articulated robotic arm help?

By Lowkey. 31/08/11, 02:15 pm

Hey guys, I've been searching for a way to create Vriska Serket's robotic arm and I keep coming up empty. There are plenty of awesome tutorials to create armour that would pass for a robot arm, even articulated finger armour, but I can't find a way to create full-arm lōrīca segmentāta-y, segmented armour that reaches all the way around my arm up to my shoulder and would still allow me to bend my elbow at least a little. There was one example where somebody had sewn a glove out of grey stockings and painstakingly drawn the individual armour plates and the cabling and detail between them, but I'm not confident enough in my drawing ability and I'd prefer to build what looks like a metal arm.

Any suggestions? To clarify here is an image of her arm: [added spoiler tag for possible spoilery material]

Spoiler:

So it looks like, I don't know, metal tubing, or something? It doesn't even look like the segments are raised past each other. I have no idea what to do here. I really like some of the fanart of her with a more detailed arm that doesn't feature the same segemented design around the elbow, and I guess it wouldn't be completely insane to re-design? Maybe something like this:

articulated robotic arm help? 2gx21w6

Which looks like maybe it could be a combination of illustrated glove and armour plate, with the segmented armour tube and blue cabling and wiring drawn onto the glove and wearing plates over that?

Any suggestions?

By Kicho. 31/08/11, 04:03 pm

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but Amethyst Angel has a nice tutorial for how she made Edward Elric's arm. She used styrene, vinyl and elastic.

http://amethyst-angel.com/armormaking_automail2.html

The tutorial is divided into eight sections, the last one is about how she attached the arm.

By Lowkey. 01/09/11, 03:49 am

First tutorial I saved: unfortunately doesn't really help me out yet since automail has a pronounced elbow joint that can actually hinge, while Vriska's arm doesn't have that joint, if you see what I mean? My problem is deciding how to keep true to the design but still be able to move my arm, or how to change the design to do both.

EDIT: found somebody who's done an incredible job:

Spoiler:

looks like two pieces scored to give the texture, then a gauntlet section, over a grey glove... but can anybody make out what she's done for the elbow joint?

By Highlander. 01/09/11, 11:02 am

I think it looks like she made one band bigger than the others, so the others slide underneath as she moves. Doesn't look like it sits very well though. I would suggest a band which narrows towards the inside of the elbow so you don't catch it so much, or even doesn't go all the way around the inside. I would suggest that the outside should be much wider than the elbow and a bit curved, then the other plates could move a fair bit without exposing a gap.

Try looking at books on scale/laminar and plate armour, as their joints articulated.

If you want to make separate plates, overlapping or not, that stay in place, then they should be attached to a sleeve backing. Rivets, sewing, glue?

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