Brütal Bus!

Brütal Legend in Stores Now!

2009-10-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

GO BUY IT! Like ten copies! NOW!

IGN Review: 90!

Two Minutes to Midnight

2009-10-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! So it's been about a month since we've really shown you any progress on the bus. What can I say? It's been a busy month. We've raced it and did pretty well, but for now let's go back to where we left off and show how we completed the body.

Our back wheels are bare and need a home. Luke begins marking his foam core to make a skeleton for the fender molds.

The fender has too look good, so he smooths out the curves on fender ribs.

Luke makes small cuts for the ribs to slide into.

And now it starts to make sense as a mold. Or to look like the beginnings of a kick-ass fan.

We've split up for the moment and are each focusing on different parts of the build. For example, Sean is about the cut out the old brake, which was damaged when we tested it at 30mph. The support was too thin and bent under all the power. It seems Sean thinks the best way to beef it up is to look like an over-protected nerd. HAHA! nice face-guard, loser! What could you possibly need that much protection for?

Oh.. yeah, that'll do it.

Christine has bondo-filled a lot of the large imperfections in body surface and is ready to start sanding. Look at that go-getter stance. I bet she'll be done by lunch with time to spare!

Well, she'll probably be done by dinnertime at least.

Ok. Maybe breakfast is a better goal. Delicious breakfast.

While Christine gets hungry, our extra team member, Guy, does his usual badass thing... Ok, so he's not on our team, but TechShop is pretty awesome, isn't it?

After a hearty breakfast, it's time to fill out the fender mold too.

Then sand and coat it.

Glass it.

Let it cure overnight.

Then, when it least expects it, rip its guts out.

The mold release and latex primer make this a much easier job.

Brand new fenders, comin' up!

We cut holes in the body to fit the fender and see how they rest relative to the wheels. We'd naturally done a lot of test measuring before cutting.

I'm just testing out the rock before we attach the fenders. It seems to be working.

Get all the pieces lined up and squared off.

BRING ON THE FIBER!

Aww yeah.

Andrew cuts out the mouth shape because we don't need that buck-toothed piece in the front for support anymore.

But once the bus took on its final shape, it came to life.

And devoured its first victim. Poor Luke.

So we slayed the beast to save him.

Then we went back to more sanding because paint is coming soon.

To paint, we had to build our own spray room. Tech shop has a powder coating room, but it we didn't want to monopolize it and it wasn't big enough for us to comfortably spray in every direction anyway.

Pro lighting.

Some sort of voodoo is going on behind those curtains.

And the bus comes out primed.

Then we paint the whole body a base coat of black and mask off the windows.

Followed by a metallic coat of blood red.

Pulling back the masking reveals the windows.

While that was happening, we dyed our front tires, because we were tired of them being gray.

Christine works on our vinyl stencils. She's really meticulous. So is the computer that cut the shapes for her.

With the stencils on transfer paper, they are ready to be put on the bus...

...which let us achieve this sick paint job (along with an automotive clear coat)

After the paint dries, we pack it up for transport. We still have more work to do: the bus needs all its chrome parts and cosmetic engine attached. Chrome will be the next post. It will be soon, I promise.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

2009-09-23T13:15:00.001-07:00

We have received numerous complaints about the cat videos featured on this blog, and how un-metal they are. I conceed, and I hope you find this Bearsharktopus more to your liking.

We've primed the bus, and paint goes on like blood today. Yessssssss.

Eyes of a Stranger

2009-09-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

Hey now. What have we here?

Ooooooh. This is nice...

OH MAN!

So the good folks over at G4TV have (in their infinite trust in humanity's goodness, no doubt) shipped us an HD video camera to record some of our behind the scenes rocking, which they will then air on Attack of the Show!! Holy crap!

Am I Evil?

2009-09-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

Man. Working with fiberglass sucks ass. How about a stupid cat break?

and my personal favorite...

This weekend we'll have some excellence for your consumption.

Running with the Devil

2009-09-13T12:21:00.001-07:00

Hey rockers! We have less than two weeks until race day (yikes!). With the nonstop work on the bike and Christine being on the lamb, we haven't been able to share with you as much as we'd like. Until we get some awesome pictures posted, to satisfy your thirst for more Tour of Destruction, why not build your own!? It's pretty simple, you just need 4 things:

Something with wheels. A wagon works, but bonus points if your wheels are mixed sizes).

Some kind of shell for the body. I recommend something less itchy than fiberglass.

The body's gotta have flames. Otherwise, why even bother? You guys know how to color, right?

If you try riding it, please wear a helmet and don't hurt yourself. If you find (or make) a helmet this awesome, and you don't share it, the rock gods will surely punish you.

Send us your creations! You could upload a fan photo on the facebook page or post a link in the comments!

Stay brutal.

Breakin' the Law. Breakin' the Law.

2009-09-08T03:10:00.000-07:00

Damnit, Christine!

War Ensemble

2009-09-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

Oh man! The folks over at Kotaku have uncovered our secret bunker! They had a short post on the site over the weekend about our work on the Tour Bus. Sweet!

We've also attracted some loyal, hardcore fans to our Facebook group "Tour of Destruction". There we'll have more regular photo dumps, videos, and updates going on, so if you can't bear to wait for our blog posts and you are a member of the book of faces, that will keep you sated. Temporarily.

But now, back to the important stuff.

While we were letting the primer dry on the mold for the body, we headed to a nearby park to put the Bus through its paces.

How fast does it go? Here's Sean showin' us how it's done.

The CNC mill we used to carve out the body is also great for some smaller more defined shapes (which we'll see more of later), but there's a lot of sanding involved. The Tour of Destruction just wouldn't be complete without its signature pipes, which need to be smooooooooth.

Like the body, the exhaust pipes need numerous coats of primer over the foam before we can lay down the fiberglass. The polyester resin that we are going to use for the fiberglass body will erode the polystyrene foam, so we need a thick protective layer. Remember, when you are dealing with the pink, always protect your junk.. or you junk might melt off.

We then put on our science suits and get ready to work with some noxious, nasty ass chemicals n'shit. Fiber glass is not for the feint of heart, and it requires a good amount of manly toughness to get it right. Of which we have plenty.

First we cut out sheets of it to lay over the surface of the bus. The fiber glass is literally sheets of long threads or fibers of glass - it's itchy shit.

But we look like mad scientists when using it, so who cares? Here we're mixing the resin and its catalyst together.

We've got about 15 minutes before the resin hardens to the point that we can't work it into the fibers anymore, so we lay the glass on quickly.

Dab, dab, dad-dabbity dab, scrub, scrub dab. We need to work the fabric a lot to mash out the bubbles and seams that occur.

For our last fiber glass layer, we dye the resin red. We thought maybe this will help as a base coat. We were wrong; it's all getting sanded off anyway.

Here we find Sean removing the body from the mold with the care and precision of a surgeon.

Lots and lots of sanding - we've got to get this guy smooth. Like butter.

The bus is finally starting to come together, but we can't relax yet! Now that we have the final shell for the body, we need to start adding some of the finer details to this rockin' bod.

Fade to Black

2009-08-26T03:08:00.000-07:00

Hey gang. It's been a while. We've been rockin' it pretty hardcore at the shop and it's time to share.
Begrudgingly, I allowed the team to machine a disc so we could attach a brake to our vehicle. They were insistent.

Here the brake mount is ready for welding. I'm still not sure why they bothered. I have no plans to use it.

To cheer me up over the idea of adding anything to our vehicle that might slow it down, the team let me play with some lasers.

Oh god oh god oh god!

Suddenly, the brakes seem a little more tolerable.

So the frame is pretty much done. More test footage is coming. For now, though, our racer is looking pretty naked, and while that's nice every now and then, we can't really show it off in public like that come race day, can we? Time to start CNC work on the body!

Lay it flat.

Cut it out.

Suck it up.

Glue it on.

Weigh it down.

Hold it together, now.

Practice makes perfect.

CNC milling just blew Christine's mind.

Straps keep the sides tight on our filler box.

We relocate to sand the transitions smooth... but wait.. what's that going on outside?

Oh.. this looks good.

Very good.

WHOA!

Wait for it...

Waaaaaaait for it....

TOUCHDOWN!

Feeling pretty amped up, we get back to sanding...

Spackle smooths out the gaps between layers, but we can go even smoother..

It's prime time, baby. The resin that we plan to use for soaking the fiberglass does not screw around; it will eat right through our pink foam. Five to six layers of primer ought to keep those troublemakers separated.

Lay down coat number 3.

Andrew! you missed a spot!

Soon we'll show some of the more complex things the CNC mill can do...

...like big-ass space-marine guns. Pyew pyew pyew!

We Are the Road Crew

2009-08-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

So you want to meet team Ironheade, eh? Well you're in luck - here's a snapshot from our most recent Metal Tea Party.

(from left: Luke Nalker, Sean Feeley, Christine Phelan, Andrew Cook)

How do you guys know each other?
We all met in college at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). We all majored in Rock, with a minor in Awesome.

Man, that's pretty sweet. Why are you building this thing?
Because the Ironheade Tour Bus from Brütal Legend is ridiculously awesome. We wanted an opportunity to make something out of heavy metal.

But you're all computer art nerds! What would you know about building real stuff?
We built costumes and props from Team Fortress 2 for the the ILM Halloween Party in 2007. (But we lost to friggin’ Office Space? Really?) Sean won in the individual category of “Most Bizarre” at the Pixar Halloween Costume contest because no one knew who the man in the gas mask with a flame thrower was supposed to be. But everyone speaks awesome, so they had to give him something: $200 in steak.

Andrew has built a ton of things: giant articulated bird claws, motion control camera rigs, pressurized air cannons. Sean has also managed to use a deck of cards to build a double-decker castle once, but he had to use glue.

Well, fine. You can build stuff I guess. What do you think your biggest challenge will be?
Riding the lightning - it’s murder on the tailbone. Also, weight. Heavy metal is heavy.

Why the heck is Sean all blurry? You guys suck at taking pictures!
Sean is so fast even the most advanced cameras cannot capture him. That's why he's our driver.

Some Extra Credit:
- Andrew won a trip to the Superbowl this year for his work with The Dandy Dwarves. No foolin’.
- Christine is a girl who likes video games enough to work on them. Weird.
- Sean has been professionally trained for Rubik’s Cube speed-solving. He’s still not very good.
- The first word Luke ever spoke was “pie”. He liked it so much he’s chosen to use the word exclusively to this day. He’s in charge of all our diameter / circumference conversions.

Things are really starting to come together. Next post will feature some sweet body action!

MORE! PUSH!

2009-08-23T02:03:00.000-07:00

Rock on, McGuckin. Rock on.

2009-08-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

I spotted this on Team Speed Racer's photostream. Nice sticker!
You can check out more of their work on their team's flickr page. Last year they won first place in Denver as Team Save Ferris. Good luck this year, guys!

So Far, So Good... So What!

2009-08-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

Weekend #2 of the frame build. Next weekend is our last scheduled week of frame work.
Some new parts arrived. We're ready to work out our steering and braking systems. As if we need any brakes...

Here we are double-checking the angle on the steering mount. You can never be too careful; crotches depend on it!

it fits tall people...

and fits short, angry people.

Everything feels good, so we lock it down with welding.

Christine and Luke get in on the welding action. Here they are installing the seatbelt / brake mounting bar.

The steering column is all in place. Now we want to cut out the middle to we can using the tubing to make adjustable steering heights. What's that sound I hear? It sounds like an approaching...
SPARK SOLO!!!!

BYEOWBACKABACKABACKABYEOWOWWW!

DUNNANNANANNNANANANA NAANANANANNNAAAANANAAAAAAAAH!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

KRRSSSSSCCSSSHCHCHHRR!!!

The tubing fits around our steering assembly here. Now we just drill a series of holes in each tube. We'll be able to adjust the height by lining up the holes later.

Andrew is a man of intense concentration...

Sean is not. Here we see him practicing his golf putt.

Putting it all together... this is definitely going to be a speed demon. It seems to have possessed Andrew already.

Next week, we experiment with CNC sculpting while finishing the frame. Sweetness.

Rock of Ages

2009-08-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

Double Fine Productions has just dropped the official soundtrack of Brütal Legend! Watch Tim Schafer try to solve a Rubik's Cube in the time it takes Emily to list off the entire track list (over 100 songs!!):

As a little snack for those of you hungry for such a delicious selection of metal, an intrepid member of the internet has also assembled a YouTube playlist of the Brütal soundtrack. Now imagine us rocketing down the raceway in our awesome monster of a bus to those tunes, and it will almost be like you're there with us.

We've been making some pretty awesome progress on the bus just for you. Stick around for an update.

-Christine

Take Hold of the Flame

2009-08-06T15:52:00.000-07:00

WELDING! This. is. awesome. It feels like using a hot glue gun, but with more molten metal than glue. Oh, and you can't see a thing until you pull the trigger to arc electricity through, fusing your pieces together.

Did I mention that it looks badass? No? Well, it looks badass. Our team all learned to weld for this project at Tech Shop, which is where we are doing most of the building.

To start we do tack welds, which are just strong enough to hold our pieces in place and just weak enough that if we find we've made a mistake, it's nothing a hard swing of a hammer can't fix. See those little spots? That's all it takes.

Welding can fill small gaps between pieces. Because we want both sides to be identical and they've already been carefully measured, we don't want any gaps. Clamping everything together keeps it solid. Those arrow-shaped things are magnets to hold everything in place.

With the sides fully tacked together, we double check that everything is level and square. Here I am demonstrating a technique I picked up for creating right angles with your hands. I tried using it to confirm our measurements, but I must have done something wrong because it didn't agree with the level. More practice is needed.

A class was about to take over the room, so before we beefed up our welds, we moved all the equipment outside.

Welding gets hot. Wear your gloves and long sleeves! That spot of light is bright enough to give you a tan.

Grinder time.

What is it about sparks that is so awesome?

SEE? Pure awesome! To keep the inside of the frame flush, we grind out the bumps created by welding so the crossbeams will fit in place.

Lock it down. After putting in the bearings and placing the axle, everything gets clamped together for welding into one piece.

Let's compare. Which frame would you rather race in?

It's the end of the day and the shop is closing. Next week it's time to put on some brakes and get the steering set up. I suppose that will require front wheels, but those are just details. For now, we have the world's most monstrous handtruck.

Heavy Metal

2009-08-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was pretty exciting; it was our first build with final materials. After working out the proportions with our wood prototype it was time to get dirty and make this thing happen.

Andrew has made the model slightly longer to accommodate our lanky driver. Here you can see him working in Sketchup while we design our braking and steering systems. Ackerman angles are pretty cool and will help our cart control better as it rockets down the hill.

On Saturday, we arrive early at the shop with our materials: 24 ft of 1.5" square steel tubing for the frame, a 26" long 1" dia. steel rod for our axle, and some tubing for our steering wheel. Over the next two weekends, this metal caterpillar of material will transform into a magnificently robust butterfly of a frame. I'm sorry.. that metaphor wasn't very rock 'n roll, was it? It won't happen again.

Measure. Mark. Measure. Mark. Measure. Mark. That sums up the first half of our day. Boring. Bring on the CHOPSAWWW!

What!!? LAME! I thought these things were supposed to throw off a ton of kick ass sparks! What gives?

YEAAAAAH! Much better! The room is ablaze! I'm going to spare you the several dozen pictures I took of this part of the process. But it was freakin' awesome. Those square tubes? They belch sparks like a windup nun on crack.

I'm not kidding. That's Satan's breath right there.

There's a lot of slag left on the cuts and it can be quite sharp. The next step is to grind the edges smooth so it doesn't 1) cut whiny punks that can't handle the awesomeness of this vehicle 2) get in the way of welding later.

That's the end of Day 1 for the Brutal Bus build. All of our pieces are cut to size and ready to weld tomorrow! You're right, Andrew, that does deserve some horn.

Into the Void

2009-08-03T18:43:00.001-07:00

Hey folks! We've been pretty busy putting the Tour of Destruction together, and we'd like to show you some of our progress! First up is our wooden prototype - we're constructing a first pass of the bus out of 2x4s (which, contrary to what I initially thought, are not actually 2 by 4 of any measurement), nails, bolts, and good intentions in order to test the stability of our design, as well as make sure we're working with the correct proportions before committing this bad-boy to a welded metal frame.

Here are some of our intrepid builders (from left: Sean, Luke, and Andrew - myself unpictured) brewing over the design from our top secret construction facility. Note the furrowed brows and looks of deep concentration!

Andrew created a mock-up of our idea for the frame using Google SketchUp. It's a pretty handy tool for prototyping in 3D, especially if you're looking to create more man-made, symmetrical objects. We got all of our measurements from there, and after a few tweaks to the proportions, we got to building!

Here are some of our supplies - 2x4s as well as some 18" golf cart wheels from Northern Tool and Equipment, and a big old bag of building accessories from good ol' Home Depot.

Originally we were going to use these rubber longboard wheels for the front pair of tires, but they wound up being a bit too small for our frame to comfortably clear the ground (which we discovered once we had Sean sit on it). It didn't accurately match the proportions of front to back wheels in the original bus design as well, so we have since moved onto slightly larger wheels, rolling in at 6" also from Northern Tool.

After much cutting and nailing, we find Andrew and Luke discussing how to effectively attach the supports for the back wheels, while Sean (unsuccessfully) attempts to break our front axle.

Sean works on attaching the rear wheels once the main body is put together.

The moment of truth! The frame withstood Sean's weight, though not without some very creaky complaints. That, however, is why we're building the frame out of steel.

We certainly learned a lot about what we need to consider in the future of this project, and we're feeling pretty good about where this cart is going. Stay tuned for more updates! Up next is some body prototyping, and the real deal - committing our frame to metal!

-Christine

Get ready to ROCK!

2009-07-31T15:06:00.000-07:00

We just got word that our team has been accepted to compete in the 2009 Red Bull Soap Box Derby in Los Angeles on September 26th. Rock on! It's going to be an eventful two months while we build and prepare for the event, and we plan to record the madness here as a warning to others.

You can see our entry form and get a feel for where we expect this project to go. Big thanks go to Double Fine Productions for the amazing concept. Stick with us while we attempt to do it justice!

Keep rock alive!