Grenadier Spartan III

[Unfit Armory]

Looks great! Very clean build so far!

 

[tahu505]

Did some more sanding yesterday. My grenadier shoulder was having issues where I couldn't get the layer lines to fill in, so bondo to the rescue!

Fear the pink mist

The bondo helped a lot and I was able to get this shoulder plus the knees wet sanded at 600 grit. These were the only parts that needed some work before I could hit them with 600, the rest of my armor is ready for that and luckily wet sanding does not take long.

spitzkitz helped sand one of the knees. His is the one that looks good

 

[tahu505]

Con crunch is kicking in. It's Monday morning now and we leave for Denver Wednesday night. Here's where I got last night. All of these pieces have been wet sanded at 600 and should be ready for paint. The shins may need some primer before painting though. Today my goal is to get the thighs and chest sanded.

 

[Deltaraven]

Another quick update!!

Last night while I was playing MCC, I noticed there were green lights on the wrist data pad that I hadn't noticed before and decided that I should add in the holes for them this morning. When I loaded up the game to get references I noticed there were some inaccuracies between my model and the game model, so I went back to edit my data pad to make it more accurate to the game.

The green circle is where I noticed the lights should be added at, the red circles are features that I needed to remove, and the blue circles are the features that I completely redid to get more accurate shapes.
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Now I present, data pad 2.0!!!
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Wow, that came out great !!! I want to do the same and put an old phone inside just for effects.

 

[tahu505]

Wow, that came out great !!! I want to do the same and put an old phone inside just for effects.

Thank you! I do plan on updating that model soonish. Won't be in time for this upcoming con but I plan on getting to it!

 

[Deltaraven]

Thank you! I do plan on updating that model soonish. Won't be in time for this upcoming con but I plan on getting to it!

What con are you going too?

 

[tahu505]

What con are you going too?

Denver Fanexpo! Coming up this weekend

 

[Deltaraven]

Denver Fanexpo! Coming up this weekend

Nice ! Enjoy it...

 

[Deltaraven]

Did some more sanding yesterday. My grenadier shoulder was having issues where I couldn't get the layer lines to fill in, so bondo to the rescue!

Fear the pink mist
View attachment 319561

The bondo helped a lot and I was able to get this shoulder plus the knees wet sanded at 600 grit. These were the only parts that needed some work before I could hit them with 600, the rest of my armor is ready for that and luckily wet sanding does not take long.
View attachment 319562
spitzkitz helped sand one of the knees. His is the one that looks good

Bondo is my best friend, do you sand wet or dry?

 

[tahu505]

Bondo is my best friend, do you sand wet or dry?

Bondo I sand at either 320 or 400 dry. If I move to 600 and up I do wet sanding

 

[Deltaraven]

Bondo I sand at either 320 or 400 dry. If I move to 600 and up I do wet sanding

Cool I need to try that, i normally do dry on my prints but a lot of times it doesn't come out as smooth.

 

[tahu505]

I finished sanding the thighs and chest today, which means all of my armor is sanded! The only parts I'm missing are the back vents, boots, tacpad, and tactical softcase. I don't think I'll get those done in time for the con but I don't think I need them for it. I do plan on adding those to this suit in the future though.

I also picked out paint today and would have started painting but it was too windy. Hopefully there's no wind tomorrow. Here's the paint I got! (your welcome future me for if/when you redo parts and need to see which paint you used)

 

[Deltaraven]

Have you used BEHR before? I love it but have never seen it in spray. I would love to see how they both look when your done. Does the enamel make it harder? I normally use fiberglass resin to smooth and strengthen but it smells so bad and is a pain to use.

 

[tahu505]

Have you used BEHR before? I love it but have never seen it in spray. I would love to see how they both look when your done. Does the enamel make it harder? I normally use fiberglass resin to smooth and strengthen but it smells so bad and is a pain to use.

I actually have not used BEHR before so I'm excited to try it out! The enamel does not harden it, it's just for the paint finish

 

[Deltaraven]

Did you get it at Home Depot?

 

[tahu505]

Did you get it at Home Depot?

Yes! I spotted it there and thought it looked interesting

 

[tahu505]

Tried using a vacuum former for the first time this morning for the visor buck and to make duplicate belt pieces for spitzkitz ... this was the result

I can maybe recover the pull from this one where we tried 2 different bucks at once. I'm reprinting my buck with double the wall thickness and infill

 

[Deltaraven]

Yes! I spotted it there and thought it looked interesting

I need to keep my eye out

 

[tahu505]

After the failed vacuum form attempts I started reprinting all of the parts that were lost, including a new visor buck with double the wall thickness and infill %. While those were printing i started to paint a bit and am very happy with how the colors turned out.

It was pretty windy out today so it was hard to properly paint the pieces and there was a lot of waiting for the wind to die down. During this time, I also decided that I did not want to force finish my armor for Denver FanExpo, since I'd rather take my time to do it right. I did decide I would try to finish the helmet for the con though, so I started painting that.

While waiting for the paint to dry, I soldiered the circuit for the helmet fan. I also don't have an undamaged visor. So I took the least damaged one and purposely made it even more damaged using lone wolf as inspiration. Might as well lean into the battle damage (don't want to be a shinny) and use it as a temporary visor.

After waiting some more for the paint to dry, I started taping up the helmet so I could add the black paint details. This took so long to do. I've done this twice before since I painted then repainted my original grenadier helmet, but it does not feel faster each time. After taping it up I sprayed the black on and am now going to go to bed because it is 4am.

 

[Deltaraven]

After the failed vacuum form attempts I started reprinting all of the parts that were lost, including a new visor buck with double the wall thickness and infill %. While those were printing i started to paint a bit and am very happy with how the colors turned out.
View attachment 319709View attachment 319710

It was pretty windy out today so it was hard to properly paint the pieces and there was a lot of waiting for the wind to die down. During this time, I also decided that I did not want to force finish my armor for Denver FanExpo, since I'd rather take my time to do it right. I did decide I would try to finish the helmet for the con though, so I started painting that.
View attachment 319711View attachment 319712

While waiting for the paint to dry, I soldiered the circuit for the helmet fan. I also don't have an undamaged visor. So I took the least damaged one and purposely made it even more damaged using lone wolf as inspiration. Might as well lean into the battle damage (don't want to be a shinny) and use it as a temporary visor.
View attachment 319713

After waiting some more for the paint to dry, I started taping up the helmet so I could add the black paint details. This took so long to do. I've done this twice before since I painted then repainted my original grenadier helmet, but it does not feel faster each time. After taping it up I sprayed the black on and am now going to go to bed because it is 4am.
View attachment 319714

Wow! That paint look great.