drjag
Well-Known Member
So to no surprise, I have started ANOTHER Borderlands project. This time, I'm making a model sized Borderlands loot chest from Borderlands 1; I say Borderlands 1 instead of Borderlands in general because the red loot chests from both games have different textures, and I prefer the original model. Making a loot chest has been on my mind for quite a long time, and I recently bought a pack of 1mm styrene for a different project. I had some left over so the opportunity popped up.
So to begin with research, I found something very useful; one of the employees at Gearbox called Jeff Broome (known as botman in the Gearbox forums) has made a few pepakura models from Borderlands, the loot chest is one of them. (he also has the sanctuary loot chest aswell, which is basically just a different texture on the same model) So from that pepakura file, I edited the templates in Pepakura designer to be used for styrene. To my advantage, I have a physical reference of the loot chest from the Ultimate Loot Chest edition of Borderlands 2. It's not entirely accurate, (like the paint job, the "damage" and the lock) but primary sources have their own advantages compared to secondary sources, such as visualizing, shape, inspiration and comparison.
Here is the link to botman's models. Inside the Box: Papercraft - The Gearbox Software Forums
For those who may want the styrene edit I did. NOTE: I don't own this file, I just edited it. Borderlands Red Loot Chest Styrene edit by drjag - Download - 4shared - drjag Creations
So my goals for this project is to make it light up, have a working lock, have a hinge to lift the lid and to make it as SCREEN ACCURATE as possible. We'll see how it goes.
On to the pictures:
This is the faceplate. The slots are cut out because I plan to have green LED's shining through once the other pieces are glued on and this will help wire through the LED's and power source.
To do the rounded parts, I heated up the styrene using a heat gun and formed it round a cylinder with a very close curve to the loot chest. NOTE: If you're using your hands to shape the styrene with a heat gun, wear thick gloves! I wear thermal gloves which work very well.
This is the base, the strip down the middle is reinforcement because it's two pieces glued together instead of one. (my styrene wasn't long enough for 1 piece)
The curved areas were glued first, then I glued on the flat pieces against a 90 degree wall and held together with frog tape to ensure a 90 degree edge when glueing.
Here, the back half is glued on and strips of styrene are glued down the seems for reinforcement. The outside edge was then filed down and sanded smooth and lastly, milliput was added on the inside across the seems for reinforcement.
That's all for the first post, I'm working on the lid and the trim around the box so that's probably coming up next.
Until then...
So to begin with research, I found something very useful; one of the employees at Gearbox called Jeff Broome (known as botman in the Gearbox forums) has made a few pepakura models from Borderlands, the loot chest is one of them. (he also has the sanctuary loot chest aswell, which is basically just a different texture on the same model) So from that pepakura file, I edited the templates in Pepakura designer to be used for styrene. To my advantage, I have a physical reference of the loot chest from the Ultimate Loot Chest edition of Borderlands 2. It's not entirely accurate, (like the paint job, the "damage" and the lock) but primary sources have their own advantages compared to secondary sources, such as visualizing, shape, inspiration and comparison.
Here is the link to botman's models. Inside the Box: Papercraft - The Gearbox Software Forums
For those who may want the styrene edit I did. NOTE: I don't own this file, I just edited it. Borderlands Red Loot Chest Styrene edit by drjag - Download - 4shared - drjag Creations
So my goals for this project is to make it light up, have a working lock, have a hinge to lift the lid and to make it as SCREEN ACCURATE as possible. We'll see how it goes.
On to the pictures:
This is the faceplate. The slots are cut out because I plan to have green LED's shining through once the other pieces are glued on and this will help wire through the LED's and power source.
To do the rounded parts, I heated up the styrene using a heat gun and formed it round a cylinder with a very close curve to the loot chest. NOTE: If you're using your hands to shape the styrene with a heat gun, wear thick gloves! I wear thermal gloves which work very well.
This is the base, the strip down the middle is reinforcement because it's two pieces glued together instead of one. (my styrene wasn't long enough for 1 piece)
The curved areas were glued first, then I glued on the flat pieces against a 90 degree wall and held together with frog tape to ensure a 90 degree edge when glueing.
Here, the back half is glued on and strips of styrene are glued down the seems for reinforcement. The outside edge was then filed down and sanded smooth and lastly, milliput was added on the inside across the seems for reinforcement.
That's all for the first post, I'm working on the lid and the trim around the box so that's probably coming up next.
Until then...
