Thorssoli's MkVI Costume Buildup

[thorssoli]

It's been a busy couple of days, so I figured I'd go ahead and post an update. For starters, I've made all of the molds of the diaper parts (minus the hip boxes) and the arm parts. Here's some shots of the molds in progress:

Here's a bunch of castings out of the new molds:

With those parts shaping up, I pulled out my larger size torso armor and had a buddy (who will be Grif) try it on:

Now I just need to do a lot more fairing and detailing and it will be ready to mold as well. I also have to get back to work on the leg parts:

Fortunately, at least I know the thighs will fit:

More to come, stay tuned...

 

[PrivateJoker]

First, allow me to say how impressed I am with the craftsmanship you're displaying...It makes my own attempt appear feeble in comparison!



Just a thought I was having, have you ever experimented with pigments in your cold cast parts? Looking at your pictures, I was thinking a tinted clearcoat (candy coat) over the cold cast aluminum would achieve an amazing look. Then it dawned on me that you could possibly achieve that in the casting process by tinting the resin.



Anyhoo...keep up the amazing work!

 

[Cadet]

As I said on the RPF, this is the single greatest pepakura based build I have ever seen in my 2 years on this site.

 

[thorssoli]

I've kinda been skimping on pictures lately, so here's an attempt to make up for it...



First up, here's all of the pieces and parts of the pelvic armor(only one of the two belt boxes is in the pic. Oops.):

The parts are designed to be adjustable so as to fit a wide variety of sizes. This is why there are two sets of rivet details on the ends of the belt pieces. That way I can either cut off or fill in whichever ones I don't need.



I went ahead and strapped one set together and tried it on:

The whole thing is surprisingly wearable. I actually left it on while I was tinkering on a few other things in the workshop just to make sure it wasn't going to fall off or anything. It worked out pretty well and didn't start getting out of whack at any point. Sitting isn't a huge problem (as long as I don't sit far enough back to crunch the codpiece into my belly) and it doesn't get in the way of walking or kneeling.



Here's the little buckles installed on either side of the buttplate:

These are separate castings in a more flexible urethane rubber.



This is the strapping arrangement I came up with to hold it all together (the white dots are pop rivets):

Not shown are the parachute buckles at either end of the front and back pieces. It works well enough, but I'm thinking I'll go ahead and rig up the next set so there's only one buckle in the front and a smaller gap between the front and back pieces of the belt. The belt boxes cover the gap, but there was a lot of play in the area.



In addition to trying on my armored diaper, I got a bit of work done on the gauntlet molds. Here's the silicon jacket once it cured:

Here's the clay parting line built up around it:

Here's the mad scientist (me) with some goop on his gloves:

And the mother mold being built over the jacket:

I should have the mothermold done today and then I'll be able to pull a few gauntlet castings. Stay tuned for that...



In other news, I've got the early stages of the undersuit started:

This piece will be one of eight separate rubber parts that will be cast and then adhered to the fabric undersuit. More on that as it develops.



Side note: I've been dumping my fresh castings into a big tub full of water and detergent to get the oily film off and make paint stick easier. Along the way I've discovered that over half of the pieces float!

I realize it's probably a Darwin Award waiting to happen, but I'm thinking it'd be really funny to go swimming in this outfit.



Back to the shop now. Comments/criticisms welcome.

 

[Shaymin Sky]

that is totally awesome. Nice Job!

 

[kupokitty]

Woah! Those look amazing!

 

[Achille]

What are you using for the gauntlet mothermold? Plasti-paste from Smooth-on, or something from Tap?



As for swimming in it, that'd be some beach party. Spring break: MC edition. XD



Edit: Or is the mothermold "reinforced casting resins", as you said on this page?

 

[JediStumpy]

Looking good! I really like the whole belt system you cam up with: flexable and usable by different sized people (somewhat).

Like to see your castings are coming out well. Thanks for posting pics of the WIP molds!

Keep it coming!

 

[rwdneon]

love the armor, my self i like the fiberglass route with body filler. but the armor you make is far better the mine.

 

[benito]

can't wait to see how you pull off that undersuit! everything is really accurate!

 

[darth wombo]

sweet peping

 

[thorssoli]

What are you using for the gauntlet mothermold? Plasti-paste from Smooth-on, or something from Tap?



As for swimming in it, that'd be some beach party. Spring break: MC edition. XD



Edit: Or is the mothermold "reinforced casting resins", as you said on this page?

In those shots I was using a product from www.jgreer.com called (get this) "mother mold." I absolutely love it, but they don't carry it anymore. In fact, I'm pretty sure that those gauntlets used up the last quart-sized kit they ever sold. They did tell me that they plan to reformulate it and offer it again, but it won't do me much good in time for this project. For the other side of these molds I used casting resin reinforced with fiberglass mat and thickened up with microballoons. It takes a lot more time and adds a lot more weight to the mold.

Looking good! I really like the whole belt system you cam up with: flexable and usable by different sized people (somewhat).

I have a 33-inch waist right now and I had to cut off four inches from the ends of the hard plastic belt pieces, then cinch them up as tight as I could so there was no more gap in the side. With that in mind, I'd guess it'll look okay on someone with up to a 44-inch waist (four inches of extra plastic plus a couple or three inches of gap on either side covered up by the belt boxes). The only problem is the vertical dimension. At some point, it won't be tall enough to look right.

can't wait to see how you pull off that undersuit! everything is really accurate!

Plan for the undersuit: cast rubber pieces for all of the detail parts. Put on the lycra or spandex or whatever fabric part (I'm using Underarmor HeatGear because it sounds cool). Then spray the back of the rubber pieces with 3M Super77 adhesive and stick them wherever I need them on the suit. Then wait for the glue to dry, peel off the whole thing, and run a row of stitches along the edges of the rubber parts using the upholstery sewing maching. The sewing is probably overkill, but it beats having parts of my armor come unglued while I'm out drinking on HALOween.



Today's progress was a bit limited. I finished the other half of the mothermolds for the gauntlets, started the mold for the kid-sized helmet, cast up some more copies of the torso armor, upper arm armor, and diaper armor. It's funny, but today when someone asked me when I'd be done with the suit I realized that I'll have something like four suits done simultaneously.

 

[Altair651]

This armour........ IS FRICKEN AWSOOOOMMEE!!!!!!! Good job!

 

[Loess]

This armor is sooo freeking sweet....



And I can't express how amazingly helpful your molding pics have been. (Thanks for recommending Jame's book, too. It's been a huge help learning about mold building.)

 

[thorssoli]

I've been neglecting the forums for a couple of days again, but here's a small glimpse of what I've been up to over the weekend.



Here's the first set of castings out of my gauntlet molds:

I made the detailed section on top of the wrist as a separate casting. The idea is that it can be pulled off in order to fit your hand through the wrist hole. I need to add some padding to the inside to keep everything in place, but so far it works out pretty well.



Here's a shot showing some of the other details:

I had set myself up with a pretty ambitious to-do list for Saturday and Sunday. The top of the list was cleaning the shop and packing all of the items folks have purchased for shipment Monday. After that, I was planning on having the prototypes done for the undersuit parts and the calf armor. The undersuit prototypes are about halfway done and here's a shot of the calf armor at the end of the day Saturday:

Then at the end of the day Sunday:

I had some black primer on hand and couldn't resist the urge to spray on a quick coat to get an idea of how I was doing. I still need to do a lot of filling and fairing, then there's a few small details to add in (such as the holes on the sides of the kneecap) and then I just have to paint it pink and prep it for molding.



I've been procrastinating on working on the thigh armor, but the whole thing still looks like I might have it done in time for HALOween. Keep your fingers crossed for me.



As always, comments and criticisms welcome.

 

[rundown]

nice

 

[rockthewarrior]

Amazing stuff.

 

[colinmon22]

Wow, this all looks so... perfect. lol. Quick question, you may have answered this recently but, how much money have you pumped into this so far?

 

[wwslubs]

Hey so I am trying to finish up my modded modded chief helmet from the legendary edition. All i have to do is finish the visor, install it, and maybe a quick fan install. I have the visor bought and cut for install but i need to finish the duel visor. I am going to go with the more economical solution and follow your lead on the styrene method (http://405th.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8175&hl=duel visor&st=20). However I have a few questions... First of all, how do I adhere the styrene to the visor, or when i order it does it have an adhesive side? Should I go ahead and order this: http://www.safepay.n...n/shop/cart.cgi ?

 

[thorssoli]

Wow, this all looks so... perfect. lol. Quick question, you may have answered this recently but, how much money have you pumped into this so far?

This is a question I tend to avoid because A: I don't keep track B: If I did, the number would probably sound like I'm bragging, and C: If I knew I'd probably feel silly for spending so much.



That said, I can guestimate a bit. Let's start with the helmet. Not counting supplies I already had on hand in the shop, there was the cardstock, a gallon kit of bondo, a couple of motorcycle visors, the pepakura software, a handful of small bits and bobs, some sheet styrene, some casting resin, dyes, fillers, and some automotive wiring loom and I'd say it probably a few hundred dollars and a few weeks to get the first helmet casting made. Just making one pepakura helmet to wear would've been a lot cheaper, but since I'm planning on dressing some friends up as well, it makes sense for me to make a mold and cast copies. If I didn't already have most of the tools and experience I have, it would've been even more expensive and time-consuming.



Based on that guess and the notion that I've gotten a bit better at the processes involved as time's gone on, I'm sure I've spent several thousand dollars on this project (spread over two years, one lengthy sea voyage, one deployment to Afghanistan, and a road trip covering something like 27 states) and who knows how many hours. The plan was to have this knocked out in time for Halloween 2008, but being recalled to active duty put a bit of a hitch in my timeline.



The last costume project for which I was tracking my spending was my Predator costume in 2005. I spent six weeks and approximately $2800.00 and it came out like so:

Believe it or not, the HALO costume is significantly more complex. I've lost count, but by the time I'm done I will have made at least 40 separate molds. I've offset some of the costs by selling a few copies of my pieces and parts, but I probably won't even come close to breaking even until I'm prepared to offer up a couple of fully finished suits.

Hey so I am trying to finish up my modded modded chief helmet from the legendary edition. All i have to do is finish the visor, install it, and maybe a quick fan install. I have the visor bought and cut for install but i need to finish the duel visor. I am going to go with the more economical solution and follow your lead on the styrene method (http://405th.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8175&hl=duel visor&st=20). However I have a few questions... First of all, how do I adhere the styrene to the visor, or when i order it does it have an adhesive side? Should I go ahead and order this: http://www.safepay.n...n/shop/cart.cgi ?

Your link isn't working for me, but don't worry about it. If you look at the first page of this thread you'll see pics of my prototype helmet with a styrene overlay for the visor. When I put that together, I actually didn't use anything at all to glue them together. When I made my wife's helmet, I used a bit of epoxy between them and used a metric butt-ton of clamps to hold them together while it cured. Even so, I still ended up with a lot of bubbles in the finished product.