So I was asked to create a Final Fantasy XV themed case for the GamesCom announcement of the PC version due in 2018. That sounded awesome and I was looking for something to do so why not? There were only two real challenges: 1) I had three weeks to get it done, or rather two by the time everything was OK'd and 2)I've never played a Final Fantasy game in my life. This could be interesting. So I dove into FFXV, trailers, walkthroughs, the CGI movie and finally came up with a theme I liked based on Lunafreya Nox Fleuret a major character in the story. I decided to use her dresses from the Kingsglaive movie and from her role as an oracle as a guide for the look. The idea being that the internal look of the case would pull details from the Kingsglaive dress and the exterior would draw from the oracle dress. My chicken scratches of the idea. So lets start off this quick build log with the case, the Phanteks Eclipse P400S TG. The S is for silent and you get the top grill covers, which I wanted, and some deadening material. The TG for the tempered glass version. It's a pretty nice case. Open interior with a PSU shroud and a pretty clean look. And the front pops off easy enough, which is good since that's what I'm starting on. After pulling the grills and plastic trim(which, my only complaint about the case is the plastics don't match the paint) I had to figure out a way to mimic the lines of Luna's oracle dress on the front panel. I originally thought foam, but decided to try polystyrene since it bends easily with heat and would give me the lines similar to the folds in Luna's dress. So I cut some patterns and laid it out using tape to hold everything in place. Once I was happy with how it looked, I marked all the edges so I could piece it back together. Starting with the bottom layer, I glued the center section of the pattern to keep everything set and then used a heat gun to let me wrap the polystyrene around the curves. After that I could trim the polystyrene and glue the rest of the layer down. When all the layers were done, I wound up with this. It's hard to pick out the white on white, but the pattern was good, if not a little rough. My touch with the polystyrene is a little rough, but nothing a little bondo and a lot of sanding can't fix. And once it was all smoothed out, I could start laying down the paint on everything. I started out with a white sealer base followed by a water based white. I'm still a little iffy on using this for an entire case since the coat is very thin and it's not nearly as durable as an auto urethane or even rattle can paint. Since I was a bit iffy about the durability and this case was going to shows, I decided that a few coats of a good 2k clear were in order. It also gave a nice bit of shine to the matte finish of the airbrush paint.
Continuing on with the hardware. The only specs I was given were 7700k processor, 1080Ti gpu, 32GB of RAM, and 256GB drive. That left me quite a few options and this is what I came up with. The Gigabyte Z270X Designare mb because I wanted a white or grey board, plus I like the lighting. Asus GeForce GTX 1080Ti Turbo OC because of the flat-ish shroud. It made for a good canvass. Intel i7 7700k. 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX in white to match the build. I like the LPX cause it's not super flashy, I don't need my RAM to be all "HEY LOOK AT ME!" 500GB Samsung 960 EVO. Seasonic 1050w Snow Silent PSU. I picked out this white PSU before I finalized what case what I was going to use, hence going with white. Even with the shroud, it's a nice PSU and looks great so I stayed with it. NZXT Kraken X62 280mm AIO. I went with an AIO because they travel well and the build didn't need a custom loop. I was originally going to use the Corsair H110i, but after seeing the pump on the Kraken, I really wanted to use it. Next was to put it all on the bench to make sure everything works. No time for problems with this build. With the hardware all working and the exterior in progress, lets check out what's going on in the interior. I didn't plan on going crazy with the interior, mostly paint and detail and also flipping the GPU vertical to show it off. First up was mixing some paint to match Luna's dress from Kingsglaive. And then giving the PSU shroud and GPU some color.
For the vertical GPU mount, Bill sent me one of his adapters and I was planning on using it in conjunction with my own PCI cover. So I did a little Al work. I knew Bill's bracet wouldn't fit on my PCI bracket but I was planning on trying to use some existing slots on the case for the other mounts. Well, long and complicated story short, I wound up making a flat cover that went from the tabs to the slots and mounting Bill's bracket to that. Painted up in black it fits right in like it's stock. On a side note, Rustoleum semi-gloss black is a perfect match on the Phanteks chassis. After getting the shroud and GPU painted and the bracket in, it was time for some details inside the case. But I guess I probably should show a shot of what I was going for, Luna's Kingsglaive dress. The blues were a pain to match and look right with some shots and totally off with others. The first detail I pulled from this dress other than coloring was the lace covering the bottom half of the dress. So we get lace covering the PSU shroud. That's right. I put lace in a case. And let me tell you, my Amazon suggestions have gotten wierd. All glued up and tucked in. To get the lace to stay, I used some spray adhesive on the back edge and super glue on the front edge, applying it through the holes for the standard door panels. I kind of wish I would have pulled the shroud and used spray adhesive on the whole thing, thus keeping it from moving at all just because it's a show build. But personally I like the fact that the lace has a bit of life to it and isn't just glued down, even if you have to tuck the edges every now and then. In that last pick you can see a bit of what I did to the GPU. Luna's dress has some edging around her shoulder and neck. It's a pale yellow herringbone and I couldn't find anything to match, so I got close. Sometimes that's all you can do. What I used is called gimp and is a braided trim. The stuff is a pain to get a clean cut on, but it's adds a bit of flair to an otherwise boring GPU. I still wish I could have added a bit more to it. Next up was sleeving the cables. I just used the stock cables since I had room to hide any extra in the shroud. The 24 and the CPU got a grey sleeve but then I realized I was going to run out before getting the PCI-Es done. Uh oh. Before I ordered some more of the grey, I decided to take a look around the shop to see if I had other options. And funny enough, the first time I ordered sleeve from Lutro0 Customs, my order got swapped with someone else's and I wound up with some black, grey, and gold, paracord. Now the grey wouldn't even come close to matching the texture of the grey I was using and would really stand out, but the gold... ...just happens to go with the trim on the GPU. And with the grey on the 24 and CPU matching the mb, I think it's a pretty cool look. And I obviously cleaned everything up in the back.
With the interior put together and the exterior painted, it was time to put it together. Square Enix sent me Luna's necklace to use in the mod and I think I found a perfect spot to hang it. For reference, here's Luna's oracle dress that I was using as my inspiration. I think I came pretty close. Another thing you'll notice in the figure is the giant trident she wields. Wouldn't it be cool to include that some way... So I found a 3d model for a full scale replica of the trident and had a friend print it out at third scale. Not all of it could be printed since the reduction in size pushed the limits of the printer but most of the pieces came out with awesome detail. Since the original design used a pipe as the shaft, I had to find a tube that the parts would fit on and a 9/16" brass tube from the hardware store worked perfect. Here's most of it put together and on the tube. Overall, it's around 26" long. Since some of the pieces didn't come out, I had to get artsy and do some sculpting. And since I'm more of a hack paint guy than an artist, it was time to break out the Bondo. Once it was sculpted, I had to put the ends on. The head was simple since it slipped on the tube, but the tail end was flat and I had to epoxy it on. In order to help give the epoxy something to grab on to and also to help with mounting it later since the tube is thin and I didn't trust tapping it alone, I filled the brass tube with some quick set urethane resin. this gave me a flat end to epoxy the tail to and also something to tap into later. I was really proud of how the sculpting came out, I didn't think I had it in me. If I'd had more time and patience, I think I could have matched the original dead on. Next up was mounting the trident. Originally I had thought on the front bezel. The only problem with that is that the trident is huge and the front turned out super nice so I didn't want to break up the look. Then I thought about the top, but once again, it's huge and I was worried about it being used as a handle. So in the end, I decided on the back panel. It was pretty bare and I could mount it diagonally so that it didn't seem too out of place scale-wise. It only hangs a couple of inches past the ends and it goes pretty well with the logo's lines. The trident was mounted by sticking a couple of standoffs in the brass tube and then running some screws through the panel to hold it. The logo by the way was a vinyl sticker that I picked up online. It was perfect except for having to trim off the white border. That was a pain. To finish off the trident, I grabbed the airbrush and went to work, laying down a silver basecoat. Next was some black and aluminum, with a bit of home brew brass for some accent. And the final touch was a bit of hemp string for the handle. The scale is a bit off, or at least it feels that way to me, but I love the final look.
And to wrap it all up, some quick final shots. I didn't do a full setup since I was out of time and honestly, it's not my thing. And Dwight playing on his phone while we were getting ready for the GeForce Garage video. And speaking of... Thanks for checking it out!
