Completed General Veers

[Alay]

Bought a plastic-only kit from MonCal. Arrived a few weeks back!

I'm gonna paint the thing in a Feldgrau and try to match it to the fabric as much as possible.?? I think the film one was more of a green, but this should look better in person under warm lights instead of set paint.

[Alay]

Made the headset for under the helmet.?? 3d CAD spacer and mic tip, then plastidipped it!

[Alay]

Okay, this box of plastic has been sitting in my garage too long, and the con starts at the end of July. Time to build an AT-AT Veers.


So I bought a set from MonCal a while back. The top and bottom of the helmet are glued together, but everything else is up to me (Because I just asked for the ABS plastic... no vacuum former yet or I'd be making my own molds there too lol).

Step one, I need to make the stupid metal rangefinder piece. The spearhead requirement say it has to be metal. And also painted. Why? Who knows, but I guess I'm making it out of metal.

I got this scrap aluminum laying around, it'll work to start



My calculator says 1.5" diameter means approx 5" diameter, so approx 5" I'll cut it



Gonna band saw it down to size and bend it into a circle... but first, I gotta make the little greeblie pad.






Twelve Dollars plus shipping???? To OnShape I go...


(2 hours later)



That looks right enough for government work. Off to the SLA printer he goes.

Also making the belt thingie mabobber




To be continued once that's done printing...

[Alay]

Day two of making this thing... I cut the hole in the bucket for the rivet. I think it gets painted (unlike the snowies) so I'll leave it in there.


I also glued on the little circle thingies.




Eyeballed marked and drilled the spots for the disk greeblies which I'll add on after painting.





Blew the belt pieces nice and wide open for my thick Officer belt to pass through and buckle underneath




For the rivet covers, I figured out that the Rebel push button insert found parts I have laying around work pretty perfect. I put cap rivets under them and CA glued them in place. The cap rivets will go through nylon or elastic or some crap when I'm ready to bridge the shoulders.








After a good long thought about the chest box and how to do the little vertical lines, I came back to my FAVORITE modeling material ever to use; TOOTHPICKS!



I've also been thinking about the little buttons. And it dawns on me they look exactly like a pill capsule. So I took one of my fiancee's vitamin capsules and emptied it out (please don't tell them) and turned it into literally the smallest mold I've ever made.






Meanwhile, nice day out, time to get some painting done. I gave a flat gray prime to both the chest and the back




Then I used this paint that I got from some miniature tank nerds to make a proper feldgrau color with







printer is still printering, so we gotta wait to finish the helmet tomorrow. I also managed to bend the absolute sith out of a piece of aluminum from before, but I don't love it. Gonna come back to it with a replacement that's cleaner later in the build but for now it will get me past the post of approval.

[Backpacks Got Jets]

That green is awesome

[Alay]

22 minutes ago, Backpacks Got Jets said:

That green is awesome

 

Camera doesn't do it justice but it's the perfect feldgrau.  I kept walking between my garage and the sunlight to watch the Gray-to-Olive transition haha

[Alay]

Print #1 completed. They came out pretty well too!




I painted up the "aluminum" backing to the helmet. Yeah yeah, it's gotta be ACTUAL aluminum for Spearhead.... so this one fits well, once my metal stock comes in, I can lathe it in actual metal. But for now, this will do with some tapped holes in the back of the helmet.




Now for the chestplate... I think these that I found for $3 will work great for the buttons!

[Alay]

Ugh today was a day of disappointments and frustrations.

Lets start with the good: The greeblie printed and glued fine.





Painted up nicely, unpictured. So that's done at least. I also twisted metal to make loops for the backplate and chestplate, riveted those boys the rest of the way in, and gave it all a scuff and paint.

Now onto helmet assembly. I painted the greeblie on the side "rangefinder" and the rest of the lid, then installed the notched code disks. I got the notched code disks from this really cool vendor called Bailey Builds. Highly recommended lol.



I went to install the trim and low and behold, the trim in the kit was juuuuuust a tad short of the amount I needed. Sad day.



Luckily I had some U-Channel I could cut to size to finish it for now. I might replace it all with that thicker boy, I sorta like how it looks and feels.

I also installed the painted resin metal spine in the back. He's in there with wood screws so he can be replaced with tapped metal once I lathe the actual part. Will that happen before approval? Likely not.





So the rough bit of the helmet is done. I might clear coat it, I'm not sure. I'm worried about the feldgrau layer scuffing.




Unfortunately my goggles elastic was too short to get around the bucket, so I'm waiting until tomorrow to get more gray elastic and extend him. Ugh I really wanted the helmet to be done today.

Just the backplate and the rest of the chest to go.

[Alay]

Printed a back greeblie to start on that project. I think my CAD is close enough to what the screen used part looks like:






As for the color, here's it under natural light, warm light, and the coolest light I have (in that order)

[fowlmouth]

This looks so friggin good, Ezra!

[Alay]

On 6/17/2023 at 4:26 PM, fowlmouth said:

This looks so friggin good, Ezra!

 

Thank you thank you!

 

[Alay]

As I near the completion of this build, I finally did the part I dreaded most; the stenciling of the lines.

I went for a free-hand drawn look that was not free hand drawn at all but using thin sloppily moved vinyl that was cut.




I also attached my rank badge buttons while I was at it. I make these buttons myself and use resin inserts to make them flat, same as I do when making rank badges from scratch. These particular ones were pressure casted off a master mold as part of a batch of about 25 each. I used tape to line them up, then E6000 to glue them in place and left them overnight






I think the placement is about right, judging from screen watching and comparing.


The back stenciling is done via white black and gold vinyl on a cut acrylic board. I tried to make the connectors look a little worn so some have the gold caps, others have a bit of sharpie. I dunno...



I don't know if I'm gonna leave the black detailing on there. I watched the movie again today with some of the back lit up shots, and I honestly see 0% of the supposed lines and black marks. Might leave them on for Spearhead then take them off for better accuracy.

[Alay]

After much back and forth, I went with black for the back greeblie. The reds just looked wrong when put all together and the black looked closer to the screen to me. But I'm also partially blue/yellow colorblind so who the heck knows...




I cast parts in the remaining colors for the chest stuff, then got to work gluing.




All that was left is strapping, and strap I did. I used olive nylon between the sides and under the bridges. Thee chestplate uses a clamshell attachment method where the right shoulder opens and snaps, and the left is permanently cap riveted together. This feels closest in balance to screen used strapping and reusable needs-to-exist-for-more-than-one-take.

Strapped up, put on my Bailey Builds headset, and took some photos






Submitting a costume on my birthday! Best way to close out the day. Next stop, any adjustments and then Spearhead!

[Alay]

Full Album and submission: