ROACH's Halo Wars - Mark IV pepakura spartan armor (January 2015)

[JMRoach]

Welcome to all 405th members!

I decided to make this thread because I noticed there aren't a lot of Halo Wars Mark IV armor threads out there. The main purpose of this thread is to get feed backs, pointers, opinions and help from other members. Also to share all the information, tricks, tips, modifications and problems I will have to deal with in the months to come. I do not have a deadline for completing this armor but I would like to start hardening before summer (June). I officially started to work on this armor in January but had to start over because of sizing problems...

First of all, why the ''Halo wars Mark IV armor''? : Obviously because it looks way more BADASS than all the other Halo armor! The chest piece makes the whole difference since its very wide and shows the shape of the pectoral muscles.

To add to the ''BADASSNESS'' of this armor, I will also be making a Heavy machine gun (Perhaps the M247H)... Its 4 feet long! Muhahaha

The end result should make everyone take a step back when I cross their path!

Finally, it is important to add that I am a completionist and I find ''details'' to be very important. This is why my end result should look amazing! This is also why I am not putting a deadline, If this project takes a whole year to make, whats an extra 200 hours to make it look amazing?

Feel free to subscribe or add me to your friend list, especially if you are also making this incredible armor!

 

[JMRoach]

Experienced members will agree that the most challenging parts of the armor you are making are usually the helmet and the chest piece.

Sizing of the chest piece is especially hard because nobody has the same body shape and the chest piece is made for a spartan (V shape and very big chest/shoulders/arms). A problem I encountered with this specific armor is its wideness. If the armor is to wide, you wont be able to raise your arms forward.. and if you size it perfectly, the armor looks very small.. and so very wrong.. This is as far as I got with my original model started in January (it was 420 cm wide).

File: www.405th.com/mjolnir-powered-assault-armor-mark-iv/download-138-halo-wars-mkiv-chest.html by Abgates and Rundown.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture showing it ''equiped''.

I measure 6 feet, 2 inches and the lower piece of the armor was about 5 inches above my bellybutton (On reference pictures, its looks like it should arrive about 2 inches above bellybutton). It was also not deep enough... As I said earlier, if I tried to increase it's size, it became to wide for my chest (which is already pretty big since, I train at the gym). I was stuck since the pepakura program lets you modify the three variants at the same time only (Height, width and deepness).

Since this project will take a very long time, might as well put the effort and so I downloaded Blender 3, a 3D program to slightly modify the armor so that it would fit me better!

After several hours of #@$#@ around with the program, I finally managed to increase the deepness of the armor by X1.2 and the height by X1.1. It finally fits and does not looked like it was stretched in any way. Unfortunately, I had to unfold it manually all over again! The things I will do for my armor

 

[JMRoach]

And so 2-3 weeks later, here I am! I have a video of me wearing the armor but after hearing my enthusiastic halo theme song singing, I decided not to post it! haha.

Here is the armor so far:

Not the best promo pictures but still, I would say its 65% complete.

 

[JMRoach]

For those new members wondering about the tools and setup they should get:

 

[Rahksi]

Looking great dude, keep it up!

 

[drgon47]

Looking awesome dude! I'm working on a MKIV as well.

 

[Frozensnot]

It's always good to see the Mark IV armor get some love. Good luck on the back section. It would appear to be a pain to assemble.

Which helmet design are you going with? The official Mark IV helmet or the concept Mark IV helmet. I'm personally doing the concept variant. I think it looks cooler

Looking forward to more progress.

 

[Jason 078]

With the back, it might be easier to make it flat and layer it using sintra or styrene.

 

[JMRoach]

Deleted

 

[JMRoach]

Looking awesome dude! I'm working on a MKIV as well.

Thanks man! I actually explored your thread a couple of weeks ago. Your build is looking awesome too! I was wondering about the pros and cons of foam vs pepakura.. As far as I can see, yours looks already neat!!

 

[JMRoach]

Good luck on the back section. It would appear to be a pain to assemble.

Which helmet design are you going with? The official Mark IV helmet or the concept Mark IV helmet.

With the back, it might be easier to make it flat and layer it using sintra or styrene.

For the Helmet, I honestly haven't decided yet, so I'll keep this info for later.

As for the Back plate, I'm planning to go Hybrid : parts will be pepakura and harder/more detailed parts will be cardboard like so:

 

[drgon47]

Thanks man! I actually explored your thread a couple of weeks ago. Your build is looking awesome too! I was wondering about the pros and cons of foam vs pepakura.. As far as I can see, yours looks already neat!!

I live in an apartment, so fiberglassing opportunities are few and far between. Foam is also so much lighter, rough and tumble ready, and doesn't make the horse hooves noise when you walk around. Cons are it's a natural heat trap, so you have to be mindful of how hot you get in it. It's also easier to pull details out of. Like Jason 078 pointed out a few comments up, the back detail would have been painful to do had I been doing pepakura, and I don't miss those days. If you use the big chunks of foam for the base, and foamies (thinner sheets) you can achieve some incredible geometry for a fraction of the time cost. It's also cheaper in monetary value and materials. For helmets I will usually buy a resin cast from someone, but I'm going to try and have a model I had commissioned and released here of the halo wars helmet 3d printed so I can pull some casts of.

 

[ErMaC]

Your pep work looks very good and clean. keep up the good work.

 

[JMRoach]

Your pep work looks very good and clean. keep up the good work.

Thanks I try! I set myself for about 90%-95% perfection because you can fix minor details once you get to Bondo stage.

 

[JMRoach]

Progress on the Back plate is going fast

Pepakura for the easy parts and Cardboard layers for the smaller detailed parts!

 

[JMRoach]

CALLING FOR HELP AND ADVICE!

I would like to know if anyone knows where I could get High Quality Reference pictures of the Mark IV armor? Especially ''In-Game accurate'' pictures because now, I'm mainly working with the High def picture on my first post and I'm noticing several differences with the pepakura model. I want to know if the pepakura was modeled from the ''in-game'' spartan. Basicaly, once I reach the Bondo stage, I want to know wich details to add/modify.

Here are a few examples of what I mean: the left pictures are from the pepakura model of Abgates/Rundown and the right pictures are closeups of the refence picture I have.

 

[mkshane81]

To the best of my knowledge, because I originally helped unfold Austin's model (agbates), his is based on in-game reference. The above HD image is fan-art based on the game.

-Matt

 

[JMRoach]

To the best of my knowledge, because I originally helped unfold Austin's model (agbates), his is based on in-game reference. The above HD image is fan-art based on the game.

-Matt

Thank you for the information! It's much appreciated! Not shure yet but I might go in and add a few details even if it's not 100% game accurate, like the little holes in the Higher back section. They make it seem like this is an air intake system for armor cooling. Anyways! We will see, still far from bondo/detailing!

- - - Updated - - -

Progress: Hoping to finish the back section today!

 

[JMRoach]

Work progressed slower than expected, I was out of town for 2 weeks. Finishing minor details and support on the chest piece and I will be posting pictures soon! After that, I will be getting started on the ''panties'' hehe.. Here again, I hope I won't have to modify the variants in a 3d program... we'll just have to see. On the positive side, there's only about 12 sheets of pepakura Not 80ish like the chest piece!

 

[nanobot]

This is looking really good... I want to see more! Your pep work looks very clean for such highly detailed pieces, good job!