Dark Knight Costume from UD Replicas

This is my second purchase from UD Replicas, and I'm just as happy with this suit as I was with my DareDevil suit. Great work, as always David!

Since this type of suit has already been documented pretty heavily online, I won't really go into photographic detail too much. But it is pretty fantastic.

Zelda Rupee

I recently collaborated with a fellow costumer and bulder-of-things (who also happens to be my girlfriend!! Whoohoo!!!!) on a video game inspired item. Jackie is a huge fan of all things Zelda, so when I offered to re-master her rupee for her, she jumped at it.

I used her original design and specs to make the master, which came together in a little under an hour. A little molding and casting later, and Jackie produced the first prototype.

If you're interested in purchasing one, check out Jackie's etsy store, where she has them listed.

And no post about Jackie would be complete without a link to her work with Smosh on the Zelda Raps music video:

Fifth Element ZF-1 Parts Progress

There's been a small burst of productivity lately, and the ZF-1 project has benefitted. I think it may be due to the fact that I've been informed that two or three parts sets are in transit from Australia, which will bring me to a near complete set. Excite!

A while back, I sourced all of the model kits that are used for kit bashing on the ZF-1. There were three of them, from the Star Trek: Voyager model kit series. In total, the kits cost me over 100 bucks. I figured I would mold the kit pieces needed to build the ZF-1, not only so I wouldn't have to risk screwing up the original pieces for my build, but also to offer them to fellow builders at a fraction of the cost of purchasing all three kits.

The first side of a couple of two part molds that I poured up the other day when my friend Ewan came over. I had those little pieces clayed up for some time now, but just never got around to putting rubber on them. What you see below is the piece embedded in rubber, after I pulled away all the clay.

This is the one part mold, or "Dump mold" that I made for the big piece of one of the models that goes on the front of the ZF-1. The mold came out just beautifully.

Here is what casting done right looks like. This is an absolutely flawless cast. ZERO bubbles, nice flat back, all level and smooth.

This is another dump mold I made for two little pieces that go on the side of the ZF-1.

Here, I compare the original piece in grey, with some resin copies. Again, flawless. No bubbles, just beautiful castings.

Here's how I prep to pour the second half of the two part mold. I used a thin piece of styrene to make the wall around the bottom half of the mold, and hot glue gunned it to a piece of MDF. Next step is to spray it with mold release, then dump rubber on top.

That's all for now. I'm going to try to pour up the second halves of the two part molds tomorrow, which may ACTUALLY happen as I have some other stuff I need to mold too. I must confess I'm incredibly pleased with how well these pieces came out. If you need a set, please shoot me an email.

WiiU Short For Nintendo Is Complete and Online

A couple of weeks ago, some of my friends over at Wayside Creations called me in to help them shoot a short film that they were submitting as part of a contest for the new console from Nintendo, the WiiU.

Here's a cool little cast and crew photo, showing everyone who helped out.

I carted in my trusty Canon T3i and over the course of one day we shot it, with me acting as Director of Photography.

Here's how it turned out:

And here's a behind the scenes featurette I cut together to be released in conjunction with the short:

I'm super happy and proud to have been a part of this production, and I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

Iron Man / Tony Stark Jacket - SOLD

Thanks for all the inquiries. This jacket has found a great home, and I'm happy to have passed it on at such a great price.

LITERALLY never worn, this is the licensed jacket from Museum Replicas that came out with the release of Iron Man 2.

Size L.

Perfect condition. New.

$125 shipped, CONUS.

Fallout: Nuka Break Season Two Announcement

I'm very excited to announce that this morning I was asked to participate in the making of season two of Wayside Creations' Fallout: Nuka Break! Whoohoo! I'll be shooting all of the behind-the-scenes footage, and then putting together a series of vignettes to be released alongside the episodes. Should be a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Until then, be sure to check out season 1

New Mill & Lathe, Courtesy of Adam Savage

Those of you who know me know that I'm not big on name dropping. But since this is hobby relevant, and Adam happens to be a pretty big dude in the hobby, it seemed appropriate.

The story behind this is pretty short. I traded Adam a couple of things in my collection for these. I gave him the stuff at Comic Con this year, but he didn't have the opportunity (or desire) to lug the tools down to San Diego, so we had to find a good opportunity when I was up in San Francisco to pick them up.

As luck would have it, Adam was throwing a halloween party in his "man cave", and I got an invite. One quick road trip later and I had a trunk full of new machining equipment!

Here's the break down:

Here's the mill. For reference, this is the mill and lathe that Adam made his legendary Blade Runner blaster replica with. When I was loading them into my car, I asked Adam if there were any tangible limitations to the pieces, and his response was that it really comes down to size, and knowing what you're doing. If you know how to machine, you'll get great results with these machines.

This is the DRO that Adam added to the mill.

The mill also has a motorized feeder on it, so I can get really smooth, uniform cuts.

Those two accessories are immensely helpful, and should aid in doing some pretty awesome stuff, once I get everything set up.

Here's the lathe.

Which also has DRO's onboard.

Adam also threw in a big box of misc accessories. I still need to go through all this stuff and figure out what they do!!!

And lastly, here's a pic of Adam and I right before his party got started. I'm wearing my UD Replicas DareDevil suit, and Adam is in his Master & Commander attire, which was very nicely done.

The party was super fun, and it was great to finally have a chance to poke around the Man Cave. For reference, this is where Adam's episodes from the website "Tested" are filmed. As fortune would have it, the guys behind Tested, Norm & Will, were both in attendance, and were super fun to chat with about the MattMobile project, and other stuff that is in the works. With any luck, The Project WorkBench will be making an appearance in an upcoming episode of their series.

MattMobile: More Of The Same

I spent a couple hours today just doing more of the same nonsense that you've seen over the past few posts. Puttying and sanding. It's actually kind of fun, and I'm enjoying it right now. Though I'm sure this will pass. I think this might be the last set of pics I take of this process until I have something worthy of showing. I'm sure my three blog readers are growing weary of similar looking photos.

But first, the big piece of non-sanding work I finished up today was cleaning the edge of this intake. Recall that previously I sawed the disk out with my reciprocating saw, then went in with a sanding disk drill bit and worked out the excess. Nice and smooth now.

Nothing terribly interesting here, just a shot of the fender and how it looks after some wet sanding.

I've been doing a lot of "sculpting" on the rear fin. Those scallops all have a seam line running down the center of them, and there's some weird asymmetry to them. Here's how it looked after the first clean up pass.

And here's where I slobbed in a bunch of putty to fix one of the inconsistencies.

More on the front.

And these little vent thingies are proving to be a bit of a mess, requiring a lot of loving care. Coming along, I suppose.

Two New MattMobile Videos

These two videos are sort of related, so I thought I would post them together. They are both about body work, and demonstrate some of the techniques I am using on the car.

Whoohoo! Please note that I've now got custom thumbnails for my vidz, as I'm now a youtube partner. Suck it!

Putty In The Buff

Though it is unclear at this time how many puns I can get out of the "buff" primer I am using, I'm hoping for at least one more.

Yesterday was pretty productive, if not a long day. I did my first pass of putty over the primer, isolating places that were most critically in need of help. This included holes, deep scratches, and a bit of sculpting in missing details.

Here's some work I was doing on the back fin.

This is one of the more severely troubled spots, as the lip around that intake is a big mess. Lots of clean up and sculpting to do here.

Here's a bit of a broader shot.

The next step of course is sanding all that putty down. Oh joy.

MattMobile Gets Buff!!!

With all of the body work I've done recently, including the stuff that went into the filming of two recent episodes of Rise of The MattMobile, I decided it was time to get a better look at my handiwork.

A friend of mine who restored a VW Bus a while back gave me some great advice on painting. Basically, you lay down a coat of heavy build primer that is colored Buff, then lay down black over that. This way, as you're sanding, you know when you've sanded too far, or it becomes visibly apparent where you need to build up more. It's basically a really handy way to reveal all of the areas of your car that you need to pay more attention to.

Which makes a ton of sense. As it stood, my car was a mixture of various shades of black, tan and green. This made it really hard to tell if I had smoothed out the rough spots.

Here are some pics of the first pass of Buff paint I did to the car. My main focus was on the side, obviously, and the seam that ran down it.

Overall, I'm SUPER happy with how clean things are. Still plenty of work to go, but I can see now that I've really made quite a difference in the body. The seams are cleaned up pretty well, the gas cap is completely smoothed out... overall really great.

From this picture you can really see how the paint exposes areas that need work. I knew going in that this part was a rough spot, but I find it really interesting how the paint reveals the areas that need work.

MattMobile Vents and Body Work

Yes, it has indeed been a while since my last blog post, but please forgive me as I've been very busy. Not only did I complete a few weeks of really hard work on a feature film, but I also JUST finished work on a really exciting upcoming web series from Wayside Creations (the folks who brought you Fallout: Nuka-Break) where I shot all of the behind the scenes footage, but also built a key piece of proppery for the show. I'm very excited to have been a part of the production, and cannot wait to start showing pics of my work.

Until then, let's focus on the car.

My most recent acquisition is vents for the front of the cockpit. I got these from my friend and fellow builder Brian who no longer needs them. Brian used these as templates to cut the vents into his shell, which is what my plan is also.

The body work continues. Here you can see where I've sanded smooth some dents I filled on the drivers side step/intake.

It's still a little murky here, but I've been doing some work smoothing out the seam on the drivers side fin.

When wet sanding, little details stick out more prominently. Here I've circled some small scratches and dings with a silver sharpie so they will be easy to locate later.

Lastly, I've fired up this little compressor to use for late night painting. Turns out my heavy duty compressor kicks off A LOT of noise. In order to keep the hostile neighbor placated, I'll be using this little guy. It cranks out plenty of air pressure, and sounds like a purring cat.

That's all I've got for now, but hopefully more soon.

Master Replicas Star Trek Communicator For Sale. #24/1500

$550, shipped anywhere in the continental US. I WILL NOT SHIP INTERNATIONALLY!!

This piece is in great shape, is fully functional, and includes all original paperwork and packaging. It was taken out of the box for some photos and light handling.