My First Build, Let's Start Small... (Jorge DONE, Heavy Machine Gun WIP, Pic Heavy)

[Jonus]

You do actually see Jorge without his pack, in the last cutscene on The Long Night of Solace, when he's arming the slipspace bomb.

**BIG TIME STORY SPOILERS IN LINKED VIDEO** for anyone who hasn't played Reach:
http://youtu.be/GSgGBrrgvek

Nice work on the build so far, Jorge was my favorite Spartan in Reach and I love seeing these builds.

Hm, you are correct sir. I wasn't sure if he was wearing it there or not, since he is still using the chaingun during the mission, isn't he? I don't know, whenever I play that mission I just stay outside the launch facility and fight the infinite Covenant that keep coming.

I think I'll probably still build it, but I'll save it til last. If I don't have time before Fan Expo to finish it, oh well, I'll do it for Halo-ween.

 

[TyrDropProps]

In the cut-scene where he is talking to the dead scientists daughter he is also shown without his pack.
I wouldn't call it inaccurate to not have the pack finished in time, It just means you'll have more work to do later.

 

[Jonus]

I finished the upper arm I was working on, and it's bigger than I would like. When I scaled it I did so based on length. Unfortunately I have long, lanky arms so they're not exactly proportionate to a spartan's upper arm.

As you can see there's too much of a gap to be filled with foam, and I don't think I can bulk up on muscle that quickly.

I'm going to make a cut here:

and try overlapping to get it down to a good size. I'd really rather not have to pep the whole thing again (this model was a real pain) and I do like the length of it on my arm.

And since seeing things like this gets me excited, here's a "group shot" of what I have so far:

I've done a lot of cardboard re-enforcing inside the chest, and you can see I've cut part of the underarm for easier suiting up/suiting down. The stability of the suit sitting like that it's as strong since making that cut (especially with a helmet sitting on top), so I used the barely-started backpack to help prop it up. Say hi little quarter of a backpack!

You can also see in this picture and the one of just my upper arm that I have bought some EVA foam. I'll be using it for padding pieces, but I mainly got it for torso under armour. There's a pretty substantial gap from my chest to the edge of the chest piece, so I'm going to use the foam to make and undersuit that looks like I am that big. I'm think I'll actually fully detach the underarm strip from the armour and attach it to the undersuit. I'll make it much easier getting it on and off, and if I install some buckles on it it will hold the two suits together nicely. I'll probably also need some velcro somewhere in the equation, but we'll get to that when it comes time.

Hopefully my ramblings make sense to you all, but if not be sure to keep an eye on me to see what I come up with.

 

[NovemberAdam]

This is coming along nicely! I am jealous of the torso you have put together. I had some grief with the rounded out portions of the cylinder on front.

If you don't mind some ideas, for the upper arm pieces, to fill in the gap I used pillow foam, and wrapped it in black fabric. It hides the gap nicely and makes the piece a little more comfortable. This method helped with the cod piece as well.

As to the gap up front of the torso, I actually used that as a pocket, as I had no way of carrying my phone and wallet. It worked out sort of well, but I needed some one else to reach in there and get the stuff out.

You will want to watch the scaling of the left shoulder piece (the flat long one), the pep model seems a little small and not wide enough. Just a heads up. Feel free to check out my Jorge thread to get some ideas on what to avoid!

 

[Jonus]

This is coming along nicely! I am jealous of the torso you have put together. I had some grief with the rounded out portions of the cylinder on front.

If you don't mind some ideas, for the upper arm pieces, to fill in the gap I used pillow foam, and wrapped it in black fabric. It hides the gap nicely and makes the piece a little more comfortable. This method helped with the cod piece as well.

As to the gap up front of the torso, I actually used that as a pocket, as I had no way of carrying my phone and wallet. It worked out sort of well, but I needed some one else to reach in there and get the stuff out.

You will want to watch the scaling of the left shoulder piece (the flat long one), the pep model seems a little small and not wide enough. Just a heads up. Feel free to check out my Jorge thread to get some ideas on what to avoid!

Thanks for the tips. I've definitely been looking at the other Jorge builds on here to pick up some tricks. I actually did think of having a pocket in the front there, installing a zipper somehow, but I didn't think about how the EVA foam would kind of prevent that. Hmmm... this will need to be carefully planned out.

 

[NovemberAdam]

You must also be looking forward to the pep file for the machine gun hey. I think I will use portions of it, but likely use pvc tubes for the barrels and the like.

 

[Jonus]

If I do a gun it would probably be a pvc/cardboard scratch build. I don't think I'll be able to do it in time for my Fan Expo deadline (August 27), but after that I'll still have Halo-ween to build it for.

 

[NovemberAdam]

If I do a gun it would probably be a pvc/cardboard scratch build. I don't think I'll be able to do it in time for my Fan Expo deadline (August 27), but after that I'll still have Halo-ween to build it for.

How long has it taken you to get Jorge to the point you show in the photo? I was scrambling to finish at the end to get it done for Sakuracon, and it still took about 4 1/2 months.

 

[Jonus]

How long has it taken you to get Jorge to the point you show in the photo? I was scrambling to finish at the end to get it done for Sakuracon, and it still took about 4 1/2 months.

The first photo I have of my freshly started helmet was on May 20, so it was either that day, or around then. I only had the back done, and then I know I spent the entire day that Saturday working on it.

So I'm coming up on a month now. Only another two left. I need to get my butt in gear.

 

[Jonus]

Sorry to double post, but last night I did something drastic....

As I mentioned my chest piece is pretty huge, and as promised here are some pics of me in it:

It looks like it was built for a well endowed female spartan.

I knew the bottom part was too long which made it stick out too far, so I popped in Reach and spent some time in the Theater getting some good ref images to figure out what I needed to do.

I then took a deep breath and began to cut:

Everywhere I cut was pretty much a seam already, so it wasn't too difficult. Getting it all back together was a bit tricky. I noticed on the Jorge model that at the sides there are these two boxes that kind of go under the upper plate. The pep model doesn't really have that, so I thought I'd just make my own out of cardboard. It was a lot of fun to do, and I think it makes it a little more accurate and it a nice personal touch I can say I added.

Here's what we have now:

And since all the different colours are getting ridiculous, I used a little photoshop magic to better help visualize what it will look like in a couple months:

Oooooo, shiney.

I am very pleased with how it fits now too.

I shaved down the inside/back of neck collar thing too, because it was making it sit too high on my shoulders.

The cylinder part still looks pretty big, but there's not much I can do about that at this point. I might trim down the top part of what's holding in the cylinder. I think that's the main culprit in making it look so huge.

 

[NovemberAdam]

You know huge is okay too. Jorge is a big guy so that will help. It looks like it fits well. Kuddos!

I think you did a great job getting the scale down. Mine was too small so too much of my midsection is exposed, your is much more accurate!

 

[Jonus]

It's been a couple weeks since I've updated, so you'd think I'd have a lot to show, but I really don't. I made hand plates and used a hot glue method, not the hot glue method. Instead of heating a batch of glue and painting it on I just used the glue gun to apply it. They're small pieces so it wasn't too tedious. It was actually pretty handy since I could reheat any areas that I wanted to tweak by simply holding the gun's nozzle to it for a few seconds, then spread it around. Plus I didn't dirty and brushes.

Last night I had my first try at bondo. I did a layer on the hand plates, and did some of the top and front of my helmet. Sorry, I didn't have my good camera, so these pictures don't really show much.

I did the one on the left first and was able to sand it by the time I was done applying bondo the second one. The second one was still tacky when I came back to it, so either I didn't use enough hardener in the mixture, or used too much in the first. (And yes, that's a chopstick I used to help get the bondo into the holes)

Not much to say about the helmet. I sanded down the plaster before bondoing. I think I had the same problem of not enough hardener on the top part, because when I went to bed it was still tacky. I didn't do too much since I didn't have a lot of time and I didn't want to do the whole thing on my first shot. I also need a sander. Sanding by hand on the hand plate wasn't too bad because it's small, but even for that I'd need something electric to get the whole thing perfectly even.

I also started pepping a forearm, but I think it'll be too small. I keep scaling things based on just length, or just width without then checking to see if the other dimension sounds like it'll also be a good fit.

 

[vshore100]

Looking good Jonus. Just keep doing as you are, working in sections. Get that down pretty good and move on to the next area. I find that it helps me keep everything uniform and helps keep definition.

 

[Erikm1811]

Great work so far! I am working on a Jorge as well, but most of the armor is pep, with little scratch building going on. I like how you scaled the chest peice down to better fit you. I had to do something like that as well, but the other way...LOL. I'm not huge, but I'm 6'3", 265 lbs, so the original size was not big enough for my girth, but fit well otherwise. Definitely going to watch your progress on this build.

 

[Jonus]

Thanks for the compliments guys.

Erik, you're way ahead of me in the pepping process. I find it hard to get motivated to star on new pieces. The cutting out process is so tedious, and there's always the fear of having to start over due to scale (like with my forearm). But this is an extra long weekend for me, Canada Day tomorrow, and I'm taking Monday off work for the heck of it (Happy Independence Day!), so I should be able to get a good amount of stuff done with my free time.

 

[Evilpenguin]

looking good, i have to admit i never looked at the insulation foam idea, but now i am

 

[Jonus]

looking good, i have to admit i never looked at the insulation foam idea, but now i am

It's not the easiest stuff to work with. If you're doing simple, flat shape that you need to be rigid, it's perfect. It can be tricky to cut though. An exacto knife will do the trick, but sometimes it'll flake off in chunks. The best way to cut it would be a hot wire knife, which I don't have. I'm sure it would be a fine investment if you planned to use that material a lot.

 

[NovemberAdam]

The hot knife is awesome, it makes working with foam a treat!

Its coming along nicely Jonus! Are you planning on using the high def back pack? I've managed to unfold it, and its about 50 pages in total!

 

[Tzahalon]

nice build so far man, love the chest. Jorge is my favorite spartan from reach as well. Gonna keep an eye out on this thread.

 

[Jonus]

Ha, I'm an idiot....

I figured out what my problem was with my mixture. I wasn't mixing anything. Let me explain... no, there is too much... let me sum up: when I was adding the hardener last night it ame out in drops of liquid. Since this was my first time using it, and I know I read someone on here saying "use this many drops" I thought this is how it's supposed to be. I re-read the tube and noticed it said "cream hardener" and thought to myself "sure didn't look like cream to me..."

So all is well in the world and I've had my first true bondo application session.

Note the red tinge that was absent before.

I also bought the 3M plastic spreaders, so it's going on nice and smooth. I'm obviously still going to sand it, but I'll hold off until i have the electric palm sander.