CONSTRUCTION
 

Feet & Legs

Beginning with the feet, the toes are what keep this things from falling over, therefore they must be QUITE strong. I used foamboard for the toe pads and the round foot center, I then buils up a supporting structure from wood pieces I had laying around. I used wood glue AND superglue. The center of the foot is very critical as well. I used two rectangluar pieces of wood to anchor the toe braces in place, this is very important to distribute the load adn keep the toes from rising up when they step on something :)

make the second foot to match :)

with both feet done it's time to add some decorative detail :)
a simple pattern is made for one toe cover - then duplicated for the other toes. An exacto knife is used to score along the lines where the cover bends which ensures the bend will be nice and straight. the toe covers are glued down with hot glue.

Time now to make the lower leg assembly. For this reaver titan it's essentially a cylinder but the top is a little narrower than the bottom so I cut out two circles of foamboard (the bottom circle is shown here), then I made a pattern for the armor (the red posterboard) and I superglued some posterboard tabs to the black base - these will help strengthen the joint between the base piece and the posterboard armor.

here you see the assembly about half way done - you can see how the tabs glue to the inside of the armor, and I added a reinforcing tab at the gap where the armor actually meets together (the tab with stripes on it) this will help reinforce that section of the armor.

the leg is a load bearing part (meaning that it has to support the weight of the titan) so I added a plastic column inside which the top round foamboard piece will rest on, then I glue the top round piece also to the edges of the armor - in the end any weight placed atop this leg is tranferred thgouth the black foamboard piece and is actually carried by this plastic column.

this is the weakest part of my titan, I ended up using a 1/4 inch drill to drill down into the wood of the foot, then inserting a 1/4 wood dowel into the foot (about a half inch deep into the wood of the foot) this dowel rises 2-3 inches and acts as a support colum. A 1 inch diameter hollow plastic tube is cut to fit, placed over the dowel and then filled the bottom part of it with hot glue - making an ankle which is fairly sturdy, and resists movement in any direction. At the underside of the leg assembly I glued a Games Workshop flying base to the center of the bottom foamboard section, then I drilled it out and inserted a 1/4 inch dowel which angled down so it could insert into the ankle support column. I filled the top part of the column with hot glue now, then joined the leg assembly to the ankle - held it in place while the hot glue set (which takes forever with so much hot glue!) but at the same time I was able to reach over and squirt some superglue on the joint between the support tube and the base of the leg assembly - then a dash of superglue accelerant sets the joint and I can let go of it all - the result is a leg which stands on it's own :) 

more bracing work!

the upper part of the leg has no armor to hide our supports in (eeekk!!) but we can do this :) cut two small holes in the top foamboard piece of the leg assembly, two fat lolipop sticks go in here (strong and lightweight) and anchor them in place with hot glue. These sticks should be long enough to reach up the entire length of this brace and fit into the next foam section (the hip joint). Then get your hollow plastic tube again, cut the sections to fit then place on top of the leg assembly and fill the bottom with hot glue - once it sets it's solid, the leg will be quite strong :)

wooden dowels were hot glued into the open end of each plastic tube at the hip, then strips of posterboard were superglued across the joint both in front and in back creating braces in effect to help stabilize the hip joint.

a closeup of the hip connection, and the flat piece of wood which will become the base upon which the torso rests.

two plastic column bases are used (the column is cut off of each leaving round holes) and they are glued base to base forming a shape about an inch high into which a plastic tube can be inserted, this is the tube which provides rotation for the upper torso. 

for appearance sake the hip is built up 

posterboard is used to create the side panels

a large section of armor is created simply by cutting out the appropriate shape in foamboard, and hot gluing it into place - at this point you can also see I've used "model magic" to further detail the exposed hip joints as the early Reaver Titans had. Model Magic is a very lightweight playdoh like stuff which dries when exposed to air, useful for things like this :)  Notice I also used a ring of model magic to hide the tube mount for the torso rotation tube.

Torso

the torso is just a round piece of foamboard at the top, and at the bottom, with sides of posterboard hot glued in place. The shoulder section is also foamboard, and to further reinforce the shoulder level you can see I added an arch from the side of the body.

Here you can also see some of the wood pieces I used to create the arm weapon mounts - the actual box like weapon mount is glued to the round wooden ball - but the round wooden ball has a hole drilled through it as do the other wooden parts above it - I put some elastic cord from inside the weapon mount - through the ball and through the arm up to the shoulder then tied it off - giving the arm the capability of rotation and tilting up and down :)

** special note, this is the original carapace shown in this photo - it was later discarded for a more accurate design :)

the head

the head was somewhat complicated, creating a strong arch for the rounded shape of the head was solved by finding an unusual plastic piece off the top of an old bird feeder, this piece formed the anchor for much of the head. I cut out a baseplate following the overall head shape, anchored the plastic birdfeeder piece to the foamboard head baseplate, I cut out some posterboard to create the nose, and I cut some square wooden pieces to create the nose grill detailing, and added a rim of foamboard to further define the nose grill.

The eyes are two LED lights, I drilled two holes in the plastic piece and anchored the LED lights from behind, I later glued the battery frame and light switch onto the back of the head assembly where it is accessible but mostly out of sight when the Titan is fully assembled. 

I cut out borders of foamboard for the eye windows, and carefully hot glued them in place, I then carefully trimmed pieces of posterboard to complete the head armor. 
 

I built a support structure onto the back of the head which has a wooden dowel projecting up from it - that dowel goes through the neckplate assembly (and a thin wood plate) then a metal pin is inserted through the dowel - this supports the weight of the head, and allows it to swivel left and right. the metal tubes on the side of the head were sculpted from "model magic" and painted chrome.

another angle of the neck and shoulder assembly

from this angle you see the back side of the neck level - that bowl like area at the back is filled with lead shot to counter balance the weight of the head (don't want the titan to fall over now do we?)

the shoulder armor can be removed to access the top knot of the elastic which holds the arm assembly together and allows it to move :)

the underside of the current carapace armor - foamboard on the sides, posterboard carefully glued across the top makes the rounded appearance.

a photo of the three major components of the Reaver Titan
(click to see a larger 70k version)

I hope this helps those of you nutty enough to try something like this :)
~ Brother Edward