Three New Darth Vader Figures (LAST TWEAKS TO EMPEROR'S DEATH DIO) & Dio Builds For Them 1) Bespin Gantry Scene 2) Force Lightning Killing Emperor Scene 3) Meditation Chamber Scene.

Well that was 20 something pics posted together and it worked, must have something to do with adding text in between pics?

SHAPING THE CREST





INK WASH APPLIED TO MASK AND TESTED WITH UV LIGHT













BELT SANDER SAVED A LOT OF WORK! LOL



STILL NEEDS A LOT OF TIDYING UP UP BY HAND WITH A SCALPEL, FILES AND SANDPAPER THOUGH..



HAS TO BE ROUGHED UP FOR BLACK PAINT ANYWAY.





AGES LATER...











TRANSPLANT AWAITS...







COMPARISON WITH SSC DOME







INNER RIBS ETC ON THE CLEAR PIECE HAD TO BE REMOVED WITH DREMEL, SCALPEL, SANDPAPER ETC..

Nice work, looks just right when lit.

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice work, looks just right when lit.

Cheers! Hopefully will have improved upon that now too. Swapped out some of the 'translucent' material for some transparent blue, not easy as the curves barely line up anywhere due to the different scales and moulds etc.. but used super and hot glue to mesh them together then painted it all with blue ink. I've just painted the basics of electricity/Force Lightning patterns with black liquid latex as a mask to preserve the translucent blue from the coat of black to come later, basically it looks arse-backwards now colour wise. I'll improve on the lightning effects later by carefully scraping away black paint using a scribe, the latex was very runny, the brush was not the best (tend to get destroyed by latex so chose an expendable one just in case) plus my hand's a bit shaky.
Also made a two part mould of the skull with spine using reusable Vinamold (cut it up and microwave it 15 seconds at a time between stirring, never overcook!! Morphs into a giant foaming monster that stinks the house out and needs a hose outside to control, I did it once..) the postman literally just delivered the 2 part crystal clear resin which I'll mix up later, takes 24hrs to cure which is pretty long compared to easyFlo 60. Hopefully the mould making pics will be of some use to our younger members who might not have learned this craft due to 3D printing.























YEAH NEEDED A LOT OF HOT GLUE TO SEAL ALL THE GAPS BEFORE TRIMMING IT DOWN/OFF WITH A SCALPEL.













BLUE INK

REALLY HARD TO BALANCE EVERYTHING TOGETHER ON A TORCH HEAD!











STILL A BLOODY GAP! FIXED IT THOUGH WITH SUPER GLUE.



OH YEAH, TINNED OUT THE SHRUNKEN VINYL ARMOUR PIECE THAT I MIGHT USE BITS OF WITH DOUBLE SIDED TAPE OR MAYBE SOME E-PANEL ON THE ARMOUR TO LIGHT IT UP. TOUGH STUFF! THOUGH IT WOULD TAKE A FEW SECONDS ON THE SANDER, NOPE ABOUT 20 MINUTES ON THE SANDER AND GRINDER!









FORCING IT TO COOL INTO THE CORRECT SHAPE TO FIT ON THE SSC ARMOUR. IT'S THE ONLY VINYL PART THAT SHRANK TO THE CORRECT SCALE!!













LATEX MASKING











SHOULD END UP SOMETHING LIKE THIS WHEN ALL IS FINISHED..







MAKING A MOULD WITH VINAMOLD AND PLASTICINE

Oh, very nice! I'm excited to see what the skull+spine recast looks like.

This is so ambitious and complex. I'm glad you have the ingenuity and the patience to see it through.

Admirable and (awe) inspiring as always.

That’s pretty damn cool.interested to see how you integrate the skull and helmet with the lights. Neat stuff.

Zes wrote:Oh, very nice! I'm excited to see what the skull+spine recast looks like.

Cheers! We'll find out in about 4 hours!

GubernatorFan wrote:This is so ambitious and complex. I'm glad you have the ingenuity and the patience to see it through.

Thanks! Well it's definitely got the 'fiddly point' of the build with electronics next..

Diana wrote:Admirable and (awe) inspiring as always.

Cheers Diana!

Stryker2012 wrote:That’s pretty damn cool.interested to see how you integrate the skull and helmet with the lights. Neat stuff.

I'm just hoping we can actually see it after all this lol!

Mixed the new crystal resin and got it in the mould hopefully without any air gaps!! Took forever, even warmed up the resin is like treacle so it takes ages to go in and ages for the air blocks to come to the top to be popped! Not sure if it will be UV reactive or not but I just remembered I still have some clear coat that is glow in the dark blue and reacts to UV really well with a bright blue (I used this on my Mordor Realm Witchking scratch build to get that ethereal glow/look). I've been experimenting using loads of stuff to try and get the lightning of the helmet to look right, I knew it would be tricky but it's quite a challenge with all the variables involved: different materials, layered materials, joints/seams, lights on, lights off etc..

SPRAYED BLACK FIRST OF COURSE.







COMPARISON TO SSC HELMET





LATEX RUBBED OFF











LIT UP WITH UV











BALANCED ON BODY

TRYING TO GET A DECENT ELECTRICAL PATTERN AND GOING DOWN A RABBIT HOLE!





MORE LIKE CUBISM!

















MAKING IT A BIT MORE 'NATURAL' LOOKING OR MARBLEISED.
























READY TO TRY THIS



I ALSO RECENTLY BOUGHT A DREMEL ENGRAVING MACHINE BUT IT'S NOISY AS HELL! THE CATS AND NEIGHBOURS WILL GO MENTAL AND i HAVE AN EAR INFECTION! YAY! BUT I DO HAVE NOISE CANCELLING HEADPHONES...I WONDER IF EITHER WILL WORK?

THE MOULD WAITING TO BE OPENED IN 3 HOURS NOW...







EXCESS RESIN POURED IN THIS MOULD, SUPER CLEAR!!

I don't know how you are going to get it just right for what you have in mind, but they are all very artistic!

GubernatorFan wrote:I don't know how you are going to get it just right for what you have in mind, but they are all very artistic!

Is that a polite way of saying messy?
How did you read and post this so fast? did you see the second batch of pics above? Just curious, took me an hour to just post this stuff!

shovelchop81 wrote:

GubernatorFan wrote:I don't know how you are going to get it just right for what you have in mind, but they are all very artistic!

Is that a polite way of saying messy?
How did you read and post this so fast? did you see the second batch of pics above? Just curious, took me an hour to just post this stuff!

No, artistic. I don't know exactly how you want it to turn out, but each of these looks great from that perspective.
I had read and was about to respond to the first post, when you posted the second, which still inspired the same response...

GubernatorFan wrote:

shovelchop81 wrote:

GubernatorFan wrote:I don't know how you are going to get it just right for what you have in mind, but they are all very artistic!

Is that a polite way of saying messy?
How did you read and post this so fast? did you see the second batch of pics above? Just curious, took me an hour to just post this stuff!

No, artistic. I don't know exactly how you want it to turn out, but each of these looks great from that perspective.
I had read and was about to respond to the first post, when you posted the second, which still inspired the same response...

LO! Cheers! I want some white in there but white paint will be black shadow when lit, scratching is too regular and linear, also not very controllable as you can see above so hopefully the engraver will solve those problems..

I thoroughly enjoy your exploration and experiments. I would probably have gone for fewer more precisely placed lighting lines, but it'll probably all make more sense when it all comes together and it's a matter of taste, too, after all. Your techniques are genius as usual.

Diana wrote:I thoroughly enjoy your exploration and experiments. I would probably have gone for fewer more precisely placed lighting lines, but it'll probably all make more sense when it all comes together and it's a matter of taste, too, after all. Your techniques are genius as usual.

Since you're German I'd expect no less than perfect functional lightning lines! (I'm not referring to certain infamous insignia) but that your's would make more sense and be more practical, less chaotic and messy than mine; I love German leatherwork! It's always been the highlight and centerpieces on their chopper motorcycles!
So I used the engraver in the end (very new to this) it's like a tattoo machine and I was designing those 30 years ago (went to the Berlin Tattoo festival back then to promote my design too), I think I've got the result I want now, we'll see how the clear UV reactive paint works on a sample area before I commit to that.











I'LL TIDY UP THE FRAYED ENDS AND BORDERS

















I'LL BE REMOVING SOME EXTRA PLASTIC TO ALLOW THE CREST TO GLOW TOO.

That force lighting sure did a job on poor Vader. With the added detail, looks more organic. Glorious effect, especially when lit up from within.
You are going for a more authentic effect than the film, where I'm pretty sure the split second reveal was superimposed by special effects.

GubernatorFan wrote:That force lighting sure did a job on poor Vader. With the added detail, looks more organic. Glorious effect, especially when lit up from within.
You are going for a more authentic effect than the film, where I'm pretty sure the split second reveal was superimposed by special effects.

Cheers! Yeah in the movie it's kind of rough almost 'marker pen on cellophane' type effects even though it was created with CGI in the 'updated trilogy' but you only see it for a split second whereas I'll be looking at this version on a daily basis! LOL. Just about to open the mould, fingers crossed.









I'm doing a mix of the two styles



Love this pic, very Derek Riggs Iron Maiden single/album cover art like:



Grew up on his artwork, love it! There are my renditions of it all over school furniture etc... lol

This is coming along pretty cool. Like the electrical pattern on the helmet.

Stryker2012 wrote:This is coming along pretty cool. Like the electrical pattern on the helmet.

Cheers! Well that's the way it will displayed 99% of the time, I build all these electronic features into my customs then never use them, the batteries run out or whatever.. same old story as HT IM figures lol.

Casting came out fine except for the very top (ironic as that's the only part I could see in the mould!) fixed with hot glue now. Also some red Vinamold got trapped in a few places that took hours to remove under a magnifying lens with picks and scalpels. The batteries in this UV torch are now dying too..FFS.. ordered more, got the UV LED's in the mail, let's hope they're the real thing this time and not just purple!! I removed a section of the mask to help illuminate the crest of the helmet better which I'd dremelled thinner too (both to help with light diffusion). Can't see much of the skull inside the mask but I'm working on that, plan 'A' has gone a bit pear shaped as my 'blue' UV reactive paint turned out to be green!! I painted it over everything THEN found out when it dried! Lids must have got mixed up, very unlike me to make a dumb mistake like that! I'll order some more blue and carefully scrape off what I can.

24hrs passed but takes 72hrs to fully cure so still foggy and pliable, needs exposure to air to finish curing.











Just basic flash removed here











[img]https://i.imgur.com/ROB7bz4.png?1[/img











Torch dying not helping!!





Also not very UV reactive...yet..

Pre scalpel and pick under the magnifying glass





Hot glue fix curing





Post sanding, pick work, scalpel etc...













Mods to improve crest illumination



No skull, just testing crest illumination.

Impressive!

BAMComix wrote:Impressive!

Thank you! Nice quote too! LOL.

So I've been experimenting using a larger plug in mains UV light to check whether it's the batteries or the paint's fault it's green. Turns out it's the paint's but not because it's the wrong colour but unfortunately because it seems to turn to green from blue over time (green being the most powerful glow in the dark colour) I know this because my Spirit Witchking is now green! (under UV light).Hard to photograph but you'll see traces of green very faintly on the helmet pics etc..
I've ordered a sample pack of blue UV reactive pigment to mix in the existing paint or maybe I'll start fresh with clear gloss.
I noticed the hot glue reacts so much better to UV than the resin that I thought "what the hell, let's see if I can cast it in the existing Vinamold mould", it was a risk as Vinamold melts easily. I used plenty of silicone oil as it is hot GLUE I'd be trying in the mould and just squirted it in like crazy! Replacing glue sticks with my teeth and pushing them in with my chest to keep up with the gun's trigger action. First one came out pretty well! Second not so much. You can see how much brighter it is under UV and it's like a light bulb once the UV LED is inserted inside it just as I'd hoped! I'll try it inside the clear one but Think I might be using the hot glue casting instead.



Green showing on the edges, worse irl.









pigment ordered



Casting Hot Glue!





Most of the detail is lost under the helmet and with the illumination anyway.



I'll experiment on the dodgy casting to see if black marker highlighting detail works or not.























UV LED













That's only ONE LED, the torch has TWELVE!

That’s looking pretty cool. It lights up wonderfully.