!
We left off with it being glued together, but in DESPERATE need of some bondo work along the gaping seams between the sections.
Finally, after about 3 or 4 passes of bondo and detailing, i decided to slap a bit of leftover primer onto it to see how well the seams blend into the rest of the model!
Also, a fun little detail i noticed:
This MASSIVE hangar bay seen here (playable in Halo 4's Spartan Ops, IIRC)
Is THIS little square in the ship's side:
So needless to say, the Infinity is a big ship.
ANYWAY! back to the fun! Around this time, classes were winding down, and i decided to move my little mold-making outfit home, and set up an area by my workbench!
Got to learn a few important lessons, like how its NOT a good idea to roll clay on butcher paper...
After THAT fun little couple hours of picking wet paper out of clay, the next ship up for casting is the Covenant Carrier!
Now, things were going a little TOO well at this point, so obviously i was due for a disaster. Now, to preface, all Smooth-On products are PLASTERED with warnings saying "do not use with any products that contain sulfur" because whatever chemical formula they use basically CANNOT work when sulfur is present. this applies mostly to oil-based clay, which contains sulfur! (this makes it so that it doesn't dry out in open air, makes it easier to apply and work with, and generally has lots of benefits over normal clay) So, part of moving everything to my own workspace meant i had to buy my own clay, since the stuff i've been using up until now has been provided by my school. When i went to a certain store that rhymes with "Bichael's" to see if they had clay, i found a few lovely boxes of CLEARLY MARKED "Air Drying" clay. i looked on every surface of the box looking for any warnings that said "hey CPO Mendez, this stuff contains sulfur and will RUIN YOUR LIFE for a day!" and i found no such warning. i even went up to one of the store clerks and double checked, and was assured that it'd be fine for my mold-making!
I'm sure you can see where this is going.
I come out the day after doing the first pour on the Covenant carrier, and peel the clay off to find THIS:
Now, it didn't show up very well on my camera, but basically about 40% of the mold was this sticky, gooey, completely unusable sludge. which is what happens when SMOOTH-ON PRODUCTS COME INTO CONTACT WITH SOMETHING CONTAINING SULFUR!
So, after cleaning up and throwing away about $50 of ruined mold (and cleaning off the sticky covenant carrier) i did what any angry consumer does in the 21st century... i got on twitter and publicly whined about it to the official "Bichael's" twitter account.
To make a long story short I have a $25 "Bichael's" gift card not too happy with "Bichael's" anymore...
Rant over.
Update part 2 coming soon!