first build - gears of war COG armour

[tru magic]

so i've been lurking on the site for a little while, always interested in other peoples builds and gettin ideas for my own.

i'm not a huge cosplay person, and i'm not even really that big into halo hence why i didnt choose to do halo armour

i have how ever been workin on this project for about 2 weeks now. i think i must haave built the helmet 3 times and the lancer twice. i tend to be a bit of a perfectionist so when it doesnt look right or doesnt work then i have to redo it.

so far i have the helmet pep'd, i have made 2 guns, one was sliced the other was half sliced half pep'd and i have half a dozen sheets of foam to make the armour out of

basically i have gone and done pretty much every type of technique i could find and decided to try them all out building this costume

heres the start of the project. keepin in mind i have been workin on this 2 weeks i have only just started to document so rather than tell in pictures what i have done i will try to best desciribe how i got to the point i am at.

the helmet went togeether relativly well, this was the third atempt but the only reason for that was originally i built it out of paaper rather than card and it didnt hold up when i applied the resin. its the standard HD cog helmet that is floating around this site, the only things i changed where that as u can see form the pics i decided to leave the front sections on the face plate open, as wwell as the small "vents" on the top towards the back. the reason for this was that i will be puttin a metal mesh material over those holes so they do actually act as vents. mainly cause i think it adds a little realism to the helmet as well as looking cool too

i've also come up with a paint scheme for the helmet, i've decided not to go for the classic gears of war paint scheme wich is blue, i've decided to go for red

 

[angel62sir]

thats very cool dude, keep up the work, ive built this helmet and am pleased with the results.

 

[tru magic]

and these are the weapons i have decided to make

the first is the standard lancer wich i thought was an absolute must have.

this particular version i found on another paper model site. it was originally meant to be a mini model about half the size of an xbox. after a little tweaking i blew it up cut out the parts and it went together really well, like the helmet i orignally made this out of paper so had to rebuild it.
to get around the fact that these are normally hollow inside i actually reinforced the inside, not with resin or anythin like that but, with card the long top part is basically honey comb....a technique i have been doin for a long time. it keeps models lightweight but adds a lot of support. basically there are 2 long strips of card goin thru it horizontally and then at 1 inch intervals there are strips running vertically. as well as that i decided to make the handle a sliced handle as is the sections either side of where the ammo slots in and the saw at the front

i also decided to add magnets so that i can change ammo cartridges to add a bit more realism to the model

the only thing i am disappointed about is the fact i used corrugated card, wich was a huge mistake on my part as i now have to go along with a hot glue gun to seal up the corrugated edges. in hindsight i should have thought about it and done it with mountboard but oh well live and learn lol

this particular gun i have no idea where its from. i have a feelin its from fallout but i'm not entirely sure. its deffinatly not halo or gears of war, but i like the look of it.
this one was originally a pep file but i just took it and made it into a sliced weapon.
again the corrugated card is a problem but easily solved

the final weapon i added to my arsenal for this build was a few frag grenades

and the paint

these are the standard halo frag grenades that can be found on this site. i didnt change them at all aparrt form the size, these are slightly smaller than original.
i added a few extra details to make them more realistic. i basically printed out the grenades 3 times to make each one. the first was to make the actual grenade and the other 2 i took the main body sections for the grenades. glued them together and cut out the individual squares to give each grenade the "bumpy" texture that most grenades have

gives it a more realistic feel, i will also be adding metal keyring loops for the pull rings

more updates will be comin soon, boots and armour are next on my list

 

[cptnAWESOME]

Third time is a charm! The helmet looks fabulous. What is the weight of the card-stock that you are using? I am using 110 and I think it is too thick.

 

[ForsakEnd]

Epic work so far the lancer looks awesome

I wanted to do red too but decided to go blue for a effect as Im doing a extreme battle worn with blood splatter details the blue would stand out better than red.
But on my next build definitely a Carmine Red:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine_red

 

[tru magic]

the card i am useing is 140 and it seems to be holding up very well, i thought it might still have been a bit weak, but its folds nice and crisp and holds the line edges well.

i originally had the same thought that blood stained battle armour does look cool. the red and black looks so much better than blue, but the blue would look better covered in blood spatter.

i'm thinkin i might tone down the red so there is not so much of it and still have the blood spatter but we shall see. i'm stiill uncertain the exact colour scheme of the body armour yet so i might have less red on there for a blood spatter to show up better

just got finished making these today

only somthin little but i think its the fine details like a set of cog dogtags that really complete the outfit

 

[tahu653]

nice work, stoked to see the finished cog. and i think that gun is from warhammer 40k

 

[tru magic]

warhammer...that makes a lot of sense since the file was named WH40K ... should have known but my brain had a mind lapse, thought that was the make of gun haha

this is where i am up to at the moment
the basic modelling of everythin is done and as we speak the helmet is in the first stages of paint, its been primed and then a coat of silver and a few black details have been painted in

the body armour its self i am pretty happy with, its gonna take a bit more work yet to get all the details put into it but the basic form i am very happy with

i have also madde the boots. i originally wanted these to be made out of foam but i chose card cause it was a lot easier, i was havin trouble with the foam big time.
the boots turned out really well, i decided not to resin the out sides mainly due to running out, but i have fibre glassed the inside and it seems to be strong enough in my opinion

test fit

i have also made a belt/cod peice and upper leg pads...the leeg pads i didnt really need but i wanted, due to the fact i was havin the hand hld gun, they dont look great but once painted i think they will look fine

test fit

and finally the full outfit has come together

as i said previously this is not standard COG armour, its kind of a mix up of various different gears of war armour and a little artist license on my own part to make it someethin a little unique. it still screams gears of war but i think i've put enough of my own flare into it that its a very unique looking outfit

and just to clarify i have used strong neo magnets to hold the gun in place. they are about the size of a half dollar coin, one on the gun and one burried inside the lag pads, the connection is strong and i can even run without it fallin off...not that i will actually be running anywhere in this thing lol

i will also be wearing a full 2 piece biker suit under the armour the jacket u see is the upper part i just didnt fancy gettin into the bottoms for the test photos but it all zips up into what appears to be a one piece suit
next step is detail and then paint

 

[tru magic]

the helmet is finally finished, completly painted, lenses added and the mesh work also done.

the paaint scheme i went for was the whethered look, i much prefer this kind of look as it looks a little more realistic, i dont like the fresh from factory paint job, plus i'm goin to have it blood spattered so a dirty worn armour would fit that look much better

i chose red lenses to go with the red detailing and as such they look very dark when just looking at the helmet so i decided to put a light on the insside just to show the lenses off a little bit more

 

[tahu653]

that helmet looks amazing, now i got an idea for my nest helmet, which will be a hayabusa(that ones gonna hurt)

 

[hellome]

Very nice paint job!

 

[Vigilnt sniper]

Very nice paint job!

looking good.

@hellome +10 for whichking avatar. XD

 

[tru magic]

and i have finally finished it. a few days earlier than i thought i would but i had a cracking day of sun today sso just got on with paint and got it all done....in time for the gears of war 3 release

in hindsight the red doesnt show up the blood as well as i'd like it to, but it does look good on the silver and black

quick repaint of the helmet, nothin drastic just a slight blood spatter effect

the body armour finished with blood spatter effect

the paint on the lancer, again with blood spatter effect

and finally everythin comes together into this

all in all this was a fantastic learning curve and a great build...it may not be perfect but for all intent and purpose this fits what i want to do perfectly.

i'm in two mins as to wear the leather bike jacket or not, due to the nature of the jacket it does prevent some movement as well as putting stress on parts of the armour so i might actually go without it and find a lighter jacket of some kind

 

[R3Dracoon]

Hey i was wondering how did you make your chest out of foam, how'd you start it off and such? I'm making myself a COG outfit and want to see how fellow 405thers done it so far.

 

[tru magic]

well i literally took a small plate and drew round it twice to get the circular parts and then kind of filled in the gaps. i didnt use a manekin or anythin but that would have been a lot more helpful. its hard to explain cause i kind of just did it, i had a rough idea in my head, i took a few ideas from other posts on the forum as well as images from the game

its not really an aaccurate piece of armour its just a classic gears armour, i didnt want to be a character form the game i just wanted a set of armour that looked like a gears armour at first glance but somthin that was a bit more unique

here are the final pics of the armour and helmet after adding small LEDs. altogether i used 20 LEDs

there are 4 in the helmet, 2 on either side to shine out thru the red lenses of the eyes

then i used the other 16 on the armour its self, i did the typical shoulder lights. i have 4 on each side under a frosted piece of plastic

the ffrosted plastic i maade by basically taking a regular piece of thin plastic...the type u would use to photocopy onto and then taking a peice of sandpaper to one side of it. u can of course just use a glass frosting spray paint.

i then used another 8 to light up the back...now if i was tryin to be accurate it should be the oval sections that are illuminated but it was a lot easier to just have the lights tucked away and lighting up the whole back and i kind of like the effect

the circuits where pretty straight forward to do, it was just a case of soldering together 4 sets of 4 LED's then linking them all togther to a switch and battery. if anyone wants any tips on how to do this just ask

 

[Hyperballistik]

Wow, it looks really great man, love how the lighting really makes it stand out

 

[vshore100]

I love your build! The helmet looks so mean. Nice job.

 

[RELLIK NISSASSA]

You've really done some great work here
I'd love to see some super detailed shots of that lancer. Anyway you can post some more?

 

[wilsonundead]

new to this

Hi, I'm new to this site, and also alot of the techniques you guys use to make these costumes, but I'ma huge halloween and gears fan. I make my own costumes every year but never armour. I'm wondering what the numbers and stuff on the helmet are and : are these like blueprints, and where do you find them, and basically just how did you make all of this stuff (in beginners terms lol) Thanks hope you help. I've only got 10 months til halloween lol

 

[thorn696]

Nice work on the armor. Love the lighting.