Phil's Reach EOD + Halo 4 thread of shenanigans-UNDERSUIT TIME!

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Jun 20, 2013

• #1

Alright! To start this off, let me introduce myself. If you didn't gather it from my username and thread title, my name is Phil. I've been a loooong time lurker on the forums (for the better part of 2/3years), and I've learned a ton reading through the threads and tutorials here. Id like to offer everyone here a huge thanks for sharing their knowledge. Up until this project, I had never really touched fiberglass and such, but I have a very strong background of custom metal fab and carpentry, so I'm definitely not new to building stuff! I absolutely loved the reach eod helm, so it was my obvious choice for a helmet. As for the rest of the suit, I am still out on the fence for what models to build, and what methods to build them. I really liked the concept in reach (both in the story and online) that Spartans could modify and customize their armor. Hence my suit will likely be a mismatch of armor pieces from different games, and likely have a few modifications of my own involved as well. I'll continue in my next post with pics, and reserve this one for finished pics when I get to that point!

I have a separate thread going for my weapon builds just to keep everything a bit more organized. If you'd like to check that out as well, you can find it here! http://www.405th.com/showthread.php...amy-weapon-goodness-M6G-and-M739-(SAW)-inside!


Here is a current shot of my (more or less finished) suit!

 

Angus314

RCO

Mountain Regiment

405th Regiment Officer

Member DIN

S314

• Jun 20, 2013

• #2

Cool! Glad to have you on board! If you are new to fiberglassing, then read some of my mistakes in my thread and hopefully, you wont make the same ones I did!
Can't wait to see it all done!

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Jun 20, 2013

• #3

Al right, so now onto my build! I first pepped the Reach EOD helm by ironiumstudios about a year ago. At the time I was so overwhelmed by the whole concept of armor building, that I didn't bother reading up on scaling, and the helmet ended up being too small, as you can see in this picture..... And yep, that's a standard sized door behind me, I stand just over 6'6" barefoot.

So a few weeks ago, I took the time to scale it properly (wrote down the size somewhere, I'll post that up later). I used a standard olfa utility knife with sharp blades to do the cutting, and I used the ballpoint pen and ruler method to score the folds. For glueing, I just used a cheap job mate hot glue gun from Canadian tire ( I'm a Canuck eh). I will be as explanatory as I can, and hope to help out future costume makers. If I miss anything, or you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Cutting up the fun stuff.... I cut and scored all the parts before assembly... 18 pages of fun and excitement lol.

Starting assembly. I started from the chin area, and worked my way back.

Finished pepping! Very minimal warping, but nothing that can't be fixed with some bondo!

And here is the first coat of resin on it! I mixed up the resin about 1.5 ounces at a time (12 drops of hardener per 1 ounce of resin.... I usually add a few extra drops to speed up the process), using a cheap measuring glass ($2-3), and iirc it took about three batches to cover the entire helmet with one coat.

More pics to come!

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Jun 20, 2013

• #4

Angus314 said:

Cool! Glad to have you on board! If you are new to fiberglassing, then read some of my mistakes in my thread and hopefully, you wont make the same ones I did!
Can't wait to see it all done!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind welcome, Angus! I am now a few weeks into the build, and just haven't had time to post up a thread until now. I'll be sure to check out your build though!

Alright, so after my first coat of resin, I jumped ahead and hardened the inside using rondo without any glass or further resining. I was super stoked on how it turned out, despite some warpage which turned into a ton of bodywork... But you live and learn haha.

And remember kids, safety first when using resins and such!

I'll just go over the rondo method quickly for those who don't know it. My method involved mixing up 5 ounces of resin with 5 ounces of body filler. I used the equivalent amount of liquid hardener for ten ounces of resin for this mixture (120 drops to be precise, but I used quite a bit extra, ~145 drops, because the process is simple, and I prefer it to harden faster). Once this was all mixed up, I poured the whole concoction into the helmet and sloshed it around, being sure to coat it as evenly as possible. Again, I think it took a few batches to coat the inside.

Here it is after rondo'ing:

And at this point I couldn't resist a quick coat of primer haha.
at this point it was good from far, but far from good due to warping during the last few steps.

My first obvious issue to tacke was the warping on the top of the helm, so I had to build up the left side almost a quarter inch. Out comes the bondo! (body filler, as I will refer to it). I have never touched bondo before this, and I now absolutely love the stuff. Super simple to use, and relatively easy to sand and shape. I just used the instructions on the can, which suggest a 1.25" line of hardener for a golf ball sized gob of filler. Again, I like to use a little more hardener than suggested.

And follow up with some sanding, some more bondo, then some more sanding, and some more bondo, and so on hahahaha. It's a lengthy process, but totally worth the effort for a good looking end product.

More pics to come!

 

K

kitnip

New Member

• Jun 20, 2013

• #5

Wow, this is looking great! Nice pepping! And I give you props for doing the sand-bondo-sand-bondo routine; it's very time consuming but you're right with it giving the best look. Nice work!!
Subscribing!

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Jun 20, 2013

• #6

kitnip said:

Wow, this is looking great! Nice pepping! And I give you props for doing the sand-bondo-sand-bondo routine; it's very time consuming but you're right with it giving the best look. Nice work!!
Subscribing!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input, kitnip!

So after a number of coats of bondo and lots of sanding, I decided to tackle the next warpage issue. The chin area decided that it didn't like being symmetrical, and wanted to be different. I had to beat him back into shape. There was a fairly significant twist, which I fixed by making a few relief cuts along seams with my dremel. I then added a two inch strip of fiberglass (and polyester/fiberglass resin) all the way around the base of the helmet, and held the nose/chin straight while it cured (quite the forearm workout). I then did another light coat or rondo over the glass to clean things up.

Here's a pic of the messy chin area

Aaaaaaand more bondo and sanding. The black on the top is a gloss coat I did while trying to see high and low spots while shaping.

And here it is after even more bondo and sanding. At this point, I have a little over 25 hours into it since the first coat of resin. It still has a fair bit more work left, but I have corrected all the warpage now, so I can go ahead and start attacking the finer details and smoothing. My helmet will not be 100% game accurate for a few reasons. The ironium model has a few subtle differences from the game, and I happen to like the differences. Also, I'll be putting my own twist on a few of the parts. After all, I am not trying to make a game replica, my goal is to create my own spartan armor!

This is as far as I have gotten so far, but I should have a few more pics and updates in the next few days. Thanks for looking!

 

M

Molag Bal

New Member

• Jun 21, 2013

• #7

Looking great! I can't wait to see the finished project.

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Jun 21, 2013

• #8

Molag Bal said:

Looking great! I can't wait to see the finished project.

Click to expand...

Thanks man! You and I both hahaha

And just a couple teasers before I head to work:

Enjoy!

 

F

frelosio

New Member

• Jun 21, 2013

• #9

its looking good! keep it up!
nice lines going here.

 

S

spartan IV

Jr Member

Midwest Regiment

• Jun 21, 2013

• #10

Great job with the bondo work. It took me forever before I could use it with out screwing everything up.

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Jun 21, 2013

• #11

AI's are like onions.... They have layers

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

So the only halo 5 cortana chip reference is the pic that I uploaded in my post, so there isn't too much to go off of. Hence, I'll be taking a little bit of artistic license with it. I decided to make my master by layering up card stock, then adding resin and a tiny bit of bondo. Here's my progress:

So I used my first sketch as a template to cut out the somewhat detailed layers.

More layers... Ended up not needing all of these, due to the hot glue addin some volume when I layered it up.

And for the center:

And here it is all together. I didn't go into too much detail with what I did on the bottom... Just a few subtle bits. Now it is thick enough that I will be able to put a tiny battery and some led's inside to light up the 'glass' section once everything is finished. This is why I made it in two sides, which will be screwed together.

Aaaand after the first coat of resin

It will all be more detailed once I add the bondo and have some fun sanding and grinding. Enjoy!

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Aug 4, 2013

• #12

Soooooo, it's been a while since I posted last, as I got tied up with work and such. There is a convention here in Edmonton sometime in September that I'd like to go to, so the clock is ticking!

It turned out there was a bit more warping in the mouth/face area of my helmet, so I had to attack the high side with a dremel, and build up the low side with more bondo. I found a few little tricks that really helped me notice the problem spots, as everything starts to the same after staring at it for hours. The biggest thing that I found helped, is looking at the piece in a mirror. It will help you notice warps and twists that your eyes become accustomed to while looking at it normally. Another tip is to look at the project from all angles, and upside down, to determine if there are any issues with symmetry.

I also found that shaping the tacky, and even hardened, bondo with a utility knife blade drastically speeds up the shaping process.

Enough nattering, here are some more pics!

Just a shot of the front

As you can see, still a bit more smoothing needed on the back and top

And a close shot of the face/chin. I also built up two areas on the sides of the chin that the model did not include, but I noticed during gameplay.

More to come later!

 

A

axelhead1097

New Member

• Aug 5, 2013

• #13

Awesome pep work man, hope mine turns out as well as this does!!

 

D

drgon47

Well-Known Member

Southwest Regiment

• Aug 5, 2013

• #14

Looking great on both counts!

 

G

Ghost Bear 027

Jr Member

Colonial Regiment

• Aug 5, 2013

• #15

I like the helmet mate, and am impressed with the chip as well. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Keep us updated.

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Aug 16, 2013

• #16

Alright, so I've got another small update. Been quite busy with work, and my dad has been in town for work so I've been visiting with him, which hasn't left me a lot of time to work on my suit. I managed to find a free hour this morning and bang off some hand plates out of craft foam. I wasn't too impressed by mc's halo 4 hand plates, having just three small lines for detail, so I made a bit of a hybrid plate with aspects from 3 and reach.

I made the curve by bending the quarter inch prior to gluing the layers together, then held the curve while gluing, so I'm pretty confident the shape will stay.

I will likely be sealing my foam parts with mod podge as opposed to plasti dip, simply because I have a gift card to michael's. That's all for now!

 

S

shotgun rumble

Jr Member

• Aug 16, 2013

• #17

so awesome man! cant wait to see more work on the helmet!

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Aug 22, 2013

• #18

Another small update!

Picked up some mod podge from michaels after work today, so I managed to seal and paint my hand plates. For the next time I work with foam, I will be way more careful not to get any hot glue on visible areas, as it leaves them quite rough, and tearing it off will damage the foam. Luckily the weathering and battle damage covered up most of the rough areas. And now pics!

Just after the mod podge

And after paint

And after weathering and battle damage... This is the first time I've painted something in this manner. Looks better in person in my opinion haha.

Enjoy!

 

A

Apothacary

Member

Canadian Regiment

• Aug 22, 2013

• #19

This looks awesome, nice job fellow Canadian!

 

FlyinPhil

Well-Known Member

Canadian Regiment

Snow Burner

• Aug 22, 2013

• #20

Apothacary said:

This looks awesome, nice job fellow Canadian!

Click to expand...

Thanks eh!