Sorry for the lack of updates, this has been slow going now that I have a full-time job rather than being purely self-employed, and all my free-time has been dedicated to raptor claws, BUT i've been working at this while waiting for claw castings and paint to draw, and during lunch break at work, and so now I have finally assembled all the pieces (sans the vacuum formed parts).
I designed and printed an inner chassis, and while it broke in two due to some print-errors, after some hot-glue action I was still able to assemble the petals onto it.
View attachment 1539881View attachment 1539879View attachment 1539880View attachment 1539882View attachment 1539883
and here it is next to the original:
View attachment 1539887
The petals aren't perfect, one of the sets broke in two and I don't think I did a great job glueing it back together, so some of the petals sort of stick out farther than they should as a combination of a bad glue-job, and because the water-washable resin sort of warped in the cleaning/curing process. The chassis helped straighten most of them out, but some resisted. It's good enough for a prototype and to test out some painting techniques.
I'll have to save up a bit more funds before I test out some electronic bits, it's not terribly expensive but until I work a few more weeks my wallets not terribly stable.
I'll post an update either once I test some more vacuum forming or after I install some electronics— the later might be a while, so until then!
PS: Does anyone have a for-sure measurement for the original prop? I feel like this might be a bit big, but the circumference is juuuuust over 10 inches, which seems about right??