Hellboy Corpse Locator Tutorial - Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The following steps are lacking pictures, hopefully I'll be getting on with my personal build-up soon and can finally fill in these last few pictures. But in the mean time I'll describe the process as well as I can with what images I have.

Hinges

Now that everything's painted you can start to put it all together. The first step is to distress your hinges a bit. bend them around with some pliers, give them some good dents with an awl and finally, hit them with a blowtorch to ruin that overly shiny finish.

Image: distressed hinges

Now that they're good and wrecked you can screw them back into place. I like to add a bit of epoxy glue as well, just to make sure it stays in place. Also it fills in the hinge slot a bit.

The bearing plate gets glued into the bottom of the main body. Nothing too tricky here, just make sure not to use too much glue, you want the plate the be flat against the body, if its on a layer of glue, it may end up too high, or at an angle. And just try to centre it within the space, (there's not actually much wiggle room, probably only 1mm each side)

These hinges didn't get pre weathered, so they stick out.

Depending on how tight of a fit your bearing is, you may not need to glue it in, however I have found that the added weight of the centre dial assembly can cause the bearing to rack within it's housing, so just use a dab of glue around the edge to seat it in it's housing.
Make sure the bearing is seated properly, nice and level, and be careful not to gum up the bearing with the glue!

The Centre Dial Assembly

This is where we assemble the centre dial, dome and bearing disc into one piece.

If you're building a kit with light, scroll down to the light module section and have a read through. In the past I have put the lights on before glueing this all up, but have now decided it makes more sense to add the lights last, but you may as well have a read and decide for yourself which way round to do it.

The difficult part of this step is glueing the pieces together so that the pin of the bearing disc is perpendicular to the rest of the assembly, otherwise your dial won't stay level as it spins (there are lots of factors that could contribute to this, but screwing up this step is the most likely cause).

When I say 'glue' in the following steps I'm referring to clear 5 minute epoxy. Strong, sets up fast, and not as noticeable if some leaks onto your dome.

You have to do this all in one go, so read through this all before starting, get everything ready and make sure to mix up enough epoxy.

Firstly, put a few blobs of glue on the back of the dome and firmly press it onto the face of the bearing disc.

Next apply glue to the edge of the bearing disc, don't put it on the inside of the centre dial and be careful not to get any on the dome.
Carefully lower the centre dial over the bearing disc and dome (I do it this way so the dome doesn't fall off). and push the bearing disc into place.

Just going by eye try to push the bearing disc in so that it is flush with the back of the centre dial.

I then clamp the whole assembly to something flat, to keep the bearing disc and centre dial flat, flush and aligned. A board with a small hole in it would be ideal, but I just clamp two metal rulers to the assembly, (separated by a piece of paper so the rulers aren't glued to the piece)

Once the glue has dried, you can remove all the clamps, tear off any paper that got stuck and simply push the post into the bearing you previously glued into the main body.

If you want to leave your mark, this is the perfect place, accessible, yet hidden

Weathering

Your compass should now be fully assembled, all that's left to do is weather it. Obviously there's lots of room for interpretation here, so I'll just detail the basic techniques I use.

My main method of weathering involves mixing up a turquoise paint with plaster in it, then stippling this onto the compass.

The first pass is a watered down, almost black tone, with very little plaster in it, I use a big stiff brush and stipple pretty hard, trying to get into the deep recesses . About 90% of the exterior gets this treatment. Then using a damp sponge I wipe down the surface detail of the compass, leaving it just in the low spots.

On the next pass I'll lighten the tone of my paint and and thicken it up a little with plaster (note: the more plaster you add to paint the more is will lighten as it dries, so be careful)

This is where I begin to try and tell a story, the mould and oxidation will have started in one deep area, and slowly crept to another, The hinge will have trapped water and gotten really gunged up. The inside will have less of the light coloured fresh, mould and retain a bit more of it's golden sheen.
As I work I constantly wipe the surface of the vines with a damp sponge, so that you keep some shine to the piece.
There tends to be a bit of a gap between the dome and the centre dial, I like to get lots of mould in there, even letting a bit of it creep up onto the dome.

After a few layers (if you do this slowly you will get some really nice plaster 'mould' deposits building up) I'll have worked my way from almost black, covering all the deepest recesses, up to almost white, just barely touching the tips of some mould that's crept onto the surface.

These pictures are by no means a step by step guide of what your trying to achieve in each pass. They're just a reference of how I start building up the layers (there's lots of tweaking after most of the paint is laid down that I didn't document).

Light Module

If you've bought a light kit, one of the last things you need to do is fix it in place. I personally like weathering to be the final step, but installing the lights shouldn't do any damage if you want to do that last.
First you'll need to drill a few holes. Download this template and print it out at 100% . Make sure you've sized it correctly by measuring it against your light module. (note: the template will only work for the newer milled light modules, if you have an old perf board one, you'll have to use the board itself to help you get the holes in the right place, they're all a bit different).
Once you're sure that the template is okay then use it to mark up the reverse of your bearing disc. Make sure to line the switch up with one of the notches in the dial. If you get the orientation wrong, then you'll have to remove the centre piece if you want to turn the lights on, where as if you line it up with one of the notches you can turn the lights on with a toothpick or pencil etc.

When drilling be careful how you hold the dial assembly, I place a rag underneath so I don't scratch the dome.
The large holes should be 3mm and the smaller holes should be slightly smaller than the supplied screws (that's the silver ones not the brass ones). I've found 1.6mm to be about right.
Neither of the holes should be drilled all the way through, the 3mm holes only need to go deep enough to punch through the white plastic layer and into the clear (for older kits only drill as deeps as is needed for the LEDs)
And the smaller holes only need to be about 4mm deep.

Once all your holes are drilled you can drop your light board in and tighten the screws, don't overdo it, so long as the board doesn't wobble, you're fine.

*Due to some tooling errors you may need to widen the 3 small screw holes in your light board. The screws should turn continuously in the board, and bite into the bearing disc. If the screws are biting into the light board too much, then widen the holes.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Hellboy Corpse Locator Tutorial - Part 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Dome

One of the smallest pieces but probably the most important, so it's worth getting right.

Despite a lot of effort I could never cast perfectly smooth pieces with polyester resin. I've gotten pretty good though, so your dome may not need too much clean up, just in case, here's the process I used to have to go through the clean up my domes.

These have been sat on my workbench a while, so they're a lil' fuzzy

These were cast in open moulds so the first job is to sand the back flat. I usually just sit it on 40 grit paper but if you have a belt sander that might work too. Try not to take too much off the sides or the dome won't fit as snuggly into the centre dial.

The outer layer of the dome is a bit gummy, which means it's a pain to sand. I used a dremel attachment to get as much of it off as possible (otherwise it gums up your paper)

After this you probably want to take more 40 grit to it making sure all the gunk is off.
Then comes the slow tedious job of sanding and polishing.
First I use 100 grit to get rid of all the tool marks from the dremel. The back of the dome can be left at 100 as it gets painted anyway.

Then the dome gets wet sanded with 240, 600, 800, 1200, 2000, 2500, and penultimately 3000 grit paper.

This is painfully boring and my mind tends to wander so I tried to be methodical, counting how long I was sanding for, using a small circular motion and always washing the dome when I changed grits.
The final stage is to polish. I use toothpaste and a pair of tights to polish. One of the weirder things in my toolbox, but toothpaste is just a mild abrasive.
Some people use an old sock for polishing, but I found tights are smoother and give a better finish, plus they're finer, making it easy to handle small objects.

Anyway, the end result of all that should be a nice smooth, shiny dome.

The next job is to paint the back of the dome gold. You can use rub 'n buff, but I found it hard to get a completely solid layer without really caking it on, so instead I just used a gold acrylic and sponged it on. 2 - 3 coats should give you complete coverage, hold it up to the light to see where gaps are.

Once the gold has completely dried then you need to etch some lines in it. You can sketch out a design before hand if you want, but remember whatever you do the final result will be reversed.
Using a pin I etch lines into the paint, continually checking the other side to see how it comes out. If you are adding LEDs place your dome over them to gauge the effect.

Priming

Once all the pieces are cleaned up it's time for primer. As with most things on this build though, it's not that easy. Filling the hundreds of undercuts with spray paint is near impossible, unless you get in close, over-spray and take out all the detail.
My solution to this was to water down (almost to a wash) some primer and hand paint the main body and lid pieces. It's nice and easy to paint, and capillary action causes it all to collect in the undercuts. Once this dries I then give them a spray to get an even finish.

The other pieces can be sprayed as normal.

All pieces then need undercoating in black. Unfortunately the same problem occurs with spray. So I do an acrylic ink wash first to get paint in all the tiny gaps. You could just use a black primer, I don't know how that'll affect the gilding

Stone compass anyone?

Then they get sprayed with matt black to give a nice even finish.

Gilding

Once everything is undercoated the next step is painting the insides of the lid and body. 

These parts are hard to see, so I just went for a loose, deep red, wood kind of colour. Painted on thick and streaky to give it a bit of texture. And if you're being really detailed, you can lighten your mix a little with yellow and add a very light dry brush to highlight it a bit.

Possibly the most satisfying step in the painting, is gilding everything.

I tried a gold airbrush paint, but for a really shiny metallic finish nothing beats 'Rub 'n Buff'. I tried using the 'Antique Gold' product, but it's really dark, bronze even, so I decided upon the 'Gold Leaf' variety.

I use a large stiff brush to dry brush it on. I found it impossible to do this without Spandau Ballet rocking through my head.
Start slow, but don't be afraid to go heavy with it and get it into the gaps, remember that all this gets knocked back a fair bit with weathering, If you're unsure, add more gold! You can always tone it down later.

Once everything is gilded then you'll want to give it all a good clear coat. I used matt because, although it is gold, we're not going for that highly polished metal look.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Range Finder

We're getting very close to the end of all my old progress pictures. I did get the helmet down the other day intending to do some more painting, but gave up before I'd even started, it's just so tedious, marking out all the shapes.




Originally Posted 27-Jul-2009


Next up is the rangefinder housing. If I remember correctly this part isn't detailed in either of Antman's threads 
(which I have been following fairly closely) So I'll try to show a bit more detail.

First of all print out a set of WoF's templates from the gallery.

I'm using 1mm thick mattboard (scavenged from an old sketch book)
So I then began to mark the various places I would have to trim 1mm off of to keep the correct shape.

The dotted lines show where I'm going to angle both edges at the corner rather than just trim one of them.

Here are the pieces cut out.

I began to angle some of the pieces with a knife and sandpaper. I also drilled out the LED holes using a 5mm wood bit.

Then I just began assembling all the pieces.

I had to be careful, trying to make sure the sides were square.

One of the pieces didn't quite fit, overtrimmed, but I'll sort that out later

After letting it dry a while I decided to paper mache' the inside, to cover the small cracks and strengthen it a bit.

Then I brought out my circuit and did a test fit, bending the LEDs into roughly the correct place.

The circuit fits easily into the housing. The only problem is that it infringes on the lens' space more than I would like. 
But I can't be bothered to move all the stuff onto a smaller board.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Electronics

A huge gap here, bringing us closer to the present. Now working on some rangefinder electronics.

Rangefinder Electronics

Originally Posted 27-July-2009
I haven't posted anything in ages because I've been away (doing an Architecture degree)

But now I'm back and have got thoroughly stuck into making my rangefinder.

First of all I purchased a metronome kit from Maplin as well as some green LEDs.

As soon as I got the kit I assembled it according to the instructions and then began to sync the lights up to the right speed (2.13 Hz), by adjusting the two pots to 40KΩ each.

That was fairly easy and formed the basis for my rangefinder circuitry.

Next I desoldered the 9v clip, the LEDs and the capacitors. I re-soldered the capacitors, leaving longer leads so I could fold them down flat.

I had to extend the leads of the LEDs, this was fairly simple, I just soldered on some short lengths of wire and added heat shrink tubing.

I then re-soldered these longer LED's into place.
Also I filed off the unused areas of the board.

Until I could scavenge another resistor (maplin only sell them in massive sets) I'm leaving the circuitry here.

Total spend is now £9.58.

- Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
- Pint o' PVA Glue : £3.00 
- Metronome kit : £3.99
- Superbright green LED : £0.59

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Indentured

A slave to perfection. That's the problem with this build, the longer I spend on it, the more I want it to be right (definitely never redoing it).

Redoing The Dent

Originally Posted 26-Oct-2008 Very small update, I wasn't happy with my dent. It was too deep and lacking in detail. It's probably in the wrong place too but I can't be bothered moving it.

Any who I filled it up with polyfiller and sketched a design onto it with pencil. I over exaggerated the shape because I knew I would loose some detail when sanding. 

Then using a small half round file I began to etch out the main lines.

After that I filed out the main, depressed areas.

Then with the file I began to round off the raised areas. After that I moved to sandpaper and ended up with this.

Not perfect. But I think it's better than before What does everyone else think?

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Venti

Something about a bucket of coffee? I dunno,  I'm redefining tenuous puns.

Anyway this time I'm constructing the vent.

The Vent

Originally Posted 04-Oct-2008
Tiny update, I still have none of the proper materials at my new house but decided I wanted to carry on anyway.

With no printer I had to construct the keyslot pieces using a pencil, ruler and set-square. It took forever.

After that It took me ages cutting out the delicate vent piece. Going over each line several times very gently.

Its worth doing this slowly to get those sharp, square edges.

These are all the pieces necessary, the frame has an extra bit of trim so it will attach to the rest of the helmet.

Unlike the rest of the build for this I had to use Uhu glue. It left the piece a bit scrappy, not generally how I like to do things. Hopefully with a bit more work I can tidy it up.

Note: remember when wetting and bending the vent, the good (best looking) side should be the inside curve.

That's all for now

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Dome Wax

The following is a documentation of the hours I spent at uni polishing my helmet. 
Note: May be unsuitable for minors.

Finishing the Dome

Originally Posted 28-Aug-2008
This part wasn't following Antman's tutorial, because he hadn't posted that stage yet.

Still it was fairly simple,  get out my pot of dodgey polyfiller and cover the dome in it.

You may also notice I've painted some of the edges, this was just to stop them from being damaged too much during the next stage.

I was fairly happy with the finish on the cheeks and didn't see the need to cover them in polyfiller.

Next ( after hours of sanding )  The dent.



Originally Posted 22-Sep-2008
Right, only a little bit of progress. I bought some Tesco value sandpaper for about 50p. Then started sanding away at the mass of polyfiller. Working down from 60grad to 100. I wrapped the sanding paper round a block of wood to try and get better control.

After a lot of sanding here it is.

I also started on the dent, This is where accuracy went out the window. I cut a random sized hole in roughly the right position. Glued a bit of card behind and filled it in with polyfiller (had to do this in layers)

I then made the main lines using a small file. After that I've been slowly shaping it with 60 grad sandpaper.

That's all for now I need to finish the dent and then when I get some supplies I'll work on the vent.



Note: these are now camera phone images as the camera I used previously wasn't mine and I couldn't bring to Uni.


Total spend is now £5.50. 

 Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
 Pint o' PVA Glue: £3.00
 Sandpaper: £0.50



Originally Posted 23-Aug-2008

This was taken with the webcam on my laptop, hopefully its a bit better.