The making of MooMoo-o-Tron III
Wow. So, you found our QR code? Are you a gymnast? Udderly amazing that you managed to spot it.
Well I suppose you’d like some kind of prize for your efforts?
OK… well here are some TOP SECRET behind-the-scenes pics of how MooMoo came to be.
First, here’s the official video of the story:
And here are MooMoo’s early childhood pics.
MooMoo was a perfectly lovely, if rather plain cow when she joined us.
But we soon set about drawing all over her with a design we’d put together for Cows About Cambridge.
It wasn’t possible to totally accurately transfer our design onto MooMoo, as there were subtle differences. Most notably, the space to put the pilots in the eye goggles meant we’d need much bigger goggles than we anticipated, unless we were to cut into the fiberglass shell. We could have, but it just felt like a lot more work and would probably weaken the structure of MooMoo.
To make the ‘accordion’ articulated legs we cut some EVA foam into triangular sections and glued them onto the legs. We then layered fiberglass over the top and used epoxy resin to create a hard layer. All of this was covered in an epoxy car body filler to make it smooth.
To give MooMoo her 3D armour plating, we again used EVA foam and stuck it onto the body in all the places we wanted a level change.
Using a lot of epoxy car body filler, we could build up the shape we wanted. We’d then remove the foam once the filler was set and sanded to a smooth finish.
Frequently, we’d spray the surface with a primer, which was really useful to highlight where the surface wasn’t smooth enough.
Note here, this is the lift door, made out of steel and welded together. We used more filler to hold it rigidly in place, as well as bolting it into the lower leg.
Once we were happy with the armour plating panels, we could set about sticking all the rivets on. All 975 of them… We massively underestimated the number we’d need. We bought 800 thinking it would be way too many, and ended up having to make some silicone molds so we could cast some more out of resin. They’re all stuck on with more epoxy resin, a sizable task given they all would love to wander from their initial position if you didn’t keep an eye on them…
Here you can see the difference between the mid-grey acrylic paint base coat (right), and the finished effect (left) after stippled with metallic silver and colours that give it a ‘weathered’ slightly rusty/grubby look. It also shows why we were never after a perfectly smooth finish on the body filler, because the texture adds realism to the metal.
The alien commanders in search of the Supreme Leader, Youpew and Zharor clearly come from outer space, but er… we did find this picture of their insides. Weird. Apparently they’re made of Polymer clay and baked in the oven, before being flung off into space only to later return to Earth as aliens… yup.
And here they are before they get to pilot MooMoo.
If you hadn’t already realised, MooMoo is solar powered, and lights up at night in the cockpit goggles. The wiring inside the dashboard control modules in each side was really tricky to install, and here we’re just soldering the connections.
Some test fitting before we secure our Dinky alien commanders in place.
The ‘Mooggles’ have straps made out of mild steel that are riveted and bolted onto MooMoo so they don’t go walkies. Whilst they might look like leather, we know MooMoo doesn’t like the idea of wearing cow skin. The buckle was made from epoxy putty.
And here’s just a general picture of the ‘steel’ ‘riveted’ panels. They looked a little bit more convincing before we applied the required anti-graffiti gloss coating, but that’s an unavoidable part of putting a sculpture like this in a public place for a couple of months.
If you didn’t already know, Here at Dinky HQ, we’re on a mission to *SAVE THE WORLD* by making the world just a little bit more joyful and delightful.
You can discover all of our doors in Cambridge by going on a tour.
And if you want to support our mission, we’d be enormously grateful if you’d support us.