The Long Journey

[Stygmatah]

Hi everyone. I'm all shiny and new as of yesterday to this forum.

I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself a little first.

I'm Adam and I come from Tasmania, Australia. I've been surfing this site for a few weeks now and soaking up all the goodness and knowledge which in turn got me interested in making my own pieces. I don't feel confident yet to make molds and scuplt from scratch although I have no doubt that will be a progressive step, so for now I'm doing pep.

I started on a hi-def left forearm from robogenesis. I printed it out yesterday and after an hour or so of cutting, an hour or so of scoring and an hour or so of gluing, it's done and I'm quite happy with the result.

I made an Iron Man helm to start out as my first ever pep piece and I used contact PVC glue which I found not only got me high and gave me a headache, it took forever to dry. I tried hot glue today and WOW! what a difference. It literally went together in no time at all and all those tricky little folds were so easy to glue. Literally 3 seconds of compression time and it was set. I'm in love with my glue gun now. There's a spot of info for first timers. Makes pepping so much easier in the long run.

Here are a few pics. Would love any constructive feedback. The Iron Man helm is wrong (and I know it), I got the scale of the helmet piece and faceplate wrong. I still like it for a first effort and my 4 year old son loves it to bits. He wants me to build him a scaled down version which I'll do sometime. (props to callmemilo from another forum for the Iron Man pep)

Oh and the Vicks in the background is because right now I'm sick as a dog. If I wasn't still alive I'd call it swine flu Haha.

 

[TheSpartanMjolnir]

What did it feel like getting high? Lol, dang PVC glue, you know what that stands for

p=People

V= Ventilate

C= Cats


That right you're getting high off a cat. Lol. I like the folds on the forearm piece, very clean. The iron man look a liitle rough on the sides of the top head part.


If you're not sure that you have swine flu, check here


www.doihaveswineflu.org

TSM

 

[Stygmatah]

Thanks dude. All I can say is with that model plane glue is that I got all light headed and the next thing I knew I had a massive headache right in between my eyes not pleasant, and as you can see from the Iron Man helm, it's terrible glue for sticking really, and those flappy bits are where I haven't bothered to doctor it yet. The faceplate is too small for the rest of the piece. I need to get out my scalpel and hot glue and do some surgery.

PS I don't own a cat.......I use the neighbours It goes home all sniffed out.

 

[Carpathia]

I've always been partial to white glue. It's made for paper projects, so it bonds the cardstock very well IMO. I haven't tried hot glue yet, but I can imagine it would work great as well. I just have a nasty habit of singing my fingers with the glue gun, but maybe I'll give it a try some day.

Anyway, welcome to the forum. Your peping looks great, very clean folds and good construction overall. I can't wait to see more from you.

 

[JEDI THERON]

G'Day Adam! Welcome to the 405th family. I like super glue myself. I get a kick out of glueing my fingers together or to anything else close by....lol. Your forearm piece looks great. I think if you used a little imagination you could convert your Iron Man helmet into a Gears of War Locust, but I could be wrong. You don't have to listen to me I tend to ramble on.......Keep up the great work can't wait to see more.

 

[Stygmatah]

Hey guys thanks for the kind words.

...and you're right I could perhaps transform it into a locust. Wouldn't take too much effort although my little boy would be devastated. Every time I sit down to fiddle with the pepakura it's "Is that my Iron Man helmet you're doing now?".

I haven't tried super glue yet. I always seem to ruin perfectly good tubes/bottles before I get much use out of them. I did laugh earlier today however after reading on here about the different types of glues used that hot glue is fantastic if you can put up with the burns...I was sitting there thinking how fantastic I was using hot glue and how everyone on here who complained about burns must be a pack of 5 year old girls when I got a hot blob out of a freshly charged gun and GRRAARRGHHH! one nicely burnt thumb. Soon put me back in my place, haha

 

[ryoon4690]

Excellent pieces. My friend is also doing ironman. What kind of glue are you using cuz that forearm looks extremely clean?

 

[Razzah]

Crazy coincidence, since I started my first Pep yesterday, and I started on this very same piece. Left forearm. Anyway, it looks great so far!

What did you use to score the lines? The folds look very neat.

 

[Yur Ry]

Nice work.
love the iron man helmet
Keep it up

 

[Stygmatah]

Thanks guys.

Everything I have done (not wanting to sound like a total suck, but someone who just listens) is straight from the tutorials in these forums.

I use hot glue now for the joins. Thankfully you can't see right up close because a couple of the joins are not millimetre perfect (I'm a bit of a perfectionist at times). The hot glue rocks compared to other glue I have tried. I won't go back to anything else now.

The scores are done with a fine tipped ball point pen, just a garden variety biro really, but it has to be fine. You can buy them (Mine only says Bic and then N-H-25 so whether hat is a sizing?? It has a dark blue plastic band around the top of the nib). I used a green for the valley folds and a blue for the mountains. I made the mistake early on of using black and blue and couldn't tell them apart once I'd run up and down the line a few times, and there's the secret. Make sure the lines are run up and down quite a few times and with a bit of pressure with a steel ruler pushed hard on the card to stop any movement. The aim as I saw it was to compress the card fibres. Once that was done the folds almost bent themselves with no real loss of integrity. I spent more time on the tabs because I found them the trickiest to fold. Give them some real pressure with the pen and they are so much easier and you get crisp lines and folds.

Hope that helps even a little.

Oh and for the Australian contingent here who are living in the modern age and not in old imperialistic times (namely we use grams and kilos instead of ounces and pounds), I have found an awesome type of cardstock. At Officeworks they have "Yes" brand 190gsm card for about $18.99 a ream (250 sheets=7.5c a sheet). It's marketed as colour copy card, but I have found it is the perfect thickness and quality for pepakura.

 

[Syphon]

The scores are done with a fine tipped ball point pen, just a garden variety biro really, but it has to be fine. You can buy them (Mine only says Bic and then N-H-25 so whether hat is a sizing?? It has a dark blue plastic band around the top of the nib). I used a green for the valley folds and a blue for the mountains. I made the mistake early on of using black and blue and couldn't tell them apart once I'd run up and down the line a few times, and there's the secret. Make sure the lines are run up and down quite a few times and with a bit of pressure with a steel ruler pushed hard on the card to stop any movement. The aim as I saw it was to compress the card fibres. Once that was done the folds almost bent themselves with no real loss of integrity. I spent more time on the tabs because I found them the trickiest to fold. Give them some real pressure with the pen and they are so much easier and you get crisp lines and folds.

im gona have to try that now lol, i had been scoring with a x-acto knife but i would sometimes cut off a tab, or the score would rip from being under pressure after i glued pieces together

the ball-point pen and the multi-color idea is 100% win, im gonna have to add that to my materials list next time i make a run to walmart

oh and nice forearm, looks WAY better that mine do, yours are actually rounded the whole way around

one thing about the hot glue gun tho, i grabbed a cheap low temp gun from walmart ( was like $3 USD) and i have (intentionally, and stupidly) put my fingers in large globs of hot glue when trying to get tabs and folds to line up right. i still have yet to get burned by the glue (now watch me get a 2nd degree burn next time i glue something ) the worst that has happened so far, i got hot glue on my finger straight outa the gun and it hurt like hell for about 30 seconds, but no burns

 

[jholland311]

That IS a great looking forearm and the ball point pen is something I've never thought about. I'm with a few people using the knife to make the folds. I have the next 3 weeks off before I start summer classes so I'm taking time to relax...run...then do some helo pep. Welcome to the forums even though I'm just as new as you are. Hope to see some more great work and I'll post pics when I can.

 

[Razzah]

I'm using red and black ball points for my scores, I just thought yours looked way more clean then mine. Another quick question, did you happen to resize this piece, or did you just print and go? Mine's nearly done, and it looks like it might be far too big.

 

[Stygmatah]

I'm using red and black ball points for my scores, I just thought yours looked way more clean then mine. Another quick question, did you happen to resize this piece, or did you just print and go? Mine's nearly done, and it looks like it might be far too big.

I resized using frizzlefry's resizing tutorial/equation. I tried the piece on and it seems to be working A-OK! I'm 6'2 and close to 100 kilos. That said I'm not fat, just broad through the shoulders and chest so I'll definitely be adding a couple of inches when I rescale those pieces. It says in the following thread link to add a couple of inches. I didn't and found that it looks ok at this stage. I'll reassess as I do later pieces.

Frizzlefry's scaling equation

...and I think the reason my edges look sharp is that I use a steel ruler when I do the lines. Make sure you push down firmly on the ruler to grip the card and also (and I can't stress this enough) do plenty of passes over the line with the pen at a fairly decent pressure so that you can be sure the card fibres are compressed which in turn makes the folded edges sharper. It's all a learning curve for me at the moment but I'm happy to provide what limited advice I can on what I've done/learned so far.

 

[JEDI THERON]

My kids do the same thing to me. My boy is 4 and girl 3 and they both sit at the table with me and ask me if I'm making there helmet. I am going to start there's on monday. We can be a family of ODST's. I would use the hot glue method but I'm not that coordinated and my wife seems to always take my supplies

 

[Stygmatah]

Ha, yeah my son is mad for what I do. He loves watching things take shape. Do try and get a hot glue gun though. I picked mine up at BigW here in Aus for $30 (probably about $20USD). It's a cordless Black and Decker that has a charging stand and some different shaped nozzles and it rocks. Well worth the outlay.

I cut out and just finished scoring and folding my left bicep this evening and man is it detailed. I had to develop a new method of folding using the ruler to get the clean folds in all the right places but it's finally done (only took me about 2 hours), There's a pile of folded pieces sitting there ready to be glued in the morning. I reckon I'll knock it over in under an hour tomorrow and post up some new pics. I'm hoping it'll be even more crisp and detailed than the forearm piece.

If anyone on here knows where to get fibreglassing supplies, bondo equivalents etc in Australia I'd love to know. I mean stores that are nationwide, Bunnings etc. not just specific to a certain region otherwise it may as well be in the US. I went to Mitre 10 and Supercheap today but Supercheap had nothing and Mitre 10 had resin at about $25 for a 200ml tin and hardener. Surely there would be a nationwide chain who sells glass mat and resin cheaper than that. I've done some digging on here but haven't turned up much other than "There's a shop on the corner of Blah St called Blah and speak to Blah he'll sort you out". If I've missed a thread I apologise and a link would be much appreciated.

 

[Stygmatah]

Well here it is and I'm pretty stoked with it. The left bicep (Mjolnir Mk VI [robogenesis hi-def]). An hour to cut out, an hour to score and fold and a little over an hour to glue, man is it detailed. Looking forward to the really fiddly stuff now.

Once again I can't stress how amazingly awesome hot glue is to work with when it comes to doing incredibly intricate sticks. If you're careful and patient, nothing can go wrong. I have one or two joins that Mr. Perfect-Or-Bust here wasn't entirely happy with but all in all I keep reminding myself that they'll eventually be fibreglassed anyway. For now they'll just be displayed until I get around to getting a tin of resin.

Now on to the next piece. Might let my brain have a break with some Rainbow Six Vegas or Halo 3 first though. I reckon at this rate I'll have my entire suit done by next week I wish!!

Has anyone else here had much to do with the Mark VI Mjolnir suit?? Which would they rate the hardest piece?? To me it looks like the chest or the helmet.

Comments welcome and once again if anyone has any questions I'm more than happy to answer them here or PM. Like I've said before, I'm only new to this (this is only my third piece) but if I can help in any way I'm more than happy.

 

[Syphon]

i would have to say you are right, the chest and the helmets are the hardest pieces ( or they were for me)
i did my chest piece last and it was the hardest for me by far, mostly because there were so many little pieces to try and stick together

the biceps look very good tho, just be careful where and how you store them while they are waiting to be resined. i wasnt careful with mine and all the meticulous work i had done was semi undone because the paper warped from the position i had them stored in. it was nothing major, just a little buzz kill because they warped

good work tho, keep it up

 

[Stygmatah]

Thanks mate, I'll remember that. I've already made up a little stand for my Iron Man helmet while I was working on it out of framing pine and PVC electrical conduit. I might make one up for my pieces as they are built. Maybe a 6.5ft length of pine with conduit coming out sort of like a rough mannequin so that my pieces don't get warped. Thanks for the advice. I'd hate to see my pieces lose their integrity.

So you've done the same build then?? Any tips or advice other than the storage?? Did you go gray in the process?? haha

 

[Syphon]

So you've done the same build then?? Any tips or advice other than the storage?? Did you go gray in the process?? haha

lol, i didnt go gray in the process, i might have gotten insomnia for the 3 months it took me to build the whole suit tho

only other advice: take your time, the faster you go, the more likely you are to make mistakes, and the easier it is to not notice them ( i think you know that already tho )

and, when glassing the biceps, i found it easiest to glass the band that goes around your arm first, then do the other parts of it
and when doing the forearms, i found it easiest to use long vertical strips running from top to bottom rather than going horizontal

hope that helps, lemme know if ya need any pics to clarify what im talking about ( i suck at verbal descriptions)

also,not wanting to hijack your thread, but here is a link to my build if ya wanna check it out
Clicky