By Dortega
#4948957
Hi all! First of all sorry for my english.
I'm gonna try to document the progress on my GB2 Proton Pack build.

First lets talk about the Shell, the base of the build. This is a fiberglass shell made by me, this is a project i started working like 7 years ago so the master has been heavily moddified during this years. I started building the entire pack using stirene sheets, and with the past of the years i add some 3d printed pieces i modeled to the master to make all the process easier, faster and more accurate. The shell i' m using now is my V2.
V1
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V2
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The most noticiable difference between the V1 and the V2 is that the Nfilter is gone (i did this to make Hero Packs with alluminium Nfilters), but also i changed a lot of little details like angles, retextured a little bit the shell and added some predilled holes to make it easier to clean and drill. Once i was happy with the modds we did silcione mould and started taking some fiberglass casts.
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The first copies came out grate, except for some little bubbles that i repaired easily with some bondo.
Next step, clean and drill some holes.
For this step i'm using my dremel and some sandpaper to give a nice and smooth finish to all the edges.
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This is how they look on the inside (i'm using grey gelcoat for the first three layers and then fiberglassing and reinforcing the parts that are supporting more weight, like the gun mount.
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Once i have all the holes cutted i clean the shell with water and soap to make sure the paint is not gonna do anything weird on the surface.
Painting time! for this step i dont have too much pictures of how i started so i m' gonna explain what i did.
first of all i sanded some parts that have a lot of texture to make it a little bit more smooth and add some other textures later (like brush marks). I cleaned all the sanded parts again before start painting.
Then i did a base coat over the shell with a black satin spray, once its dry i over sprayed a lot (making some "paint lakes") the parts i want to add some brush texture, like the ribbs on the gear box, the ribbs on the power cell, the ribbs on the gun mount and some parts of the synchronous generator.
This is an axample of the brushed texture (light effect is making hard to see the texture, but it works perfectly in person):
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Once i did all the retexturing task i did a last satin black layer and once it was driyed i mixed some baby powder and black pigment (20% baby powder-80%black pigmen aprox) and i appliyed this mix over all the surface in the pack so it kills a little bit the shine of the satin but its still shine and less black, but not too much.
After this i started with the weathering. For this i started scratching all the black paint in the surface in some areas (i started trying to recreate the venkman gb2 weathering, but i finally made it up as its easier and it looks cool too), here some pictures of the first weathering day.

You can see here the effect of the baby powder and black pigment (this picture looks pretty close to the real thing)
For the scratches i didn't use any paint, as the shell its gray (white in this case, as it was the first prototype) i only peel the paint with some sandpaper and a xcto knive.
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Second day weathering:
For the second day i printed my labels designs based in the venkman's pack that i taking aproximate measuraments and colour from the original one, so i glued them and continued adding more scratches and weathering. Also i placed some pieces to see how it will looks like, but all the pieces are just as a visual guide (they are from my old build)
For the labels i print them in vinyl and weatehred them using powders. I'm not happy with the size of the Warning label from the cranck knob so i will change it but it looks cool btw.
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I started working on some other parts, i found a mold i made some years ago of the proton gun grips, and for another project i recently buyed some orange pigment, as you already know the grips on the original proton pack are made of an orange/brown resin and then painted black.
To get something similar i tried to mix some orange and brown pigment with polyurethane resin and here are some of the results.
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As you can see the polyurethane has foamed a little bit becouse the pigments, but i don't really care too much as in the pic of the original grip there are a lot of bubbles and damages.
Once i get the colour i sprayed a pair of layers of black satin and then i taked some sand paper and scratched a little bit the black paint.
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And thats all the progress i made so far! I will keep you all pudated abot the process.
Hope you all like it!
mburkit, Kingpin, twmedford23 and 5 others liked this
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By pchrisbosh1
#4948960
Looks amazing. I could tell a lot of hard thought and attention went into the detail of that shell. That's probably the best recreated shell I've seen in recent years. Kudos to you sir. :cool:
Dortega liked this
By Dortega
#4949003
mburkit wrote: May 5th, 2021, 10:55 am Hot damn there bud. The amount of work you've put into this build is incredible.
Thank you so much for your kind words! Yeah some years working on the shell... but finally i like what i see! And time to put it together!
By Dortega
#4949004
pchrisbosh1 wrote: May 5th, 2021, 11:04 am Looks amazing. I could tell a lot of hard thought and attention went into the detail of that shell. That's probably the best recreated shell I've seen in recent years. Kudos to you sir. :cool:
Thank you so much i appreciate a lot your words! Yeah i've been working on this shell like 7 years now!! A lot of changes have been made taking a lot of care to be as accurate as possible!!
By Dortega
#4949005
l3w1sb159 wrote: May 5th, 2021, 10:37 pm Some of the best weathering I've seen. Very nice
Thank you so much! I've started taking a lot of care on the weathering to match it with the actual piece but finally i m just playing until i like what i see!
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