Last year, I made a Crimson Fist Space Marine Costume. Everyone really seemed to like it, you can find the instructable I made outlining the costume's creation here: Gary Sterley's 40k Space Marine
While the feedback on the costume has been awesome, the most popular feature, by far, is the articulated Power Fist prop. A lot of effort went into that piece. It gets a great deal of attention and generates many questions. I have been asked numerous times to do a stand-alone instructable on it's creation, and inner workings, so here it is!
The following is a detailed step by step of the creation process behind my articulated Warhammer 40k Power Fist. WITH VIDEO! I made a video diary documenting my progress on this piece. I will post a link to a video in each section.
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Signing UpStep 1: A Plan of attack
INSPIRATION
Inspiration struck me after seeing a super talented fella by the name of Henrik Pilerud, make his own Power Fist. You can find his facebook page HERE. Henrik is a huge inspiration for me and my build, and a swell guy in general. Keep up the good work fella.
MY PLAN
Henrick made his powerfist out of foam. It looks great, but after some thought, I decided to take things in another direction. Foam is a great medium, but things like wall thickness, and a lack of real structural stability make it difficult to creating mechanical parts with it. I simply could not fathom a way to create a working foam finger that would be durable, and stay as close to the game model as I had envisioned. My wife had recently bought me a Solidoodle2 3D-printer for Christmas, and I was actively looking for projects make with my new toy. I fixed it in my mind that the working parts would be made from 3D printed plastic and got to sketching. this took a few days of deep thinking and planning, but in general, below is a list of what I was hoping to accomplish.
My goals:
-stay as close to the game models as possible
-make all fingers articulate, realistically.
-all pieces must fit together without the use of visible hardware (see goal 1)
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I dont suppose youd be willing to share the STL files for it, to save a guy some time would you?
WOW this Is Sick Amazing!!! Awesome Build
this is so cool, amazing work there and idea!
Awesome build and I was hoping that you would post this part too. Thank you for you effort and documentation on this.
Lightning claws next?
+1 vote for lightning claws.
Great work man! This is awesome! And great job documenting.
This is absolutely epic. Nice job on everything. I think that, given the popularity and availability of 3D printers, everyone should be learning at least a little 3D modeling. It needs to become a standard class in high-school. I sure wish I was taught while growing up.
They were just introducing electric typewriters when I was in high school. I am now trying to understand why some printers have a hot plate and some don't. I will have to learn more before I buy.
I know the feeling! My class was the first class in our school to get to learn typing on electric word processors. I'm very thankful we at least learned that, as I use it every day of my life.
The plastic tends to cool from the outside in. If the temperature difference is too great during cooling, the part starts to warp. A heated build platform helps even out the temperature of the part, and should help warping, and perhaps adhesion to the build platform.
Mileage may vary though. In my experience, 3D printers have something of a personality. What works best on one, may not be best practice on another.
Amazing job with the whole suit ;)
This is really awesome! I hope you win dude!
Freaking sweet. I followed your build over on the RPF (followed your Sith Stalker which is awesome as well and I'm currently working on that helmet) and the whole thing blows my mind. Definitely voted. Congratulations on the feature and good luck in the contest.
Step 7 first image! I was like totally rocking stuff! Bring out my tool box!
Well, I guess a cosplay competition is not a match for you.. Well done! :)
I'm sure you noticed but you are twice on the main page! Loved the win on cosplay! thanks for the hints...
This is freaking rad man! Well done!
For the Emperor!
Aka that is the single most cool thing I have seen today.
Wow, that paint job is absolutely flawless. This is amazing all around!
I would love to have a 3D printer..you lucky! Great result!
my sugestion for mark 4 use blocks to increas movment of the powerfist,
negative of that will be that you will have to add a litle bit more force to move the powerarm finger
This is a good idea. In fact, I built two different pulley prototypes, and did a few tests with systems like you describe. The decreased pull distance, turned out not to be worth the extra force it required to activate the fingers. It's a pretty taxing job on your weaker fingers.
Duuuuuuuuuuuude, that's awesome. I want to just walk around in that costume. Now I really really want a 3d printer.
OMG! It's mind blowing. I can't believe you made it, it's just too good to be true :). Well done!
By far the coolest thing I've seen on this website. Or anywhere for that matter! I need to come up with a tau project