SleepyOni: DIY Foam Sword!

 

 

Wherein I made an external phone battery look like a microfusion cell from Fallout 4, because I am nerd.

SleepyOni: X-Wing Helmet Part 2

SleepyOni: X-Wing Helmet Part 1 - Construction

SleepyOni: Devil Puppet! Part 2 - Detailing

SleepyOni: Devil Puppet! Part 1 -Fabrication

SleepyOni: Charlie The Funland Robot!

SleepyOni: Jangles The Moon-Monkey

Full-size Jangles prop, anyone?

R2-R9: Part The First

Being the nerd that I am, I've always wanted to have an R2 of some variety.  Seeing as I now have a shop, and it needed a suitably ridiculous trashcan, the plan was set.

Started things with wood scraps left over from building my workbenches.  I had been collecting reference for r2 unit dimensions for a while; mine is pretty close to actual size.  Ended up being the correct diameter, but an inch'n a half too tall (or will be, once the dome is complete).  As always, I'm much more interested in something having the right vibe than being super-accurate.  Split the body into 2 sections just to make sure I had a lot of material built up to attach the legs to.

 Loosely skinned the base with fairly thick plastic sheet to give the foam something to adhere to over the entire surface, then skinned the cylinder with foam. Drew out my reference marks & started super-glueing cut styrene sheet in the appropriate spots.  Used a couple different thicknesses; all from plastic signage bought at Lowe's(cheaper than buying sheet styrene).  Used a double-layer of foam on the leg connectors, wrapped around short sections of super-sturdy cardboard tube, which was then all glued in.  Cut the holes for leg connections, each is a short piece of plumbing pipe with a flange at either end.  Flanges to be screwed into the interior of the cylinder and into the inside of each leg.

Glued more scraps together for the legs, cut the top curve on the bandsaw, and proceeded to skin 'em in foam  Left 'em long, wasn't sure of the final length needed since I didn't know what angle the legs would be placed at.  More foam, more bits added.

   Above pic on the right: can see the yellow plastic I used to cover up the ridiculous gouges I put in the foam while attempting a different type of cylinder attachment.  Looked super-dodgy before paint, but evened out really well overall.  Also, in the bottom right of that shot you can see the base woodblock+pvc pipe structure that goes on the inside of each foot.  I chose to forgo the cables linking that part of the feet to the legs.  Coated all the foam in multiple layers of watered-down pva glue, with lots of fine sanding in-between coats, followed by a thorough layer of plasti-dip.  Also set the angle of the legs & permanently attached feet.

 On to paint!  Covered the whole thing with 2 cans of a darkish red plastic-friendly spray paint.  Followed that with detail painting...other colors are silver and white, which created their own set of problems.

  The other colors were all hand-painted...and they all needed multiple coats.  I think it was 5 coats for the white, followed by 2 layers of black undercoat for the metal bits, then FINALLY the metals.  Which also took several coats.  I was anxious to get the base colors done, because then I got to make a huge mess distressing it all.  Discovered that given the color scheme, my distressing options were a bit limited, had to stick to much darker hues overall.  But I did manage to get some battery-acid-style leaks in a couple spots, and the panel lines popped out better than I was expecting.

So there we go.  My 1st attempt at the dome was a complete failure, attempt #2 was much better but still a little wonky.  I may just go ahead and finish the dome as it is.  We'll see.  I don't think I'll really be able to do better and still make it out of foam (which was part of the point of this exercise; to push what I know how to do with this material).  Dome/lid mechanism will be part of the second installment.

Mjolnir finished

Finished this in early June, just got around to putting the images together.  My first few bona fide freelancer gigs have been (and continue to) kick my ass.  Fair warning:  boring photo's incoming.

I ended up applying many more coats of plasti-dip than I anticipated; totally fine, kinda wanted to test the limit of how many coats v. loss of details.  Also, wanted it to be sturdy enough to whack unsuspecting visitors without the paint cracking.  That means a fairly thick, flexible undercoat.

Started off paint with a darker steel, applied by brush in 3 cross-coats to minimize visible brush strokes.  Followed that up with a lighter silver coat, selectively applied to avoid the recesses.

Worked in various blues, greens, browns, and yellows to dirty it up.  I'll admit it, making a huge mess distressing it was fun.  Followed that with another highlight pass of the silver.

Additionally, I painted woodgrain on both ends of the handle and on the top of the hammer.  Had no clue what I was doing, but I think it turned out alright.

  Next up was wrapping the handle.  Used some old cracked leather cut into two 1.5" strips.  Got those glued in and added two leather rings at the top & bottom to hide the ends.  Only problem:  leather was a weird olive green color.  Painted the leather with a few different colors and sealed the whole thing.  Ta-daaa!  One Mjolnir, hand made of foam and lightweight, but still sturdy enough to smack somebody upside the head.
I had planned to attach a leather thong (a la Marvel's version), but neglected to build anything to actually attach it to in the inner structure.  Could have used my super-industrial glue maybe, but i would much rather that be attached structurally.  Missed the opportunity.

...and while I was waiting on glue coats/plasti-dip/paint to dry, started this:

Having just set up my workshop, I have a lot of scrap materials lying about.  Decided to make the world's nerdiest trashcan enclosure.  Will be painted up as R2R9, one of the red R2 units.  I'm sticking really close to the actual measurements in terms of size, so this will just look like a slapdash R2 in the corner of the workshop.  Lots more to do.

...and now for something completely different...

This spring I've been working on our workshop - drywall, paint, and building workbenches.  I am not a handy fellow, so it's been a comedy of errors the whole way.  Any time not spent on drawing/MWMag has been spent in the workshop for the last couple months.

So as soon as MWMag went live on kickstarter, I started a new thing in the workshop.  I've always wanted a 1950's-working-man's version of Mjolnir (yes, really).  I've seen so many amazing builds made from EVA foam, and i had never worked with it myself.  There we go: new project!

I decided to make the entire thing outta foam...this is basically one huge block of it.  Used some styrene tube I had leftover for interior support.  Photo above is the pieces before assembly.  The striking surfaces, the main block (2 pieces), and the handle are all separate.  Handle has styrene rod running the length of it, and the foam of the handle continues into the main block.

Cut channels into the two halves of the main block with a dremel, then packed in some apoxysculpt (air-cure putty/sculpting material.  Cures solid, great stuff) before final glue.  Added cross-supports to the styrene rod...this combined with the apoxysculpt means the handle will not be moving inside that foam block, either side-to-side or to fall out.  What I didn't plan well was the handle support rod....the styrene is too flexible, and there's space inside for it to move.  Makes the whole thing wobbly.

Basic assembly - handle secured, striking surfaces and main block permanently attached.  As with so many of my projects, this is all an experiment, and there isn't a single angle on this that is correct.  But it has the right sort of look, so I'm still pleased.  As a bonus, I now understand how to correctly level and square my hand-me-down bandsaw.  Viva la progress,

I added a collar ring at the handle/main block juncture, added a handle extension on the top of the block, and heat-pressed a manufacturing logo on the side.  Had a custom rubber stamp made of my design, worked out...okay.  I'll be changing some things if'n I do this again, but it's great for a first attempt.

"Brokkr & Sindri MFG" being the foundry of the two dwarves who made mjolnir, naturally.  Please excuse the scorchmarks...heating this large an area was a bit of a challenge.

Two light coats of watered-down pva glue followed by two heavier/thicker coats, followed by 320-grit sanding, followed by specific planes getting multiple heavier coats to fill gaps (where the 1/2 inch-thick layers of foam began to separate from heat), and here we are.  Have some more planes to recoat, then will follow with another fine sanding, cleaning, then a few layers of plasti-dip and paint.

Halloween '09 & Fwank

So for Halloween last year, Jen'n I decided to actually host our own party. Since our house is decorated for the holiday year-round, the only big thing to accomplish was costumes. I opted for Troll. Giant foam head, built-up shoulders & torso, giant foam axe...and then I got the flu. After being laid up for several days, this is all I had going into the party. But it worked...and I still really like the fact that I managed to build it to look like my drawings. This photo taken by Fwank @ gamenight; brought the head along so's the crew could laugh at it.

This photo is also @ gamenight, with me looking inexplicably smug while preparing to eat a tasty roast beef sandwich. And Zach in the background wearing the aforementioned troll head. Yes, we are nerds.

Ladies and Germs...

So Jen and I were hired by a local ad agency to make some foam costumes, in a rather tight timeframe. Had a blast, it was a highly entertaining project. I didn't even freak out until the last day, when the sheer mass of "things we didn't have time to finish" started pushing me under. But it's cool.

Honestly, folks, how often do you get invited to make foam germ costumes?! Not often enough, I'll wager.

Ad campaign here.