Agent Washington — First Build !!

[antrodite]

Hey, everyone, it’s Antro!! I’m almost halfway through my first ever foam build, so I figured now would be the time to finally make a thread!



This project started off horrendously slow with foam way too thick to deal with, confusing patterns, messed up angles, and screwed up scales. After getting some fresh patterns from BroNavarro, I started going to town. As a fellow “no pictures in brain” person, cutting out everything on cardboard first and jankily hot gluing it together helped me with visualizing angles so much. It saved me a ton of time and materials since I’m not having to redo foam pieces or trying to add shims behind seams.



Currently I have both shins, thighs, and boots done. I’ll be going back through everything before I plasti-dip to add details, but I’m honestly proud of how quick I was able to do those! I set myself a deadline for fanexpo cleveland on april 12th… we’ll be down to the wire, that’s for sure. As in, the paint is drying in my truck bed on the way there lol.



Anyway! Enjoy the progress update along with my pride and joy, a helmet from Branfuhr Studios. All hail.

 

[Pixelcube]

Hey, everyone, it’s Antro!! I’m almost halfway through my first ever foam build, so I figured now would be the time to finally make a thread!



This project started off horrendously slow with foam way too thick to deal with, confusing patterns, messed up angles, and screwed up scales. After getting some fresh patterns from BroNavarro, I started going to town. As a fellow “no pictures in brain” person, cutting out everything on cardboard first and jankily hot gluing it together helped me with visualizing angles so much. It saved me a ton of time and materials since I’m not having to redo foam pieces or trying to add shims behind seams.



Currently I have both shins, thighs, and boots done. I’ll be going back through everything before I plasti-dip to add details, but I’m honestly proud of how quick I was able to do those! I set myself a deadline for fanexpo cleveland on april 12th… we’ll be down to the wire, that’s for sure. As in, the paint is drying in my truck bed on the way there lol.



Anyway! Enjoy the progress update along with my pride and joy, a helmet from Branfuhr Studios. All hail.

Your build is coming along nicely! I also did Agent Washington as my first build so I can't wait to see how yours turns out. As for your trouble with angles, I recently wrote a pretty simple guide on how to cut them which you might find helpful

A simple guide to cutting angles

Hey everyone, I have seen a lot of posts on how to cut angled bevels and I figured I would create this post to show how I do it. Now of course this is just one way of doing things and there are other tools and methods that one can use but this method uses a tool that everyone who went to...

www.405th.com

 

[antrodite]

Your build is coming along nicely! I also did Agent Washington as my first build so I can't wait to see how yours turns out. As for your trouble with angles, I recently wrote a pretty simple guide on how to cut them which you might find helpful

A simple guide to cutting angles

Hey everyone, I have seen a lot of posts on how to cut angled bevels and I figured I would create this post to show how I do it. Now of course this is just one way of doing things and there are other tools and methods that one can use but this method uses a tool that everyone who went to...

www.405th.com

Thank you so much, I appreciate that big time!! I went and stalked you a little bit lol, your Wash looked awesome!
And I will definitely keep that guide in mind for future projects, super helpful. This build I bought patterns, so they’re pre-labelled and what not. My main issue was being unable to look at the 3D model and determine the angles, so building it out of physical cardboard first helped a ton!

 

[antrodite]

Tiny update time!!
Both of the biceps are officially done, yay! I did my cardboard mockup on Tuesday, the left one on Wednesday, and just finished the right one today (Thursday)! We zoomin!!
I put everything on together, including my helmet that I fitted a couple days ago.. and it was slipping down my forehead so bad. No idea what’s different today, but added that back onto the to-do list. That is officially a next week problem lol

 

[antrodite]

Another update! Got a bit behind schedule since our furnace went out (it is currently winter in Ohio) and I didn’t want to leave the safety of my blanket in front of my electric heater lol.
Got both forearms done though! For whatever reason, there was detail overlays on these patterns. All the other pieces were just the bases and I planned on going through and doing details later, but these were here, so I threw em on! Had to do a little DIY, so the bottom of the forearm doesn’t look completely accurate, but hey, done is better than perfect. I keep reminding myself I can come back later and redo pieces, but for now the goal is to have this done for fanexpo cleveland!!
Next on the list is to finish cutting the patterns out for the belt and the torso. I’m also waiting on my gloves to get here from Amazon, but will probably get those top pieces cut and glued together (aka procrastinate cutting out the paper patterns because my eyes are going crossed).
Question for ya if you made it this far! I’ve been keeping a checklist/order of go, but am struggling to plan the order where it gets closer to complete. Are you putting your inner upholstery foam padding in before or after you seal & paint? Rigging as well! Curious which order of go would be easier. Let me know!

 

[N8TEBB]

I make my suits from foam as well
I found it useful to do all of the rigging and straps and stuff before paint. That way I could suit up and make sure everything fit properly, and make necessary adjustments before painting. I use painters tape to cover over the straps and Velcro so that they don't get sprayed when painting

 

[antrodite]

I make my suits from foam as well
I found it useful to do all of the rigging and straps and stuff before paint. That way I could suit up and make sure everything fit properly, and make necessary adjustments before painting. I use painters tape to cover over the straps and Velcro so that they don't get sprayed when painting

That was super helpful to know, thank you! Makes sense to do rigging before paint incase something needs changed, noted. Genius to cover your straps and clips with painters tape, I’ll definitely be snatching that idea!

 

[Lungorthin]

I like the color scheme you have going on the helmet, should look great when finished

 

[antrodite]

I like the color scheme you have going on the helmet, should look great when finished

Thank you so much!! The helmet is from Branfuhr Studios, we’ll see if I can make the rest of the suit match well enough lol!

 

[antrodite]

It’s update time.
I finished the belt a few days ago, I think that was my easiest part yet! Felt like I got to catch a little break before I start tackling the whole entire torso (which I will be breaking up into smaller parts lol).
I also got my gloves in which was exciting! I got snaps to snap the foam hand plate on top. Attempted E6000 and contact cement, no dice sticking metal to rubber, so attempting super glue at the moment. We’ll see how it goes.
I finished marking up the paper patterns for the torso last night (letters for connecting pieces so I’m not trying to do a puzzle when gluing, marking angled cuts, etc). My brain was actually decomposing after that adventure, but we did it. Nervous to get started on actually building it, but we’re so close to the finish line, no slowing down now !!!
One more fun thing to share… I found bottoms for my undersuit with a thigh POCKET! so I can hide my cellphone perfectly under my left thigh piece. Very exciting moment how great that one worked out.

 

[EchoCosplay]

In case you've never heard of it, This to That (Glue Advice) is a great website for figuring out adhesives to glue (this) to (that).

I got a pair of leggings with thigh pockets to wear under a costume that has nowhere to store stuff and it was perfect, so I've done it for a couple more costumes since then too. I am definitely going to keep that in mind for this project too (whenever I get around to starting it, lol).

 

[antrodite]

In case you've never heard of it, This to That (Glue Advice) is a great website for figuring out adhesives to glue (this) to (that).

I got a pair of leggings with thigh pockets to wear under a costume that has nowhere to store stuff and it was perfect, so I've done it for a couple more costumes since then too. I am definitely going to keep that in mind for this project too (whenever I get around to starting it, lol).

Thank you so much, that is so helpful! Definitely will be using that going forward!!

And yes, pockets are the best ever! I feel a weight off my shoulders knowing I won’t have to build a spot to hold my phone lol. The bottoms have belt loops too, definitely hit the holy grail.

 

[antrodite]

The torso building has begun. I decided to break it up into smaller parts in case I screw something up. I’m not great at knowing when to cut which type of angle (hence why all the other parts had a cardboard mockup), but I decided to pass on arguably the most important piece left! Genius thinking we got going on over here.
Anyway! Hoping to have this finished by the end of the week, so we’ll see how that goes seeing as it’s currently Tuesday night, then I’ll be moving onto all the smaller details which I’m super excited to do. Will fill in the gaps with Kwik Seal, hot glue reinforce inner seams, and start on rigging! Woo! We’re in the home stretch!!

 

[BrokenHawk]

Love seeing some RvB cosplay! Your foam work is crazy!! I look forward to seeing your progress.

 

[MicaHusky]

I’m pretty sure agent Washington’s yellow stripe goes all the way from front to back based on what I’ve seen. I used a bunch of screengrabs from RVB halo3 era to see exactly where the edges of the colored stripe on top were for my suit and here are a few references I took.

 

[antrodite]

Love seeing some RvB cosplay! Your foam work is crazy!! I look forward to seeing your progress.

Thank you, I appreciate that so much, seriously !!

 

[antrodite]

I’m pretty sure agent Washington’s yellow stripe goes all the way from front to back based on what I’ve seen. I used a bunch of screengrabs from RVB halo3 era to see exactly where the edges of the colored stripe on top were for my suit and here are a few references I took.
View attachment 345209View attachment 345210View attachment 345211View attachment 345212

When he was still in Project Freelancer, he had just the front stripe and more yellow on the suit! I’m doing young freelancer Wash, so I won’t have the full stripe or the yellow on the top of the shoulders.

 

[antrodite]

Back progress is being made!! I put in some overtime today to add both the top and bottom spine pieces to my done pile. I’ll be gluing all the parts together after I finish up the rest of the torso and that will be my last part of the suit to build!! Fanexpo Cleveland is April 12th… yes, sixteen days away. We’re cutting it close, but we got this fo sho. There is no Plan B, let that be my encouragement.

 

[EchoCosplay]

When he was still in Project Freelancer, he had just the front stripe and more yellow on the suit! I’m doing young freelancer Wash, so I won’t have the full stripe or the yellow on the top of the shoulders.

Are you going to have a drink with a curly straw???

Good luck getting the build done! That's a tight timeline for sure. Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

 

[MicaHusky]

When he was still in Project Freelancer, he had just the front stripe and more yellow on the suit! I’m doing young freelancer Wash, so I won’t have the full stripe or the yellow on the top of the shoulders.

Well that makes sense! I was going off of his full stripe helmet cause my helmet has the same pattern (albeit different colors lol)