Welcome to Prometheus Rising Studios, the home of Ben Mininberg (Prometheum5)’s custom made toys, painted models, and other various works. Be sure to check out the latest progress on my efforts to create my own mecha toy line using my PP3DP UP! Mini 3D printer, the archive of my Killer Culture resin bacterial monster and robot figures, and all the models and custom painted toys I’ve done for customers. If you like what you see, drop me a line using the link on the side or swing by the Store site to purchase something fun.
For more info about Prometheus Rising Heavy Industries and my 3D printing efforts, check out this interview I did with CollectionDX!
While there are a million other things I should be working on right now, I received the second wave of Hasbro’s Iron Man 3 Marvel Legends figures today. With the comic Iron Monger Build-A-Figure complete, I could not help but dig into the archives and take some comparison photos of Hasbro’s efforts to recreate the classic match up. All that’s missing are the Hot Toys figures, but that would not really be comparing apples to apples. I do wish Diamond Toys had been on the Iron Man train for the first movie, because I would really be curious to see what horribly flawed but gorgeously detained renditions they could have come up with. I’ll probably end up reviewing the entire Marvel Legends wave for CollectionDX because it is a weird wave split between some mediocre repaints and some incredible new molds, but I’m moving soon so that will have to wait. For now, enjoy some family photos.
After the most recent Paul Kaiju show at FOE, I got a chance to stand outside in the cold of frosty Northampton and talk shop with Sanjeev Teh Jerk, master of all things 3D design. While I have been going headlong into home-grown ABS printing, Sanjeev has been working on some face-meltingly cool multimedia affairs for production through Shapeways. Production method aside, we are both always looking to existing toys for inspiration. Sanjeev mentioned to me how he had recently cracked open a vintage Gokin and found a joint design that we both were pretty sure would work in 3D printed ABS. We talked, froze our asses off, and then I went home, and the gears were in motion.
As soon as I posted the first Bounce Tortoise to come out of the acetone vapor treatment I have been experimenting with, I started getting requests for some kind video of my process and equipment. I spent the weekend working on a couple of Allarounds, so it seemed like the perfect time to shoot some video. Spend fifteen minutes with me and watch some Allaround parts go from the print bed to finished smooth, shiny acetone slicked parts ready for assembly.
The thing that has been slowing down Prometheus Rising Heavy Industries so far has been the post-processing and sanding of printed parts. Even though I was happy to leave some print texture on some parts of my figures, there was still plenty of cleanup that went into each figure. I have been hesitant to start a big production batch because the thought of all the sanding that would be needed was pretty intimidating. A couple weeks ago, an interesting post on the RepRap Blog for homebrew 3D printing made the Twitter rounds and kept being sent to me by different people that knew I was big on home printing.
When I redesigned the Bounce Tortoise, I made the leg bosters and backpack separate parts, allowing me to design other loadout modules for different Tortoise variants. After doing the highly mobile Bounce Tortoise, I knew I wanted to do something heavier. The Striking Tortoise was designed around a shoulder weapon mount backpack and shock-absorbing outriggers for the legs. The first heavy weapon I designed was the Saber Missile Pod. I have plenty of ideas for other artillery type weapons and a couple crazy things, but the clean geometry of a missile pod seemed like a great place to start. I kept the colors simple on this guy to keep the focus on the new accessories, but I could see some variation of these colors becoming a production scheme down the line.
The guys over at the Moderately Geeky Podcast put on a great show where they discuss what’s cool in action figures, movies, television, and whatever else they’re into. They are apparently interested in 3D printing and fans of homemade mecha toys, because they asked me to come on the show for an interview about Prometheus Rising Heavy Industries. We talked for around an hour in their latest episode, Episode 37 – The Overly Robot Edition.
For those asking, the Rise of the Robots show items are now available on FOE Gallery’s website. Four Bounce Tortoises went to the show for sale, and there are two remaining on their site. You can buy the 1/12 scale Bounce Tortoise Desert version and 1/24 scale Bounce Tortoise Metro version on FOE’s webstore here!
