And another day of progress. It’s really nice being able to see each time how far we’ve come, I’m amazed that we’ve been able to work this fast.
The RX-78-2 is really starting to take shape now, especially with the entire waist segment and torso completed. Can’t wait to slap some blue and red paint on there.
A main focus of today’s work was getting the arms done. We basically figured they’d be tissue boxes wrapped around the arm, but my colleague also bought up the issue of having actual articulation with them strapped on.
He went ahead and carved the arms to form two 45 degree angles, adding up to a total 90 degree bend. About as good as your standard 1/144 HG articulation, so we were satisfied.
The biggest challenge of designing this suit of cardboard armor is how all the stuff will attach onto a human body, as I mentioned in the Phase 2 post before.
A huge list of ideas was compiled, including just having the arm armors sit loosely on the body, using mini belt-buckles, velcro, and the like. In the end though, we ended up going with a sliding mechanism; basically my comrade’s arm will slide in through the carved out holes, then the bottom part will be sealed with a piece of cardboard that slides in and secures everything together.
It’s actually a really good system, as it turns out. The holes fit his arm snugly and everything is very secure, despite being more or less a friction hold.
Using every penny spent on this project for all it’s worth. Because we’re cheap, my colleague and I frequent the nearby Dollar Tree for most of the supplies we need in this project, most prominently duct tape. A roll a dollar, and we’ve gotten four so far.
When we burned through the first roll, we decided to keep the leftover empty roll just in case we could use it as thruster pieces or something. Turned out they had other applications for the project instead.
The leftover duct tape rolls happened to fit my colleague’s arms perfectly, very snug but not too tight. As a result, I went ahead and implemented them into the arm armors to make it a bit of a more comfortable fit, and to make measuring out the holes a bit easier.
Not gonna lie, it was kind of a hassle when we figured out his wrist circumference was roughly 6 inches and I had to go ahead and figure out the radius to draw the circle on cardboard and whatnot…it’s summer, I shouldn’t have to be using what I learned during the school year damnit.
A quick trip to our local fabric and crafts store JoAnn’s was made today in an attempt to hunt down some Velcro. We needed some to attach the skirt armor to his body and to link the torso sections together.
In essence, we decided that Velcro would work best in keeping all the armor pieces together and on the body as opposed to mini-belts or button buckles and the like. The roll seen above was really cheap ($1.00) and is pretty darn long. Much more than we need, methinks. All about that small budgeting.
On our way back from JoAnn’s I made a quick Starbucks run since I had a free drink at my disposal. Nothing like a Java Chip for a long day’s hard work.
The schematics and blueprints for today’s session. I’m impressed yet again, especially by my companion’s ability to draw in 3D. A lot of it actually makes sense, and aren’t just random numbers and diagrams thrown on paper.
What the project looked like last time we worked…
…and now we’ve come this far. Good progress as usual, we have roughly 3 weeks left to get this done. My colleague is already drawing up the plans for the legs, though the feet will prove to be a hurtle. Can’t wait to start throwing some more color on the pieces myself.
Read on the rest of the build:
One Comment
thosecrazygilberts
I’m so glad that I found your blog! Isn’t it funny that a solution like Velcro isn’t obvious until someone else says it. You’ve just made a step in our own building process so much easier! Thank you very much for sharing – I can’t wait to see how this turns out for you both!