15mm Powered Armor, "Elysium," And "Edge Of Tomorrow"

I saw the trailers for Elysium a few years ago, and cursed my pokiness on getting a design finalized that I was working on the time.  I had been beaten to market.

I saw the trailers for "All You Need Is Kill," which later changed its title to "Edge Of Tomorrow," and cursed my pokiness again.

"Great, they're going to think we ripped these external-framed suits off from not just one movie, but two movies," I thought to myself.

Just so you know, we didn't. ("We" is myself and the client, who shall remain nameless, for now.)

This was my original sketch for a powered armor, from around late 2010.

We were trying to create an armor that would bridge the gap between Near Future/plausible stuff and also be used in a far-flung-future setting where where everything was Grim and Dark.

Getting those two concepts to play nice with each other was the intent, all the while grafting in an ancient Greek design style for the "personality" armors.

Thus, the Spartan/Greek motif for the command/elite figs.  We called it the Myrmidon Suit, or "Myrm" for short.

The recently-announced (at the time) Lockheed Martin HULC suit made a big influence on the design, and thus, the exoskeleton was an external lattice, with exposed struts and joints.

An enclosed suit of body armor was worked up, as well, but the thing I wanted to catch the eye first was the obvious mechanical systems.  This wouldn't be mistaken for a knight in shining armor.

 Here's an arm, where the whole thing started.
 Here's the preliminary torso and helmet.

 And the full basic fig.  Notice the struts and joints.  I also liked the panel lines that worked their way into the design, mimicking musculature (to a small degree).

The problem was, this was going to be a 1/100th scale (15mm) figure.  The technology wasn't there, yet, to print it out without massive print lines all throughout those neat little details.

It sat, and waited for technology to catch up.

Then, in late 2011, this first generation went to print.  We were trying out a new service, called Visionproto.com.
Needless to say, we were blown away.  This was my first build on a Perfactory machine.  I was stunned.  The wall between rapid prototypes and handsculpts was beginning to crumble.  I couldn't believe the lack of print lines.  Needless to say, we continue to send a lot of work VisionProto's way, and for good reason.

  
So these were the end result of that First Generation of the Myrmidon Suit.  Support weapons, different poses, pistols, and a heavy battle claw.  I liked it, but there was more to come.

I'm currently on Revision 3.5 or so of this suit.  I want to be able to take advantage of the new printers, and give you folks something that will redefine 15mm scale figures.

Stay tuned.

Best,
JBR

Comments

Umm... how does the guy fit in there? I mean, the gap at the hips is too wide for human anatomy. ;p

Seriously, nice work as usual.
John Bear Ross said…
I only utilize severely bow-legged armor pilots, of course.

I think "the hips are too wide" when it comes to powered armor is this year's new "Shot traps! Shot traps!" ;)

Such is life.

Best,
JBR

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