Anyone done pepakura before?

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Woke up early this morning and printed the right forearm.  scaling was easy since the current scale was 86 (math is my height plus a few inches [75] / master chief's height [86] * current scale [86])  So really all I needed to do was type in my height. 

I am about half done with it.  helmet took 2 days to cut out, and the forearm only took about 35 minutes to totally cut out.  16 sheets for the helmet, 7 for the forearm.  100's of pieces for the helmet, only about 16 for the forearm.  I think I'm gonna finish the forearm completely this week (it is almost perfect at the moment in shape) so I can use that as my example piece and also some motivation.  We'll see though. 


The armor (or most of it) looks like it would double very well as a TOR jedi costume. 

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Resined my first part last night.  If I had any doubts before, they are gone now.  this is gonna be awesome.  I'm gonna try to resin the inside of it before I go to school this morning, but we'll see. 

[dgdve]

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http://the-dark-empire.forumotion.com/t1346-a-pepakura-armorhelm-how-to-a-ruusan-family-pep-talk

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mtfbwy (obviously try to read the whole thread before asking questions)

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

There are more pictures, but it is hard to link stuff on my tablet.  I'd say for my second model ever, it turned out really well. 

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Looking better.  Let's see, since last post I have 1 thin coat of resin inside and out (outside first, cured, then inside), 1 thick coat outside, 1 thick coat inside with fiberglass, 1 more thick coat inside, 1 more thick coat outside (to for sure fill in all of the gaps), 1 coat of bondo, and about 1 hour of sanding for show n tell tomorrow at work.  I'll probably re-bondo it tomorrow and then sand it like crazy sunday night.  it looks like it is gonna take about 4 hours of sanding after I re-bondo it to be ready for paint.  I'm gonna need some more sandpaper.  And a quart of elbow grease, since mine expired last year.   ;D








 



It looks pretty rough, but from all of the pictures of this stage I have seen, I am on the right track.  


Now to shower the nasty white powder out of my hair and then cut and fold some more paper.  This is very time consuming.  I hope it is worth it in the end.  

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Right bicep/shoulder combo is done being folded.  just need to resin it and bondo it.  i'm on track to finish the whole right arm up to the 4 hours of sanding per part by monday night.  hopefully i can finish the left arm twice as fast. 

I'll post pics tomorrow.  it looks really good though. 

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Chest/ back is almost done being folded and pasted.  too cold to resin/bondo this weekend so i'm gonna power through the upper body.

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

that is the chest.  Well, actually, the part that is being formed is the backplate, but the chest is the rest of the scattered pieces.  or some of them anyway.  Basically, you have to build the chest and back as 1 piece, but then split it after you harden it and put some way of attaching the two parts together later.  It took me a few minutes trying to fit my broad shoulders through the bottom hole to realize that was what had to happen.  I will fit in the armor, no doubt, I just won't fit through the bottom of it.   :D



Look, we have a visitor. 



You can't take the saber away from this guy.  Whatever I'm working on, sabers seem to be the one thing I don't lose interest in.  Even if I don't fire one up for a week or more, I still have it on my belt around the house every day. 

So, I'm about 2 weeks in.  I have 4 parts pep'd, 2.5 parts resined (I only did half of the chest since I have to come up with a brace for the ab plate while I resin it.  No way to avoid bracing it, it just doesn't sit flat.  Not warped either.), 1 part bondo'd, and 1 more part cut out.  the part that isn't resined is the helmet.  I'm going to do another helmet since the first one wasn't that great.  The helmet is gonna be my display piece.  I'm gonna have a mannequin to put my armor on when I'm not wearing it. 

Just a hint of the plans I have for this suit: Ipod dock in backpack (or something to plug a music player into), voice amp, luxeon rebels on the little pcb's for the headlamps, and shield lights all over it.  I have a few more ideas, but I'm playing them close to the chest in case they don't work. 

Well, off to keep cutting and folding.  My deadline is somewhere in late march.  We have a costume contest every year at work, and I just happened to start this so that it could line up with the contest.   :D

EDIT: Scratch that, 3 parts resined.  I used some pvc to hold the ab plate in place while the resin hardens.  I'm definitely gonna need another gallon of resin and another gallon of bondo.  This stuff goes fast when you need ~ 5 coats per part.  thin coat outside, thin inside, thick outside, thick inside, fiberglass inside (1 more coat).  I'll need 6 or 7 for the chest since I  will have to double fiberglass it. 


DOUBLE EDIT: went in to overdrive and finished peping the left forearm last nigt.

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Landed a sixsixone vapor pressure suit for $60

That will be the under suit for the upper body of my armor. 

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Gonna redo the chest in HD parts, finished left shoulder/bicep from paper last  night.  bought a helmet and ripped out the padding to put in my halo helmet.  fits like a charm.  now i just gotta actually make the helmet. 


Also gonna redo the forearms.  I just don't think I can carve in the detail that I will lose over the HD models. 

I've drawn up a schedule, and it looks like I might just be able to finish this by feb 15th.  at least in presentable form. 


We have to give an informative speech in class and I decided to do a demonstrative one on how to make pepakura armor.  It made more sense than trying to demonstrate building a saber in 5 minutes, so I'll just have a few premade parts that show each step. 

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

I've posted this on the 405th, but I'll keep this thread updated for those of you that care. 



Test of the tester chest piece.  Just looking for size.





High detail forearm (right). 



left shoulder with first coat of resin applied (currently drying).



right shoulder with fiberglassed inside (also drying)

And the right forearm is resined (first coat) and also currently drying. 

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Just finished applying the inner coat of resin to the right forearm and the left bicep.  Also finished putting bondo on the right bicep.  It really only needs it on the bicep itself and on the support bar (long one). 

No pressure suit today.  Maybe tomorrow.  I have to do some homework, finish the left forearm, lift, and re-fiberglass the support bar on the bicep (It is 55 degrees today, but will only be 35 tomorrow.  Bondo cures in 3 hours, resin seems to take at least twice as long as that.  I know you are supposed to fiberglass first, but since I switched the order, I will be able to do both today before the temp drops. 







Here is the warped bicep.  I'm gonna see if body filler will even it out.  Shouldn't be a problem.  The bicep/ shoulder part itself seems a tad too large, but my bicep won't fit far enough down a smaller hole to justify reducing it by 5-10%. 



Off to do homework.  I can't let the armor take up all of my time.  Just all of my freetime.

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

On a lighter note, here is the final forearm and shoulder with the tester chest.  I'll snap more pics in a bit


I have since started sanding the bicep, but it is only 35 degrees here.  Too cold for just latex gloves during long periods of time.

My mobility isn't lowered very much by the bodysuit in either the forearm or the shoulder. I just glassed the forearm though, so I can't show any pics of it till at least tomorrow. I definitely have to decide what to do about the bodysuit asap. Either I make the chest significantly bigger (about 4 scale inches), I modify the backpiece so that I get rid of the thickness under the armor but keep the padding below the armor (which will be tough since the back pad is zippered to the suit right where I need it to be smaller), or I don't wear the back pad at all and have no extra padding below the armor (I want the padding because of the look). Also, It would get rid of the belt that I would use to hold up the thigh pieces since it is attached to the back padding.

Heading back out to glass the left bicep. Tomorrow I should have enough time before work to resin the inside of the left forearm, and then thursday I can fiberglass it. Only problem with that is that thursday is gonna be my only day to bondo for another week at the best. Temp will be too cold after that. As of now, I have the shoulders and forearms pep'd and resined, right shoulder and forearm glassed, right bicep 20% bondo'd, and by the end of the night I should have the left shoulder glassed.

Off to go try to glass the left shoulder. I've mixed 5 batches of resin in the last hour. I'm running out of places to mix it.

[ANAKIN SKYWALKER]

Not much interest here, so i've only been posting on 405th.  I have some high powered led flashlights (cheap, but very bright) for the helmet lights.  They have reflectors that are too big for the inside of the helmet.  I'm trying to decide weather to shorten the reflector, thus making it skinnier, or to make it skinnier by cutting the sides along the height of the reflector.  Either way, this is gonna be the brightest chief helmet to date. 

[nartules]

Hey I've been watching lol, just no comments.  I've never seen this done before and it looks interesting.  However, its not something I think a lot of people on this forum have experience with so those who are keeping tabs on it are probably staying quiet as I was :)