Boddaker Posted April 27, 2017 Author Share Posted April 27, 2017 Quick update: Painting has commenced! I managed to get a good coat of filler primer on Tuesday evening. Last night it decided to rain again, so I couldn't do much in the way of paint, but I did get a few more parts made.. But first check out what goodies came in from EVGA!! <drool> I now have the long-awaited Z270 Stinger in my possession! And they also sent me an unexpected surprise... a 1080Ti SC2! This is one sexy card! Ok, now that I got the pr0n out of the way, here are the parts I got checked off my list.. First was the windscreen. My first attempt was a piece of acrylic but failed miserably at heat-forming over a carved piece of foam.. So I went with a more simplistic approach: Soda bottle! It was already curved, all I had to do was cut it down to the size and shape I needed. I dremeled a thin slot around the edge on the top panel and slid it right in. Done! I'll glue it in once I get everything painted. Next up was the heat shield that goes over the top engine, and the saddle sits on. This was a 4" drier vent duct in its former life. Just had to cut it down using some metal shears. Now I'm in the process of carving the saddle to fit over it. The sun is out today, and should be nice throughout the weekend, so I should be able to get all the painting done in the next few days. woot!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 Looking awesome Brian. What material are you carving up for the seat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boddaker Posted May 1, 2017 Author Share Posted May 1, 2017 On 4/27/2017 at 11:06 AM, Jeffrey Stephenson said: Looking awesome Brian. What material are you carving up for the seat? Thanks Jeffrey.. I'm using Owens Corning foam insulation. Nice and dense! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boddaker Posted May 1, 2017 Author Share Posted May 1, 2017 Got a crap-ton of work done over the weekend.. so much painting! Its a 2-tone color scheme plus faux metal parts, so there was a lot of masking.. and then there's the weathering and detailing as well. So yeah, lots of work! But I somehow managed to get it all done in two days. My wife doesn't know me anymore. But I digress.. on to the progress pics! After painting all the body panels a flat red, I masked off the front grill to be painted metallic aluminum. All the body panels painted.. Sweet double-exposure closeup of the front grill.. All the engine tubes were painted metallic aluminum as well.. Then all the body panels were masked off again to paint the yellow stripes. The front nose took forever to mask! The dramatic removal of the tape.. Ooh purdy! Ok, now it's looking too new. Gotta do something about that! Going off of reference pics, I start masking off the areas where the paint has been worn or peeling off. I drew a basic shape to mimic the actual speeder's defects, then I taped around it, using the ripped edges of the tape to get a nice rough delineation. After doing the edges, I filled in with normal tape to protect the rest of the panel. Did the same with the other pieces. Rear fins unmasked. The left one has been lightly sanded along the edges to add more wear. And here's the large area on the side panel. More suspenseful tape removal.. And the final shot for today, all the panels painted and on the case. Still looks too nice, so we'll be taking care of that in the next post. Stay tuned! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boddaker Posted May 2, 2017 Author Share Posted May 2, 2017 Ok, now we get to the fun part! Weathering and detailing.. keep in mind that this is my first time with an airbrush, so I'm trying to get the hang of it while I'm painting this. I know some of you are asking, 'why didnt you practice first?' Who has time to practice! Plus I figured this is weathering.. a very random thing. So there's no way I can screw this up! ...right? So with that in mind, here's the first go-round.. I started with the exhaust ports and some black, going into the tubes and lightly around the edges. I then moved around the panels, adding black here and there, in the crevasses and where ever I thought it should be darker. On the grill I just darkened the corners and added a few burns. Also I went over the red/yellow paint with some steel wool to dull it down a bit, and then a sand colored wash to flatten the color even more. Another shot of the grill with the fans lit behind it. Taking a break from the weathering, I finished work on the saddle. After carving the second part, I used spray adhesive to stick them together. Then I smoothed out the foam with some drywall sandpaper. Also made the knee pads and stuck them all onto the heat shield for a test fit. Fast forward past the puttying, sanding, test-fitting, and airbrushing, and here's the final version on the speeder. Most of the detailing is done on the engines, and you can see the weathering I did on the fins. And here's the 1080Ti painted up to match. If I have time, I want to go back over everything again with another wash, soften the lines between the red and yellow, and add more weathering streaks. But I'm mostly done painting since the contest deadline is tomorrow night! I might post one more update with some last minute detailing, but if not, you'll be seeing final pics in a few days. woot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Joachim Puwalski Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 I wish best of success to you! Awesome work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boddaker Posted May 4, 2017 Author Share Posted May 4, 2017 Ok time for final pics! woot It's been a wild, fast and crazy ride, but it's done and just in time for the contest deadline. whew! So here's the pics, not the best, but I needed to get them uploaded to Cooler Master quickly last night. And I will be doing another shoot outside in the sunlight as well... Anyway, enjoy! I had so much fun building this case, but it wouldn't have been possible without all the help and support from my sponsors: Primochill for all of the liquid cooling gear and the insanely beefy CPU block EVGA for getting me one of the first Z270 mITX motherboards available, and a 1080Ti SC2 video card Crucial for the 16Gb DDR4 Ballistix Elite memory kit and two 525Gb MX300 SSD's Corsair for the SFX 600w psu, RGB lighting and fan kits, as well as a keyboard and mouse which will be painted up to match the case Intel for providing me with a 7700k processor Thanks everyone for all your comments and support as well.. It's all very much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boddaker Posted May 15, 2017 Author Share Posted May 15, 2017 Hey guys, I took the Speeder out for a spin on a planet similar to Jakku yesterday (my backyard).. (click pics for larger versions) Just for fun I took the liberty of removing the stand on this one.. And here's one more with me in it for scale: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boddaker Posted June 26, 2017 Author Share Posted June 26, 2017 So after a brief hiatus, I figured I'd jump back on this project and do some things I didn't have time for during the competition. I'll be making a few minor adjustments to the case here and there, but mostly I wanted to pay more attention to the base that supports the speeder. My original design held up surprisingly well, but it needed to be clamped to the table to keep it from tipping over. So I went back to the drawing board and made some revisions. I made a new vertical support with a more extreme angle to get the legs under the case more, then added angle bar to eliminate any flexing. Just using my spot welder since I dont have an actual big-boy welder lol. Also not too concerned with looks since it will all be covered. Now it's really starting to look horrific! I chopped up some rebar to add some weight to the base, and used bondo to hold everything in place. Then I wrapped the whole thing with mesh. Breaking out the epoxy putty, I started covering the entire base, making sure to work it into the mesh. Trying for a rocky surface look & feel. Done and cured! Almost ready for paint, just gotta sand out any noticeable fingerprints and make it more rock-like. Hopefully I can get some paint on it tonight.. we'll see! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SotosLg Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 I love unprocessed putty mods!! Mod on!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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