Ok, so where to start- well, last time we saw Rig he was armless- as he has continued to be...this blog will be mostly about his reconstructed arms, and will try to a little clearer about the whole process.
So, here are his arms off, and some work around his head to close down the light leakage around the side of his head- milliput mostly, which still needs painting in silver.- I also added the 'yoke collar', which I think covers the neck area better, and will also have a plot reason for why it is there...
I took off his face plate, and inserted some lighting gel to try and weaken the intensity of his lights- I used yellow lighting Gel as that seemed to have the greatest effect on the strength of the light- while I was doing this I also fixed a magnet to the back of his face plate, for easy access, and it also allows me to do tiny subtle angular shifts in the face for specific thoughts and emotions.
The face plate with the magnet gluing- don't know what this strange washer was for- I think I found it in the back of the kitchen drawer- again, I would like more of them!
With Rig's renovated face in place. Next I went to his gun arm, and decided to extend it- using a skateboard wheel 'spacer', and the camera lens of an old mobile phone camera- also a flint wheel from a disposable lighter on the side of the arm, as a kind of rotating barrel for extra animation when he fires the weapon. The arm had a better threaded ball added to it also. Come to think of it, I've recycled a lot of lighters and mobile phones on this project.
these were from the pro plus armature component range, including the new joints for the elbows which use one ball and one disc within the sandwich plate.
This will limit movement to one point within the sandwich plate. I prefer the design aesthetic like this too.
The raw plates and balls as they arrived from Andy- note the pro plates now use a star shaped allen key to tighten- much better design , and harder to 'thread' the surface- but please don't let me lose the key! You can also see the ball and the disc for the elbow sandwich plates in front of the last packet.
I removed the first attempt at the new shoulders, because the balls for the pro plus armature were smaller than those I had used- start again- drilled the torso and put in one rod across the gap.
That's better- the threaded balls were added and cold welded in place. Now to start redesigning the arms - first the 'wrist section' for the 'hand arm'- aluminium tubing, with a full sized ball joint at the elbow end, and a 3mm ball joint to fit with the wrist cavity on the armatured hand.
I decided to put this hex flange on the front of the forearm too, just to embellish the design.
And this is the design for the new upper arms- trying to accent the hydraulic design and get it more cleanly achieved. The threaded rod runs all the way through, and is capped at either end with nuts holding it in place at the end of the tubes.
I used brass and aluminium tubes, trying to evoke pneumatic pistons.
I also added this cap detailing towards the shoulder section- each upper arm is working to the same basic design, but slightly different- I feel you can get away with this due to the different purposes of the arms- hand and gun. Also you can now see the ball fitted at the front end, and the 'disc' for the new elbow section.
I dug in the various metal and rubber stores I've got sorted out- and decided to cut down these small springs- I can't remember what they were from- it may have been clothes pegs- then fitted the yellow springs in place- where needed I found small thick rubber 'belt' washers to hold the yellow springs at the bottom.
Two upper arms, and the wrist section- hex style cuffing on all, and a much better approximation of hydraulics on the upper arms- I distressed the black springs too with a file to imply wear and tear.
The gun arm all assembled- looking mean! I'm still thinking I may hide the plates at the elbows with some sort of elbow pad- but I'm torn- I also like the plate showing. I'll have to keep thinking about that.
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