Bear-ly Done!

The other portions of the bear job were the internal plates that would hold the tube and vacuum motor.

Because the model was added to after I imported it into Aspire, all the work from this point will be done totally in Aspire. I pulled 2 cross sections from the model, these 2 sections will make up the front half of the plates that will sandwich the tube that holds the fluff. The distances were already figured out based on the blower motor and stuffer tube set-up.

 This was the result of combining the front and back cross sections into a top and bottom plate. The 1/4 arches will get glued to the plates to make a ring that will lock the tube to the plates.
The plan is that the internal mechanics will get assembled separately, then inserted into the final painted machine halves.

The company asked if we were interested in painting the bear to save them time. Styrene is a bit of a different animal when it comes to paint. A lot of paint doesn't adhere in the long run, resulting in flaking off in a couple of weeks, if not sooner. We use an industrial ABS styrene lacquer. It chemically eats into the styrene, and is sand-able in less than ten minutes if you put the part in front of a fan. I decided for the prototype that he would look better if the face was a few shades lighter than the rest of the bear.

Here's the final paint job with the graphics applied. I used the vectors from Aspire to create the final shapes for the sticker graphics. The graphics were colored and drawn in Corel, and printed by our friends at Autotrim in Lindsay, ON.

And with that, the little guy left the shop to have his insides jammed in, and get stuffed into a box bound for Orlando!

I'm looking forward to doing the next characters in the near future, especially after conquering  all the unknowns now!
8)
JWO