thatdamnjodie
New Member
- Member DIN
- S038
Hi guys, not sure if this belongs under the new recruits category as I'm long-time lurker, as my first post finally coming out of the shadows, I have some build goodies.
As a bit of backstory, I've made four Spartan suits in the recent three years, including a Master Chief made of yoga foam, before stupid me learnt that it wasn't actually EVA foam - huge regrets; a Linda-058 made from scratch and EVA foam before any armour files were uploaded, it looked awful but I take a lot of pride in the hand-made crunchy process; and a Prefect, which I had just semi-finished before starting my most recent project on Alice-130 from Halo Wars!
I used files from the archive which were originally pep (credit to all original creators, you guys rock), so as a personal preference I converted them to foam. I started from bottom to top, which isn't usually how I start my builds as I like getting the bigger, more complex parts out of the way first such as the chest piece and helmet.
I haven't bought shoes to stick them to just yet, as I want to detail and paint them first. I also fill my gaps with Chromacryl texture/modelling paste. Probably an odd alternative to using body filler but so far I've found it works for me, and it helps keep my builds under reasonable budget. Might end up switching to body filler soon though.As a bit of backstory, I've made four Spartan suits in the recent three years, including a Master Chief made of yoga foam, before stupid me learnt that it wasn't actually EVA foam - huge regrets; a Linda-058 made from scratch and EVA foam before any armour files were uploaded, it looked awful but I take a lot of pride in the hand-made crunchy process; and a Prefect, which I had just semi-finished before starting my most recent project on Alice-130 from Halo Wars!
I used files from the archive which were originally pep (credit to all original creators, you guys rock), so as a personal preference I converted them to foam. I started from bottom to top, which isn't usually how I start my builds as I like getting the bigger, more complex parts out of the way first such as the chest piece and helmet.
Here's a mistake I made, being too excited, I rushed into painting parts without a coat of primer first. Though I did seal the parts with PVA glue first, I'm forcing myself to save the painting for last. Gotta buy some more primer, stop being lazy!
Here you can tell I'm beginning to struggle with keeping my build progressing from the ground up, because I was too excited to wait on starting that nice and bulky shoulder pauldron.
From looking at reference images I saw that it sits atop the normal shoulder piece. I began building one shoulder but didn't have time to take pictures of it before I left town. Seeing that I have to borrow my mum's printer (and ink), it was an arduous process to drag my half-dead laptop over to her desk, set everything up, print the files, and then realize that I scaled the parts too small. So as a lazy alternative, I drew the shoulder pattern by hand, and it looks pretty good so far. I can't wait to show you guys next time.
The same scaling error happened with the shin parts, so I have put those aside for last and moved up with building the thighs.
Did I mention how much I love detailing with craft foam?
The thighs will need a small adjustment however, as they surprisingly just barely squeeze around my legs. I have a general idea of how to scale in pepakura, but sometimes I'll get the length of a part correct (e.g. shins) but the width turns out too small. If anyone can offer me some input for that I would appreciate it a lot!
Also you might already notice that I don't bevel my parts, and it bugs me too. Sadly I don't own a rotary tool at home (yet) so my suits suffer a little without those nice and dimensional edges. My partner owns two, so hopefully I'll be able to borrow one of his before I stamp the project as finished!
Next up, the codpiece. Sorry for the mess, I found this a little tricky. Firstly, the front turned out way too big for my waist so I had to cut it down - but I may just end up redoing the lot later before it gets "adjusted" beyond recognition. The backside looks great, but again, I may just redo the whole thing. Learning curve!
As another personal preference, I made my helmet with pep. I unfolded an .obj file, which sadly I can't credit as it wasn't found on the 405th forums - it popped up on google images on a rather shady site. I was too picky about the other helmets in the archive, which all look great btw! - I was just very surgical about accuracy.
My unfolding skills are still hilariously amateur so don't ask me for my unfold. Trust me, you will hate it. A lot of frustration and confusion went into putting that bucket together, and it's still not 100% finished because of it!
As for the visor, I'm not sure where to go with that. I found a quirky method of using a plastic juice bottle rather than buying a visor online - but then there's the issue of how to tint it gold. So I'm stuck there.
Moving on to the best part that I'm most proud of. You'll see now why I love craft foam so much.
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Hell yeah.
I'm still working on detail adjustments, but this is what makes the Mark IV my proudest project. I give huge props to Abgates and SoullessSin for an awesome job modelling and unfolding the chest piece. It was stress-free and I had a ton of fun working with it. It still needs connecting parts at the bottom sides and more accurate detailing, but otherwise I would be happy to redo it in case it needs to be bigger to compliment other parts of the suit.
That's all I have for today. If anyone has some input or criticism I would love to hear it! It's on a small hiatus at the moment but hopefully I can get back into the thick of it soon.
