So, I took some supersculpey firm, and tried again to carve a major part out of clay. It didn't work so well when I did the foot for the DDC, and this time I had challenges as well. The hip is a weird ellipse shape as well as being on a sharp angle up toward the pivot point of the torso. But, it actually came out better than I thought it would. I plated it up with some 1mm sintra pieces to give it texture and carved in some panel lines. There are still some inconsistencies in the layers but the panels and lines seem to break it up enough to the point that it works.
While I was at it, I got the shoulder piece, upper arm and lower arm done. The arm parts are reversable to swap from right to left, so that helps. I poured molds for all of the above and pulled casts for them all and I'm fairly happy with the result.
These aren't quite up to the ol' pros standards (Fusco, Messydesk, et al), but they work. The casts give me a good base to work from, and with cleanup, extra panels and greeblies, they should be acceptable.
I got the arm articulation pinned up just to check and they worked just about where I'd like. I kinda might want a change to the shoulder joint for more up/down transition, but I can still pose JrJrJr's in a pretty dynamic option. The available poses for the articulation across the board is pretty good.
Yet to do, I have the hands, torso and head. I'm not excited about carving up the hands. Since the right is a fist, that'll be easy. I might cheat and just mount the ML for the left arm on the wrist.. but I think that's cheating. : ) As for the head, I would like to see a head that can turn a bit, but that's a bit tough given the position it has in the torso. I think that the turn of a head really can add dynamicism to the pose, but it may not quite work with this mech. We'll see.
Anyway.. that's it so far. More to come.
