Thursday, March 22, 2012

MK0 Heavy Armor Marine (AKA: Exo Armor Terminator) update 1

MK0 Heavy Armor Marine (AKA: Exo Armor Terminator) update 1
This has become a big project to me, mostly because I really want it to work out.  I love the metal model and as such I'm sort of obsessed with making my plastic version just as cool.  My first version is currently visible on shapeways but I haven't made it purchasable because it won't print properly.  It has manifold errors I still need to sort out.  This model is also my experiment for shelling models.  I've thinned the model to 0.35mm so it is as cheap as possible in Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD).
For the next step in the design I have chosen to modularize the model.  I've cut the head, torso, shoulders, arms, and legs apart.  This will allow me to make the model possible.  As you can see in the image of the torso below the model has a fairly high polygon count.  I have one set of legs designed and might design another eventually though not right away.  The basic legs will be the standard stand at read design.  Its got a rounded waist so it can be looking up or down and so I can do walking legs later if I want.  The model has a strut that comes up and meets the belt at the waist, because of this the pivot joint for the strut is modeled on both the waist and legs to make a two part joint. Some sanding may be required to mesh the two because of this but it will look better in the end. In order to make the model separated at the waist I had to add a stomach plate.  This plate will mount across the joint between the torso and legs but I added some surface detail to the mounting point so it could remain open if you so desired. 
The head is a separate sphere so you can pose it looking where you want.  The arms it uses are the same size as my standard marine arms however I've designed a new "heavy armor" arm.  I'll likely include a heavy armor arm with storm bolter and a heavy armored powerfist with the design once finished.  That will give the standard compliment of weapons as a normal terminator model.  Part of what has taken so long with this model is that it spurred me to redesign my arms and powerfist ranges resulting in not just a cleaner shelled design but also new poses and designs.  I'll talk more on that later though.
The shoulders are a unique design made for this particular model.  The shoulders are high hunched things with a hydraulic cable running down them.  In order to minimize cost of the shoulder it is hollowed out in much the same way the traditional shoulder pads are but its so large it can't seat on the top of the arm.  As a result I had to add an arm mounting bracket inside the shoulder.  The same could be accomplished with a dollop of  green stuff on the mounting joint.   The shoulder pad's width is 11.5mm.  Some of you might recall the horrible sizing error that Red pointed out to me recently.  The "Heroic" scale shoulder pads are close to matching this width and don't look out of place on the model.  In particular I think they'd look at home in a heresy era army where cobbled together armor was not uncommon. 
 
Exo Armor Torso

Exo Armor Shoulders

Exo Armor Legs

 


5 comments:

  1. Hi -

    just seen this on Shapeways, looks really good. Is the version there printable? Keep up the good work,

    Colin

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    Replies
    1. yeap the mk0 is up and printable. The storm bolter is over sized but the design otherwise works just fine.

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    2. where i can download for print?

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    3. I never put this up for download because I only ever got it 75% finished before a HDD crash. Here is the test version up on shapeways.
      https://www.shapeways.com/product/FDAL96QUV/mk0-star-marine-heavy-armor-exo-armor-x1?key=c185b54283430deeac78a5a24ac0ed06

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  2. love Love LOVE your EXO-ARMOR design! I will buy one from Shapeways before Christmas...

    Thank You!

    David in STL

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