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It's sort of a compromise. As it is, a lot of these suits tend to come out with the arms looking a bit too short, but I think a lot of that is because people are making the shoulder pauldrons a little too big. I'm going to scale mine down some and that should help with the look. I'm also looking at one guy in particular who has an absolutely AMAZING Blood Angels suit (with a power fist!) and I'm going to take some cues from his process. He's got it documented and I'm devouring everything he wrote.
I don't think my suit will turn out nearly as well at first, but since the build is modular, I can do upgrades later. That also gives me options. Right now I'm going for the Emperor's Champion, but I could later modify it to be an Assault Marine or whatever else I want.
A big help in this project has been my son... He graduates soon as a structural engineer and he's been helping me make sure my stilts are properly designed and will be strong enough. Now I feel confident that I can complete my stilts and trust them.
Are you going to let them help you paint it? My kids want to help in my future nativity scene painting project (I have the stuff!). Debating on how to share this with them.
Maybe. The final coat of paint will be latex house paint applied with a sprayer, but I may be able to give them some little tasks. Right now they're just happy playing with the pieces as I assemble them.
So I put a coat of plasti-dip on the helmet. I'm not at all happy with the way that turned out, so I'm going to keep working the surface.
Assembled the stilts and tried them out... Believe it or not, they hold me up okay. I haven't glued the PVC together yet because I may need to make adjustments before I finalize them, but I went ahead and built the soles and foot plates, and attached them.
This is a stilt sitting on top of the sole of one of the feet. The hinge is to allow the toe pieces to flex when I walk.
This is both stilts, showing the top and bottom.
Here's a closeup of the attachments of the foot plates to the frame.
Yeah I've also seen people use spackle. I think the problem is that it is heavy-ish and not very flexible. Caulk can flex with the foam, so there won't be cracks and splits. The edges on the toes there I will grind down with a sander or a Dremel BEFORE I caulk it. I did the opposite with the helmet and it looks awful. That's gonna take a lot of work to fix.
The flexible toes idea I saw in a cosplay forum somewhere and committed the design to memory. I haven't followed it exactly but I'll be using a similar idea.
I'm using EVA foam, sold for putting down floor mats for comfort when people have to stand all day on the job. I get it pretty cheap from Harbor Freight.
I'm not entirely sold on the Plasti-Dip yet, but this is also literally the first time I've ever used it. I'm going to see how well I can peel it off, and if I can't do that then I'm just going to have to sand that helmet like crazy to get it smooth again.
After putting the kids to bed, back to work on the power armor!
I finished the assembly of the foam for the feet. Now I just have to complete all the mechanical stuff inside, like the hinge joint, spring, and make final adjustments to the PVC stilts.
I decided to stand on the stilts to test them and prove my son's structural engineering is on par.
Now I feel confident that I can complete my stilts and trust them.
