ChrisThePropGuy TK

[Sly11[Admin]]

You may need to cut the plastic near the undercuts while hot then use an airgun to help lift it off.

Wont be able to do that when cold so as soon as you stop the vac get cutting and blowing while it has a little give.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

They make it look so easy.

 

You may notice in the video that the face plug has quite a big area underneath the front chin, it may help. Also the material used appears quite thin and it isn't cooled very much before removal.

 

 

[Sly11[Admin]]

I believe Chris's issue is with the cap rather than the face plate

 

Also glad the video isn't working as its Ainsworth and he doesn't deserve the airtime after the stunt he pulled lying about who designed the Stormtrooper in the first place.

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

4 hours ago, Sly11 said:

 its Ainsworth and he doesn't deserve the airtime after the stunt he pulled lying about who designed the Stormtrooper in the first place.

 

Truer words have never been spoken.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

It wasn't to support this particular maker it was to show the mold and vacforming process which is the interesting part

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Unfortunately I can't flex the best face mould since the originals looks like a crappy fx at the moment but I've diagnosed the issues on the mould. Blue is fill and green is remove. Eyes are my main concern at the moment and the area in front of the tears are too flat but other than that it's not bad. Dome mould is fixed and comes off OK now. Hopefully I can show off something real nice soon, I think it's well on the right track at least. Keen to hear critiques.

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[CableGuy[TK]]

Unfortunately I can't flex the best face mould since the originals looks like a crappy fx at the moment but I've diagnosed the issues on the mould. Blue is fill and green is remove. Eyes are my main concern at the moment and the area in front of the tears are too flat but other than that it's not bad. Dome mould is fixed and comes off OK now. Hopefully I can show off something real nice soon, I think it's well on the right track at least. Keen to hear critiques.

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Getting there. :-)

As you say, the eyes are the main concern at the moment as they are too far apart. The teeth are possible a little shallow, too. Sounds like you’ve got the updates planned though.

Hard to be sure of anything else due to the fisheye effect (as the camera was quite close) but overall it’s looking solid.

Keep up the good work, Chris.

[PhilBobTheFish]

One detail you could add would be the oval shape on the front tears, that's seen on the original helmets.

Also the undercuts on your eyes seem a bit more shallow, as compared to the sharp undercuts on the helmet above. I'll second that the teeth are also a tad shallow.

Overall, I'm really impressed by your work so far. Keep it up! 

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Big moves on reshaping atm. I'm hoping switching to 1.5mm material will get everything nice and sharp. Stay tuned.

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[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Chalk and cheese boys. Just need to get some new 1.5mm plastic and I'll start a couple. Will transplant he new face on the new dome for a mock up.

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Edited November 29, 2021 by ChrisThePropGuy

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

I think the pursuit of perfection has come to a close on this. Honestly I cbf doing much more on it at the moment, however that being said I absolutely will keep working on it at some point hahaha.

 

Im very happy with the V3, got those fixes in and thinned the ears and i rekkon it looks a million bucks. I aint no expert on ear trimming I will admit, its an art for sure. I threw this one together in an couple hours and Im very happy with it. Mould was still a little unrefined so did a HDPE to "hide" the imperfections.

 

Keen to hear feedback on this one! please keep in mind, I wasnt making this accurate to any specific TK bucket, just a rough idea. Im sure assembly can be improoved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[revlimiter[Staff]]

I'm far from the most knowledgeable, but to me that looks incredible.  Very beautiful work!

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

9 hours ago, ChrisThePropGuy said:

I think the pursuit of perfection has come to a close on this

Perfect is the enemy of done.

 

Looks like you've done really well, and I look forward to seeing further iterations. 

 

Spoken as some one who can't ever leave things alone and has piles of versions of stuff literally next to him.

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Just when you thought you got rid of him, the tantalising and tenacious twenty two year old is back (That sounded cooler in my head, Im not that narcisistic I swear haha). 

 

Behold the latest version of the whatever this is. I had run out of Rubber trim and it took me ages to track down a local supplier (spoiler alert, I didnt) so I got these from where Im pretty sure everyone else gets em. I also designed my own sticker set for them, the ones I used on the last prototype were for another makers  helmet and were a set I just had lying around. The new ones looks much nicer as they fit better IMO. And yes I know, grey lenses eww. I couldnt find my green acrylic so just used grey for now.

 

I also polished the mold a bit more, still a few small tweaks I wanna do, also need to do some small mods to the dome shape BUT, looking for critiques to see how I can improve it. I kinda dig the "Crap" look now, so wanted to retain all the "lumps and bumps". I hear the HDPE material itself is where the actual spots and striations come from, always thought it was paint lines on the mould, anyone got more info on that? Getting pretty close to happy with this but I feel like its still a little bit off so looking to see what you guys think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CableGuy[TK]]

Hi Chris,

Looks like you’re making progress.

Out of interest, are you looking at getting this to CRL/legion clearance level? Or more of a project for you or casual cosplay?

Do you have any photos from exactly side on (not slightly above looking down)? That will be telling of how the back/cap and faceplate align.

Dan

[MaskedVengeance[Staff]]

LOVE seeing this progress! It seems we are increasingly seeing builders wanting to get approved in printed armor, and thus far the OT asymmetry has simply never been sufficiently replicated. You seem to be making good headway on your prints for buck creation, so maybe someday there will eventually be an OT TK approved with 3D-printed armor. Shhh, don't tell the old guard. 

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Hi Chris,

Looks like you’re making progress.

Out of interest, are you looking at getting this to CRL/legion clearance level? Or more of a project for you or casual cosplay?

Do you have any photos from exactly side on (not slightly above looking down)? That will be telling of how the back/cap and faceplate align.

Dan

Defos need it up to crl spec, I can get some more pics tomorrow. Also FYI, this is vac formed and not printed for those playing along at home. Just thought I'd clarify.

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[Sly11[Admin]]

Keep up the good work Chris, it's getting closer every time you tinker.

 

[CableGuy[TK]]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the side shots (via pm).

Firstly, let me say that you’re doing a good job given that it’s derived from a 3D model. It’s better than quite a few helmets out there.

Now, there’s a few areas that really catch my eye.




Firstly, I’d say your faceplate is currently too far up into the back & cap. It’s looking more ROTJ than ANH.

From this photo, you’ll also see that the ear caps (the disc parts) look too small, and the part that curves around the cheek is too thick. Yours look a little more like the ears on an SDS helmet, rather than the originals.



Note the red lines I marked under the RS helmet above, how it curves from front to back.
Yours is more straight, more like ROTJ.

ROTJ REFERENCE




As you mentioned, the face looks a little thin, and the eyes are perhaps a little “droopy”. Not sure if that’s just the camera angles.



Here’s an overlapped comparison:



Like I said up top, you’re honestly making a good job of something that is very hard to get right as it was hand sculpted and notoriously asymmetrical. Also, I’ve been staring at these things for the last 5 years and know their features better than my own kids (joke) so I’m far more fussy than the majority.

Best wishes
Dan

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Hyeaaaahboehhhh, big thanks to Daniel for the pointers! I managed to fix up the moulds with the following fixes:

- Left and RIght Tear point made higher (LHS peak was too high in pc, has since been fixed)

- Left eye made thinner vertically

- Made under eyes more shallow

- Made front tooth thinner

- Changed spacing of outer most teeth

- Reshaped eye contours

- Made all tooth holes deeper

- made rear neck curve more pronounced on LHS

- Thinned ears (I still need to make the tops convex rather than flat)

- Raised vocoder 2 and 6

 

I also took onboard the faceplate positioning.

 

The results do speak for themselves:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now to finish it off!

 

 

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Ok so I think Im at the point where Im comfortable to send these out to production now, Im still not the greatest at asembling these (or paitning em) but given a few more Ill get better. 

 

Here are the final production pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These should be for sale soon. Again, keen for anymore feedback, I know its not 100% perfect but I feel its a pretty damn good effort. Was certainly a challenge to sculpt a mould to match a cast rather sculpting to match a cast. Very keen to finally start on the armour now.

Thanks for everyone who has read along so far!

 

 

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Well boyos, its time.

What better way to spend your second bout of covid than to sit infront of a computer 8h a day and work on new TK files!

Many uni assignments have been set aside and neglected to bring you these haha. 

 

Also thought id add a little prefece. When I did my original Files they were poorly optimised and were among some of my early work. Im still very proud of what I achived with it, I still think theyre some of the best TK 3D files you can get atm, however they werent perfect. since then Ive studies the TK and learned MUCH more. I now feel more comfortable to do it PROPERLY, as I not only have better knowledge on TKs but also the 3d software.

 

My original models were poorly optimised as I just smoothed vac forming files, they were ok but the file sizes were huge and also some of the softness was incorrect. I am working dilligently to updatethese with a MK2 fileset thats been made from scratch again. The MK1 will be grandfathered and available as a free resource.

That being said, onto the show!

 

The torso parts are complete.

Ive included side by side comparisons with the original files to see how far theyve come. Please note, some details may look small/thin, these are vac forming models and the plastic has thickness and also needs space to pull into for channels. I learned a lot with making the helmet you cant "trace" the details on the outside and expect them to work on a buck. I dont doubt some of these will need some slight mods but for now they are modeled with manufacturing in mind. I will go back and fix the sizing for the consumer file set.

 

Defos keen to hear critisisms as always.

 

 

 

The chest was completely redone as I didnt achieve the correct form the first time around. I think this was due to perspective of some reference I was using but Im pretty confident this is looking good. I used a modified version of my TIE torso.

 

 

 

Back again was completely redone. I was missing some details like the subtle bump in the lower back. Also the rectangle is not flat and symetrical whereas the old one was.

 

 

 

Abs were my favourite section to work on, almost as fluid and ununiform as the helmet. My lower section was decent however the vertical bar was not offset. I did my best to make the surface as ununiform as possible after doing a few hours of form study on the abs.

 

 

 

Finally the rear. Not much changed here, I slimmed down the vertical raised section and made the sides more straight and inline with each other. Also made the parts asymetrical.

 

 

[MaskedVengeance[Staff]]

Great work, Chris! This makes me wish I had a vac table. Do I recall correctly that the first version of your armor was modeled to be printed and worn, as opposed to being used as bucks?

[ChrisThePropGuy[TK]]

Great work, Chris! This makes me wish I had a vac table. Do I recall correctly that the first version of your armor was modeled to be printed and worn, as opposed to being used as bucks?

Partially correct. I designed them to be vac formed hence the sharpness in some details, then modified them to be wearable by removing the excess and smoothing them.

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[CableGuy[TK]]

Nice one, Chris. Look forward to seeing the pulls in ABS.