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.

Y U No Make MattMobile Update??

That's a question I've been asked a few times lately!

Truth is, I've been very busy with other projects. As much as I swore that the MattMobile would take precedence over other projects, sometimes something comes along that is just pretty darn cool.

I'm actually not allowed to talk about the specifics of the two projects I'm currently involved with, but I will say that they are really exciting, and I'm happy to be a part of them.

One is a feature film, for which I am building a number of things for. The other is a web series that I think will make A LOT of people very excited once word gets out about it. Both of these have me building things that are part of my "core competency," which is always really exciting.

I'm documenting the heck out of the stuff I build, so ONCE the I get the go ahead, I will for sure be posting behind-the-scenes details about the stuff I'm building.

Until then, please be sure to keep an eye on the Batgirl webseries, for which I not only built a bunch of props, but also filmed a few behind-the-scenes pieces. Here's a link to the main one, which kind of tells the story of the origin of the series, and the filming of the trailer.

Matt Munson on CosCast!

My friend Joey Rassool puts together a really fun and interesting pod cast that is focused on costuming, prop building, and other fun hobby related stuff. He was kind enough to invite me over for an episode, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. If you'd like to hear Joey and I wax nostalgic about how I got into the hobby, or what my thoughts are on the state of the hobby OR Batmobile building, please check it out.

CosCast 34 with Matt Munson

Star Trek TOS Tri-Viewer Is Finished

At long last I am here to reveal the finished Tri-Viewer that I made for the web series "Star Trek Continues", of which I am very pleased to be involved with in a tiny way.

I had a little party yesterday, and wanted to show it off there (cuz that's the kind of parties I throw!!!!) so I put together a screen graphic for it. This is just something I printed out on my home computer and stuck behind the blue border. The point really here is to show off the fact that it's easy to make static display screens for this bad boy.

The detail that kept this build from being finished was the blue border around each screen. It was actually very easy to make, and turned out really well. I started by cutting three pieces of styrene to size.

Then I marked off a border.

I used a straight edge and a box knife (with a fresh blade, natch) to cut along the lines. I did more of a "score and break" technique than an actual cut. That typically works well for me, and saves me the trouble of cutting through some thick styrene.

This left me with three styrene frames.

I then did a quick/light sanding of the frames, just to knock down any edges that popped up as a result of the cutting process.

I was ready to paint, BUT I wasn't sure if the brand of paint I purchased was going to adhere properly to the styrene. So I did what any good builder would do, and did a test. I took a scrap piece of styrene and sanded it down a tad, just the same way I had the three frames.

This is the spray paint I selected, based entirely on color.

I blasted a little corner, and left it to dry in the sun. It worked great, and I was very happy with the results.

And so then it was on to painting the three frames that I cut earlier.

I used two sided tape to adhere the frames to the main body of the tri-viewer. The fact that it's not super robust is also an intentional part of my design. The goal here is to allow the production to change out the screens as necessary. Whether they need a green screen for special effects, or a graphic, or even just a blank screen.

PAX Behind The Scenes

I found some footage last night on my computer that I totally forgot about. It was stuff I shot with my Sony Bloggie before and during the panel I was on during Pax, "From Pixels to Props" where we talked about making props from video games.

It edited together pretty well, and I'm really pleased with the outcome. Sadly much of the footage the bloggie shot was not super high quality, though I think the footage tells a fun little story.

And in case you missed the panel, I have the entire thing broken down into 7 parts on my YouTube channel. Here's a link to the playlist that will take you through the panel. There are some slow parts, but overall it's got some really great information in there.

From Pixels to Props