Creating Gut's - Berserker Armor

By Saicohtic. 09/04/10, 05:38 pm

I want to re-create Guts Berserker armor from the Manga.
I have bought some Styrene to try moulding it and see how this turns out.
Does anyone have any advice on other materials I could try out or any cons on using styrene instead of another material?

By Cookie Monster. 10/04/10, 10:10 pm

This is a furture project I will also be doing.

What extactly are you doing with the Styrene to mould it? E.g. Heat gun, vaccum form, sticking it to craft foam, etc...

By Saicohtic. 11/04/10, 09:35 am

Well the plan was to use a stove to do the heating otherwise I might invest in a heat gun which maybe easier to use.

By kagerouhi. 11/04/10, 11:40 am

i would suggest investing in a heat gun. Using the stove as a heating furnace would = wasting much too much electricity ... and if its a gas stove (with an open flame) then I'd be inclined to call you a doofus 83

By Saicohtic. 11/04/10, 02:00 pm

Guess i know what I will be doing this weekend.
Have you done moulding with styrene in the past?

By **Tamoo**. 11/04/10, 02:23 pm

....If you can pull this off, I will worship you.
Berserk is one my favourite mangas C:
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By kagerouhi. 11/04/10, 02:56 pm

Actually no I haven't. But learning about the properties of styrene was part of one of my courses >>

But seriously don't heat a plastic (yes its a plastic) over an open flame you'll probably gas your entire house up with toxic fumes =w=;;

By Cookie Monster. 11/04/10, 06:25 pm

Most of the armours plate – depending on your styrene you could probably get away with bending your styrene plates into shape – Just cut your plate out of styrene, then use it as a template over some craft foam and cut a second plate from that. Then you bend your styrene plate into the shape you want, and glue your craft foam plate underneath. If it won’t hold it’s shape, gently heat both sides with a heat gun and remould/bend from there.

If you heating up your sheets in and oven/furnace then you’re heading in a casting direction (think white Storm Trooper armour)…

By Saicohtic. 11/04/10, 08:14 pm

@Tammy: Yea I hope it does turn out as good I picture it in my head so will have to see how it goes.

@Kagerouhi: Wouldn't want that now would I. Will take your advice and look for a heat gun on the weekend.

@Cookie Monster: My understanding of the process was that after the styrene was heated, shapped and then cooled it would retain the shape it was moulded too.
If that is the case what is the purpose of the craft foam?

By Cookie Monster. 12/04/10, 08:50 pm

Re-edit. I had a sugar honey iced tea day at the office. Sorry for the hissy.

The craft foam isn't for support; the styrene will hold its shape after bending. As I stated, depending on your styrene - meaning the thickness - you can get away with bending it into shape. Much easier than having to heat the sheet up. It's only on the very thick or very thin sheets which will not hold their shape easily that you'll want to heat up, or if you want to cast.

The point of the craft foam is for mainly 2 things; firstly it'll add depth to your styrene so your armour plates looks like thick/solid piece of steel, rather than aluminium tin.
Secondly it'll act as padding. Your armour plates will (obviously) rub together. If it's just plastic on plastic, the edges can be sharp in a sense and can quickly rub away the beautiful paint job on your armour. Varnish can be a short-term solution, but it just delays the inevitable. At least if you have craft foam underneath your armour plates it separates the 2 pieces of plastic and gives them a softer surface to rub against. Also it protects you body from the armour -even though it's plastic, it can still chaff and cut into you like proper steel armour.

By Saicohtic. 13/04/10, 09:36 am

Thanks for the great info there Cookie Monster.
Will definately look at getting some of that craft foam and seeing how it turns out.

By Belakor. 19/04/10, 07:15 pm

Hope you don't mind me dropping a reasonably wordy post in here, I just thought I'd share what I did not too long ago for a project similar to this, that used a lot of styrene to make armour pieces.
One thing I should point out is I used 3mm HIPS sheet (fancy name for styrene) which is probably a bit thicker than what you've got and thicker than you'd want if you want to curve pieces easily.

Anyway, what I would suggest is using some cardboard (regular packing boxes are a good source) to cut out some templates that you can use to get the right shape for the armour pieces. That way you aren't having to use up any styrene in the event that the piece works out to be the wrong size or shape.
From what I've found of the armour it looks like a lot of the suit is made up of the same pieces used over and over (like in the arms and legs) so you could get away with a few sets of templates that you could use to cut all the armour pieces out and have them end up the same shape (or close to it if you rush the cutting as I normally do Razz

)

This was a shoulder and knee piece that I built from card and subsequently broke down for templates

Spoiler:
	(click to enlarge)

Once the templates are cut I like to tack them together with some hot glue to make sure they fit together right and tehn pull it all apart carefully and use those to cut out the pieces of styrene sheet. I don't have any photos of the plastic being out but it's fairly straight forward, just a matter of laying the templates out and tracing around them.
After that it's just a matter of fitting the pieces together, maybe heating and shaping depending on the piece and possibly a little sanding or filing to make sure they fit together well, and gluing it all... which can be pretty fiddly when the glue decides to take a while to set, as it likes to Razz

Taping the joins is a good way to hold everything together when you don't have enough hands to keep it all in place ;)

Spoiler:
	(click to enlarge)

In that last pic you can kinda see the plastic "welding" that I did on the inside using the liquified plastic from below

Then you just have to repeat the process and build all your segments.

Something that I've found handy for filling the inevitable gaps and also strengthening the joins a little is to take some of the small offcuts and particles from when you've sanded/filed the plastic and throw them in with container (I usually use the old glass pots that the styrene cement comes in) with some acetone. That liquifies the plastic and you can carefully scoop it out with a stick or something and squash it into the gaps... it stays soft for a while but after a few hours (or days) the acetone will evaporate and leave a solid lump of plastic which has fused to the sheets.

Spoiler:
	(click to enlarge)

Hope that's of some use, let me know if there's anything else I can help with Smile

By Saicohtic. 19/04/10, 10:15 pm

That was quite a lengthy post but well worth the read.
While looking for a place to get some styrene I did come across HIPS Sheets which seemed like another option instead of normal styrene. Having that extra strength would help.

I have yet to actually order any though but I have played around with the small amount I already had and it works pretty well heating it into place but I found that I was heating it for too long and it would just go out of shape.

I will definately look at doing what you suggested and creating a sort of template out of cardboard which would save wasting styrene on different attempts.

Out of interest what did you end up making from the pictures above?

By Belakor. 21/04/10, 04:01 pm

By Saicohtic. 22/04/10, 11:57 pm

Thanks for that supplier link, will give those guys a shot sometime.

Good luck with making that suit as well, should look pretty sweet when complete.