ALL SCI-FI

Brent Gair · Mission Specialist Joined: 21 Nov 2014 Posts: 466

I'm not really sure if this belongs in the Comics and Artwork section because this is sort of a genre-bending subject. It was intended as a comic but morphed into more.

I was at the bookstore today, looking to burn up a gift card and I found this bizarre book called BOILERPLATE. At first, I thought it was some kind of gallery of steam-punk art. Then I thought it was the history of some kind of weird, victorian armour suit that was sealed against gas attacks.

After leafing through the book, it finally twigged that this was a fictional history of a mechanical fighting man...complete with faked photos and movie posters (which is why I put it here in Comics and Artwork).

Let me say that I know almost nothing about this, other what I have read in the last couple of hours. However, I was immediately attracted to this idea because I have been looking for a model project that would allow me to build something and then cast it and reproduce it in plastic resin. I looked at Boilerplate and thought that he would be an excellent candidate for modeling.

Turns out, Boilerplate has a website and his story has been optioned by Paramount pictures:

http://www.bigredhair.com/time-tunnel/interface/boilerplates-origins/

orzel-w · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 1865

My autographed copy...

Imagine my surprise when I checked the new posts and saw the thread title, "Boilerplate".

I've had indirect contact with Paul Guinan for about four years by way of a friend in Portland OR (the fellow on the right, below; Paul and Anina on the left). He's been in the process of building an "accurized" full size Boilerplate mockup for Paul and Anina. I've been making the CAD drawings of BP as his guide.

I think this is Photoshopped (Paul does a lot of Photoshop, as you can tell by the book):

_________________
...or not...

WayneO
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Brent Gair · Mission Specialist Joined: 21 Nov 2014 Posts: 466

Wow...that's very cool stuff to know.

The site I linked to has detailed info about building of the original model. I was thinking that, if I modeled Boilerplate, I would do it about half that size.

Two reasons for going half size of the original model (which, I think, would make it 1/12 scale): If I built it the same size, it would ALWAYS be a lesser version of the original. I could not compete against the original. I would end up with a laundry list of things that I couldn't get quite right. The second thing to consider is the economics of silicone molds and polyurethane casting resin. It's not cheap. A 1/6 scale model would be considerably more expensive than a 1/12 scale model.

Having said that, I also thought about a "hybrid" model. I could use commercial plastic pipe for the body but make molds and castings for the extremities. Since the body is the largest volume piece, that could result in a real savings.

Custer · Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 1:02 pm Post subject:

Paul Guinan has written and drawn quite a lot of comics over the years, often for Dark Horse - check out http://www.comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=2546 for details. And Boilerplate has a good Wikipedia page, but it's one of those wiki-urls that one can't use in a link here, perhaps because it includes brackets...