GuitarJohn3's 2012 Halloween Costume Contest Entry (Judge Dredd 2012)

GuitarJohn3

New Member
Hey, I'm a new member to therpf and I wanted to start off by saying how helpful the information in this forum has been for me in making my costume. I decided to make a Judge Dredd costume after I saw Dredd 3D and walked away loving it, so I had less than a month to make my first major DIY costume and I had to work fast. The Dredd suit is made of parts I either created from scratch or found and modified. EVA foam, contact cement and a dremel were definitely my best friends for the past month. It's funny, I hadn't thought about costume contests until my friends told me I should enter some at a Halloween party last week, I was just too focused on getting my costume done in time!
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And the picture I submitted to the contest gallery:
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I wish I noticed this contest as I was making the Dredd suit so I could have taken more in-progress shots. The toughest, most time consuming part had to be making the helmet. Above anything else, the helmet had to be perfect or it would ruin the rest of the suit for me. I made it out of pieces of EVA foam held together with contact cement (amazing stuff) and a shade 5 visor cut and fitted into the helmet. Shown below, I started with a paper prototype, and then made the foam version that went through a few modifications and trims before it looked right. The vest armor is made from EVA foam, cut, carved with a dremel, sealed and painted.
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The base of the vest is a motorcycle protection jacket I found online and modified, well sort of cannibalized, haha. The shoulder pads and belt buckle were also made of EVA foam, carved, sealed and painted. I think one of my favorite aspects are the gold portions, which I first spray painted black, then lightly brushed gold paint on top of. This was one of the most fun parts of making this costume.
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Proof photo!

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All in all, I'm very happy with how this suit came out. Let me know what you think, and I'm open to suggestions!
 
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Cool!

I have a question... Which material did you used for the back armour pieces? I took several minutes looking the pices and I'm surprised...
 
Thanks! Unfortunately, I ran out of time before I was able to make my own back armor pieces to more closely match the actual suit. The back armor pieces there are part of the protection jacket that I masked around and painted the same metallic color and matte finish as the front vest pieces. I still have plenty of foam left and I plan on completing (at a more leisurely pace!) the back armor and other small touches.
 
Good! Thank you for respond me. The painting of the back armour is so good that confused me.

I will like to see in the future your back modeled part, because the front of the vest looks really greate.
 
Better late than never, right?
I used some Dredd pictures as reference, and drew each detail for the buckles and pads onto the foam. I cut the shapes out with an X-acto blade and used a a dremel with different sanding tips (cylindrical, pointed, etc.) to carve out every detail. The foam was then sealed by brushing a few coats of Mod Podge on them, and painted. The pads were spray painted a metallic color (should have been black, doh!), and the gold parts were spray painted black, then hand-painted gold. In parts that I wanted to be shaded, I went lighter on the gold so the black showed through more. I finished it by hitting everything with a few coats of acrylic clearcoat, giving it sort of a matte, worn finish.
Hope this helps! Maybe I'll get around to re-painting the metallic parts black and making the rear pads by this Halloween haha.
 
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