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[Deadshot]

Phew this WIP thread is plastered in dust, so sorry about leaving it for so long !!!

Hello everyone, apologies if has been such a long time since I have been on the forum for so long, been dealing with a mixture of Foundation Art, finishing my first year of Art college, dealing with personal matters and if I am honest being afraid to approach my own kit. My interests has flopped around a lot for the past year or so, dealing with Warhammer, then Doctor Who and so on and so on, but in the back of my head (more specifically my shelf in my bedroom) I would always look at my chevron decorated bucket and just lament over not not getting back to being a Mando and be with my vode.

So, since I will be having a month or two completely free to do what I want I am going to see about kicking myself up the backside and finally getting back into it all !! First going to start doing some sketching and writing up a to-do list of what I must do. Can't wait to throw myself back into the blasters and beskar !!

[Deadshot]

Ok because my old blaster got the handle and barrel cracked and ripped apart at LFCC a few years ago I thought it was time I created a new one, this time completely by myself with no help from anyone.

I started off sketching a design with the base idea being a heavily modified version of General Grevious's pistol but tooled up to look like a blaster rifle of sorts, since a regular small blaster looks quite comedic in scale to me according to my friends.
Here was the quick sketch I made of what I had in mind at the time.



Here is a very old Grevious pistol toy I had for a few years now, filled with milliput and sanded to be made into a smaller blaster when I was younger, before I cut it apart.



Here is the gun cut apart with the addition of other components. After my last blaster was as I said heavily damaged at a London Con, along with the pressure of Con's now putting more restrictions on props and the like I wanted to make this blaster much lighter so that security wont be too uppity about it like they were about my previous one. Due to this no metal components other than screws or the tiniest of details would be used as well as only using miliput unless needed. The overuse of miliput was the main reason for the blaster's weight due to my mother's partner's insistence on adding MOAR for a solid weight for added realism.
With this self rule in mind I applied miliput to the bare cut sections as thin as possible so that screws can easily be attached for a mechanical fitting, followed with drops of epoxy glue.
The cylindrical white shape in the centre was created using a PVC pipe connector glued to a PVC pipe end both bought from B&Q with a solvent cap glued on top. Screw holes were drilled through so that screws count securely attach the blaster and pipe pieces together securely and with less chances of the parts snapping off.
A small bottom detail of cut 3mm foamex was applied to the bottom of the barrel to cover some old damage to the gun and for a small hand grip of sorts, a small way of breaking the silhouette and making it appear different.  To top off the barrel an old torch connector piece was cut, sanded and glued in place over the tip with a bead of miliput applied all around the bare seam.



Here is the blaster components put together.



Closeup of the barrel handgrip.



Closeup of the barrel tip.



Feels good to get back to it all, Ramon was watching over my shoulder through the entire ordeal with excitement over the thoughts of being my Mando companion again. I am currently on the hunt for large chunky printer cartridges to be used for one or two magazine's on the blaster as well as contemplating whether to add a Sterling submachine gun styled stock on the back made from foamex plated wood, as well as possibly adding a scope.

[Reyn Vok'chi]

Very nice bud, looking great 

[Deadshot]

More work has been done to the blaster with the addition of a small bar along the blaster barrel with a modified printer cartridge attached to the right side to act as the blaster's magazine. Small details were added to give detail to the magazine more chunkiness and star wars feel, like the real sterling machine gun.



Another addition that is currently in the work is a scope to the top. Made from half of a Tesco kid's bubblesword glued with a cut off section of a pressure hose nozzle it will be attached in place using small pvc rods drilled into the scope and gun, then glued in place. However with just two rods it will need more detail to make it fit better but I will work this detail out after I finish attaching it.

[Talos Kot]

looking good     nice use of greeblies

[Deadshot]

Ok so attaching the scope !!

I drilled one hole in the bottom of the scope and inserted a cut PVC rod into the scope, this will act as a solid support to keep the scope in place.



A platform made of foamex and detailed with ABS plastic plates was glued under the scope to add detail and look like the scope platform. Once it was created miliput was used to finish off and fill in any unwanted gaps and left to dry.

Here are pics of the scope now attached to the blaster.





Closeup Shots















I am really pleased with the current results, now I got to work on the stock which I have an idea for. When I was idling in B&Q like you usually do I found some cheap £1 wooden shelving supports that scaled well against me if it was modified a little and used as a stock. My plan is to attach a piece of wood to the support, pushing it into the back of the blaster after a few cuts and plating the wood with plasticard and foamex to hide the wood. This should make the stock solid and look star warsy.

Going to attempt the stock tomorrow so take care vod !!

[Reyn Vok'chi]

lovely detailed work, can't wait to see this project finished 

[Deadshot]

lovely detailed work, can't wait to see this project finished 

Thanks Reyn, going to be looking into working on it more tomorrow morning

[Deadshot]

After the armour party last weekend with some help thanks to Tak'ur creating templates I got to work today on tracing, cutting, sanding and heat forming replacement plates. The main plates requiring replacement being my horrendous backplate that loved to levitate on my back and my collar plate that was not to the correct size.

Here are the starting results of the collar and back plate that will segmented for comfort and ease.







The backplate is far from complete although I feel its already an improvement than  the old one, especially since the shoulder curving sections snapped off on the original backplate.

[Dha'werd]

hello vod, amazing that you continue the work, the collar plate looks better. 
 
good luck

regards

[Deadshot]

hello vod, amazing that you continue the work, the collar plate looks better. 
 
good luck

regards

Thanks Dha'werd,

 while I am constantly feeling like my work is horrifically inadequate to be of any worth yet its good to hear people's support.

Speaking of the collar plate however I do have some bad news.... While heat forming the ab plates and tweaking with the collar plate one of the shoulder bits decided to snap during the heat process ( Was my fault, shouldn;t have been distracted for a second). Was a bit gutted but what can you do. I  cut out, sanded and heat formed a new one though it it isn't as nice in shape as the previous one.

Broken collar plate above the new but less impressive bottom plate.


Tried it out alongside the heated ab plates, it looks ok although I constantly kept feeling like I wasn't going to get it right, heating, bending, heating, bending over and over but I still feel it is inadequate. Here are pictures though...




Probably doesn't help too that the bacon sandwich stomach makes it look worse to me hehe....

[Fenn Beviin]

Collar plate is looking pretty good! For the thumb width spacing you might need to increase the angle from the center to the shoulder tabs but that could just be the angle at which the picture was taking. Also, don't worry vod I feel as though a lot of us are in the same boat and feel as though our work isn't of much worth at times. However, keep trucking along. You are doing well and the more you work on your kit the more you will learn and the more you will be able to tweak your kit to get it just to where you want it.

[Hik'aari]

Your new collar is looking good. Much better width than the last one. The shaping on it looks good and looks to be smooth across your torso. You are going to want to try and smooth out the top edges of your chest plates to match now, especially the outer edge of the left one. It looks like a finger would go under there which is too much.

Your paintwork is superb, good use of weathering and clearly thought about.

Your backplate piece is about 4-6" too low for how the design is intended to be used.



That central W shape is actually designed to be a rear neck guard. In the image above you can see the W shape has completely disappeared as you only see the central piece once done, as the tabs go over the shoulders.

You do require a second person to heat shape it though

• Heat up that central area and then push and shape it onto the back of the neck with the whole backplate at a 40degree angle or so
• Heat each side of the shoulders and form the plate around your back curve and over the shoulders
• Heat and shape the lower half of the plate down your back.

You then end up with a completely curved backplate. The tabs coming over the shoulders should be intentionally large so once shaped they can be cut back into shape.

[Deadshot]

The backplate has always confounded me but now I know what I have to do, thanks Hik'aari !! Sadly I wont be able to work on it due to not having a pair of helping hands until weekend but I will continue to work on the rest of my armour.

I was unable to post yesterday's progress due to having trouble's with Photobucket but after the breast plates have been frustrating me over and over I decided to create a brand new pair to see how they would fare compared to my already painted pair. A problem that I noticed while heating parts of my armour was that my tabard was shaped for me when I was shorter and slightly wider with the velcro strips holding the plates in place not correct anymore, making placing the plates correctly slightly frustrating. Another problem I found with my tabard was due to the urgency of the previous parts to be built for my first troop a rounded sheet of very thin plastic was stuck inside to keep the plates at a straight matched angle. While this worked well with my previous body shape, now it only hindered the shape of my armour to what it should be, so I removed all the velcro from the chest section, took out the plastic sheet inside and heat formed these new breast plates.
One problem I also discovered was to do with my collar plate, the bottom section was not equal in length so I shaved one side to become equal to the other for a better fit.

Here are some images of them, if in the image they look a little off keep in mind they are held in place with double sided sticky tape that constantly moved and shifted around  which caused constant frustration when attempting to take photos, worsened due to the fact I don't have a second pair of hands to take the photos currently.



The centre sections of the breast plates were also flattened on a table slightly during the heating process, I felt it helped fit the contours of my chest with a few more small bends for a snug fit. The new chest diamond was done for fun with scrap foamex and plasticard but I think it looks nice.

[Deadshot]

Here are pics of the gut plate cut sanded and made to roughly fit the spacing between the plates. It has been maddening working on these chest plates to say the least. The double sided tape popping off, curves going wrong, heating one bit only for another to pop up. Been worrying over and over to get these plates to OM standard while also hoping to get it ready for Cardiff Comic Con coming soon.