alcyonsa
New Member
Hello everyone! I'm Alcyonsa and I'm from Germany and this will be my first build thread 
Originally, I planned to make an MK VII out of Foam and have bought some materials already - I have also done quite some foamwork before and In general have been cosplaying since 2012, so I'm not new to cosplay but large armor instead - the thought of making such a huge project out of Foam scared me a bit and combined with some years of cosplay hiatus where I crafted nothing I decided to postpone it.
I needed something to get me out of my cosplay crafting hiatus, something to spice things up ... something new.
And then it struck me. I have never properly dipped my toes into finishing 3D prints properly, and I loved the style the ODST's had, simple enough where screwing up would be okay, a nice fun project to test out a newish medium.
Originally I had planned to make a normal black ODST like any other, I love the classic black look they have, but the 405th's motto of "Build your Character" struck me.
I thought it doesn't need to be a lore accurate ODST and given my creative break I really wanted to just do exactly that, get creative - what better way to do that than mash another favorite Franchise of mine into the Mix and create a fun ODST Titanfall Pilot.
Most of the cosplay needs to be done by the 27th June for Dokomi in Germany.
So we are in quite a bit of a con crunch , oops!
Mood board
Collecting all of my main Reference Pictures into one large mood board helps me to visualize the finished project as well as categorize specific parts of a cosplay.
Since this is a crossover, having something like this is even more important, so I can narrow down what style elements I want for later and make it have a coherent look in the end.
Adding pictures of how other people might have done their cosplay helps me with inspiration too and how I might want to approach things later down the line.
As you can see, I also have screenshots of parts of the official Rookie Cosplay guide that you can find here. I simply took some screenshots from it for the Main Parts and added them, but I do have the actual PDF open sometimes. In conjunction with the Mood board, I also have 3D Models open in Blender.
The program I'm using for this is called PureRef , it's entirely free and super easy to use! Any pictures you drag into it will retain their original size, so you can zoom in and out as you like.
At a later date, I plan to make a small tutorial thread on this program and making Mood boards for your builds. Truth be told, this one could certainly be better, but it does the job for now.
Cosplay Features Rundown
Interchangeable Helmets & Armor parts.
I want to have variants of this cosplay, with one being a more ODST look and the other a more classic crossover look.
Since we are on a time crunch, there will be parts I wish to add now but time won't allow it (like arm armor from titanfall), so these will get added later.
Also, having a version that is more of a classic ODST by look will be nice for any 405th European booths I wish to attend
Useable Backpack
Storage space is precious, and since the ODST's have actual storage in the Games, this is the perfect way to have some.
For this I will be using the files from FromTheBrinkStudios as they have built in hinges and doors.
Jump Kit
This was quite a last minute Idea and addition and will probably come back later to bite me in the ass - but I couldn't help myself adding this to the list of things to make.
I chose to make the Grapple Pilot version of it because Grapple Pilot is what I mainly play in the game - it also had an already modelled free file available.
Props
Having something to hold in your hands while people take photos of you makes posing sooo much easier.
For this, I chose the classic SOCOM from ODST and two Titanfall Props: An Arc Grenade as well as an Apex Predator calling card.
I personally enjoy making props the most, so I had to hold myself back to not add even more to this cosplay.
Front Pack
Titanfall's Pulse Blade Pilots have a pack at the front that is connected with some large tubes to their back.
This is a BIG maybe addition as it's not a must-have addition for this convention, only time will tell if I have enough time to finish this, but it's on a low priority list.
Scaling
Like most other people I also used Armorsmith, this was my first time using it and I made sure to get my mannequin as close to scale as possible.
But given my odd proportions and being only a whopping 5 feet/152cm tall, this is quite a challenge.
At a later date, I like to get a full body 3D scan of myself, which will make my life a lot easier scaling my next build.
This is the finished scale I ended up with referencing the Rookie Cosplay Guide, it may not be perfect, but I like to think I did pretty well here beside a few issues.
I scaled the Helmet down to 95%, the ODST Helmets are quite big, but at 100% even with the rest of the armor It looked like a bobble head
My first scaling of the thighs also turned out way too small, so I had to resize them. The current ones could be just a little bigger, but at least they fit - I think at a later date I will redo the thighs entirely out of Foam for more movement comfort.
The Backpack also got scaled down to fit tiny me, this will change the scale of the magnets and hardware later on, and it also has much less storage room but anything else would have been far too big.
The scaling of the jump kit is quite messy, the model is only available in split files, so I had to assemble them in Blender and then import it. The Angle of the thrusters are a bit wrong and angle more downward in the actual model, but this was enough to check the size.
I kept them at 100% as the size fits me quite well and work when compared to the actual ingame models. Scaling them down would probably help make them less bulky and give more movement, but I already knew I would sacrifice that when deciding to make them.
Printing
For this entire Project, I will be printing on a BambuLab P1S that I splurged on.
Almost all the pieces for this project are printed in PETG with the exemption that the Helmet , the lower arms & two parts of the Titanfall Front Pack are PLA+. Reason being I started printing the Helmet first around the middle of March but later on found some super cheap PETG that I could use instead so I switched over.
I think in hindsight I should have printed in PLA+ just because those prints turned out way smoother than my PETG parts.
The settings I use for my PETG aren't perfect, and I just never bothered to fix them because I'm a little lazy in that regard...
Since the P1S does not have a big build plate, some of the pieces needed to be cut into pieces to fit.
The Thigh pieces were sliced into three , legs into two, helmet into four and the side pieces for the backpack into two each.
I made sure to cut at large open areas where it would be easy for me later on to fix any glue lines.
Glueing
For glue, I chose the classic CA Superglue with some spray activator so I would not need to wait for the glue to dry and could simply spray on the activator.
This is both extremely handy and easy to make mistakes with. Any wrong alignment will be easy to spot and a pain to fix later on as I had to find out.
You can see it on the helmet , it was the first piece I used CA with spray activator, and I really wanted to see the helmet put together so I glued it in the late night/early morning hours.
I glued the piece wrong, removed it and tried to sand down the superglue and then glue it back on. Since the superglue dried, and I didn't sand it down enough, it left a gap as well as misaligned any other pieces that previously fit perfectly. Oops, lesson learned for next time...
For added stability where pieces got glued together, I also decided to use some of these heat staples and reinforce the seams. I carefully used a dremel to remove the excess staple that got left behind.
Acrylic Putty
Any seam lines where pieces got glued together I fixed with some Acrylic Putty ( U-Pol Dolphin 1k Stopper Filler to be exact ) and sanded down. I also did this to any rough spots where I could see some stair stepping in my 3D prints or where supports have left a rough surface. This putty was incredibly easy to work with, it sands down incredible well and fast as well as dries super quickly. The Latter, which I had to be aware of and only work in small batches so it was liquid enough for me to work with and not dry out while doing so. I had to be quite fast with it.
You can also see I cut out the vents in the helmet, which I hope will later on help me with my fans to funnel intake air inside.
Here you can also see most of the pieces after they got glued and patched up. Quite a colorful array.
Filler Primer
For this step, I didn't sand my entire pieces beforehand because they came out quite clean straight off the print bed and I really wanted and needed to see where I had to patch up some more seams.
Most people would go with spray cans in this scenario, but since I had access to an actual paint gun I chose to spray everything with U-Pol Reface 2k, it's a filler primer specifically for paint guns that you will need to mix with a hardener. This is much cheaper than using multiple spray cans but involves a bit more work.
... more sanding.
The woes of doing a 3D printed cosplay. With the first layer of filler primer on, I could finally see all imperfections. So I sanded everything with a combination of 80 & 120 grit sandpaper. The 80 grit was mostly used for where I had to sand off a lot of material since I sprayed the filler primer on quite thickly, I used it very carefully, but it worked perfectly to even out the top of my Helmet. I then went over everything with 120 grit. This filler primer is great, despite only going up to 120 everything is already extremely smooth, and I think I will only sand up to 400 on the Helmet.
After sanding I also filled in more holes and seams , there are some areas and pieces that will get a second coat of filler primer.
Speaking of sanding , these two things have been an absolute life saver! I like to use the more heavy sander that is attached to my pressurized air for large surfaces and the Proxxon is great for hard to reach areas and details. I also printed out some small sanding sticks and used some needle files.
Originally, I planned to make an MK VII out of Foam and have bought some materials already - I have also done quite some foamwork before and In general have been cosplaying since 2012, so I'm not new to cosplay but large armor instead - the thought of making such a huge project out of Foam scared me a bit and combined with some years of cosplay hiatus where I crafted nothing I decided to postpone it.
I needed something to get me out of my cosplay crafting hiatus, something to spice things up ... something new.
And then it struck me. I have never properly dipped my toes into finishing 3D prints properly, and I loved the style the ODST's had, simple enough where screwing up would be okay, a nice fun project to test out a newish medium.
Originally I had planned to make a normal black ODST like any other, I love the classic black look they have, but the 405th's motto of "Build your Character" struck me.
I thought it doesn't need to be a lore accurate ODST and given my creative break I really wanted to just do exactly that, get creative - what better way to do that than mash another favorite Franchise of mine into the Mix and create a fun ODST Titanfall Pilot.
Most of the cosplay needs to be done by the 27th June for Dokomi in Germany.
So we are in quite a bit of a con crunch , oops!
Mood board
Collecting all of my main Reference Pictures into one large mood board helps me to visualize the finished project as well as categorize specific parts of a cosplay.
Since this is a crossover, having something like this is even more important, so I can narrow down what style elements I want for later and make it have a coherent look in the end.
Adding pictures of how other people might have done their cosplay helps me with inspiration too and how I might want to approach things later down the line.
As you can see, I also have screenshots of parts of the official Rookie Cosplay guide that you can find here. I simply took some screenshots from it for the Main Parts and added them, but I do have the actual PDF open sometimes. In conjunction with the Mood board, I also have 3D Models open in Blender.
The program I'm using for this is called PureRef , it's entirely free and super easy to use! Any pictures you drag into it will retain their original size, so you can zoom in and out as you like.
At a later date, I plan to make a small tutorial thread on this program and making Mood boards for your builds. Truth be told, this one could certainly be better, but it does the job for now.
Cosplay Features Rundown
Interchangeable Helmets & Armor parts.
I want to have variants of this cosplay, with one being a more ODST look and the other a more classic crossover look.
Since we are on a time crunch, there will be parts I wish to add now but time won't allow it (like arm armor from titanfall), so these will get added later.
Also, having a version that is more of a classic ODST by look will be nice for any 405th European booths I wish to attend
Useable Backpack
Storage space is precious, and since the ODST's have actual storage in the Games, this is the perfect way to have some.
For this I will be using the files from FromTheBrinkStudios as they have built in hinges and doors.
Jump Kit
This was quite a last minute Idea and addition and will probably come back later to bite me in the ass - but I couldn't help myself adding this to the list of things to make.
I chose to make the Grapple Pilot version of it because Grapple Pilot is what I mainly play in the game - it also had an already modelled free file available.
Props
Having something to hold in your hands while people take photos of you makes posing sooo much easier.
For this, I chose the classic SOCOM from ODST and two Titanfall Props: An Arc Grenade as well as an Apex Predator calling card.
I personally enjoy making props the most, so I had to hold myself back to not add even more to this cosplay.
Front Pack
Titanfall's Pulse Blade Pilots have a pack at the front that is connected with some large tubes to their back.
This is a BIG maybe addition as it's not a must-have addition for this convention, only time will tell if I have enough time to finish this, but it's on a low priority list.
Scaling
Like most other people I also used Armorsmith, this was my first time using it and I made sure to get my mannequin as close to scale as possible.
But given my odd proportions and being only a whopping 5 feet/152cm tall, this is quite a challenge.
At a later date, I like to get a full body 3D scan of myself, which will make my life a lot easier scaling my next build.
This is the finished scale I ended up with referencing the Rookie Cosplay Guide, it may not be perfect, but I like to think I did pretty well here beside a few issues.
I scaled the Helmet down to 95%, the ODST Helmets are quite big, but at 100% even with the rest of the armor It looked like a bobble head
My first scaling of the thighs also turned out way too small, so I had to resize them. The current ones could be just a little bigger, but at least they fit - I think at a later date I will redo the thighs entirely out of Foam for more movement comfort.
The Backpack also got scaled down to fit tiny me, this will change the scale of the magnets and hardware later on, and it also has much less storage room but anything else would have been far too big.
The scaling of the jump kit is quite messy, the model is only available in split files, so I had to assemble them in Blender and then import it. The Angle of the thrusters are a bit wrong and angle more downward in the actual model, but this was enough to check the size.
I kept them at 100% as the size fits me quite well and work when compared to the actual ingame models. Scaling them down would probably help make them less bulky and give more movement, but I already knew I would sacrifice that when deciding to make them.
Printing
For this entire Project, I will be printing on a BambuLab P1S that I splurged on.
Almost all the pieces for this project are printed in PETG with the exemption that the Helmet , the lower arms & two parts of the Titanfall Front Pack are PLA+. Reason being I started printing the Helmet first around the middle of March but later on found some super cheap PETG that I could use instead so I switched over.
I think in hindsight I should have printed in PLA+ just because those prints turned out way smoother than my PETG parts.
The settings I use for my PETG aren't perfect, and I just never bothered to fix them because I'm a little lazy in that regard...
Since the P1S does not have a big build plate, some of the pieces needed to be cut into pieces to fit.
The Thigh pieces were sliced into three , legs into two, helmet into four and the side pieces for the backpack into two each.
I made sure to cut at large open areas where it would be easy for me later on to fix any glue lines.
Glueing
For glue, I chose the classic CA Superglue with some spray activator so I would not need to wait for the glue to dry and could simply spray on the activator.
This is both extremely handy and easy to make mistakes with. Any wrong alignment will be easy to spot and a pain to fix later on as I had to find out.
You can see it on the helmet , it was the first piece I used CA with spray activator, and I really wanted to see the helmet put together so I glued it in the late night/early morning hours.
I glued the piece wrong, removed it and tried to sand down the superglue and then glue it back on. Since the superglue dried, and I didn't sand it down enough, it left a gap as well as misaligned any other pieces that previously fit perfectly. Oops, lesson learned for next time...
For added stability where pieces got glued together, I also decided to use some of these heat staples and reinforce the seams. I carefully used a dremel to remove the excess staple that got left behind.
Acrylic Putty
Any seam lines where pieces got glued together I fixed with some Acrylic Putty ( U-Pol Dolphin 1k Stopper Filler to be exact ) and sanded down. I also did this to any rough spots where I could see some stair stepping in my 3D prints or where supports have left a rough surface. This putty was incredibly easy to work with, it sands down incredible well and fast as well as dries super quickly. The Latter, which I had to be aware of and only work in small batches so it was liquid enough for me to work with and not dry out while doing so. I had to be quite fast with it.
You can also see I cut out the vents in the helmet, which I hope will later on help me with my fans to funnel intake air inside.
Here you can also see most of the pieces after they got glued and patched up. Quite a colorful array.
Filler Primer
For this step, I didn't sand my entire pieces beforehand because they came out quite clean straight off the print bed and I really wanted and needed to see where I had to patch up some more seams.
Most people would go with spray cans in this scenario, but since I had access to an actual paint gun I chose to spray everything with U-Pol Reface 2k, it's a filler primer specifically for paint guns that you will need to mix with a hardener. This is much cheaper than using multiple spray cans but involves a bit more work.
... more sanding.
The woes of doing a 3D printed cosplay. With the first layer of filler primer on, I could finally see all imperfections. So I sanded everything with a combination of 80 & 120 grit sandpaper. The 80 grit was mostly used for where I had to sand off a lot of material since I sprayed the filler primer on quite thickly, I used it very carefully, but it worked perfectly to even out the top of my Helmet. I then went over everything with 120 grit. This filler primer is great, despite only going up to 120 everything is already extremely smooth, and I think I will only sand up to 400 on the Helmet.
After sanding I also filled in more holes and seams , there are some areas and pieces that will get a second coat of filler primer.
Speaking of sanding , these two things have been an absolute life saver! I like to use the more heavy sander that is attached to my pressurized air for large surfaces and the Proxxon is great for hard to reach areas and details. I also printed out some small sanding sticks and used some needle files.
