Designing and Printing the Fantastic Robo-Jarv Part 3

I finally got the body to print.  I had another print failure since the last post before figuring out what the problem was.  Long story short, I had to change the FEP film in the resin vat.  That’s a story for another day, though. 

I cleaned the uncured resin from the body and snipped off the supports.  Following that, it got another rinse and dry before being left in the sun.  This finished the curing process.  I used some polystyrene pipe to attach the legs to the body.  These were reinforced with some thick metal wire.  Super glue held it all in place. 

Experience has taught me that its usually a good idea to attach resin parts to each other with wire and glue.  I use a small hobby drill to make holes in each piece before connecting them together with a length of wire. 

I gave Robo-Jarv a solid coat of black spray paint primer.  Even though I’ll probably add more bits to it, giving it a coat of black paint at this stage helps bring out details, mistakes, and areas that need cleaning up.  I’m using a clear resin and that can make it difficult to get a solid impression of the model.

Now it gets fun!  I know I want the Robo-Jarv on a small base.  The model doesn’t lend itself to an obvious scale so the items I place around it will help sell its size.  I poked around the spares box(es) until I found a 1/35 scale figure from a kit that I want to add to the base. 

And so it goes until I’ve built a vignette in my head of what the finished product will look like.  This is subject to change, of course, but I’ve got a direction I can start moving towards.  This robot has broken down in a largely destroyed urban environment.  A scrappy opportunist is working on getting it back into the action for his own purposes.  Is it a combat robot? Reconnaissance droid? Dominoes pizza delivery bot?  Don’t know yet but these questions usually sort themselves out. 

I build like I buy groceries.  Put a bunch of interesting ingredients in the cart and see what kind of meal comes out of it.  Sometimes this leads to frustration, but it can often lead to an awesome and unique creation.  Now I just need to explain to my wife why I bought $30 worth of dried squid.