Half Life 2 HEV Suit - My first costume build!

[tjost]

My brother and I are doing a foam armor costume of Viktor from League of legends and we're using Bounce by hot wire foam factory. Their products are made for more rigid foam constructs for minis terrain and stage props/outdoor foam statues but the flex sealer they have called bounce works really well and it's cheap. We tried mixing it with their foam coat which is like a gypsum cement and it produced a nice thick but slightly lumpy flexible coating (we tried to use the mix to fill cracks but I think we'll stick with paintable caulk in the future).

Using the bounce by itself works just fine though . Think a really flexible modge podge. You get no wrinkles flexing with the coating and only minor creases that kinda heal themselves with reversed flexing but only if you really bend it backwards (which really your gonna get with anything unless you make it a hard coating). Spreads great and self levels and you can build up coats for a more rigid coating. You can get a a 32oz jar of it for like $20 and thats enough to do a couple suits or a large space marine suit and paint adheres really well to it. When we get done with our suit I'll post a thread with pics.

 

[Bob McCormick]

My brother and I are doing a foam armor costume of Viktor from League of legends

Oh man! Please let me know when you do post pictures, I'd love to see that! Viktor is awesome!

we're using Bounce by hot wire foam factory. Their products are made for more rigid foam constructs for minis terrain and stage props/outdoor foam statues but the flex sealer they have called bounce works really well and it's cheap. We tried mixing it with their foam coat which is like a gypsum cement and it produced a nice thick but slightly lumpy flexible coating (we tried to use the mix to fill cracks but I think we'll stick with paintable caulk in the future).

Using the bounce by itself works just fine though . Think a really flexible modge podge. You get no wrinkles flexing with the coating and only minor creases that kinda heal themselves with reversed flexing but only if you really bend it backwards (which really your gonna get with anything unless you make it a hard coating). Spreads great and self levels and you can build up coats for a more rigid coating. You can get a a 32oz jar of it for like $20 and thats enough to do a couple suits or a large space marine suit and paint adheres really well to it. When we get done with our suit I'll post a thread with pics.

Thanks for the info! I've already purchased the Liquid Electrical Tape for this costume, but I'l definitely put Bounce on my list of things to investigate next time. That sounds like a much better option than re-purposing things like Liquid Electrical Tape or PlastiDip that really aren't designed to be flexible foam coatings.

That's a good price too!

 

[Bob McCormick]

I also want to suggest using superglue rather than hot glue when working with foam. You get really strong bonds without the mess of seeping hot glue. Try to find a hobby shop or a hardware store that sells generic brand cyanoacrylate to save money.

Thanks for the recommendation of superglue by the way. At first, I thought you were nuts because I had tried the superglue I had on hand (Elmer's Super Glue), and it really didn't perform well. It's very watery and would kind of immediately soak into the foam, leaving almost nothing at the surface to bond the two pieces together. I tried it on a couple of test pieces, and after they dried it was pretty easy to peel them apart.

However, on my last trip to the hobby store I picked up some Zap-A-Gap, and the difference is night and day. The Zap-A-Gap is noticeably thicker than the Elmers. It soaks slightly into the foam, but still leaves plenty on the surface to bind the two pieces together. The couple pieces I've done with the Zap-A-Gap are honestly the best joints in the entire project so far! The only downside to it is that once the glue sets, it sets for good. You will NEVER get those two pieces of foam apart!

I guess the lesson here is that not all glues labeled "super glue" are created equal.

Oh, almost forgot, here's a picture of one of my SuperGlued seams. I wish I'd been using this from the start. :cry

 

[msleeper]

Glad that worked! Cyanoacrylate is no joke, I'm guessing the Elmer's stuff is super diluted or something. You certainly want to go with stronger, hobby strength types. You're right that there is no way to pull apart 2 pieces, but you can actually use your Xacto knife to make a fairly clean cut.

 

[Bob McCormick]

The chest piece of the HEV suit is nearly complete, despite a few minor problems. Overall, it went fairly smoothly. Switching from hot glue to Zap-A-Gap has really helped speed up my assembly speed, as well as giving me cleaner joints. I do still use hot glue across the back side of major seams though to (hopefully) reinforce the seam and give it a little extra strength.

Two things that were minor challenges on the chest:
1: I'm not overly fond of the design of the back of the HEV suit in the available PEP model. It has a weird hunchbacked look, and even worse it's got a little handle on the back. (see the images below). I decided I didn't want that, not to mention I didn't want to put all the little pieces together that make up the hunch and the handle.


I also don't think the back hunch is justified based on the images of the in-game model from the half life Wiki:


So I simplified a little. I cut out and attached a few of the edge pieces of the back, then made a custom, flat back to fit into the space instead of building out the hump. I make the custom back piece by taping tracing paper to the partially assembled HEV chest piece and tracing the outline of the back opening.



I then cut the pattern out of 3mm craft foamies and test fit it with tape. I like the way the craft foamie version looked, but I kind of wanted to try it out of the same 6mm foam as the rest of the suit. I was concerned that having the back be more flexible than the rest of the suit might be noticeable, particularly on such a big piece. So I used the foamie version as a template to cut a version out of the foam floormat. I test fit that again, then superglued it into place. I think it turned out pretty good. In the picture of the final product it looks a bit wrinkly, but that's mostly the camera flash catching dirt and surface irregularities. It looks better in person, and I think it'll look O.K after I caulk the seams.


I also made some changes to details on the bottom of the chest piece. It didn't end up *looking* different, but one of the things I hate about Pepakura is how it really doesn't have any concept of building up in "layers". The chest piece of the HEV suit has some little layered detail strips near the bottom. Logically, it would seem like the simplest way to build that would be to make one smooth overall piece, then layer the details on top. Even if you were building a papercraft model that would, IMHO, be the sensible way to build it. But instead Pep wants to create a million little edge pieces, which is not only a pain but not really workable with 6mm foam. Because the piece in question is curved, it's not really simple to just print the individual strips and assemble them into a flat piece that can easily be cut from foam.

What I ended up doing is exporting the PDO model to an OBJ file and importing that into Blender. Now I suck at Blender, but with a blender beginners tutorial open in one window and my HEV chest model open in another, I was able to modify it enough to delete all the detail pieces from the that curve on the lower part of the HEV chest and replace them with one relatively smooth surface. I then re-imported the model into Pepakura. The reimported model had several errors (Red lines in Pep.. I think that an unconnected face or vertex?), but it was good enough to be able to print out the templates for the curved bottom piece that I needed. I cut that out of the 6mm foam, then use the original Pep pieces to cut the detailed overlays out of 3mm craft foam with the results seen above.
I wish I knew Blender (or any 3d modeling program) well enough to really try to do some edits on the HEV suit Pep model, but that'll have to wait for another day.

A couple other minor updates:
* Originally I was using the clear version of DynaFlex 230 caulk to fill in seams and gaps. That caulk takes a ridiculous 7 to 14 days to cure before painting! I went back to Home Depot and got the white version of DynaFlex, which only takes 2 - 4 hours to cure. Big difference! The white version also is less gooey and sticky to apply and dries to a firmer, less gelatinous consistency. I guess it just goes to show the importance of little details. I'm glad I figured *that* out before going much further! :facepalm

 

[msleeper]

Great progress!

Hot-gluing behind superglue seams is an ideal choice. It most certainly helps to dramatically reinforce bonds. For example, my War Machine chest was put together using cyanoacrylate and reinforced with hot glue (and in some areas, strips of foam to make areas more rigid. With all of the weight of the shoulder minigun, I never had a break or a blowout or anything.

The HEV screenshot you posted is from Half-Life 2, the HEV Mk 5. The pep model you're using is the HEV suit from Half-Life 1, the HEV Mk 4. That's why you're seeing discrepancies.

Learning Blender really is incredibly easy. If you've never worked with a 3D package before, understanding the core concepts can be a little tough. I highly recommend the Blender tutorials at 3dbuzz.com.

 

[Bob McCormick]

Hot-gluing behind superglue seams is an ideal choice. It most certainly helps to dramatically reinforce bonds. For example, my War Machine chest was put together using cyanoacrylate and reinforced with hot glue (and in some areas, strips of foam to make areas more rigid. With all of the weight of the shoulder minigun, I never had a break or a blowout or anything.

That's good to know! I am worried about breakage. The calf pieces are a wee bit too tight, and the whole chest piece requires me to practically dislocate my shoulders to get into. <sigh> If I manage to get this painted in time for DragonCon 2013 I'm going to bring some glue with me to Atlanta just in case.

The HEV screenshot you posted is from Half-Life 2, the HEV Mk 5. The pep model you're using is the HEV suit from Half-Life 1, the HEV Mk 4. That's why you're seeing discrepancies.
.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the PEP model is the Mk5. The "Enter the Freeman" film guys even mention on one of their pages that they're using the wrong HEV suit (the film takes place during HL1 at Black Mesa). They altered the back on their suit also, although they did it to look more like model from the pre-release of the game which had a weird cutout with an LED ring that looks oddly iron-man like to me.

BTW. When you did your War Machine, did you use any particular brand of PVA? Did you have to sand the PVA layer before painting? The PVA sealing approach is looking more and more attractive to me, particularly as I keep seeing more costumes (like yours) that used that approach and look awesome.

 

[msleeper]

With my War Machine, I did have some issues with some seams starting to split on my upper thighs after 10 or 20 hours in the costume. The only fix for that I can recommend is make sure to bring some cyanoacrylate to the con with you! Spot repairs happen to everyone. That said, the upper thigh seams did not have hot glue reinforcement, and my new Iron Patriot does, so we'll see after next weekend if that helps at all! I also kept grabbing the tops of my thighs to pull my legs back up on me since they would slide down. So making sure your armor fits and having it be as secure as possible goes a long way.

Regarding the chest, have you split the sides under your armpit? You may want to do that one side (or maybe both to make it be more compact during storage), and on the other make a velcro strap to close it up. You'll wind up damaging something if you try to shimmy in to it, especially once you seal it and paint it.

I bought a gallon container of PVA, I forget the exact brand, I'm pretty sure it was something generic. I got it at a crafts store for about $15, I wound up only using half of it though. If places like Walmart are still selling back to school supplies for cheap, you can probably find regular sized white glue for $1 a pop. I did not sand it before painting, I don't think you need to. I would actually worry about it flaking and starting to come apart. Be sure you dillute the PVA with water before applying it to your armor, do 1:1 with PVA:water at the absolute most. The more dilluted, the better it will soak in to the foam, but the more coats you'll need to use. Brotip: buy or rent a paint sprayer and save yourself about 50 hours of hand painting glue.

But, I honestly have to recommend against using PVA. It's cheap and it's easy, but when it starts to disintegrate it looks like dog turds. And it will disintegrate. The glue will peel and flake off and reveal the foam underneath. Again last year in my WM, my armor looked beautiful on Friday, and by Sunday it was starting to look pretty bad. I would re paint it before every time I wore it (4 times in total), and afterwards it would just look worse and worse. Invest in a more long term solution like plastidip, you can buy it by the gallon and dillute it with xylene/xylol, and use a paint sprayer to coat your pieces fairly rapdily. It stands up to wear and tear much better than PVA does.

As far as the HEV pep files... Can you link to the ones you have? I am like 700% certain the ones floating around were from the HL1 files. I could be wrong though!

 

[Yaron Tana]

the whole chest piece requires me to practically dislocate my shoulders to get into.

Have you tried applying zippers to the sides of your chest-piece? It'll mean you can easily remove and don the chest-piece... The only problem is concealing the zippers

 

[ijduncan]

Have you tried applying zippers to the sides of your chest-piece? It'll mean you can easily remove and don the chest-piece... The only problem is concealing the zippers

I am considering cutting the chest piece at a seam and then using neodymium magnets to keep it together when its on. For the next part of the film. The actor slipped it on and off and it was a bitch.

Also here is the post i did on making it in foam. IT might provide some insight. Especially painting.

How I made the HEV suit

 

[Bob McCormick]

Regarding the chest, have you split the sides under your armpit? You may want to do that one side (or maybe both to make it be more compact during storage), and on the other make a velcro strap to close it up. You'll wind up damaging something if you try to shimmy in to it, especially once you seal it and paint it.

I wish I had. But with only 3 and a half days til I leave for DragonCon, I'm just going to have to risk it.

As far as the HEV pep files... Can you link to the ones you have? I am like 700% certain the ones floating around were from the HL1 files. I could be wrong though!

HEV Pep files:

• 405th thread with original model
• Build log for the "Enter the Freeman" version of the suit

 

[Bob McCormick]

I am considering cutting the chest piece at a seam and then using neodymium magnets to keep it together when its on. For the next part of the film. The actor slipped it on and off and it was a bitch.

A magnetic closure would be the bomb. I'd really like to add either that, or a velcro strap like msleeper suggested as a future enhancement to my HEV suit.

Also here is the post i did on making it in foam. IT might provide some insight. Especially painting.

How I made the HEV suit

I've got pretty much every still picture in that blog post printed and and taped up next to my work space. I'm glad to hear you guys are still planning to make more of the film!

 

[Dynamic1]

Nice work:thumbsup..keep it up

 

[Yaron Tana]

So how far have you progressed? I myself am building an HEV suit for a convention in october, so it was nice to see someone working on the same thing

 

[Bob McCormick]

So how far have you progressed? I myself am building an HEV suit for a convention in october, so it was nice to see someone working on the same thing

I did actually finish the suit for Dragoncon 2013 last weekend. Sorry, I didn't mean to go radio silent on everyone. I unfortunately had to drop absolutely all non-essential activities to try and get the suit finished, and even then I ended up taking some raw materials on my flight to Atlanta and finished the suit in my hotel room! :cry I'll put together a post in the next couple of days about finishing the suit and also about my experiences wearing it.

 

[msleeper]

haha We didn't happen to chat without knowing it, did we? I ran in to a couple of HEVs but I never got any names!

 

[Bob McCormick]

haha We didn't happen to chat without knowing it, did we? I ran in to a couple of HEVs but I never got any names!

I don't know, that would be funny though! Here's what my HEV suit ended up looking like:

 

[Bob McCormick]

Sorry for the long delay in updates. Let's see, where were we?

On the last update I discussed the building of the chest piece of the HEV suit. One thing I forgot to discuss was the building of the little inset detail piece in the middle of the chest, right below the lambda logo (see the picture below).


I build this piece out of craft foamies. It turned out O.K... not great, not horrible. I used 3 foamie pieces, on for each side and one for the top with creases cut into the foamie pieces and set with a little heat from the heat gun. The big mistake I did make was not backing the superglued seams with hot glue. I had done that with most of my seams, but I was thinking of this piece as a detail, not as something structural. That came back to bite me in the butt later. The abdomen piece underneath put pressure on the foamies and also the chest pieces on either side flexed a bit while wearing it which put more stress on the seam than I expected, which led to it cracking in the corners as you can see in the picture below. Luckily I brought superglue, tape, and some foamie scraps so I was able to repair it when I got back to my hotel room.
View attachment 230720

There's not much to discuss about building the belt. I didn't even take any pictures of that piece in progress.

The abdomen piece of the HEV suit I also made out of craft foamies (got to love the foamies!). I started by wrapping tracing paper around myself to create a rough pattern, then I cut foamies into broad strips and glued them together with some overlap to make it look layered. Here's a picture of what it looked like in progress, at this point it was just taped together, which is why it looks a little crooked. It was also made from a variety pack of colored foamies, so in this picture it looks kind of like the Ethiopian flag.
View attachment 230726

The next step was sealing the foam. I had originally intended to use an older version of the "Doc Holiday method": Spray Mod Podge, Liquid Electrical Tape, Adhesion Promoter, then spray paint. However, I wasn't terribly impressed with the test piece I did with that method. It worked well, but the paint did still wrinkle somewhat if the foam was bent. Also, the Liquid Electrical Tape required 24 hours to cure, and I was quickly running out of time before DragonCon.

In the end, I decided to skip the liquid electrical tape. I used diluted PVA glue (Aleene's Tacky Glue, which is what Stealth was using in one of his videos). I brushed on three coats of the diluted PVA glue, let that dry really well, then sprayed a coat of Dupli-Color Adhesion Promoter, then sprayed my spray paints. The nice thing about brushing on the PVA is that I could do it inside the house, I didn't need to wait for daylight or nice weather outside like I would with spray paint.

I enlisted an old dresser in my basement and some scrap PVC tubing as an improvised drying rack while doing the PVA coating, I made a similar drying rack for the spray painting using some lawn chairs and the same PVC tubing. Ghetto, but it worked!


At that point, I'd completely run out of time. I did the spray painting on Tuesday, Wednesday was spent at work and packing, Thursday was my flight to Atlanta for Dragoncon. But, I still hadn't done anything to attach my pieces to my under suit! Nor did I have some important details like the lambda logo on the front of the chest piece, or the red lining for the chest. So my choice was really to either go to DragonCon with no costume, or go with a costume that was still unfinished. I decided to pack up my unfinished costume and take it, plus some supplies, with me to Atlanta.

In my hotel room in Atlanta, I put sticky back velcro on the abdomen piece to hook it to itself after wrapping around me and to fix it to my shirt. I also used sticky back velcro to hook the upper leg pieces to my pants and the upper arm pieces to my shirt. A word on sticky back velcro.... it SUCKS! The sticky won't hold, particularly after you start sweating. :cry

I also painted the lambda logo on the front with yellow acrylic paint, and created the red lining by cutting strips of soft foam, covering them with red cloth, and securing the cloth to the foam with some Elmers glue I picked up a the Atlanta CVS. The cloth pieces I secured to the HEV suit with sticky back velcro. Here's what the lambda logo and the red lining looked like:


I think the only other thing to discuss is the crowbar. Originally I'd intended to make a rubber crowbar or buy a prop crowbar. But prop crowbars are a hell of a lot more expensive than the real thing, so in the end I just purchased a crowbar from Home Depot and painted it black. I think it worked out pretty well.

Here's a couple of picture of me in the HEV suit just before venturing out Friday at DragonCon:

 

[msleeper]

You totally should have hit me up, I brought my Gravity Gun with me but it was sitting in my hotel room for most of the con!

I don't trust the adhesive on sticky velcro; use some other sort of glue and you should have no problems. Case in point, Ultron 5's chest, shoulder bells, and helmet closure all used the same kind of velcro. The shoulders survived all sorts of madness, and the foam that the helmet closure velcro was attached to tore sooner than the velcro coming off of it would.

Looks great overall.

 

[Bob McCormick]

You totally should have hit me up, I brought my Gravity Gun with me but it was sitting in my hotel room for most of the con!
.

I wish I'd known you had a Gravity Gun and known how to contact you! That would have been awesome! If nothing else, I would have liked to have bought you a beer or other beverage of your choice for all the help you've given me in this thread!.

I almost did bring a Gravity Gun. I've got a friend here in Denver who has one and *really* wanted me to bring it, but I just had no idea how I was going to transport that, on top of my HEV suit, my normal luggage, etc. :-( Oh well... I think every DragonCon includes some regrets.