Halex's MkVI Build (WIP)

[Halex]

So, the torso... had some work to do on this one. The state it was in when I began was nothing to be particularly proud of.


Misaligned joints, rough edges where paper came apart, bolts that were too long, and some missing details on the back that just wouldn't cooperate. Since then, a lot of progress has been made. Generous applications of bondo took care of the joints where it was originally sectioned (before/after on left/right).


The pectoral area was smoothed and shaped, as well as adding detail onto the sides.






And finally some detail was added to each part of the clamshell, as it didn't feel complete without a few more pieces of bondo. Top picture is right after the foam "molds" were removed, with the lower showing after a first round of sanding.




Also did some work on the rear detail, substituting an EVA foam backing and EL wire to simulate the section.


And finally, it got a good coat of primer that stayed on. Last night I applied the second of three primer coats, and hope to finish the last tonight. Finish coats to follow if time/humidity allows. Painting things in the Georgia summer requires a lot of patience, since the humidity likes to stay around ~235%.

Apart from finish pics of the shoulders, I think that summarizes what I've been up to since the forum revert. Will have to update the first post a little, but please post your thoughts! I'd love to know what you all think of the build.

Glad to be back and looking forward to see all the new talent here!

 

[jbluedue]

Glad the site is back, and I cant wait for more pics xD lol keep us updated!

 

[Halex]

As promised, finished shoulders. The lighting discolors them a bit, but you get the idea.



Severe storms last night kept the torso from drying as quickly as I would have liked, so hopefully I'll be able to apply the finish coat tonight instead. Assuming I don't get sidetracked catching up in Game of Thrones again...

 

[Spartan_127]

Shoulder looks good.
How much weight did you add to your torso so far?

 

[Halex]

Glad the site is back, and I cant wait for more pics xD lol keep us updated!

Me too, and thanks for the interest!

Shoulder looks good.
How much weight did you add to your torso so far?

You know, I was just wondering this same thing the other day. I'm guessing somewhere around 8 lbs but I haven't weighed it recently. Will have to do a with/without on the scale once I finish it up. The shoulder sadly is a bit small... it fits, but I'm considering slicing it apart on the inside of the arm and expanding it slightly. One of those things I'd like to have time for but will wait to really see.

--

Quick 1-pic update, been busy yesterday and about to get back to it today!



Painting the torso, resin on the cod and the first layer of fiberglass cloth in the thighs. Decided to go with glass/resin on the lower pieces since they'll be more reliant on suspension than the upper body parts. Trying to keep them as lightweight as possible.

That's it for now, will be back with more when I can!

 

[Halex]

Hey all, great to see the activity level back on the 405th! Really happy to see so much new talent, though my productivity at work may be suffering a bit!

I don't have a lot of new material, but I wanted to give a little update to any following. The torso painting is done, but I still have to do the lower back section so I'm not calling the entire piece complete just yet. Been working on the thighs and cod a lot lately, getting the planes of the thighs smoothed out the way I want and the cod to be the correct size.



Thighs were done with two layers of fiberglass cloth, whereas the cod has one layer of cloth and another of mat, with some bondo-hair on the edges where there looked to be possible weak spots or air bubbles in the fiberglass. The top of the cod looks warped in this picture but that's just due to the thickness of the hair reinforcement on one side and not the other. The bottom does have a very slight twist in it, but I'm reasonably sure I can straighten it out before bondo. I'll be doing a similar attachment mechanism on the cod as was on the torso, with alignment posts and magnets, though a little lower profile since the piece is thinner.

Only other news to report is that I decided for sure to slice apart my finished shoulders and make them a little larger. Whether it's a flexible elastic expansion on the inside or a new, hard fiberglass one is TBD. Any experience/suggestions would be more than welcome.

That's it for now, though I hope to have a full upper-body suit-up pic soon!

 

[royalpain88]

Awesometastic on the build so far.

 

[Halex]

Time for another update! Made good use of the 4-day weekend and have some headway to show for it.
--
The thighs, after two coats of primer. Seems I didn't take many pics in between the last post and here, but I used mat board to do the side "stripe" pieces, and furniture bumpers for the circular bits. Attached them with some super glue to make sure they'd stay put and it seems to have worked pretty well.



All painted and dry-brushed here. I keep toying with the idea of trying a blackwash, but it failed so miserably last time I'm not sure I feel like bothering on black armor.



After that it was onto the cod, though I have to admit this piece seemed even more daunting to me than the torso did. After staring at it for awhile not knowing where to start, I dove into the buttplate section and made some progress. At first I smoothed it all out and made it look all nice and flat, then I realized this was boring.



So I sketched out the detail segment from a reference photo and used some sticky foam as a bondo mask to add it to both sides.



After a little more sanding, it looks like this.



The blue dots are where I'll add more "bumpers" for the bolts (or whatever they use to attach armor in 2552). May add some more to the middle of each recessed area in place of the buckles on the game models, but not sure yet. Also did a little work on the front, concentrating on the same idea as the back... add major detail and keep the faces to the same approximate plane as they are in-game. All I had to add to this was a small area at the top and bottom, though I'll also have to cut out the four little recesses on each side at a later date.



That's about it for now. Was able to get the shins resined too, but that's boring so no need for a picture of it. Pretty pleased with the overall progress, though I did realize that to fit me properly I'll have to angle down the front half of the cod. If I leave it straight across as it is now, there's a 4-inch gap between the cup portion and where it should sit. Unfortunate but not entirely unexpected... we're not Spartans, after all, and nobody's perfectly aligned. Been learning a lot and moving much faster lately, which feels good since DragonCon is fast approaching. I'm confident I can get it done in time, and hopefully without sacrificing quality. Still need time to work on a weapon, after all!

As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated!

 

[Spartan_127]

Everything is looking good. Glad to see you got some progress over your weekend.
Don't be scared of the black wash. If you use acrylic you can always take it off before it dries with a wet towel. If anything you can darken up the recesses for a little more depth to make it really pop.
Keep up the awesome work, Halex. Can't wait to see what else you come up with.

 

[Halex]

Always too long between updates, but I'm back again!

Been hard at work on the few remaining pieces, this time the codpiece and shins.
--

Did a LOT more sanding and finishing on the codpiece, but finally got it smoothed out and ready to paint. Here it is before the first coat of primer.


And again afterwards.


Pretty happy overall with the way it turned out. The bumpers again are functioning as aesthetic "bolts", and since I was already going custom I figured I may as well relocate them to the usual location of the buckles so I didn't have to build those as well. Time is running short and I think this will be a good enough compromise.

I do know I'll need a secondary retention system inside, as the magnets didn't line up perfectly and may not hold, but I had some other ideas as to how it could be integrated into the undersuit as well, so I'll most likely try to build it all together.


The shins have received a lot of time lately as well. Here they are after a first coat of bondo and a good sanding.


With all the smooth surfaces they're supposed to have, I find myself priming often to check how well they're coming along.


After smoothing the major faces (back of the calf and above the heel) I decided to add in a little of the detail I saw missing. A few pieces of sticky-backed foam defining the boundary of the bondo area and I was all set to go.


It was entirely freehand from a picture I found on the forums here, but it turned out well. I didn't want to add too much weight so it will be a thin layer, tapered to the edge opposite the foam.



DragonCon is approaching far too quickly for my liking, but I think there will be sufficient time to finish everything before then. Tonight I'll be painting the cod, resining the boots and doing more bondo work on the shins. Once that's all through, all the armor shells will be done and it'll be onto padding/strapping/lighting.

'Till next time!

 

[PolyEngineer]

Very clean work! I'm unable to work on more than one thing at a time, I just don't have the work area in my place to do it! Every time I see someone working on the entire suit as they go along makes me want to move into a bigger place... all just for more work space. Keep up the good work!

 

[Halex]

Well, with DragonCon a week away, I figured it was time to set up an indoor work space to have a soldering/sewing station. Weekend before last I went ahead and did so... two sections of melamine-covered particle board, some shelving brackets and some quarter-round and cord grommets to make it look nice and polished, and the end result wasn't too bad at all (pictures before grommets/quarter round installed).





It was time to sit down and finish up all the little things that needed to be done to consider each piece that was almost done truly finished. I started with the strapping, since that had to be right to support everything else. Clips were added in the back at the bottom of the "X" to hold up the thighs and the shoulder attachment points were shortened. The actual shoulder pieces have a two-part attachment system. The first part is standard nylon webbing and clips, as found in backpacks. Each shoulder strap clicks into place inside the shoulder piece. The female end of the clip, however, is held in place by the so-called "industrial strength" velcro. We'll see how strong it actually is... anyway, releasing the clips themselves in such a small space would have been difficult, but but putting them on velcro it can be firmly attached at the beginning of the day and ripped off at the end.

(it appears my pictures of the shoulders and strapping didn't upload properly, so edit to follow tonight once I get them)

The next part was the thighs. As mentioned before, attachment points were added for the thighs but the issue I have with most thigh attachment methods is that it's not free-rotating, leading to additional stress on the attachment points. To get around this, I would have liked to solidly mount the strap to the thigh piece and have a rotating movement point elsewhere that it attached to... however, due to the construction of the suit, I had to reverse this design. It still turned out fairly well though. This also shows the inside of the pieces post-plastidip application to smooth out the fiberglass ends. It worked pretty well, plus they now slip a lot less on the compression pants I'll be wearing.



Each bolt is a 5/16" x 3/4" with a cap nut, attached to the fiberglass with JB Weld. I already had one pull off with enough pressure when I tried to sit, but as long as I'm a little more careful in the future it shouldn't be an issue. The straps run towards the back of the suit, keeping both the height and rotation constant since the pieces had a tendency to rotate inward when left on their own. I also constructed the inner thigh piece from vinyl, following closely what Chefbzd did on his Reach suit.

I started by drawing up a custom pattern to the inside of my leg. The only paper I could find large enough was the backing from the poster frames I threw out a week previous... it wasn't in the best of shape but did the job all the same.



I then transferred the patterns onto vinyl and cut out each piece.



To add a little depth, I folded over the top half inch of each piece, then used hot glue to attach everything. Originally I had intended to sew it together, but unfortunately the machine I was using had issues with either the thickness of the vinyl or the material itself, so I had to go with Plan B.



Overall I'm quite happy with how it turned out, and it attaches via Velcro. Also got the lighting set up in there, so I now consider the thighs to be completed.



The shoulders got a little touching up as well, with some work done to direct and block the LED light from bleeding out where it shouldn't. The cod was also completed, though the most recent picture I have is pre-detailing.



With all that done, there's still so much to do this week! Finishing the boots, weapons, and starting and finishing the undersuit all in the next five days. Not sure if I'll get it all done in time, but I'll definitely have a functional suit by DragonCon time.

'Till next time!

 

[cha0skn1ght]

Looks freaking good! I still have to kick myself into high gear to finish my armor before the end of Sept.

 

[Halex]

Looks freaking good! I still have to kick myself into high gear to finish my armor before the end of Sept.

Thanks man! This last-minute rush is really making me wish I hadn't taken a couple weeks off here and there throughout the process, but nothing that a few late nights can't make up for... I hope.

Best of luck on finishing your build, too! You've been making some great progress so I have no doubt you can get it done in time.

 

[Motion26]

That's awesome!! Its so clean and precise - and I really like the blue accents.

 

[Halex]

That's awesome!! Its so clean and precise - and I really like the blue accents.

Thanks Motion! Almost everything I make ends up with blue on it somewhere, but on the MkVI I tried to keep it to a small bit on each piece. Hopefully that'll help it stand out a little more.

--

Quick update, I managed to sketch out a plan for the undersuit while at work. I think I'll have to adjust the vertical scale a bit, but overall it should be fairly similar to the finished product. It's significantly less complicated than the canon undersuit, but I'm also on a lot more restricted timetable than I'd like... plus I wanted to add the spinal plates from Reach.



Since I can't sew it, we'll see how glue holds together over a day of use... I think I'll bring an extra tube of super glue gel just in case.

 

[Demogorgon]

Just wanted to say that you have helped me greatly. I was having some issues with how I was going to get my thigh and belt/cod pieces to fit and after sifting through your images I saw how you added extra pieces to increase the diameter and extra ammo pouches to the belt. This saved me many headaches. Thanks!

 

[Halex]

Just wanted to say that you have helped me greatly. I was having some issues with how I was going to get my thigh and belt/cod pieces to fit and after sifting through your images I saw how you added extra pieces to increase the diameter and extra ammo pouches to the belt. This saved me many headaches. Thanks!

Glad I could be of some help! Just be really careful when adding diameter, since it can get out of hand easily. I added the pouches, removed some material to make up for it, then thought it was too small and added some of it back, only to have it turn out to still be on the large side.

Good luck with your build though; keep it up with the nice clean pep work! It'll help so much when you get to the detailing stages.

 

[Ragnar]

Loving your work

 

[Rohan]

This looks fantastic! I hope I can make a build as good as this!