Sci-Fi Combat Armour & other things.....

[Lord Cypher]

Hi guys!

Thanks for the comments on the gorilla. I really enjoyed doing him. Evilivo - yeah...KitKat fingers! Thats me rushing & being lazy!! No excuse!

It's been months since my last post. Once again work has taken me away from home & my desk.....& my cat which means that i havent been able to do much more to the Dredd figure (since my last update) due to being a couple hundred miles away spending the last month or so crawling around on a dirty workshop floor getting hot & itchy moulding 60 grands worth of sports car. More details on that particular job to come in a future post. I've now been given a new job to do so i aint gonna be going home for at least another 2 weeks yet!
However, before being summoned to the capital i was able to sculpt the heads of the two perps as well as start refining Dredd's helmet & face. As i worked on the helmet the original face started to look a bit weird & wonky due to the slight snarl i'd given him so i basically ended up re-sculpting the face again & aged him a bit & have started to give him a more Greg Staples look.....i think!
As for the two perps: the head of the guy under Dredd's boot pretty much speaks for itself whereas with the other dude i decided to go for a bit of dark humour. So due to the fact that he's been essentialy beaten unconscious by a no nonsense Dredd he's not got too many teeth left & has a severely dislocated jaw, as well as a nice pair of impact related cracked goggles. Im toying with the idea of adding some gory, smashed teeth onto Dredd's Daystick when i get to making it.....but we'll see.
I've also started reworking parts of Dredds body as after sculpting two bodies for the perps i found myself being two bodies better......if that makes sense?! So i could see areas of Dredd that were not working that i hadnt noticed before. And thats about it really for Dredd at the moment so hopefuly when i get back home i can jump in & try & get him done before i die of old age! But then theres the slight problem of the fact that i also started work on a new sculpt of a Vindicare Assassin from Warhammer 40,000 based on some wicked artwork i first saw years ago & always wanted to make! But youre gonna have to wait for him.................
In the meantime check out the photos & also some footage i forgot i had. Listen carefuly & you'll hear me groan as i realise that as i rotate the turntable the armature standing in for the daystick is too close to the wall & is twisting Dredd's hand off! Oh well....he's still a work in progress so im not too precious at this stage & theres alot of manhandling to come yet!!

Take it easy & thanks for looking

[Cryminysakes]

Amazing amazing - Im blown away... more please

[Lord Cypher]

Hello again,

Still away from home so i've not been able to do any Dredd yet, which is getting a bit frustrating! Instead i'll show you what i got up to eariler this year.
Back in March i was asked to design & build two working props for the Ironman 2 Stark Expo viral marketing campaign. I'd already posted about this but was asked to remove it all but now it's ok...............i think!!!
The first prop was a robotic arm & the second was a "sonic fire extinguisher" & by the time i got the official greenlight i had 2 weeks to build them both. I'd already done some research & development of my own over the previous week, just to mull over ideas really, which turned out to save me invaluable time.
So first up is the sonic fire extinguisher. This was based on the understucture of Ironmans forearm but rather than have a repulsor in the palm it was to be replaced with a miniature sonic cannon (developed from the larger ones in the newest hulk film). First off i made a really rough mockup from cardboard that i was able to chop & change till i had a design i was happy with. I drew up templates from the rough card model & produced a more refined, neater model from foamboard which was then shown to the director so he could ok it. Obviously the actual prop would need to be made from something a bit more durable than foamboard so i used foam pvc which is great as it comes in various thicknesses & if you heat it up you can bend & form it, once cooled it stays rigid & strong. I've got a mate who has a laser cutter in his garage which would be ideal for getting the pieces cut with...well, laser precision! I spent a night drawing up the templates in photoshop so that the files could be uploaded into his laser & then the pieces cut.
By the time i got the foam pvc pieces i'd already built, taken apart & rebuilt this particular model several times in card & foamboard so it only took me about 20 minutes to have the pieces formed & bolted together. The wires & cables are ripped from the innards of a long dead PC. The lights are electro luminescent cord that are great & cost less than a fiver! I got two lengths of the cord & it was wrapped around the model. The power supply clips onto your belt which is handy. The actual sonic cannon part is just a little speaker that i got from an electronics store. If i'd had more time i would have liked to scratch build one that more resembled the big cannons from the hulk. Im not happy with the paint job as the metallic paint i coloured it with doesnt look metallic in my opinion. I also kind of prefer the more angular foamboard version (which actually made it into the final ad as a cgi image on the screens behind the lecturer). All in all i'm happy with it though.





Next up was the HazzTech Exo-Skelton. This was to be a full arm that an actor could wear & move around. As before i made made a rough understructure from card then foamboard. Though tis would serve no structural purpose it enabled me to get my head around how the thing would work & also doubled as formers for me to sculpt onto. It was to be loosely based on Ironmans arm so i kept the upper arm & shoulder relatively the same as the original whilst not being exact replicas & the forearm is based on the forearm of the Assassin i did a couple of pages back! i only had 3 days to sculpt it all so the finish is'nt as perfect as i'd like but they do the job. I then made silicone moulds backed with plaster (normally i'd make fibreglass jackets but i was doing this in my bedroom & theres no way i was going to fibreglass inside the house!! Silicone & plaster is bad enough!). The completed moulds where taken to a mates garage where i then cast out fibreglass pieces. These were cleaned up & assembled. I cut the sleeve off an old top & attached it inside & brake cables were added inbetween the elbow gap.......dont be fooled just cos it's Ironman 2 - this was proper no budget stuff to be made as cheaply & quickly as possible! The one thing i didnt have time to do properly was the glove. It was meant to be all encasing but remain totally dextrous. Obviously this is quite hard to the point where 99% of the time whenever you see Ironman using his hands in the films they're cgi hands. So i never had much chance of accomplishing this with not enough time or money. The director decided that they would just replace the hand with a cgi one (just like in the films) & then they eventually just ended up replacing the whole arm! It's cool though & i wasnt really bothered by it. If i, like the film makers, had the choice of plastic robo arm made in 10 days or the actual cgi model from the film then i'd have done the same! The trick is with all this stuff is to do your best to make the coolest thing you can within the many boundaries you'll have but also not get too attached to it as at the end of the day it's not yours! You have to be able to switch off & hand it over. I've yet to meet anyone working in film that does'nt think that something they've done could have been a billion times better if they'd just been allowed to do it! But then thats why you go home & make your own stuff.........such as a Judge Dredd. I'll stick a couple of pics of him up but theres nothing much new to see. Just the new heads on the bodies really.
Anyway, till next time heres the link to the HazzTech arm (does anyone know how i can embed the videos onto the thread rather than putting up links? I've tried but cant get it t work!!).






Thanks for looking

[jaroldsng]

aw man, your works are slick, nice clean molds for the arm pieces, awesome pose and gesture aswell for the judge dredd. love your thread, there's so much variety.

[jdeegz]

oh my goodness!

thank you for that amazing reply Cypher!
A wealth of knowledge is on this site indeed. I truly appreciate you sharing with me, and everyone else here.

[Brian.May]

This is some badass work you've got going on!!

[VulgarDragon]

To put insert your videos, you type in "yt" (enclosed in brackets) and then the id number of the video, and then "/yt" (enclosed in brackets).

Hope that helps. By the way, your work is really cool! It would be great if you could team up with a group of robot engineers and make a real iron man suit!

[Lord Cypher]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the comments. Special thanks to VulgarDragon for the youtube advice - as you may notice i've now replaced the links with the actual videos! I'm sure i'll have more to come in the near future!
jdeegz - no worries dude. I'm glad to be able to help whenever i can!
Well i'm back home (hopefuly not for too long!) & due to my PC dying this morning i've had to go out & get a new laptop which has resulted in me having to sort through loads of old stuff. So i figured that as i have no new updates yet i'd delve into the archives & show you some polysculpting as i've only got the pics of the big rugby ball on here. Sculpting in polystyrene, or polybashin' as it's also known, is great fun & really gives you a chance to get really stuck in & in some cases can provide you with a great workout!
First up is a life size Blue Whale tail that was made for National Geographic & put in the serpentine in Hyde Park as an april fools stunt (& also to advertise their new season of Whale related programmes). It took 3 of us 3 days to sculpt & then a day to cover in foil to act as a barrier for the fibreglass that went on top the next day. I think they spent a day on the paint job but i wasnt involved with that.
Next is a totem that i did for a kids theme park that never got used as it was deemed a bit too disturbing. Cant think why! Theres also a snake head that ended up being motorised & attached to a body. The head of the sculpting department had already made one that i had to copy.....so as you can see he basicaly ripped off jungle book!
Then theres some christmas scenery that was made for shopping centres. I photographed the arches in their poly & painted stages (we set them up wrong!! Didnt ruin anyones christmas though). Unfortunatly the arches were then subjected to the props woman who spent the night vommiting christmas tat all over them & some "animatronic" wizard bears were added to finish the look......which wasnt a good one! I've got video evidence of it that i'll put up once i've sorted all this new laptop stuff.
Finally are some nice little houses that we made for another shopping centre. We made a whole little village that was populated by little gnomes. I've never really been able to enjoy christmas since!

Thanks for looking

[Berzerkin' Ape]

Your work is just awesome. Can't make it any clearer.

How did you get the light you attached to the arm blinking?

~Berzerkin' Ape

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

I've got a mate who has a laser cutter in his garage which would be ideal for getting the pieces cut with...well, laser precision! I spent a night drawing up the templates in photoshop so that the files could be uploaded into his laser & then the pieces cut.

Lasering Foamex? I heard that PVC is corrosive and fucks the laser?

(It's also rather toxic... but then what isn't )


Excellent work though - all of it. Thanks for posting, keep it up

[Lord Cypher]

Berzerkin' Ape - The power supply for the electro luminescent cord had a dial on it that lets you alter the current. So you can either have it permanently on (which is what they went for on the day of filming) or at varying degrees of......err blinkyness!

DuneFishUK - yeah the foamex is pretty unpleasant when it wants to be! Dont know much about it fucking up lasers! The guy who did it didnt mention anything & ive not had him ring me up crying about his broken laser so i guess its ok! Though as you can see from the below footage he sent me its probably not too good for the environment!

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

I did a quick google (I do get told stuff by clueless people sometimes) and it seems that PVC may-or-may-not produce hydrochloric acid when you laser it, which is probably the source of what I've been told. I can't find anything definite without more digging though.

Either way, it sounds like you got away with it

[Berzerkin' Ape]

Thanks for that Lord Cypher!

Keep it up, can't wait to see more!

~Berzerkin' Ape

[dawgbowen]

DREDD looks fantastic!!!! Just keeps getting better and better! I do hope you contact someone about ''kitting'' this. It's just too damn good to only be one of a kind!!! I would so love to get one and paint it up! Best Dredd ever, IMO!!!!

[Lord Cypher]

Hey guys,

It's been a long time. I've been busy with some interesting jobs lately, hence my absence from the forum. I wont be able to talk about my last job until sometime next year so till then i'll show you what i was up to over the summer.
I was part of a four man team that moulded a sports car for a Shell oil commercial.....i cant remember what kind of car it was as it was a while ago now & im not into cars! All i do know is the car we moulded was worth about 60 grand but that didnt stop us from destroying it. The idea was to have a completely transparent car that allows you to see the oil working inside. We spent about 6 weeks moulding the various parts in fibreglass & from those moulds we produced fibreglass casts, or "Tools" as they were called, which were then used to make clear vac-form pieces. There were about 20 other people involved in assembling the car & building the various other parts. I didnt really get a chance to take any photos of the moulding but i did manage to get a pic of the finished car. Luckily the ad is on youtube along with a brief "making of".



And now back to Dredd. Obviously inbetween work & moving house Dredd fell by the wayside for a bit so not much has changed. I have managed to finish his head & the perps heads along with Dredds eagle & shoulder pad. Theyre pretty much ready to mould so i'll be getting on with that over the next day or so. Ive attached them to bases & have added risers so when i come to inject the resin into the moulds i can be sure that it's getting into all the nooks & crannys.
A few people have expressed interest in wether or not i'll be kitting him. I really dont know to be honest......for a start i need to buy more silicone for moulding as theres 3 18 inch figures to do so that wont be happening for a while yet. Also theres the whole licensing issue. Im aware that sometimes companies turn a blind eye to stuff like this so it could be ok........besides if i got grief from whoever "owns" Dredd i'd just ask them to give me a job as they would obviously deem my work good enough to be giving me grief in the first place! Ontop of that i have no idea how much i would sell a Dredd kit for.....he wouldnt be cheap! How much would you guys think he'd be worth?
Anyway, thats a long way off yet but he'll get done eventually! Also theres still the small matter of a Vindicare Assassin i started a bit ago that needs my attention. Now, i think i can safely say that if i started selling Vindicare Assassins then Games Workshop would not be impressed at all. Theyre quite protective.
Right, im off. Take it easy

[Lord Cypher]

Hey guys me again,

Its been a while (as usual). Today ive got some pics of one of the perps from Judge Dredd. He's about 95% finished i just need to add some final little details & sort out the handcuffs which i'll do when i take him apart for moulding. Ive also cast out a Dredd head & eagle as well as the head for the perp. So, only one more perp & Dredd to sculpt then i can see about moulding & casting. Hopefuly i'll have him done some time this year......and all the other projects i'll have going on!

Cheers,

Michael

[Bongsplat]

Hi LC

dude this is looking awesome! I really cant wait to see it finished! the details are spot on.

it looks huge! I love the fluid look to the perps, great action shot! seriously nice!!

[Evilivo]

Great, love it! So much dynamics in the poses and the facial expressions are killer!

[shader]

Hy,
I have a same problem, I try to find sponsors to my works...
Your works are really great i think you will find your way!

This toothpick technique is really intrested!Could you show me the final mold? Is this a two parts mold? How demold it?

[thewaaagh]

Nice adeptus mechanicus T-shirt you got there also outstanding sculptures

[Lord Cypher]

Hi there,

Thanks for the comments. As always theyre much appreciated.

Shader - The toothpicks are used as risers so that when the resin was poured into the mould i could be sure that it had filled entirely....i probably went a bit overboard with them on Dredd's head but i figured it was better to be safe than sorry. It was just a single piece "block" mould that i cut down the back making it easier to get a solid piece out without too much fuss from any seams. I havent got a picture but i'll take one & put it up here next time.

The Waaagh - thanks, it was a present from my ex girlfriend....when she wasnt my ex! She's not into 40k.

Bongsplat - Hey dude. Thanks for the comments man. Dredd measures 18 inches tall & the Perps are around 17 and a half inches (if they were standing!) as i figured Dredd would probably be a bit taller than an average guy in the real world. I was going to do the perps at 16 or 17 inches but that was too small & it looked like Dredd was beating up some children! So yeah he's pretty big.....but no where near anything like what im doing right now...........

I've always wanted to do Batman & i felt like having a go at something that i could really get stuck into after the relatively fiddly business of 18 inch figures! So i grabbed an old life cast from my house mate & got some clay & have set about sculpting a Simon Bisley inspired Bat Bust! He was always going to be life size but i figured that if im doing a Bisley Batman then i may as well beef it up a bit. So he's just slightly bigger than a real life man but not quite as mental as Bisley's proportions. Ive gone for a happy medium using my favourite parts of various Bisley Batmen & interpreting that into what works in 3 dimensions without going all out.......he'd be absolutely massive otherwise. As it is he got too big for my little sculpting room & is currently dominating the dining room. I also chickened out on the ears & made them a bit smaller.....but theyre still pretty big! I took a pic of him with the universal instrument of scale....a can of coke.
Ive spent about roughly 2 days on it so far & he's starting to come together nicely. I love using clay as its fast to work with. He needs tightening up in places & still awaits his cape & all important Bat insignia. Moulding him is going to be fun! Check him out & thanks for looking.

Cheers guys

[Mull]

amazing work from the start mate, looking forward to more updates

[Lord Cypher]

Hey guys,

Got a bit more done to Batman today. Tomorrow i'll give him a cape.

Thanks for looking

[Jped2D]

WOW! i wish I could say more but every single one of your posts amazes me :] I particularly interested in the Iron Man prop armour. Can't wait to see some more, keep it up!

[Lord Cypher]

Hello again,

Thanks Jped2D. The Iron Man props were certainly fun to do....shame they replaced the arm with a CG one. Oh well, thats show business
Right. Heres Batman with a cape. Tomorrow is moulding day. Joy of Joys!

Thanks for looking

[Mah ' Crub]

Very cool...very, very cool ... I love the batman...my little brother and i used to read every frayed, and dog-eared copy of the Batman comics we could get our hands on, and found him to be a true American hero...no super powers or stuff like that...just wicked clever and a strong core strength,
took me back several decades...nice work...all the other stuff is killer too. But the bat made me gasp... hi five to you.
Oh...and I read about your ex. Yeah , it's tough when you find out that they are more about the money than the honey...but don't despair..."there are lot of good women who wants to marry, and they wants to live well at home"
Truth is ...they are a lot of work, and very expensive...

Mah ' Crub

[troyboy]

Wow Michael! Everything is just brilliant and so much fun to look at.
That Judge Dread piece is absolutely sick!! Man, that is going to be so
freakin' cool when it's all wrapped up. Awesome as always dude.

[Pavel Sokov]

Batman is solid, but I absolutely can't wait to see Judge Dred finished!

[aadi]

Thats awesome work cool stuff i like how to concept you made and puts on clay that is wonder fulll

[aadi]

pll tell me how is my work and how can i learn more art
my blog is
http://zakir.khaan.blostpot.com