SirPalesAlot’s MK VI WIP: You’re still not done yet?

[SirPalesAlot]

"You're still not done yet?" That is the question I get from all of my friends when they find out I'm still working on my armor.

I have been a member of the forums for quite a while now, and have been working on my MK VI armor since I first joined (2009). It has not been steady work due to various reasons, but I never let the desire for my own suit die. I am currently on my third attempt at this. This is the detailed version of my build so far. If you don’t want to read this book then feel free to read the picture captions. They should give you a good idea of the steps taken during my build thus far.



The first build I started went well at first. In the end, I had to quit that build due to a lack of funding. When I finally came back to that build (about a year later) I realized a lot of things were wrong with my scaling. I decided to start over, but I did keep my failed pieces as reference material.


The size of the boot was alright, but I was unhappy with how it came out.



The forearm was too big.





This is the helmet I used as a test for myself. It was the very first Pepakura model I ever built. I did build a HD helmet after this, but it got thrown away. It was too big.




The shins came out okay, but they were way too big.









The shoulder turned out horrible. This was my first attempt at using rondo, and it did not go so well. The part was warped badly. The scale for this part was also too small.







The thighs came out alright. I could have made them work, but I decided to scrap them as well since I was restarting on everything else. These were a bit heavier than they should have been, and I felt I could have avoided some of the warping that occurred on the bottom openings.




I also started work on this EOD helmet. This was my second attempt at the rondo method. It came out much better, but it was a bit too heavy. I decided to scrap this as well.



After realizing my first build was not up to par I decided to use a different method for creating my armor. The reason I changed my method of construction was due to the fact that I moved into an apartment, and I found out through my first attempt that I disliked fiberglass.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

The method I chose still uses Pepakura as my base, but many of the methods beyond that would change. I decided to use plastic instead of fiber glass after I noticed a few other forum users doing the same. After I made that decision I had another idea. I began to wonder if it was possible to use a hardened Pepakura model as a mold. I searched for a long time around the forums and on the internet, but I never found anyone using this method with plastic. Most people who used plastic and wanted to get rid of the paper would just sand it off. The closest I came to finding what I was looking for was this method.

http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/26253-Pepakura-Clay-Pour-helmet-Method

Since I found something similar and was able to see what I would kind of be dealing with I decided to go for it. I did quite a bit of research on sealers and release agents trying to determine which ones would work best to seal and release the plastic from the cardstock. In the end, I found little info on sealing any type of paper to keep it from sticking to plastic. At this point I decided to just buy some materials and test things out. In October of 2011 I ordered a trial kit of Smooth-cast 320, a can of Universal Mold Release, a SuperSeal & Ease Release 205 trial kit, and a can of Ease Release 2831. I did a test of the Smooth-cast 320 on card stock with no prep work and a version with each type of release or sealer. The Universal Mold Release performed okay at best, and the Superseal Ease Release 205 performed much better than that. The Ease Release 2831 performed exactly as I had hoped it would. It sealed the cardstock perfectly and allowed the plastic to pull off of it without any problem.

I found my sealer/release agent, and now it was time for testing. My first test was done using a shin file I built (Model Version by NickT). I capped the end off with some paper and tape then began to slush cast. The results were pleasing for my first attempt at slush casting, and the fact that this method was looking more promising added to that.

Here you can see the results of my first test. This shin was used as a test part because it was too small.









After the test was over I learned I needed to do something about helping the plastic flow into the detail to prevent bubbles from appearing. I also realized how much of an impact the tabs would have on the end result. This test was performed in October of 2011, and after I got done with this test I dropped the build until the following summer.



So we pick back up now in the summer of 2012. I think I started building my parts in late July or early August. I was shooting for a deadline of Halloween 2012. I would be pushing it, but I was optimistic. I had my method of choice planned out and a deadline to work with.

So, I began building my parts with the tabs on the outside. I did this because I didn’t want to bother with filling in all the recessed areas left from the tabs. This was kind of difficult at first (breaking the traditional building habit was the hardest part), but eventually I got the hang of it. I managed to build each part in Pepakura except for the helmet. When I got to the point where I felt I could move to the next step I began hardening my parts. This took place at the beginning of October in 2012. I made the mistake of using Smooth-Cast 65D as my hardening material. The strength required for this method was so much more than you would normally need for traditional glassing. This is because you are sloshing plastic on the inside. When you add the weight of the plastic with the fact that you are rotating the part you leave yourself open to a lot of warping. Because I made this mistake, most of the parts I made at this point were leaving me feeling unhappy. My boots were the right size, but they were warped too much for me to want to continue with them. The Cod piece was way too big. The shoulders ended up warping due to the lack of support in some areas. The only parts that moved to the next step were the shins, one forearm, and one thigh. The chest was not strengthened at this time. I had already learned I needed to swap to polyester resin by the time I came around to hardening the chest. I refused to rebuild the chest because I allowed it to warp.

The two shins, one forearm, and one thigh were prepped for slush casting. This time I made mold caps in Pepakura and glued them to the ends of the models. I added some tape to seal it up just in case. I sealed the paper with the Ease Release 2831, and then dusted the model with some baby powder to help the plastic flow better. Next came the slush casting. Each part turned out pretty well. The forearm was rather thin and I ended up damaging it. At this point I decided to remake the forearms. The scaling was a custom version to make it slimmer than the original ratio, but it turned out to be too slim. I thought about splitting the forearm, but that looked to be more difficult in the long run. Also, I should make note here that the forearm I was using was the version I modified and not the files that are currently available on the database.


The COD was too big. It also suffered warping due to how I attempted to harden it.



This is a custom scaled version of the forearm I modified. This forearm was too small around the wrist, and I damaged the first casting when I removed the pep model. I used a rasp to soften the sharp edges on the part, and then I hit it with a coat of paint I had laying around. The result wasn’t that bad.








These are the slush cast shins that were created from the Pepakura models described before. They were in the process of being smoothed.












These shoulders were abandoned. They became warped by the time I decided to slush cast them. This was a good thing, because they were actually too small.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

This is the thigh that was slush cast from the Pepakura models. This scale was the same as the original versions I made in 2009. I had already started smoothing this piece out before I decided to scrap it. I decided to increase the scale of the thigh to make more room for padding and/or my under suit.








I modified the model for the chest to add in some details that were not present, and I removed some of the details I felt could be easily added later. I also extended the inner walls a bit to help me during the later steps. Then I added some new supports.










This is the first chest model I built. It ended up being too small.
















At this point I knew I would not meet my deadline. Far too many failures had set me back, and I already had a small window to work in. I decided to keep moving forward just in case, but I added in a side project so I would have a costume for Halloween. Next I started to smooth out my shins and thigh. I managed to get a little bit of work done on them, and things were looking good. Here is where life got in the way again. I ran into more funding issues, and I had to put my build on hold again at the end of October 2012. I didn’t pick back up the build until spring of 2013.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

Fast forward to spring of 2013. I started back at the beginning on almost everything. By this time in my build I had realized that the scale for my shins was set too small, and my thigh needed to be a bit bigger to make room for padding and my under suit. So now I was back to square one with the exception of the chest. I went through the same steps as the first time during my previous builds. This time I made sure to add appropriate supports for parts where I knew it would need them. I ended up building almost every piece three times before I got a scale I was happy with. Well, some were built closer to seven times *cough* shoulders *cough*. I finished the first step sometime in June or July. Now it was time to harden the parts. This time I made sure to use polyester resin. Each part that I hardened during this step was used in the step after this with the exceptions of the forearm, shoulder and chest. I felt that these parts were too small so I decided to remake them. I also decided to build the helmet at this time so it could be hardened with the rest of my parts. It was built a few times to get the correct size, but I made a test file that was easier to build (which I didn’t do for the other files). Now I could harden the last few parts I was missing. Since I ended up not being able to use any of the parts I made in the previous year’s attempt, I have considered this my third attempt at this armor.


Now that I had all the parts hardened I ordered my materials. I chose to use Smooth-Cast 65D as my casting resin. I used the Ease Release 2831 that I used in the tests of 2011. I took one weekend and started slush casting each of the parts I had. By the time the weekend was done I had slush cast my boots, shins, thighs, and forearms. After I managed to make these parts I ran out of casting resin. Did I use more than most might when making a casting? Yes. The reason I did is because these are the master versions. I don’t plan on casting these parts in the traditional ways either so I wanted them to be resistant to breakage and warping.

So, I ran out of casting plastic faster than I had anticipated, but I had been making good time. Now I could take the parts I had made and remove the Pepakura model from the outside. This point is where I could really tell what mistakes I made during the Pepakura process. The first thing I decided to do was scrap my boots. I messed up on one of the toe caps during casting, and the rest of the boots didn’t look so great. So I remade them with some minor changes to help the casting process go more smoothly. With a remade set of boots and a new batch of plastic I slush cast the new boots and the helmet.


This is the first set of boots I slush cast using the Pepakura models. These boots turned out kind of bad. The heel portions warped due to inadequate support, and I used too much casting resin during my attempts at casting the toe caps. This caused the plastic to cure prematurely.














This is the second set of boots. These boots came out really well. The additional support prevented the boots from warping. My second attempt at slush casting the toe caps also came out much better.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

The scale for this pair of shins was increased compared to my previous pair. These shins came out even better than my first pair did.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

After my two previous attempts at the thighs I decided to modify the Pepakura model a bit. This was originally to smooth out some of the shapes, but then I decided to change some of the detail. I could have changed more of the model to make it match the reference photos from the game, but I decided to leave some things as they were. I also increased the scale to make room for more padding and/or my under suit.


























The gray stuff in this photo is Free Form Air. I used it to fill in some of the areas I felt were too thin.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

I mentioned earlier that I modified the model for the forearm. I did this because I wanted a HD forearm that was easier to make. I considered using the MD forearm, but I didn’t like how some of it was shaped. When I made the changes to this model I forgot to fix some of the details. I realized this after I had cast the pieces. I will attempt to fix some of the details at the next stage.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

 

[SirPalesAlot]

I ended up changing my mind about slush casting the shoulders, chest, and Cod. I decided to try out Smooth-On’s Free Form Air. I had tried slush casting an open ended part before and it ended terribly. I thought it might be better to press in a light weight alternative than risk wasting a bunch of plastic and ruin more parts. I did a test using the same setup I did for the other parts. This didn’t turn out as well as the other parts. In order to get the Free Form Air to release easily from the paper I needed to apply the Ease Release 2831 followed by the Universal Mold Release. This allowed the Pepakura model to be pulled off of the material easily, and with no paper left over. Just using Ease Release 2831 alone left it hard to separate.

Now that the testing was out of the way it was time to give it a go. I decided to first make the ab plate from the chest. This was done easily and ended up coming out pretty well for my first attempt. The next parts I made were the shoulders, and Cod. These pieces were enough to use up a gallon worth of this stuff. I might have made my parts thick, but they are pretty strong. That was my biggest worry going into this, but I am happy with the results.

Now that I pressed in the Free Form Air and let it cure it was time to peel back the Pepakura model. This is when I realized I didn’t pay enough attention to what I was doing when I pressed the material in. I had many imperfections show up. This was a bit discouraging at the time. I considered remaking these parts, but I decided to stick with them at the time. Although not what they should have been, these parts were successful.



The ab plate came out pretty well. This compares it to the ab plate for the first chest I built. The first ab plate was slush cast with 65D, but it was too small. Although the new ab plate is thicker it is actually lighter.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

Here are the shoulders I made using the Free Form Air. As you can see, there are many spots that didn’t get filled in properly. This was very disappointing, and I almost scrapped them immediately. I decided to hold off on that decision until I at least tried to fix the problems.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

The COD came out much better than the shoulders, but there were still many imperfections. These will be much easier to fix than the shoulders. This part does look thick, but it doesn’t weigh as much as it appears. The weight will be cut down a bit due to the removal of excess material along the inside edges. They were original extended to help keep casting resin in when slush casting so there is more material in those places than needed. Also, you will notice that there are leftover Pepakura model pieces sticking to this part in a lot of places. This was because I had a hard time spraying the Universal Mold Release into those areas. This demonstrates just how important that step is when using this method.





















I forgot to add this into the section where I talk about rebuilding the chest.

This is the second chest I built. It was just a bit too big.



This is final version I went with for my build. It ended up being exactly in-between both the first and second version in size.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

This is the helmet I made. The original helmet I built was the base scale I started with before I built this. From there I made a test file using Flyingsquirl’s HD helmet. I wanted my test file to be as close to what I was using as possible. I tried using other test files for the chest and helmet before, and it never worked out like I wanted. So I built two different test versions before I found the scale I wanted to keep. You will notice that the HD model is modified. The original file I used for this was Flyingsquirl’s HD helmet. After seeing Cereal kill3rs’s build I decided to make some modifications to the model based on what he did to his helmet. Some changes are easier to see than others, but the pictures should tell most of the story. The casting came out pretty well. There are a few imperfections here and there, but I shouldn’t have any trouble fixing them. This helmet is pretty thick as well. I made it a bit too thick by mistake. It’s not unbearably heavy, but I wanted it to be a little lighter. After I cut the visor area out it should make it a bit lighter.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

At this point I had run out of material. Since I would have to re-order I began to look into alternatives to body filler for detailing. My experience with body filler is limited. I have used it, and I could get by with it for detailing. I just felt like it was inefficient, and there had to be something better to work with out there. If I were concerned with price I would use body filler and be done with it. By now you can probably tell I lost all concern with price a long time ago (anger with certain products will do that). So now I was looking into other sculpting epoxies out there. I originally hoped that Free Form Air could be used in place of body filler, but it isn’t as manageable for sculpting because of how dense it is. I would never be able to sculpt with it at my skill level (which is at zero exp). So I was looking for a suitable alternative, and after much debate I decided to try out Free Form Sculpt. I placed an order for a one gallon kit of Free Form Sculpt and a one gallon kit of Free Form Air. The Free Form Air would be used to make the chest.


My reasoning behind the decision to use Free Form Sculpt instead of body filler is because of the ease of use. After seeing the mistakes on my shoulders and cod I realized using body filler to fix the mistakes would be a pain. A sculpting material would be more manageable to use than body filler in this situation.
A perfect example of what I will be doing is Drack’s helmet sculpt over a Pepakura model. I won’t be doing a full sculpt over my parts, but this is pretty close to what I will be doing. I think what I’m doing is in between the traditional body filler method and this sculpting method.

Here is a bit more info on how I came to the conclusion that this stuff might actually work out as a substitute.

The gallon kit of this stuff weights roughly the same amount as the gallon kit of 65D. When you compare that to the weight of a gallon of body filler they end up being close to the same. Some might say “since when does a gallon of body filler weigh 16 lbs?” Well the gallon containers of body filler I was using weigh close to eight lbs. The “gallon” kits that are sold by Smooth-On are not equal to one gallon in volume. They come in two one gallon containers, and each container weighs eight pounds. So I believe that Free Form Sculpt weighs almost the same as your average store bought body filler. One kit of “one gallon” Free Form Sculpt equals roughly two one gallon containers of body filler. The price difference is where you will notice the most change. Free Form Sculpt is almost twice the cost for the same amount. What is the trade off for the cost? Well I am hoping it will be the ability to waste less material since I will be sculpting in my shapes and curves. This should also reduce the amount of time I spend smoothing stuff out with sand paper. Also, less sand paper would be used. Those reasons were enough to win me over in giving it a shot.


NOTE: Since I have had the opportunity to try it out since I wrote that I must say so far I feel it is worth the extra money. I have gotten quite a bit done, and have yet to use much of this stuff. I will still have to do some sanding, but that is due to my inexperience with sculpting.


After I received my materials I immediately went to work on the chest. I applied the Free Form Air into the inside of the chest model, and this time I made sure to press it in properly. After the chest cured over night I peeled back the Pepakura model to see if I had any mistakes. This came out really well. I did make a mistake on the back. I pressed too hard into the model and forced it to bulge out. This will easily be taken care of because this material is easy to sand. The chest used up an entire gallon kit of Free Form Air. The chest is very thick, but it isn’t really heavy at all. Some of the weight will be reduced when I trim the interior back where the extra surfaces where added.















The next step I had to take was the removal of sharp edges on all of my parts. As of right now the thighs, shins, boots, forearms, and shoulders all have their sharp edges removed. Each of those parts was sanded with 80 grit sand paper so the Free Form Sculpt would adhere to it properly. I don’t have many pictures of the sanded parts because I decided to move on to the next step before taking any pictures.

I am new to sculpting, and it isn’t as easy as I had imagined. It is way more enjoyable than messing with body filler. I just have to learn how to smooth this stuff out better (surface level/shape not texture). I was hoping that I could use this stuff effectively enough to not have to sand on it very much, but that isn’t going to happen.



Here is the sanded ab plate. I will do a little bit more work to this, but for now it will stay this way. I shouldn’t have to add much of anything to this to finish it up.







Here are the sanded toe caps. These parts will get more sanding attention later, but as of right now I have no plans to add any sculpting material to them for smoothing.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

The boot toe caps came out well with just sanding, and I hoped the heel portions would be the same. They were pretty smooth to begin with, and I considered leaving them as they were. In the end I decided to smooth them out more with sculpting epoxy. This will give me a smoother look, and will also help add depth to some of the detail on the back.











This part is the first part I tried smoothing with the sculpting epoxy. Since it was my first time with this stuff I used too much material. I even put some in places where I did not need it. I have a lot of sanding work ahead on this one. Luckily, I haven’t started on the other forearm yet. This will allow me to fix this one, and match the next one to it. I did test out how well this stuff sanded with 80 grit paper, and it wasn’t that bad. You will also notice there are pits on the sanded forearm all over the place. These were bubbles that formed after the first coat was cast for this part. They were not visible until after I sanded the parts.











Here are the thighs. The inner sections have been smoothed out (no sanding yet), and I started spot filling some of the other minor imperfections.











Here are the shins that I am working on. The back and side curved shapes have been smoothed out (no sanding yet), and a few of the sharp inner corners have gotten the fillet treatment. I’m sure this will get a bit more attention down the road, but for now this is as far as I am taking them.

 

[SirPalesAlot]

So now we move on to the shoulders. I tried to fill in some of the pits that were left during the making of these, but the difference in shore hardness of the materials proved to be a problem. Since the Free Form Air is 50D and Free Form Sculpt is 80D, the Free Form Air cuts way too easily when trying to sand down the Free Form sculpt used in spot filling. If I tried to keep doing things this way I could end up wasting a bunch of time, and I would have a ruined shoulder in the end.







Using the Free Form Air as the material for these parts left me with the ability to sand out all of the sharp edges with no need for sculpting material to be added for smoothing. This is mostly due to the model being so smooth, but the 50D material does make it much easier. If these parts were in better shape from the start I may have decided to keep working on them. Instead, I decided to scrap these shoulders and start over from square one.


I finally managed to find an excuse to start over on those pesky shoulders so I can add the detail it was missing, and fix some incorrect detail. I probably wouldn’t have gotten that urge if it weren’t for RobotChicken’s build thread. After I saw the work he did on his shoulder it made me want to restart mine immediately. At the time I couldn’t bring myself to scrap them, but now I have a good reason to.


So I decided to modify the HD shoulder to include a few of the details it was missing. Here is the updated model I will be building next time for the shoulders.





Since I found out I couldn’t use the Free Form Sculpt on top of the Free Form Air I decided to scrap the COD as well. The difficulty in using those two products together wasn’t my only reason for this. My main concern was scaling. I tried on my thighs and COD together, and I realized I could scale the COD down by about an inch overall in width. This would give me a better look in the front and back where the thighs meet the COD. As of now they parts are far too close, and it just doesn’t look right to me. So this will be scrapped as well. I don’t have any plans to change the model for the COD any further. I think most of the detail can easily be added later on.


The chest and helmet are currently on hold. I want to save those parts for when I have more experience with the sculpting epoxy. Since the chest is made out of Free Form Air I won’t be able to use the Free Form Sculpt on it much without running into the same sanding problem. Luckily it turned out well enough that I may not need to add anything to it at all. If all goes well I may be able to sand down all the sharp edges enough to produce the smooth look I want. The helmet only has half of its sharps removed. It will probably stay that way for a while


The half sanded helmet. Not much to look at right now, but I thought I would post it here anyways.









So my plans going from here are to finish applying the sculpting epoxy to the boots, shins, thighs, and forearms. In the meantime I plan on rebuilding the COD and shoulders in Pepakura. Then it will be a matter of when the weather is warm enough for the resin stage. If the weather doesn’t provide me time to resin those parts I will probably begin smoothing the helmet and chest out. I am undecided as to what I want to use for my next set of shoulders and COD. I would really like them to be made of 65D, but slush casting an open part is a pain. I liked the Free Form Air for both parts, but I don’t know if I want to risk messing them up again. I’ll put that decision on the back burner for now.

I don’t know how often I will be updating this build thread, but I will do my best to document my build as best as I can. If I go a little while without updating this thread you can expect a big update all at once.

Thanks for stopping by, and I’m sorry about the monster post/book.

 

[JayOneSeven]

why 15 posts? :/

 

[SirPalesAlot]

Picture per post limits are at 15 so I had to split them up quite a bit.

 

[JayOneSeven]

Picture per post limits are at 15 so I had to split them up quite a bit.

WOW that's a lot of pictures! lol. I always think the more the merrier when it comes to builds :] Looking really good!

 

[Spartan1313]

WOW!

This build is beautiful. I am amazed by your attention to detail!

You really seem to have gone through hell and back to make this build. I am impressed by your dedication to this project. I am certain this will be an amazing armor set when you are finally through all this.

 

[NoMaybeYes]

Wow with so much time and effort put into this build you certainly deserve props for continuing it. One question though, please tell me your going to release the files for this. Ive been thinking of doing a Halo 3 suit and have the files on the database but yours looks easier to pep and even adds detail.