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.
Archive for the ‘Toy Customs’ Tag
PNT-001 Nimble Tortoise minifigure 23 late winter Leave a comment
PST-002 Stalking Toad minifigure GG-3 Leave a comment
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.
3D Printed Replacement Wing Lever for Hasbro Star Wars X-wing 11 comments
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.
Star Wars 1/6 Scale Gonk Droid 3D Printed 5 comments
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.
“My Friend the Micronaut 2013” Items Now Online Leave a comment
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 CD-1-L 1/18 Micro-scale PRHI 3D Printed Figure Debuts at Grasshut! 2 comments
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!
Monster Kolor Painting Class ‘Water Emergence’ TriPus Leave a comment
On Saturday, June 22 I took a trek out to the brand new Monster Kolor shop in Middleboro, Mass for one heck of a good time. I attended the ‘Paint your own TriPus’ event, hosted by Monster Kolor with blank TriPus figures supplied by Max Toy Co. The attendees ranged in skill from the talented and always fun Todd Robertson and Will Long to people who had never used an airbrush before. The weather was perfect for a bunch of toy heads to hang out in a back alley and shoot paint. Benny Kline of Tenacious Toys was nice enough to photograph the whole even and post a huge gallery of photos from the day.
I spent the drive to Massachusetts planning the paint job for my TriPus. I wanted to something with deep blue tones and a fade on the bottom to give the appearance of a monster emerging from the ocean, all realistically colored and detailed up top. Walker had a few special paints and surprises out for people to try, so I was able to stick to my plan while trying out a few sharp new colors. Click through for nice big, tasty photos of some shiny green TriPus action! The whole figure was painted on Saturday with whatever tools and colors were on hand, and served as a great warm up refresher piece while I work on unpacking my studio into my new apartment.
I Needed A Simple Design to Test Some New 3D Printed Joints so I Made a Square 5 comments
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.
PRHI Acetone Treatment for ABS 3D Printed Parts Video Leave a comment
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.
ABS Plastic Plus Acetone Means I Don’t Have to Sand Anymore 3 comments
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.
Prometheus Rising Studios 
