I’ve been toying with the idea of building an actual RGB pack for some time now so I decided that since it’s been nearly a year since I’ve built something I figured what the hell. My goal is to make an as close to accurate replica as I can. As usual with my cartoon builds, I’ll add a few movie details like color scheme and a few cosmetic details. But over all this will be an RGB pack.
As you can see with the motherboard, I had to figure out the measurements. I based the size off of my movie pack and then calculated the sizes from there.
The box that the ion arm and booster tube will rest on. And just like the cartoon, the ion arm will not be flush with the motherboard but sit about 3/4 of an inch up
Thanks for the encouraging words so far, guys. I plan to get a good portion done this weekend. But I wanted to take a consensus. Would it be more in vibe with the RGB packs if I did black straps and waist pad just like the show or would it be too off putting to not have OD?
I think my Next Pack will be RGB. That won’t be for a few years though. Looking forward to seeing the completed prop. Have you figured out the measurements of the gun box? Also do you plan to paint it Blue like the toy or the colors of the cartoon?
GBfan77, I’m basing the gun box off the movie version dimensions and modifying as I go. As for color, it will be black. My intent is to make it believable as a 2.0 version of the movie pack. More pics to come this weekend!
Cool, black is a better color than Blue as far as Packs go. No disrespect to those who paint them blue but I found they didn’t look quite right. Besides that, the Cartoon packs weren’t blue. I think the reason why Kenner decided to go with blue was because it was probably cheaper or something along those lines.
Double checked to be sure, I stand corrected. However I still don’t believe the packs were actually blue. I’ve noticed with some of the older Cartoon shows certain objects that are suppose to look black actually have a dark blue to them. Probably because it was cheaper than black or that black would hide a lot of the details. I always felt that was in case in the RGB Packs. I think they were meant to look like this.
But I think this is a discussion for another thread, so I won’t derail this one any further.
I believe the transition in the art department to fully blue Proton Packs was circa 1988 (Flip Side is a good example of one episode with this with reasonable animation), I think the Ghost Traps had been fully blue for even longer.
The early appearances certainly look like an attempt to make them look black, using a variety of blues, greys and deep purples. I suspect your speculation about the cost is why the animators made them fully blue later down the line.
This weekend’s progress. I have to say that I’ve been building packs for 8 years and I have to say that this build has been one of the hardest. The ion arm was insanely difficult. But it’s really coming together. Hopefully I can get an Alice frame this week and start attaching all the parts.
As for my color choice, I’ve never been a fan of the bright primary colors on the packs. The darker color schemes of the earlier seasons were much more appealing. The bright colors made the packs look like toys. But with anyone that’s has followed my cartoon builds knows that I try to make them so they can belong in the movie universe.
Looks great to me, I imagine the Ion Arm Would be the hardest because of that curve. I think if I did it I’d be forced to make it with Flat edges rather than curved, yours looks great though. How did you put it together?.
I cut out the top and the bottom, and added a few brace pieces. Then I used styrene to build the walls. I inadvertently forgot to add the 3 slashes on the side but I actually have a plan for that. But yes. Insanely hard
Looks excellent so far. I also always considered the RGB packs to be “movie packs Mark II”.
To add my two cents to the color debate, I vote for black. I always believed that the cartoon packs were supposed to be black, but could not be animated as such because it would wash out too much detail, so they adopted various dark hues to show various ways “light” hit the packs.
Mine will be black, but to anyone choosing blue, I wouldn’t recommend anything other than a matte navy.
I did my pack in blue. I looked pretty good with witht eh LEDs and stuff on. You can pretty much go either way with the color.
The Ion arm was a nightmare for me and my dad. We ended up cutting 7 pieces of wood all the same, stacked them together to figure out how the vents would look, cut those piece than the cut the inside out to hollow out the ion arm. that way i could add the lights that i needed to it. It tooks some work but it was the best way we did ours.
I’m somewhat torn on the ion arm. Part of me wants to redo the styrene to include the vents but the other part doesn’t want to backtrack. I’m planning tentatively right now to cut strips of styrene and either paint them silver or cover them in reflective tape and glue them to the outside. I know it’s not a 100% accurate that way but it’s one of those details that unless you go the route that the palm coast guys did and actually light them, its a relatively minor cosmetic detail.
thats not a bad idea at all with the reflective tape. Just be cautious cause that tape is sometime pretty thick and will peel the paint off when it starts to come undone.
Nb, the more i think about it though, I’m almost wanting to add the strips, paint them black with the pack and then use a silver paint pen to give them that brushed metal look. Which would ideally make it look more like heat sink instead of a vent.
