Wow, it's been a while since I updated my thread. Eventually I will add "archon visor" to the thread title because that has been my latest project with this build.
So I took Femshep to C2E2 and did the Cosplay Championship contest. I didn't make it to the final round but I got 2nd place in my category - video games. More importantly I met a lot of cool people! Despite not knowing anyone going there, and waiting 300 hours backstage, this was one of my better convention experiences.
I have also finished the omniblade, but it broke in transit to the convention. The parts I most expected to break were fine, but one of the arm cuffs came loose and I pulled it off before anything else decided to go with it. Easy enough repair, I just could not wrap my brain around a safe method of traveling with it. This pic was from right before the convention.
Lately I have been making the archon visor. I'm using vac-formed styrene and the same orange acrylic used for my omniblade.
The original used Smooth-on's version of apoxie sculpt, which I did not like, because I've been using the former for so long it's what I'm used to, and there are minor differences. It also used a sexy shampoo travel bottle.
Then I formed these with styrene. This was one of the early versions. I made some tweaks to the sculpt before I got something more 3-D looking that I was satisfied with, that did not make webs.
I also tried vac forming some PETG. This failed horribly, and I only had two sheets. I scavenged the parts that were useable for transparent LED illumination. My left/right visor halves are a layered combo of styrene and PETG at this point, because I also ran into trouble with solvent-based glue just eating the thin styrene. Not always, but in some areas.
Next, on one of the pieces I did some hand heat-forming with my gun to get the ear section in a curve, and the jaw section to bend slightly inward. Fairly simple as long as I did not let the heat blast for very long in any one spot, because these are so thin.
Before I did any more hand-forming, I needed to see them all one shade under primer, to check for symmetry. This is hard to judge when some parts are clear PETG and the rest is styrene. It must have been humid, because the Krylon paint I used looked like chalky puke.
These currently are still being adjusted. Getting something to sit squarely on your face is tricky, because your face/ears are not perfectly symmetrical, as anybody with glasses will know.
There I am adding the missing beveled layer seen in the reference. I left it off the sculpt because I knew it would be difficult to heat-form a curve with a gun, going around the skull, with two ridges resisting the curve. If that makes sense. So I curved the visor, and cut out a strip to mount on it after the curve was set. Following this will be carbon-fiber vinyl wrapping.
Not pictured yet are the acrylic visor panel and LEDs. This time I'm not using a laser cutter to etch, so I'll have to get creative with paint on the acrylic to make those designs.