MK V B Build *WIP* [1st Build][Pic Heavy]
- Thread starter JonnyMars
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Thanks alot! Haha yeah I always find some interesting solution for a problem
Cheers! glad you like it
Ok not massive amounts done today. The cutting discs arrived which meant Id finally find out if the helmet fits or not. OH YES! Ive done all that work and no idea if it fits haha.
But it does!!! very pleased/relieved about that haha
So as I said the cutting discs have arrived meaning I could also carve in the details on the top like so:
As well as this I was ablt to cut out the mesh for the vents. Originally I was going to cut out the vents completely and have them functional but theyre too awkward to cut out now ive glassed it. Didnt decide on this when I did the fibreglass.... ah well live and learn. So now ive just got some fancy texture in there instead
Aside from that, the bottom has been cut and Ive made a start on smoothing that out s well as that pesky hole plus ive also been building up the layers of glue on the attachment so I can stiffen it up in prep for its next stage.
Ive ordered the filler primer so Im waiting for that to arrive now. Far cheaper online than shops and considering im broke any money saved is good haha. Otherwise ill be giving the helmet a once other with wet and dry in prep for the primer and start work on the visor!
When it comes to colors either purple or orange, I say make it a duller tone so it looks more realistic. When colors are SUPER bold and bright, it can come off looking like plastic more so than armor if you aren't careful. Think about cars, and how that rich deep plum color, can look fancier, than a pale violet which can make a car look like a windup toy.
Getting some primer on it will really be neat. That is when everything truly POPS and you can see all the details and shapes clearly. The bondo looks good, and it is easy to see how a good rotary tool can make something clean up so nicely.
Getting some primer on it will really be neat. That is when everything truly POPS and you can see all the details and shapes clearly. The bondo looks good, and it is easy to see how a good rotary tool can make something clean up so nicely.
Thanks for the advice! I am aiming for a realistic colour tone, got some ideas about weathering and blackening from other peoples builds so hopefully itll go ok! Definitely cannot wait for the primer looking at the multishades of bondo is screwing with my eyes haha. Like you said everything should pop so then I can see if anything needs changing etc or just start final sanding ready for paint
Ok so Ive finally put the details onto the visor, instead of spending ages using bondo (that and im running low on it) I decided to use craft foam to fill in the gaps from the pep and cover the scrappy pieces of bondo. (knowing I was going to cut the visor out it kind of became somewhere to slap excess bondo. oops) However it was abit of a pain to try and get all the lines symetrical, especially as one side had sunk slightly and has been rebuilt. So its not 100% perfect so unless I point out where its wrong hopefully people wont notice haha.
Using the foam was alot faster and creates the smooth shape I want ready for when I attempt to vacuum form it! I did some tests prior to using the foam and it survives the forming and doesnt melt or get stuck etc so thats saved me alot of time! Cutting the visor out though is something I am in no hurry to do again!, what a fiasco! trying to get my rotary tool to squeeze over and around the vents and over various details so I could cut a straight line was a nightmare, if not slightly nerve wrecking as I didnt want to destroy alot of my hard work.
As you can see though I managed it, just got to do some minor sanding and bondo places to hide the mess
Good news and bad news on the filler primer I ordered. It came alot sooner than I was expecting i.e the next day, Amazon were on the ball considering it was free p+p. Its still technically not meant to have arrived yet. That was the good news. The bad being its either crap or too cold. I took a gamble with the weather and tbh its probably too cold. Seeing as its meant to be a filler primer it didnt even manage to fill the sanding scratches let alone actually cover the helmet with a thick coat. 3 coats Ive put on and its still pretty transparent in places as alot of the bondo and markings show through still.
So for now I just gotta wait till it warms up but as its apparently gonna snow soon, it aint happening just yet (thats secretly a I do love snow!) That said it has shown up all the bits that need spot filling and sanding again. I could leave it as its starting to look good, least I think so but I am somewhat of a perfectionist so it will be spot filled! Thus for now Ill be doing that and sanding it all back again!
Some of the places like in the last picture I cant believe Ive missed. Amazing how things vanish on the various patterns of bondo....
Using the foam was alot faster and creates the smooth shape I want ready for when I attempt to vacuum form it! I did some tests prior to using the foam and it survives the forming and doesnt melt or get stuck etc so thats saved me alot of time! Cutting the visor out though is something I am in no hurry to do again!, what a fiasco! trying to get my rotary tool to squeeze over and around the vents and over various details so I could cut a straight line was a nightmare, if not slightly nerve wrecking as I didnt want to destroy alot of my hard work.
As you can see though I managed it, just got to do some minor sanding and bondo places to hide the mess
Good news and bad news on the filler primer I ordered. It came alot sooner than I was expecting i.e the next day, Amazon were on the ball considering it was free p+p. Its still technically not meant to have arrived yet. That was the good news. The bad being its either crap or too cold. I took a gamble with the weather and tbh its probably too cold. Seeing as its meant to be a filler primer it didnt even manage to fill the sanding scratches let alone actually cover the helmet with a thick coat. 3 coats Ive put on and its still pretty transparent in places as alot of the bondo and markings show through still.
So for now I just gotta wait till it warms up but as its apparently gonna snow soon, it aint happening just yet
(thats secretly a I do love snow!) That said it has shown up all the bits that need spot filling and sanding again. I could leave it as its starting to look good, least I think so but I am somewhat of a perfectionist so it will be spot filled! Thus for now Ill be doing that and sanding it all back again!Some of the places like in the last picture I cant believe Ive missed. Amazing how things vanish on the various patterns of bondo....
Howdy! Just a small update!
So most of my time has been spent completely sanding back the helm, so far its looking loads better but got a fair load of spot filling to do.
Aside from that Ive been working on the attachment! last time you saw it I had begun coating in PVA glue. That ended up being 5/6 coats just so everything was fully covered. Since then though the polyurethane resin has arrived and I have been coating it late last night and today! Its worked surprisingly well. The foam is now plastic
First coat of the resin done, I had only mixed up a small batch but had alot left over! it goes surprisingly far! granted it was only thin coats but nonetheless. Also hiding just behind the attachment are the tiny bottles of polyurethane mixture. Got them off ebay for £4 and theres about 60/70ml there so only a small amount but like i said it goes really far when your coating stuff.
Since then ive done really small amounts of mixture (even then Ive ended up with abit left) and have given the attachment multiple coats. believe there are 6 in total. Its still abit patchy, you can see orange coming through on the edges but it is coated. I tried to cover this but with building up the layers I was slowly losing the detail so I stopped at where I am now.
The Process incase anyone wants to know is 1:1 with the mixture and then just paint it on. (use cheap brushes, youll go through them exactly like fibreglassing) once it was covered I rotated the attachment to keep the resin smooth until it had started to harden (it turns goopy then white). At which point I left it to fully harden in my make shift stand, a coke bottle haha. It does gather abit around the edges but its easy enough to sand! youll want to sand between each coat as well as there are bound to be airbubbles you want to fill in.
It is pretty solid, very little flex in it compared to the foam but if you squeeze it, it does compress abit due to the foam underneath but it does retain its shape. Seeing as Ive never tried anything like this and took a gamble on it Im very happy how its turned out!
Now to paint it up and go back to spot filling the helmet
Oh I also need some oppinions on paint. If you look at the ref pic below:
Would you say the back of the helm around the visor is black or would you consider it to be a gunmetal like the attachment and ear pods? Even on other ref pics ive found I still havent got a definitive answer. At the moment im undecided whether to go all gunmetal and colour or black/gunmetal/colour. Thoughts are greatly appreciated
So most of my time has been spent completely sanding back the helm, so far its looking loads better but got a fair load of spot filling to do.
Aside from that Ive been working on the attachment! last time you saw it I had begun coating in PVA glue. That ended up being 5/6 coats just so everything was fully covered. Since then though the polyurethane resin has arrived and I have been coating it late last night and today! Its worked surprisingly well. The foam is now plastic
First coat of the resin done, I had only mixed up a small batch but had alot left over! it goes surprisingly far! granted it was only thin coats but nonetheless. Also hiding just behind the attachment are the tiny bottles of polyurethane mixture. Got them off ebay for £4 and theres about 60/70ml there so only a small amount but like i said it goes really far when your coating stuff.
Since then ive done really small amounts of mixture (even then Ive ended up with abit left) and have given the attachment multiple coats. believe there are 6 in total. Its still abit patchy, you can see orange coming through on the edges but it is coated. I tried to cover this but with building up the layers I was slowly losing the detail so I stopped at where I am now.
The Process incase anyone wants to know is 1:1 with the mixture and then just paint it on. (use cheap brushes, youll go through them exactly like fibreglassing) once it was covered I rotated the attachment to keep the resin smooth until it had started to harden (it turns goopy then white). At which point I left it to fully harden in my make shift stand, a coke bottle haha. It does gather abit around the edges but its easy enough to sand! youll want to sand between each coat as well as there are bound to be airbubbles you want to fill in.
It is pretty solid, very little flex in it compared to the foam but if you squeeze it, it does compress abit due to the foam underneath but it does retain its shape. Seeing as Ive never tried anything like this and took a gamble on it Im very happy how its turned out!
Now to paint it up and go back to spot filling the helmet
Oh I also need some oppinions on paint. If you look at the ref pic below:
Would you say the back of the helm around the visor is black or would you consider it to be a gunmetal like the attachment and ear pods? Even on other ref pics ive found I still havent got a definitive answer. At the moment im undecided whether to go all gunmetal and colour or black/gunmetal/colour. Thoughts are greatly appreciated
just a small update, the weather has been rubbish so not alot can be done atm.
Im still sanding/spot filling the helmet which isnt actually a long process im just taking my time with it. Its now soo smooth! plus Im waiting to vac form the visor and once that is done I can make sure it fits correctly and can fill/cut bits as and where needed to do so. So im in no rush to finish it and then have to do that too. That said should hopefully get to vac form it on Monday...fingers crossed!
Aside from this I have managed to prime the attachment!
look closely at the backgound you can see the state of the helmets resand and prime and the mold for the visor
but not only have I primed it Ive also begun to paint it! Patience was beaten by full on need to actually have something near finished!
That bloody logo! something I considered all along to be a nice easy bit turned out to be the biggest headache. I tried stenciling it, but because its so tiny the stencil either ripped or it was mishappen i.e the letters werent the right height. So I came up with all sorts of ideas like stenciling the logo onto shrink plastic and shrink it to size, adhesive letters and even just having a scorch/bullet mark perfectly placed to hide it haha. In the end I decided to free hand it, originally I was going to do it with a tiny brush however I got my hands on a white gel pen and draw it on instead. Not bad for free hand eh?
There are little bits of orange coming through but thats where it got knocked whilst drying/ tape from the stencil attempts pulling the paint off. Although it doesnt matter due to it needing to be weathered yet anyhow so I can just hide it.
Anyway should hopefully have a visor soon and more updates on the actual helm
Im still sanding/spot filling the helmet which isnt actually a long process im just taking my time with it. Its now soo smooth! plus Im waiting to vac form the visor and once that is done I can make sure it fits correctly and can fill/cut bits as and where needed to do so. So im in no rush to finish it and then have to do that too. That said should hopefully get to vac form it on Monday...fingers crossed!
Aside from this I have managed to prime the attachment!
look closely at the backgound you can see the state of the helmets resand and prime and the mold for the visor
but not only have I primed it Ive also begun to paint it! Patience was beaten by full on need to actually have something near finished!
That bloody logo! something I considered all along to be a nice easy bit turned out to be the biggest headache. I tried stenciling it, but because its so tiny the stencil either ripped or it was mishappen i.e the letters werent the right height. So I came up with all sorts of ideas like stenciling the logo onto shrink plastic and shrink it to size, adhesive letters and even just having a scorch/bullet mark perfectly placed to hide it haha. In the end I decided to free hand it, originally I was going to do it with a tiny brush however I got my hands on a white gel pen and draw it on instead. Not bad for free hand eh?
There are little bits of orange coming through but thats where it got knocked whilst drying/ tape from the stencil attempts pulling the paint off. Although it doesnt matter due to it needing to be weathered yet anyhow so I can just hide it.
Anyway should hopefully have a visor soon and more updates on the actual helm
GuitarMaster157
Member
That's pretty freaking nifty how you did the attachment! Good work, keep it up!
Trip Wire 01
New Member
This helmet look great man. Biting my nails to see the rest.
Hells Badass
New Member
I like the way you did the attachment, and I think the emblem actually turned out really well, despite the difficulty of free-handing it. As far as colors, I think they are more of a black/gunmetal/color.
Thanks alot, so glad it worked. was abit of a gamble haha
Aye its not too shabby is it
. Thanks!More is coming, slowly but surely!
Cheers, It was certainly a pain but its been worth it! found a good ref pic the other day which broke it down for me. pretty much like you said!
Sorry for the lack of updates. Ive been at a standstill waiting for the visor to be vac formed.
Originally I was going to make a vac former but with the severe lack of funds and that I found out I could get it down where my mum works I figured Ill save building one for another time.
So onto getting it done at my mums work, great idea! until everyone who could use the former fell ill so Ive been waiting for their return! which meant I couldnt do anything else on the helm as it was just spot filling around the visor left, which obviously I couldnt do until I had one. So since then Ive started on another project with foam just to fill the time haha
Now Ive got the visor Ill be onto spot filling and fitting and testing colourings..
Hard to see being clear but I built the mould with tabs so I could just stick it in once fitted
The only reason I went down this route was because I was adament about having those indent details! worth it I reckon once painted! hopefully haha
Again sorry its not much of an update but I should hopefully be moving pretty swiftly now. Fingers crossed!
spartan IV
Jr Member
Good job with the visor. I envy the detail you can have by vacu forming.
I am impressed, werent too sure how the small details would show up. But come out better than expected. Although it did take alot of trial and error plus a mould remake to get to that point! worth it though
Thanks! I agree, its all in the little details
Thank you. Aye the visor bugged me for a while. I wasnt to keen on using a bike visor if I had other options. Looked into vac forming and its dead simple to do yourself. Just takes a little practice to get right if yourve never done it before.
Ok guys and ladies. Just an update to let you know I havent abandoned the build. Far from it, just been swamped with two other projects that need to be done asap and they took my money
so waiting for funds atm. However should hopefully be back on it within a couple of weeks!Watch this space
Woohoo! we're back to the old 405th! I coldnt do jack sh** on the updated forum, nothing loaded or didnt have permission etc etc. Anyway this is just a brief post to say I am alive, Ive been lurking until 405th came back to its old self. So now its back and it works again Ill be uploading shortly
Ghost Bear 027
Jr Member
If I may make a recommendation for those small spots and indents in your bondo: Spotting Putty. knead it a bit while its still in the tube to make sure its uniform, and then dab it on. It won't take much as much abuse as the bondo, but it sands down nicely and once sealed will be perfect and significantly easier, cheaper, and cleaner than the bondo for all those little divots.
Best of luck and looking forward to seeing how this is coming out/completed.
Best of luck and looking forward to seeing how this is coming out/completed.
Thanks for the recommendation! I did look for spot putty but couldnt find any when I went to get some. However, I had an abundance of bondo/filler left over so I just mixed up a little batch of that and used my fingers to fill in all the gaps which did the trick. Thanks again though!
haha yep I am back! I couldnt hack the new( now old) version of the forum, just so buggy. I was always lurking in the shadows waiting for it to be revived though! Just hope alot of others make it back too.
OK I guess this will be a semi long update, being my first since the 405th's revival, alot has changed
Cant remember if I had mentioned it previously but the entire helmet was completely sanded back to remove all the blasted unwanted scratches and holes. Thankfully though thats all now filled in and now looks nice and smooth! Handily though as I was sanding the primer off it did create a few areas where I can apply the battle scratches in the paint.
where the paint was worn off in the first instances of sanding has given me some great guidance into where it would naturally look worn when it comes to weathering the paint!
Once back to the filler and all the previous holes filled, I set about fitting the visor properly. Having only one good copy of the visor meant I didnt have any to sacrifice thus the "Hero" visor was used. I tried wrapping it in clingfilm so all the new filler could just be pulled off if any got on the visor. Annoyingly though that didnt work, the clingfilm wouldnt stick the the visor and was just a baggy sack of mess so that was scrapped, which left me one alternative, sellotape! I tested it on a dodgy visor and non of the glue residue remained, excellent I thought! so I proceeded to wrap the "hero" one lightly in tape.
Those image were of the initial fitment before I filled in any gaps. As you can see all protected in tape, although unlike the dodgy visor I tested the tape on, the "hero" one has got all the tape residue stuck all over it so if anyone knows the best way to get tape glue of plastic without scratching it off, Im all ears!
By the time I had done all the above was when the forum had its "meltdown" thus I couldnt update anything. So since then I have begun to paint the helmet. Bad news though is half the pics of the painting process have been lost, no idea how but I cant find them anywhere
anyhow this is what the helmet currently looks like:
What you cant see in the pics, and mostly due to the first black wash Ive added was the changes in paint colour. I used a base of yellow on places I figured would be the most sun hit, mostly the top and bits of red were added under the ear pods to add to the dirtier/darker look once the orange was added. Once the orange was sprayed ontop of these colours I created some variation in the paint, which I think adds to the realism. From there I added the matte black areas and then added the logos and details. The UNSC was to small to stencil so I had to hand paint that as well, it isnt perfect but most of it will be lost under the silver paint damage and black wash which will come next. oh also the front vents, the top attachment bit and a small section of the ear pods have the same metallic grey as the visor attachment, which ties that in nicely. The photo refs I had showed a variation in blacks and greys and now its all together I think it looks pretty good!
So from here I need to clean up the "hero" visor of all the tape glue so that can be coloured and fitted. I want to add another black wash and I think I might get a matte clear spray to knock some of the shine out of. However im in two minds on that atm, oh and finally Ill add the silver scratches. All of which Ill hopefully get round to soon, just abit busy atm.
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