Starship Troopers Power Armor

RocketmanTan

Well-Known Member
I always love projects where I can adapt an object from a book. It's sort of like a puzzle - to pick apart the text and to figure out how it all fits together in describing said object, and possibly even figure out what exactly the author was thinking of.

This time, I'm doing a piece of equipment from one of my favorite books of all time - Starship Troopers. Suffice it to say that, especially now, the book resonates deeply with me, and I certainly do find the ideas presented by Heinlein to be....interesting, to say the least. Also it has powered armor. That's pretty cool, too.

In terms of decoration and aesthetics, I mostly looked at Korean-War-era work uniforms. The suit is mostly an olive-drab with patch placement based on typical uniform standards of the various uniformed services. I also looked to the ACU in terms of velcro ribbons and similar accessories that everyone loves so much.

As for the physical design, I basically envisioned the armor to be the ultimate evolution of the Hardiman suit. I tried to draw from concepts that were present during the '50's, both to give it a retro-sci-fi feel, but to also convey the Cold-War Action Story tone that the book itself came with. There are, of course, a few incongruities with the book - namely the Snoopers. I felt that a Buzz-Lightyear-esque face-bowl would make the suit look a bit too much like, well, Buzz Lightyear, so instead I opted for an armored helmet of sorts. Imaging equipment encircles the helmet to provide a near-360 view of the battlefield, which would then be projected onto the interior surface of the helmet in order to simulate an open-cockpit view, with various other telemetry information overlaid, a la ARPA, ECDIS, etc.

anyways, have some screenies. I've included the rough sketch from which I based the parts off of, the parts themselves, and a quick sketch of the 'Rico's Roughnecks' unit patch.

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RocketmanTan

Well-Known Member
aaaand model done!! It turned out a lot better than I had expected and looks pretty much like how I pictured the armor to be like in the book. I'm still trying to get back on the horse as it were, so I'm a bit dissatisfied with certain details (or lack thereof) here and there...but still, I'd venture to say that this has thus far been my favorite model to build...

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Revell-Fan

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Awesome! It has that Makino-style mecha feel and should go fine with the lens head robots. :)
 

zathros

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This looks like a nice simple, but effective model to build, and give to some kid who would get many fun time with it. :)
 
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