Here's a small update to start presenting modifications made to the shoulder armor. Close-up references of Master Chief's shoulder clearly show two additional indents which are missing in the pep files. I used the HD files by ROBOGENESIS with dimensions of H=217, W=125, D=106 and started by re-doing the unfold of the shoulder area to make it all one part, except for the indents and center panel. I had originally used TurboCAD Mac Pro to model the missing indents on the prototype but decided to make them more subtle for the final piece to better match references. I made cardstock templates for positioning the new indents (A in the photo) and cut the three inside edges:
The outside edges were scored for folding. Cardstock holes cut from the templates (B) and mat board sidewalls (C) were glued to the backside:
Next, another card stock template hole was elongated (D) and glued to the backside for durability and securing the indent's non-folded end. The mat board inside sidewall was thin and fragile so a card stock strip (E) was glued on to hold it in place. The opposite upper edge was simply glued to the mat board:
The prototype piece had the center panel removed for building it at the same level as the surrounding surfaces and separated by a trench line, as that's how it originally appeared to me in references. Closer inspection of reference photos shows the panel to indeed be raised, but with a raised detail surrounding the bottom half with a slightly raised area below. The lines were added using 1mm wide mat board and the raised area was cut from cardstock. The mat board lines will be tapered down at the upper terminating ends after hardening.
The biceps were the next parts needing attention. As illustrated in the photo below, the High Detail piece includes an inner detail part but it's flush with the surrounding surface at the bottom rather than indented. The Normal Detail piece doesn't include the inner detail part but has the correct indent at the bottom. I chose to re-make this detail to improve its appearance, and also add the surrounding surface detail circled in the photo.
The first thing I did again was re-do the unfolding of the outer arm and inner detail. The inner detail part was cut from mat board, with the cardstock pep part trimmed by 1mm to create a "step" around the upper perimeter. A single layer of cardstock didn't provide a noticeable enough step so I doubled its thickness.
(Not enough fingers...)
Raised detail was added using 1mm wide mat board, which will be tapered down after hardening:
The pep trench surrounding the inner detail wasn't refined or deep enough for me, so I decided to rebuild it as illustrated by this diagram:
Mat board strips were glued to the backside to provide interior support and keep the trench edges straight:
Lastly, the inner detail part is attached and you can see from the photo below it now has the correct indent at the bottom with well-defined separation lines around it. Additional 1mm mat board strips were added to the outside which will also be tapered after hardening.
