These red and white micro Bounce Tortoises debuted at Future Factory at Monster Kolor. They are a little bit cleaner with a satin finish to break up the matte, weathered look of most of the figures I brought. As of writing this there’s one left on the Monster Kolor web shop.
The remaining Prometheus Rising Heavy Industries 3D printed mecha action figures are available now on the Monster Kolor web store. Click the image above or this link to go snap them up before they’re gone! Figures range from two to six inches in height, are made from durable ABS plastic, and are painted with a combination of Monster Kolor, acrylics, oils, washes, and weathering pigments.
On January 25th fans of awesome homemade toys descended on the Monster Kolor shop in Middleboro, MA for the first ever Future Factory! Future Factory was a class on making toys using 3D printing hosted by Prometheus rising Studios (me), Brownnoize Productions, and Mechazone. The three of us brought our 3D printers and acetone setup to make toys live at the studio. Participants were able to chose from a stable of designs between the three of us and have the toy printed while they waited. Read on for details about what turned out to be a fantastic afternoon of toy fun!
Most people today only remember the venerable 3 3/4″ Star Wars action figure and vehicle line from Kenner, but one of their cooler non-figure toys was the diecast Star Destroyer. The seven inch long hunk of Imperial might featured an opening hangar for storing an itty bitty <1″ long Tantine IV Rebel Blockade Runner miniature. The little Correlian Corvette is often missing, robbing the awesome Star Destroyer of a great play feature. Thanks to 3D printing, and a vintage sample for reference provided by a fellow collector, Prometheus Rising Heavy Industries is pleased to announce a reproduction ship available through Shapeways, as detailed above. Before we get into the details, I want to make it clear upfront that the reproduction parts feature a distinguishing mark so as not to be confused with the original items. I know repro parts can be a tough subject with vintage collectors, and it was important to me not to make collecting more difficult for my fellow vintage-minded peers. Rather, the PRHI Mini Blockade Runner is meant to provide an affordable alternative to the original part, as well as a few novelty items.
Head on over to the Prometheus Rising Heavy Industries Shapeways Store to purchase your reproduction Blockade Runners today!
The PNT-001 Nimble Tortoise is a recon variant based on the Light Tortoise chassis. The jump jet systems have been stripped out, leaving the Light Tortoise a lean and quick ground-based unit. The Nimble Tortoise serves as a recon unit with advanced communications and sensor suites. Armed with dual arm-mounted solid slug rail rifles and a shoulder-mounted beam cannon, the Nimble Tortoise can also serve in a light sniper capacity. This Tortoise was spotted in early spring, still sporting a winterized color scheme that has been heavily stained and weathered by the muddy thaw.
The PST-002 Stalking Toad is a heavy ground combat power suit intended for frontline duty. The Stalking Toad balances armor and mobility, capable of bringing concentrated fire down on enemy armored targets. The default Toad load out features a heavy laser and rapid fire gattling canon with built in manipulator hand for added versatility in its roll as a ground superiority unit. Smoke grenade racks on the torso provide extra cover, earning the standard Toad its ‘Stalking’ moniker for its ability to disappear under smoke cover and reappear with a punishing barrage.
I’ve been collecting a lot of Star Wars toys lately, and one of the things I was most excited to get was the latest version of Hasbro’s big X-wing. Amazingly enough, the modern X-wing mold’s origin can still be traced back to 1998’s Power of the Jedi 2 Electronic Power F/X X-wing mold. I remember seeing TV commercials for the Power F/X toy back in the day, but never had one. The mold has gone through a number of revisions, but the bones are still the same in today’s X-wing toy. I was thrilled to get a big new X-wing toy, but I was incredible disappointed by the S-foil deployment gimmick when I finally put the toy together. Out of the box, the wings are saggy, loose, and do not deploy evenly. I figured the mechanism could not be that complicated, so I cracked open my new X-wing and got to work. The jist of the mechanism is a lever that depresses a spring-loaded plunger that deploys the wings. The level slides to the side to lock in place, but when slide to the side the lever does not depress the plunger evenly or far enough, so the wings are uneven and floppy. I fired up the computer and designed a new piece and printed it on my 3D printer, going through a half dozen iterations in a weekend until I had a new piece that held the plunger all the way down evenly when locked in place. The ABS plastic part printed on my UP Mini was good enough for me, but not something I was interested in making a number of for others. Instead, I ordered a couple of test prints from Shapeways and found the best one, which is available now in my new Prometheus Rising Heavy Industries Shapeways Store! I may use Shapeways to offer some of my own toys in the future, but for now it is the home of my first third-party toy add-on part. Keep reading after the jump for details on the development, installation, and end result of my X-wing bar.
I’ve been on a bit of a Star Wars kick lately, sparked in part by realizing how awesome the current 1/6 scale offerings available are. There’s all sorts of cool clone troopers and bounty hunters and all the great, colorful characters for sale, but droids seem to get a bit of a raw deal. There’s a couple of protocol droid and astromech molds available, but they are either old cheapie Hasbro toys or outrageously overpriced Medicom toys. There are so many other great background droid designs that I love, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. The Gonk Droids, or Power Droids depending on who you ask, are such a classic, simple, goofy design that a Gonk was the obvious starting point. Read on after the jump to see some behind the scenes of my design process and lots of photos.
The “My Friend the Micronaut 2013” opening sounds like it was a huge success. There are a ton of pics on the Micronaut 2013 Tumblr page now, so thanks to everyone who attended and snapped some shots! The show’s webstore is now up on the Grass Hut site for your perusal. There are three Allarounds left for $150 each and the Blockman prototype for $275. I’m pleased to say that my 3D printed figures are in good company, as they are listed right alongside the incredible works of Brownnoize Productions. Sanjeev is cranking out some incredible stuff. His Shapeways-produced Powered Suit Fake Type is an multimedia tribute to the original Diaclone Powered Suit toy. What speaks to me more, however, is his home-printed Powered Bio Suit (PBS), a Diaclone Powered Suit scaled up to Microman size. I’ve been following this project behind the scenes for a while now, and I am so excited for Sanjeev to finally be debuting such a rad project. It’s funny that we both independently came to similar conclusions with what we wanted to do with our consumer-grade 3D printers. I am sure we will be seeing some Blockman and PBS crossovers in the future. There are also some other terrific Microman-centric works for sale in vinyl, PVC, canvas paintings, and more than one other 3D printed project, so make sure to check it all out on Grass Hut’s site.
Union Fighter Blockman is an obscure little Takara line that came out in 1984 as an offshoot of Diaclone and the SF Land stuff. The line featured two inch tall plastic and metal robots covered in 5mm pegs and ports. The bots were cute little pocket warriors that could combine together and with a whole range of accessories to create everything from jets to massive gestalt robots. The story behind Blockman was that the Combination Droids were built to help human space colonists explore and settle. The Blockman sets came with little one inch tall chrome pilots with sculpts reminiscent of Diaclone drivers, which were the same size. I have always enjoyed Blockman as a fun building line with neat little bot figures, but thought that the Combination Droids could be pushed further. I also love the way the different Takara SF Land lines (Henshin Cyborg, Microman, Diaclone, …) were interconnected and related even though they were different scales, so I wanted to see how a Blockman would look scaled up to Microman (1/18) scale. While I was at it, I figured I should take advantage of the added room the large size would afford to add some new live to the design. A few days and test prints later, and the Micro-scale Blockman is ready to roll.
The fully posable Blockman features ratcheting joints in the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees, with additional articulation at the shoulders, biceps, wrists, waist, and hips. The extra room on this huge figure gave me the opportunity to try out a couple of new articulation tricks that worked like a charm, and I could not be happier with the results. The first CD-1-L Blockman prototype is available at the “My Friend the Micronaut 2013” show at Grasshut. It’s a huge figure that takes a bit to print, but rest assured I am working around the clock to get some more made for public consumption. The best part about this guy is that he is 100% printed ABS parts, including all of the articulation. That means no more fighting with fit to existing joint parts or worrying about running out of supplies.
More details and comparison shots after the jump!
Prometheus Rising Studios 
