Sharpworks
Member
Season 2 of Halo Infinite has been out for some time now, and with it came the new Rakshasa armor core which I have absolutely fallen in love with. So, I've decided it's time for me to learn to sew so that I can fabricate my entire Rakshasa undersuit and armor as accurately as possible. My goal is to finish this build in time for NYCC in October, so I'm on the clock but I think I can get it done.
This past weekend I attended ConnectiCon in my Halo: Reach armor set where I entered to compete for the first time in the novice bracket of the cosplay craftsmanship competition. To my delight, I ended up getting bumped up a tier into the advanced bracket and I won first place! (Pictures below.) Now that I've got a taste of victory, I'm looking to improve my skills so that I can strive for even higher quality and accuracy. I plan to enter the NYCC cosplay craftsmanship competition as well, and I expect there to be much stiffer competition, so I need to up my game quite a bit if I want to stand out.
With my Reach suit, I relied on seamless construction and decent paint/weathering to impress the judges, and thankfully it worked. However, I know there are areas I can improve. Most notably, I don't have a proper undersuit for this costume. I just wear a plain black long sleeve T-shirt and lightweight black pants. While this works from a distance, I pride myself on making my costume look good from afar and up close, so I need a custom undersuit on this next one. I also want to improve on the weathering techniques that I used. On this one I did a few black washes and also sanded the edges of various pieces in order to give it a battle damaged look. While this looks great, I feel I could do better. For my next one I want to try again at painting a metal undercoat and giving a chipped paint effect. Next up is electronics. I have some LEDs in my Reach suit and they do a decent job, but I did a terrible job with the wiring. It's messy and sloppy, and I don't like that the wires hang out if I'm not careful. I don't want any exposed wires or strapping to kill the illusion of legitimacy on my suit, so those have to be hidden if they're not part of the design in the game. I'd also like to integrate more complex electronics into my next suit and any accompanying props, such as sound systems, more powerful microphones, brighter LEDs, and possibly fog machines...
So I've got my work cut out for me. I have to learn the entirely new skill of sewing to make a full body undersuit, maintain or improve the level of seamlessness in my construction process, improve on my painting techniques, and integrate advanced electronics, all before NYCC in October. Easy, right? I think it'll be do-able, but damn is it gonna be tough. All that being said, here's the armor that I'm going with.
I've always been a huge fan of the EVA helmet, specifically the version from Reach. The big hurdle, obviously, has always been fabricating the visor. Willing as I am to drop hundreds of dollars on building these elaborate outfits, I don't feel too keen on spending that kind of money just to make a vacuum forming setup so that I can make one component of one part of my costume. However, thanks to AguilarWorkshop on Etsy, I was able to purchase files to 3D print the helmet, including parts for a visor mold which can be smoothed and injected with dyed resin to create a perfectly fitting visor of my choice of color. The helmet model is quite genius, being broken into many smaller pieces which can be individually finished and assembled like legos without need for glue. However, for my purposes it's simply not accurate enough to the actual helmet from the game. For that reason, I plan to use Aguilar's visor mold with NerdForgeDesigns's helmet model.
Aguilar's model (left) vs NerdForgeDesign's model (right)
While the parts for my helmet are printing, I've made some progress in my sewing journey. Thankfully, I had already bought a sewing machine months ago since I've wanted to learn this skill for a while. So far I've already learned a lot, like for instance how stupid I was to think that I should make my first major sewing project using 4-way stretch spandex fabric - a fabric that is incredibly difficult for an absolute beginner, much more expensive than most other fabrics, and also inaccurate to the costume I'm trying to make. Needless to say, after many hours struggling to make the spandex work, I realized the error of my ways, returned what I could of it, and bought cotton instead. Much easier to work with, but I'm still learning how to avoid fraying.
As with most of my projects, I decided it would be best to start with the most complicated thing and just dive in head first, that way everything afterwards seems easier. So, logically, the first thing I decided to sew was the gloves for my suit. Oh BOY is this fun so far. Learning to draft my own patterns, trying to match the seams of the model, working with teeny tiny seam allowances. Fun stuff. After several failed attempts, I think I landed on a style that I like, and I'm about halfway through construction now. I still need to make/attach the foam backplates and front plates as well as assemble and attach the front end of the gloves, but it's coming along.
If anyone has any good beginner's tips on sewing, specifically with woven fabrics/cotton, I'd love to hear them. So far I'm adapting pretty quickly to this new skill, but I don't want to learn the wrong habits. I'm mostly going off the few hours worth of very basic YouTube tutorials I've watched. I'm gonna do my best to document the process of making this costume, though I doubt any future posts will be as text-heavy as this one. So if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
This past weekend I attended ConnectiCon in my Halo: Reach armor set where I entered to compete for the first time in the novice bracket of the cosplay craftsmanship competition. To my delight, I ended up getting bumped up a tier into the advanced bracket and I won first place! (Pictures below.) Now that I've got a taste of victory, I'm looking to improve my skills so that I can strive for even higher quality and accuracy. I plan to enter the NYCC cosplay craftsmanship competition as well, and I expect there to be much stiffer competition, so I need to up my game quite a bit if I want to stand out.
With my Reach suit, I relied on seamless construction and decent paint/weathering to impress the judges, and thankfully it worked. However, I know there are areas I can improve. Most notably, I don't have a proper undersuit for this costume. I just wear a plain black long sleeve T-shirt and lightweight black pants. While this works from a distance, I pride myself on making my costume look good from afar and up close, so I need a custom undersuit on this next one. I also want to improve on the weathering techniques that I used. On this one I did a few black washes and also sanded the edges of various pieces in order to give it a battle damaged look. While this looks great, I feel I could do better. For my next one I want to try again at painting a metal undercoat and giving a chipped paint effect. Next up is electronics. I have some LEDs in my Reach suit and they do a decent job, but I did a terrible job with the wiring. It's messy and sloppy, and I don't like that the wires hang out if I'm not careful. I don't want any exposed wires or strapping to kill the illusion of legitimacy on my suit, so those have to be hidden if they're not part of the design in the game. I'd also like to integrate more complex electronics into my next suit and any accompanying props, such as sound systems, more powerful microphones, brighter LEDs, and possibly fog machines...
So I've got my work cut out for me. I have to learn the entirely new skill of sewing to make a full body undersuit, maintain or improve the level of seamlessness in my construction process, improve on my painting techniques, and integrate advanced electronics, all before NYCC in October. Easy, right? I think it'll be do-able, but damn is it gonna be tough. All that being said, here's the armor that I'm going with.
I've always been a huge fan of the EVA helmet, specifically the version from Reach. The big hurdle, obviously, has always been fabricating the visor. Willing as I am to drop hundreds of dollars on building these elaborate outfits, I don't feel too keen on spending that kind of money just to make a vacuum forming setup so that I can make one component of one part of my costume. However, thanks to AguilarWorkshop on Etsy, I was able to purchase files to 3D print the helmet, including parts for a visor mold which can be smoothed and injected with dyed resin to create a perfectly fitting visor of my choice of color. The helmet model is quite genius, being broken into many smaller pieces which can be individually finished and assembled like legos without need for glue. However, for my purposes it's simply not accurate enough to the actual helmet from the game. For that reason, I plan to use Aguilar's visor mold with NerdForgeDesigns's helmet model.
Aguilar's model (left) vs NerdForgeDesign's model (right)
While the parts for my helmet are printing, I've made some progress in my sewing journey. Thankfully, I had already bought a sewing machine months ago since I've wanted to learn this skill for a while. So far I've already learned a lot, like for instance how stupid I was to think that I should make my first major sewing project using 4-way stretch spandex fabric - a fabric that is incredibly difficult for an absolute beginner, much more expensive than most other fabrics, and also inaccurate to the costume I'm trying to make. Needless to say, after many hours struggling to make the spandex work, I realized the error of my ways, returned what I could of it, and bought cotton instead. Much easier to work with, but I'm still learning how to avoid fraying.
As with most of my projects, I decided it would be best to start with the most complicated thing and just dive in head first, that way everything afterwards seems easier. So, logically, the first thing I decided to sew was the gloves for my suit. Oh BOY is this fun so far. Learning to draft my own patterns, trying to match the seams of the model, working with teeny tiny seam allowances. Fun stuff. After several failed attempts, I think I landed on a style that I like, and I'm about halfway through construction now. I still need to make/attach the foam backplates and front plates as well as assemble and attach the front end of the gloves, but it's coming along.
If anyone has any good beginner's tips on sewing, specifically with woven fabrics/cotton, I'd love to hear them. So far I'm adapting pretty quickly to this new skill, but I don't want to learn the wrong habits. I'm mostly going off the few hours worth of very basic YouTube tutorials I've watched. I'm gonna do my best to document the process of making this costume, though I doubt any future posts will be as text-heavy as this one. So if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
