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Thanks to soloplumber for this.
I've been working on how to enable dynamic posing of crisis suits. In other words: being able to change the pose of crisis suits easily. This tutorial shows how I did this. Please note that this is risky and the conversion will be very delicate.
Below are the tools I used:
You don't have to have these exact tools to do this, just something to create the same effect. The first tool was a conical sanding bit for my dremel, the second was the handle of my exacto with a piece of wire in it (Instead of in the blade.)
The first step was dremeling out the ball sockets on the limbs. Using the dremel I bore conical indentations in the center of the ball. The second step was making holes for the wire, which was accomplished by heating the wire until it was red hot and piercing the torso and limbs in the center of the sockets.
When you make the cones for the limbs make sure that you are centered on the inside of the ball where it can't be seen, too big and you've ruined the model. Secondly, when you make the holes for the wire in the conical depression, the legs should go in straight and the arms should be bent at 90 degree angles like so.
I hope you can see that. This also means making these holes down the upper arm instead of straight through the thin arm-plate.
Once you have made all the holes you are going to need to cut the wire and dry fit the arms and legs until they fit as close to the torso as possible. Do not glue them. Now the critical part: you need to get the wires into the limbs and get them sticking straight out of the socket, just like in the picture. Now super glue the wires to the arms. Let these dry for a long while, this glue needs to be set and fully hardened before continuing. The legs should be on a single piece of wire mounted like an axle. The hip wire should be glued to the torso first; this should also be dry and set before moving on.
Ok so now you have the arms with wire and the torso with wire, and it's all dry.
Scary time!
Take one arm and the torso, drip a bit of super glue in the conical depression in the ball socket. Wipe out all the excess glue you want as little as possible in the ball, just enough for the wire to get some on it. You can also just dip the wire in the nozzle of your glue. Now fit the arm being very careful not to tilt the ball, you want all the glue to be on the inside of the conical depression. If glue gets on the outside of the ball don't glue it as you will secure the arm to the socket! This one arm needs to set and dry. All gluing should be set and dry before continuing with any more steps! Repeat above on the other arm.
The legs should be done in the same way: glue in the cone and then fit to the torso. The head should only be glued to the wire and sit in its cradle on the torso. The reason for the conical depressions are, the wire needs to have room to move or it will not provide a full range of motion- also it's the only way to glue the pieces together without binding them at the joint lines.
Finished!
As I've mentioned above, this conversion will be very delicate and even if posed carefully, the model will still only last so long. If, and when, the wire breaks, just glue the arm on the end of as normal. A note on posing: two of the pictures above show the suit actually balanced on his own, but in the third pose he is on a stand.
One method of mounting is only gluing one foot to the base giving the whole model range. A second method I found is making bases with different foot positions, and then just swapping them around the different models. Also this conversion is risky on the arms especially, so if you do attempt it, please realise that you could potentially disfigure your model. Well I hope a few of you are brave enough to try this or gain a few ideas so you can elaborate on this idea.
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| Comment made by Asmodai on 17:58:26, 2 March 2008 |
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| ...why not just use magnets? |
| Comment made by wenicher on 03:25:19, 27 February 2008 |
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| u should use it 2 make samall animations lol |
| Comment made by taugundrone on 19:36:44, 25 February 2008 |
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| i recomend magnets |
| Comment made by Slugga on 06:20:16, 30 December 2007 |
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| You turned it into an action figure... |
| Comment made by Sgt.Bell of Valcaria on 13:30:02, 30 November 2007 |
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| very simple,but very effective |
| Comment made by Shas'O Check'Sa Bar'naby Kias on 06:46:31, 21 October 2007 |
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| this is pointless, but cool. You should put your evidently great converting skill into something more impressive and... longlasting |
| Comment made by Modo on 20:00:45, 26 September 2007 |
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| I think magnets work better for this purpose. |
| Comment made by shaso kunas on 02:59:30, 20 September 2007 |
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| cool but pointless |
| Comment made by suvantom on 08:34:37, 18 August 2007 |
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| kinda cool cause you can change poses for diferent batles but kind a pointless |
| Comment made by deadmancrwaling on 12:10:46, 20 July 2007 |
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| i think it's cool good job |
| Comment made by Tau_player on 15:07:04, 11 July 2007 |
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| Terrible, I see no use in posing your models |
| Comment made by Shiavar on 03:43:06, 2 July 2007 |
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| Well, variable poses are really cool, if you would like to change 'em. As far as "too much time involved [...]" goes, I'd say it would be pretty okay since you have like a max of 20 suits in an army. Depends on your style, pretty much. |
| Comment made by Karashi Lissera on 13:13:17, 29 May 2007 |
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| Hmm use-full but to much time will be invalved for each modle. |
| Comment made by drone-kid on 21:14:37, 29 April 2007 |
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| crap |
| Comment made by Ace cipher zer0 on 14:36:58, 24 March 2007 |
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| Pretty pointless but cool. |
| Comment made by Metalstorm on 01:30:23, 13 February 2007 |
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| whats the point of this i mean why would you wanna keep changing the poses because 'suits are made for killing not modeling! |
| Comment made by sargentbilco on 08:19:36, 25 December 2006 |
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| it looks cheasy to me i mean a posable crisist suit it not gundam here i hate gundam ps.have lovely very merry day |
| Comment made by Tony on 21:55:35, 12 December 2006 |
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| It's a bit too risky, and it doesn't really acheive anything |
| Comment made by big tau mech guy on 15:17:17, 8 December 2006 |
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| if battlesuits were action figures id sure buy this one! |
| Comment made by fusilero on 14:28:22, 8 December 2006 |
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| A bit pointless but cool nonetheless, 7/10 |
| Comment made by stsonic on 10:43:44, 18 November 2006 |
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| he he..."sponge" |
| Comment made by tvinson1 on 18:52:28, 10 September 2006 |
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| oooohhh....cool, battle suite action figure!!!! |
| Comment made by Smith on 09:27:00, 27 August 2006 |
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| Quite cool, but about as useful as a waterproof sponge. 7/10 just because it's cool |