Vacformed Warhammer 40k Space Marine Armor - Finished Suit Pics on p.17

thorssoli

I've been contemplating this build ever since I finished making my vacformed stormtrooper armor in 2002. After discussing it at great length many times, doodling out countless sketches of the pieces and parts, and untold hours of studying the miniatures and source artwork, my friend Matt and I finally started on it yesterday morning.

The beginning was modest enough. We began with a piece of 2" insulation foam:


Then we cut out the outline of the shoulder plate and checked to see how it looked:

The plan is to make a full-scale suit of armor. This means that a normal-sized person will be looking out through the throat of the armored Marine.

Satisfied with the scale and shape of the first slice, we made a series of smaller slices:


Then we laid them all up and glued them together with Gorilla Glue:


After gluing them, we bound them together with a customized strapping system referred to among professionals as "duct tape:"


While waiting for the glue to set up, I did another test fit:


Once the glue was set, the next step was to smooth out the edges with a combination saw, a body rasp, and a flapwheel grinder. Still, there were recesses that needed filling. To fill the grooves I used a little bit of urethane expanding foam:


With a bit more sanding and grinding, the general shape was pretty well established:


In the next day or two I'll be posting pictures of the last little bits of smoothing out the shoulder plate as well as the first couple of pulls on the vacforming table.

Stay tuned...

Justicar John

Looks very good so far. Are you making a personal set, or possibly a kit? The helmet looks awesome, I would love to have one of those.

thorssoli

I don't plan on selling these.

I'll be making a few sets for my friends. If you have questions, please feel free to PM me.

Justicar John

and Pm sent

Kommissar

nice!
i didnt know foam could really be involved with vaccuforming.

glenthornetms

So far so good I'm interested to know how you plan on doing the 'inner' suit - are you thinking of a harness or padding...this is always the trouble area with my armour

Matt

thorssoli

Right now the plan is to go with a harness system. As big as the parts are going to be, it will be imperative to keep the weight down. I'm sure we'll end up changing the plan a few times over the course of this build.


The foam is only for this early stage of the project. I'm using it to get one or two pulls vacformed. Once I have those pulls, I'll reinforce them with fiberglass and use the reinforced pulls as vacforming bucks.


Yesterday I layered over the shaped foam block with some urethane resin. In this case I added enough microballoons to make it into a thick paste that I could trowel over the whole thing. At that point it looked like so:


I also added some red pigment to the resin so it would be a similar shade of pink as the rest of the foam.

Once I'd sanded that smooth I added a bit more resin with fewer microballoons. I was in a hurry at this point, so I switched to the black resin:


Once I had that layer smoothed out, I went ahead and made a pull:


It came out somewhat okay, but it revealed some trouble spots for the form that I'll have to work on. The plan will be to do these things in pairs, so I'll need two good pulls to turn into forming bucks. They'll sit on the forming table like so:


Here's another idiotic test shot for scale:


I'm starting to think I'll have to sculpt a larger helmet.

Stay tuned...

LOGANCLAW22

PM sent.

Paul

Alric

From the way you did the helmet a full suit should look great. I'm looking forward to see how this develops

Talsiri

Very nice, this has been an idea I've toyed with here and there!

Bigmac

that is one cool set of shoulder pads.

can't wait too see the full armour.

WZAJETS

very cool look! great job. where did u get 2lb foam?

LOGANCLAW22

PM Sent.

Paul

Askren

Just wondering if you're gonna be using stilts as well as the false-head for added height. Make the boots big enough platforms and you can make a normal person head and shoulders above other people and use the helmet normally.

thorssoli

The plan is to do both.

By using the false head I'll be able to put the wearer in the center of the costume. That way I won't have to make the boot platforms quite as tall or the arm extensions quiet as long. This will make the whole character more believable.

If we decide to shoot some short films or something, I may make a more human-sized version to make it more maneuverable. But that's a long way off.

crypto

I think the size of your helmet is fine.

The shoulder armour is the biggest part/s of a space marine.

Evil Benius

While early this is looking great so far. I will be following this with heavy interest.

MGnards

This is awesome-I've been waiting a while for someone to make a great looking space marine armor set, and you've done great work so far. looking forward to the rest of it.

thorssoli

Thanks. Work has stalled a bit while I've been overwhelmed with people interested in my Combat Garden Gnomes. I've got the shoulder smoothed out, but I'm waiting until I've got the chest and back bucks roughed out before I post another update.

thorssoli

Not too long ago, the good folks at Obscurus Crusade started unfolding the 3D models from the new Space Marine game, so I spent the afternoon today cranking out a full-sized version of the pep model from the game. Here I am test-fitting it while it's in progress;


It's big:


Really big:


I could almost fit two of me in there:


Here I'm wearing the helmet so I can see through the eyes and the chest is sitting down all the way on my shoulders:


Given the way that fits, I'm still confident that my plan to wear the helmet as a hat and look out through the neck will look the best:


Now I need to reinforce this piece with fiberglass, fair everything out so it's nice and smooth, then cut it into segments that I can form copies on my vac table.

Stay tuned...

clancampbell

That's utterly mad looking! Doors are going to be a challenge when this is a full suit! Amazing stuff as usual!

Rich

thorssoli

We were talking about that at the end of the day yesterday. When the backpack is locked in place, this guy will be almost as thick as he is wide. Like any overly cumbersome costume, I'll need a handler to go out in public. That person will have to remove the pack so I can shuffle through doors sideways.

Stairs will present problems too, but I still think they'll be doable.

Judge Spartan

This build is really cool....

rosskow

this is going to be big, really big ... freakin' huge infact

Fatsquirrel

Holy Snarkies thats freakin' awesome coated in awesomesauce!!! Definately followint this thread with INTEREST!!!