It took me 4 years to watch Arcane, the animated series.

I have kind of an odd quirk where if a TV show or book is too good, I deliberately avoid watching it until either

1. The final season is announced
2. It becomes clear this work will never be completed

I put off playing Hollow Knight until Silksong came out, avoided Name of the Wind like the plague, and yes only watched the first 30 minutes of Arcane in 2021 and only finished the other 9 1/2 episodes 3 years later when the next season was confirmed for a release date.

This sounds insane but if you’ve read Berserk or Game of Thrones you know that waiting is more painful than a character death.

Anyway, once I’m into something I get dangerously obsessed. Like, sink unreasonable time into making the stuff from whatever I’m into. And, I got very obsessed with the Atlas Gauntlets

Disclaimer: I have never played League of Legends in my life

Love her design and I love the punching things even more. I have no hope of ever being as cool as her, but having the gauntlets is the next best thing. So, without further ado…

I started with a frame built out of some stainless steel rod and a square tube ring (a square shaped tube bent into a ring) connected to a stainless steel duct flange.

And I’m honestly proud of the duct flange, since a 4-inch inner diameter combined with a little cutting on the faceplate created a picture perfect, and surprisingly comfortable, frame for my arm size.

Next, was the hand and fingers, and my god the fingers.

If you look closely, the fingers on the gauntlets each have their own hinge and connection. This is because in my infinite wisdom, I desperately wanted fully articulate fingers for this hand that would only be able to make a fist, so I

1. Ground out 16 finger segment from a 2” steel square pipe using an angle grinder
2. Drilled out hinge holes
3. Fastened delicate little bolts to connect every segment together for every segment.

If you look closely you can see the fragmented shards of my sanity embedded beneath the paint of each finger.

Anyway, once this was done I bought a few ‘Pistons’ in the form of motor powered linear actuators; so basically not pistons at all.

Connected to some bidirectional switches, and mounted on the ‘palm’ of the gauntlets where I can activate it with my fingers.
You can see also above, I put in an extra circuit to monitor the voltage of my battery, and added step down transformer to my power source (20v power tool battery) to get the 12v the actuator needs.

So, after bolting down all the parts, wiring the connections together, mounting a battery harness into the back of the gauntlets, we’re left with…

The gold color can use some work I know, and certainly the outer plating could use some texture to it.

But you have to admit, that’s a very workable machine for punching enforcers and long lost little siblings.

Bonus

And for added authenticity, I found some of these great wireless LEDs and embedded them into a marble of resin. Then, with a magnetic field oscillator hidden just out of view, you can light it up!

A little sapphire blue resin dye and you get this beauty above. Worth risking all of Piltover for?
Probably not but its fun. Plus I got to put it on a cupcake and eat it.