MeanGene

Basic Amazon airbrush.

The Neoeco. Watched this review online and had to have it.

I got it for experimenting with. For $40 it's hard to beat. Find an old compressor from the garage and this could probably get you by with painting at least 1 full suit before it craps out.

If I get a chance to fire mine up I will post my experience here.

First off, Wow! A great build and a great write up. This is exactly the place for this type of post - well done.

The helmet. Great choice of helmet, Wolf is a badass character. The print looks great. 

The underside is neat and tidy. If you need help getting it to sit proper on your head you can add a hard hat inner liner to the area that meets the top of your head.

I wonder if that cat5 wire and connector will poke you in the cheek?

Questions.

The wood filler? Is that meant to fill the print lines ?

great trick getting it to crack in the sun. Very smart.

The lenses? Where did your source them from? Do you have a link.

THanks for posting!

PS. Lasers are a bitch! Same shit happened to me. 👍

You're welcome Rob. The tools are really great. Such a different feel to them.

Thanks for the compliments on the sculpt. It's all because of you.

It's been a long time since I've seen any new work from you.

Any chance we can see your latest? I've been waiting for you to drop something new.

Good to see you back around and back at it. 👍

I will work on a TAB section at the top of the page to host any 3D Files that people want to share with the community.
Give me some time and will update this thread when it is done.

Before I post some update pictures want to share some sculpting tools which have really upped my game.

George (PTGreek) mentioned I should try a set of Steve Wang sculpting tools. Made by Cutting Edge Sculpture 
Sold by company Brick in the yard. They have great youtube tutorials on mold making and casting btw/

Buy tools here:
https://www.brickintheyard.com/products/steve-wang-tool-set

Some things I've learned from these tools.
The blades that carve the surface are extremely sharp and the tool itself is very light.
The net result of both of these is you get a lot of tactile feedback in your hand as your sculpt. You can apply minimal pressure to get a very fine result.

The toothed side is good for carving and the reverse flat side if good for following up to smooth it out.

Very nice tools. Reasonably priced and developed by one of the original Predator creators. Can not beat it.

The Juggernaut sculpture update:

It has been spending a lot of time un-touched. I run a small business as my day job and that detracts from projects.
My hope is to finish this by end of spring and have castings made in summer.
I am very close.

Thanks for looking.

These pictures are of recent work spent on developing shadows and defining lines for character.

Such a great helmet and a great paintup. Thanks Ice.

Wow ! I can not wait to get this back and on my wall

 Great work ICE.

If anyone needs a bio painted. There is no one better than this man. Thank you iceman.

Paint job looks amazing. Dark and sinister. Especially that gold trim. 
Hit them with the video Lee, so badass!

Do another version. Mostly gold with black trim. Opposite. 🙂

Interesting comparison from 3D sculpting to traditional clay sculpting. The symmetry part in clay is a killer. If only it was as easy as a clock of a mouse.

Everything looks great. 

That's great Tyler. Do you have pictures of what the rendering looks like?

Post the files to this thread. Appreciate it. 👍

A great labor of love.

How many hours was the 3D sculpt and print process again?

Wondering how much time that takes vs traditional clay sculpting.

What is also interesting is the printed version vs the cast version. Something about the surface texture or it's shine looks different. Not good or bad, just different. Probably the different materials of each.

What is the weight differential between the two castings?

I would bet you plan on making a fiberglass Helmet for wearing to get a super lightweight copy?

I got lots of questions.😁👍

Another good resource is Chuck Ruffing.

He makes lot of different suits, components, helmets armor. All of it. Hit him up. I bought a few predator 2 skins from him. 

Yes both fit perfectly. 

How is the project coming?

Shannon Shea worked on the original Predator movie. Still works in the creature business to this day.

A while back he wrote some blogs. It has since shut down as he wrote a book.

Check out his blog here. Some great stories from the original movies production.
http://monsterhistory101.blogspot.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Rubber-Youre-Glue-Shannon-Shea/dp/1943201013

Nice! Real subtle paintwork. Looks like solid iron. Love the glowing eyes as well

 Building a suit around this or just display?

I didn't realize that the entire fin snapped off like that. Thats a major break.
The epoxy putty and fiberglass repair is a good trick. What king of epoxy putty was it?

Glued two greebles together.

One greeble to rule them all.

Chris, your artist journey has been amazing to watch. I have no doubt you will be successful in this. Good luck on your new business.

Thanks Scott. It's fun to look back so many years later.

Shows you how far you've come. Gives a boost into the future. 

Keep the spark alive.

This is the winner for the rebreather mechanism side. Trimmed it up with a Dremel and sanded it by and. 

What sold me on it was the round shape and the contrasting 90degeee notches.

Made some more progress on symmetry. Takes a lot of time to adjust. Some many angles on top of angles to align.

How's the finish on the Shinto? Have you started work on that yet?

Hm... Good question.

Maybe this will help.

Can do some measuring tomorrow.

This is a copy of the actual movie head. 

It is latex. So there may have been some shrinkage.

I would say it's as close though.

12" at the widest part of the head. The area you marked in your pic.

Welcome back. Glad to have you. Be sure to post up pics of your pred costume. 
 

The Deep space nine kit showed up and I am pumped. I had a feeling the kit would include some good options for the helmet. 
Save me some time and add some unique elements to the helmet.
Below are some pics of mock-ups for some ideas.

I kind of like this last one that looks "vented". Maybe I can layer some of these up for a better effect.