I wanted to share this insane piece of craftsmanship that my girlfriend surprised me with for my birthday earlier this summer. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw what she had done!
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She is very creative with, apparently, everything she tries out. I met her as a digital 2D artist several years ago, but she keeps on surprising me to this day!
This is what she wrote about it:
I downloaded the model from some Russian website, fixed it up a bit in in Maya, ran it through Pepakura Designer to unfold it before I printed out the plans.
Then I transferred the plans onto a sheet of balsa wood and cut it with just an exacto knife and assembled it with universal glue. I carved the details into the wood again with the exact knife.
I tried using magnets as joints but in the end it didn't turn out as I imagined it would. It's quite "fragile". The Mantis legs are completely mobile, but due to the magnets can easily come off if you bump it.
The Mantis is painted with with tempera paints.
As for the base, it is simply a piece of cardboard (The Cybran plating included) which I have glued some sand from a local beach and some small rocks, supposed to resemble ingame reclaimable boulders to give it that desert map & Cybran feel.
I was working on it for about two months or so. It took quite a long time due to me not knowing what was doing at that point, and being busy with university.
I have a bunch of more photos, but this forum seems a bit paranoid of spam so it blocks off-site links for me. I've just not had a reason to visit this before, so I am limited to just this one for now.
Edit: More images:
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