GEN2 Scout/Palmer 2.0 build - EVA foam

[Reclaimara]

Just wanted to share with you some funny revelation I've discovered by closely looking at Palmer/Scout in-game models.
Comparing Halo 4 Palmer model to female Scout Spartan it's almost mindblowing how they actually changed the both her body and the armor.
Compared to female Spartan's limbs they actually made Palmer's body is much more similar to our normal human body. Her hips have more curves but also the thighs on the upper leg. Lower leg is bit thicker too.
I'm bit surprised I didn't realize it sooner but isn't not easily spotted because how they changed Palmer's armor in some places. Specifically Palmer's armor has been warped in many places for it to appear thinner or smaller overall. If you look at the shins alone - they are vertically a lot shorter than default ones. (And the tiny front/back pieces are also significantly shorter too which is great for me because I can use it as an argument why I've modified mine to be shorter too!)
Thigh armor is bit different - they actually made it a little longer but it's much thinner and they reshaped that round outer part to be flat.
Rest of the armor on Palmer's model is changed in similar way - they rounded up the front chest and made it smaller. Gave her much smaller shoulder pieces.

And then in Halo 5 they actually made the armor pieces significantly thicker and wider which I personally like.

(they actually made Palmer's augmented butt thicc)

As I mentioned earlier same treatment was made for her upper model too. The body has more curves around the hips but for some reason they made her shoulders pads on the techsuit flat. Her arms actually seem to be bit thicker too.
As for chest armor - it's also been warped in a way to just appear smaller. Shoulder pieces are so tiny. And the chest too has been made significantly smaller. Palmer also has longer neck so her helmet is higher than on default female model.

As for Halo 5... I've always secretly disliked what they've done to the female Scout chest pieces. Really dislike the warped design there. Everything else is good - armor thicker but that chest is unacceptable. Unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable.

So. Coming to an end - it's kinda amazing how they've made Palmer's body more curvy and much more natural but at the same time they warped and rescaled her armor pieces so that it's hard to realize they made any changes to her body at all. I always just thought they for some weird reason just made her armor just warped and smaller.
Kinda weird combination honestly.
Thank you for reading my informative most likely not important wall of text.

 

[bajk02]

Huh... Interesting I might say. I never noticed those little differences myself. But good for you for noticing them. Your changes to the armor parts are now justified

 

[Reclaimara]

Huh... Interesting I might say. I never noticed those little differences myself. But good for you for noticing them. Your changes to the armor parts are now justified

Yeah now I can use it as an argument if needed haha. Unexpected but happy about it. But I'd say it is or should be common - us making the pieces to fit our bodies so it looks good in the end.
No idea why they changed Palmer's in-game model in Halo 4 but Halo 5 it's just default female Spartan model just with some decals. Interesting.

 

[Reclaimara]

All going well. Front pieces done. First back piece done and tomorrow I'll do the second and hopefully either bit of detailing on these or ideally perhaps all the detailing so can move on to next pieces.

 

[Reclaimara]

Finished all those small pieces. Took some time to figure out how to do those small details and them do them so it all fits precisely together.
Now moving onto the actual shins and gotta admit I'm a bit scared. It'll be biggest pieces I've done so far. I think I'll have to move onto 10mm foam for construction now either for the whole part or most of it.

PS. Andor is peak of Star Wars and I need next week's episode right now. I've been rewatching it in the background while I've been building. It's just too good so do yourself a favor and don't miss out on it.

 

[Reclaimara]

I'm doing a thing!
My first contact with 10mm hasn't been too bad. Now I understand why people are building all big armor pieces out of 10mm foam - when you're gluing those pieces together that whole piece becomes very sturdy.
So far I'm impressed by this foam and how well it holds up its shape - it becomes very hard to bend it after gluing it together. But it's so much more messy when shaving it with rotary tool. So much dust! Given the thickness it takes up more time to get the edges clean and make those bevels so everything fits together well.
At first when I looked at this 10mm foam thickness I was very intimidated. So far I worked on all those pieces with 5mm foam - those were mostly small or tiny pieces so 5mm foam was better to get those small pieces and shapes. And I figured boots won't take a lot of stress on the construction so it'll be fine too and given their many different shapes and small pieces with different angles it was best way. I can always reinforce them from the inside with additional chunks of foam just in case.
Was very intimidated to a point that a thought crossed my mind whether I'll be able to do this costume or not. Had kinda existential crisis. I admit I might have panicked a little.
So far so good however. Two main big side pieces will be finished soon and will have to do front/back smaller parts to connect it all together. And then I'll see if I scaled it properly or I screwed up and I'll have to do some tricks to make it all fit my leg. Gotta admit I'm quite nervous about it.

 

[SpartanSweed]

I’m consistently impressed with your foamwork, it’s impossible to tell that this is your first foam suit

 

[Reclaimara]

I’m consistently impressed with your foamwork, it’s impossible to tell that this is your first foam suit

Thank you so much! Most of the time I'm not really sure what I'm doing and hoping it'll turn out ok haha. Sanding those edges and making bevels to make sure everything fits together is what takes me most time but I'm just trying to avoid having big seams I'd have to spend time to cover later on.

 

[Master Builder]

Hello there! Your current work is outstanding! Sad to hear that you threw away the original suit, but you'll have a much better one by the time you are done here!

I also noticed the differences between the Sarah Palmer model and the in-game scout armor when compiling that reference material. They exist solely for technical reasons I imagine. The Sarah Palmer model is clearly based on a female body and was used for in-game cutscenes and the like. All multiplayer armor is based on the same, male, skeleton/bone structure so that all animations and "hitboxes" remain the same. You can see this by flipping back and forth between the male and female body suit reference. All joints are in the same locations. With that, your only freedom with the multiplayer armor is to slim down the visual model while maintaining the same structure.

Let me know if there is anything I can help with 3D modeling-wise. I haven't done much mesh modeling in the past few years. Just a lot of engineering modeling. But I'd love to help out if I can. Knowing that some of my work may get used for a project like this is enough motivation to contribute .

 

[Reclaimara]

Hello there! Your current work is outstanding! Sad to hear that you threw away the original suit, but you'll have a much better one by the time you are done here!

I also noticed the differences between the Sarah Palmer model and the in-game scout armor when compiling that reference material. They exist solely for technical reasons I imagine. The Sarah Palmer model is clearly based on a female body and was used for in-game cutscenes and the like. All multiplayer armor is based on the same, male, skeleton/bone structure so that all animations and "hitboxes" remain the same. You can see this by flipping back and forth between the male and female body suit reference. All joints are in the same locations. With that, your only freedom with the multiplayer armor is to slim down the visual model while maintaining the same structure.

Let me know if there is anything I can help with 3D modeling-wise. I haven't done much mesh modeling in the past few years. Just a lot of engineering modeling. But I'd love to help out if I can. Knowing that some of my work may get used for a project like this is enough motivation to contribute .

Oh wow! Thank you so much, Master Builder! You have my deepest respect for your beautiful work on Palmer and Mk6MOD files.
Yeah. You're right. Palmer is just a little customized default female Spartan model but the changes are barely noticable at all. And we got to see her model in-game for barely few seconds only. Axis used a different and earlier model of her for their cutscenes. Yes, you're right too. In all games female/male body has same properties indeed and it's just visual preference. Tbh personally I prefer male armor that isn't slimmed down or distorted in any way but can't have both, right?
I've been using your Scout/Palmer files again for foam now and I love them even more. They worked amazing for pepakura few years ago. And now even tho they were designed for pepakura they work perfectly with foam and due to all the details sure it's more time consuming to work with all those smaller foam pieces but they perfectly keep those desired shapes and I can just manually add some details. The files are just perfect and can't really think of anything that would require or could be changed or improved on. If I'll come across something I'll let you know then. Thank you again!
Frankly imagine working with any other files than yours.
You are honestly a legend to me and just wanted to say thank you so much for making those amazing templates. Every time I look at your Chief files I have an urge to build it one day too as it's such an amazing armor design and your files are just perfect. I'm always so happy to see people building Chief using your files - can immediately spot these are the famous MB files.

 

[Master Builder]

Oh wow! Thank you so much, Master Builder! You have my deepest respect for your beautiful work on Palmer and Mk6MOD files.
Yeah. You're right. Palmer is just a little customized default female Spartan model but the changes are barely noticable at all. And we got to see her model in-game for barely few seconds only. Axis used a different and earlier model of her for their cutscenes. Yes, you're right too. In all games female/male body has same properties indeed and it's just visual preference. Tbh personally I prefer male armor that isn't slimmed down or distorted in any way but can't have both, right?
I've been using your Scout/Palmer files again for foam now and I love them even more. They worked amazing for pepakura few years ago. And now even tho they were designed for pepakura they work perfectly with foam and due to all the details sure it's more time consuming to work with all those smaller foam pieces but they perfectly keep those desired shapes and I can just manually add some details. The files are just perfect and can't really think of anything that would require or could be changed or improved on. If I'll come across something I'll let you know then. Thank you again!
Frankly imagine working with any other files than yours.
You are honestly a legend to me and just wanted to say thank you so much for making those amazing templates. Every time I look at your Chief files I have an urge to build it one day too as it's such an amazing armor design and your files are just perfect. I'm always so happy to see people building Chief using your files - can immediately spot these are the famous MB files.

Thanks for the kind words!

I was just thinking, I honestly can't remember if I made the pep files based on the Palmer model or the multiplayer model. It was likely the ladder.

Have you gotten into 3D printing at all? I got into SLA printing a few years ago and I have to say, it can be a lot easier to learn than FDM/FFF printing. The cost of a machine is peanuts these days. I have an Elegoo Mars and Saturn. They would be perfect for printing smaller armor pieces like knuckle guards, knee guards, and whatnot. The detail you can get (with high-quality models of course) is crazy! In a lot of cases, you wouldn't even have to sand your pieces. Just print, cure, and paint! Might be worth looking into if you had any interest.

 

[Reclaimara]

Thanks for the kind words!

I was just thinking, I honestly can't remember if I made the pep files based on the Palmer model or the multiplayer model. It was likely the ladder.

Have you gotten into 3D printing at all? I got into SLA printing a few years ago and I have to say, it can be a lot easier to learn than FDM/FFF printing. The cost of a machine is peanuts these days. I have an Elegoo Mars and Saturn. They would be perfect for printing smaller armor pieces like knuckle guards, knee guards, and whatnot. The detail you can get (with high-quality models of course) is crazy! In a lot of cases, you wouldn't even have to sand your pieces. Just print, cure, and paint! Might be worth looking into if you had any interest.

You made the files of the multiplayer model. I'm happy about it because frankly I don't like too much like they distorted Palmer's armor in some places.

I wish I could get into 3d printing. It looks so diverse and great for many things but as much as I'd love to I don't have the space for it. I hope one day I'll be able to afford to have a 3d printer tho. Money isn't really the issue as I could just save up for it. But just don't have the space that I could use to store a 3d printer sadly. Especially if you want a bigger one to be able to print bigger things on it without having to print them in many tiny parts. These require quite lot of free space and from what I've heard you don't really want to store them in a room you're living and sleeping, right?
I'm amazed with resin printers and how great the prints come out of them. Not only for props and costuming but especially for figures. Can just print bigger or smaller scale figures as there are may amazing print-ready model kits. And the quality of those resin printers is amazing - almost no visible prints lines. If you're nitpicky can just lightly sand in some places and it's perfectly ready to paint.
Definitely would love to get such printer one day in the future. Also normal 3d printers have advanced quite lot too. It's amazing to watch how easily other people can just print amazing looking things. But at least for now I'm really enjoying working with foam.

 

[Reclaimara]

Finished building the first shin yesterday. Kinda funny because whole time I was thinking I was building right shin but it turned out it's left one.
It fits! It isn't too small or too big. My biggest fear of scaling wrong is gone.
Still gotta do the knee pad which will come on top but I'll do it after I got both shins built. And then all the details remaining and a little bit of heat shaping. Reason why I'll be doing knee pads last is because I'm thinking how to do them best so I could actually kneel without them not getting destroyed.
Yes. ODST pants from Legendary Crates few years ago. They are bit too big so perfect for home and working.

Happy how it turned out. The small front/back pieces are very tricky to do with all those tiny pieces that are angled and to get those angles right I've done them as separate tiny pieces - 4 main pieces vertical and then those small angles are horizontal separate pieces. Maybe too much work but wanted to get those shapes right.

Already started working on right shin. And I run out of the first tube of contact glue.

Just wanted to show how it looks from the inside. Trying to get those bevels as good for best fit so hopefully it's stronger and more durable.
I've been cutting the pieces little bigger so then I'm going with a dremel on the lines and making those bevels.
At least to me personally Dremel is my most important tool. Honestly can't imagine working without it.

Already

 

[Master Builder]

These require quite lot of free space and from what I've heard you don't really want to store them in a room you're living and sleeping, right?

Yeah, they do take up a decent amount of space. Gotta have room for the printer, an ultrasonic cleaner, and a cure station. You are not supppooose to store them in your living space but I have. There is only an odor when they are running/curing resin.

 

[Reclaimara]

Yeah, they do take up a decent amount of space. Gotta have room for the printer, an ultrasonic cleaner, and a cure station. You are not supppooose to store them in your living space but I have. There is only an odor when they are running/curing resin.

If it was up to me alone I'd be totally fine with having printer set up even next to my bed. Sadly it's not and at the moment at least I don't have the space for it either. That's also why I went with foam as I don't have space for working with pepakura and resin either. One day I hope I'll be able to finally get into 3d printing.

 

[Reclaimara]

Now there is two of them. It seems knee pad will be in good position too - not too high and not too low.
Now gotta do all the details on them.

 

[CasuallyFlacid]

If it was up to me alone I'd be totally fine with having printer set up even next to my bed. Sadly it's not and at the moment at least I don't have the space for it either. That's also why I went with foam as I don't have space for working with pepakura and resin either. One day I hope I'll be able to finally get into 3d printing.

3d printed armor is great, but I gotta admit... mine is heavy as fuuuuuu...

 

[Reclaimara]

3d printed armor is great, but I gotta admit... mine is heavy as fuuuuuu...

Yeah. Agree. It's nice it's hard material but similar to resin pepakura - both are quite heavy.

 

[Reclaimara]

Started the knee today and some progress there.
Really happy how it's coming together. Most important thing I've managed to do - it's symmetrical and not crooked in any way. At least as far as I can see.

Really trying to have seams both on outside and inside as small as possible because I want to reinforce or fill the inside with more foam later on.
Ideally my goal is to be able to kneel even for a moment hopefully without the knee pad falling apart in the process.
The shape of those knee pads is quite unusual so just hoping to be able to achieve that.

 

[Reclaimara]

Finished building first knee pad. Off to the second one.

Also - still trying to think of best solution on how to fill and reinforce these that could possibly to allow me to kneel for a moment without it falling apart. If anyone has any ideas I'll appreciate. Honestly I have no idea if that's even possible.