I had a week off, there were some things going on that weekend and I needed a break. However, I've gotten one arm completely worked out, and I'm beginning to see the thing take shape.
The first week, I finally bit the bullet and re-made the foot that was crappy. Our friend Tim came by while we were working and took some pictures, I'll put them up when I have access to Facebook. I didn't realize how frigging heavy these things are. You really can't imagine how much work it is to walk in them until you try it. It's pretty rough. I think for the next version or whatever, I'm going to put some real consideration into making more things out of foam and coating them with some sort of sealant for permanence, rather than trying to make them out of sturdy stuff. It's a lot of weight, and I can already tell that I'm going to be spending a lot of time standing in one place rather than trying to lug myself around all over. Beyond that, it's pretty tough to walk on any surfaces that aren't flat or level. I managed to walk in some grass to see if I even could, and I didn't fall, but I did have a couple close calls. It is scary, I'll tell you.
Anyway, once I figured out how to make the arms look a bit thicker, I worked on making them light up. I'm not wired up yet, but I did test run the arm with lights in it and it looks pretty cool. We'll get there eventually, and I'll have to get some battery packs to power the lights. They are pretty expensive, so I've been hesitating on spending a bunch of money on them. I've got enough to get the arms lit, but I'd like to do a few other places, too. Maybe Curtis will have some leftovers... yeah right. The kid's costume lights up like a frigging Christmas tree.
So, here's the arm after painting layer 1:
You can see that the paint has a pretty nice color, it's the Krylon hammered metal textured paint. It looks pretty awesome on the forearm, and although the upper arm looks a little lame right now, it's going to have a lot more detailed work on it later on. The claw isn't perfect yet, it needs at least one more coat, but it still works and the new color makes it look intense. If you look close at the upper arm in the first picture, you can see the tape line running down it, masking where the lights will be. There's two bars, one on the inside and one on the outside of the arm.
The process for figuring out how to get the shell attached to the arm was actually a pain in the butt. I ended up using hot glue on the wrist section (an Ice Tea bottle), which has since come undone. I'll either try to fix the glue, or pick up some epoxy, although I didn't have much success with that last time I tried it. The next section was easier, since the soda bottles are basically locked on via the mouth. The thick section that covers my hand grip is a modified small garbage can, which was a tough one. I ended up gluing a small piece of 1/2" PVC to the arm cut to the correct length, and gluing a 2 liter bottle cap to the shell. These fit together quite nicely, and gave a sturdy attachment point for the shell. I'm thinking this is worth remembering, since it worked out. The final portion before the elbow is another soda bottle, and then of course three more go up the bicep. I'll be using some conduit to connect the upper and lower arms to make it look better, along with detailing work on the upper arm. I'm very optimistic on the look of this once it's done.
I still haven't figured out what to end the other arm with. It's getting on toward the point of no return, so hopefully i come up with something soon. More to come, stay tuned.
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