Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy) - Carry on med-kit! 31/7

Hoplitespear

Sr Member
-->Just want pictures (just scroll on trough :D)

Hey RPF,

About two years ago after a visit to gamescom i knew i wanted to cosplay the year after. So i got home, started researching and came across the RPF. Learned about EVA foam. Got me some floor mats and started a HEV suit from half life.

I chose Gorden's HEV suit because its my favorite game by far. It introduced me to PC shooters and RPG's. Also i kind of look like him (beard and glasses) And i wanted to cosplay something game related for Gamescom.

While making the (first) chest of the HEV suit i browsed the forum some more and i came across all the iron man foam builds. My second favorite thing: Iron Man. So i switched to that and finished the complete suit.

Being way too difficult to walk in, too warm. No vision. I couldn't wear it the year after. Came home and decided to go back to gordon so i could finally cosplay at gamescom.

Learned a ton from my iron man build. Working with foam, and especially how important the paint job is (kind of failed with my iron man suit). I waited after i got most of the armor pieces done to make a thread. Making sure i would commit this time. Its not finished yet so i got quite some updates to add :).

So here it is:

I tried to take pictures regularly but the process of building the chest was done in one go. And i went 100% focus on it.
I used various fan art, in game textures and such as reference. There is nothing I exactly tried to make. I mixed some parts to get what I think the best suit. As a base I used the pep files that are floating around from ‘Null’ or something like that. But most are altered.

First the foam construction:
Its made with 100 kg EVA foam. I searched for months when making Iron Man for a good supplier here in Bruges (Belgium) And i came across a guy who did sofa's n stuff. Eventually after helping me out with EVA foam he changed his whole direction into a cosplay shop. Crazy how random meetings like this can chance the course of people's life's. Here is a link to his shop and facebook page.
http://www.cosplayshop.be/
https://www.facebook.com/CosplayShopSelectStyle?fref=ts

The 100kg foam is awesome to work with. Its the right density. It takes acrylic paint very well. And the paint does not crack while bending. So its dense enough not to soak up all the paint (no sealing required!!!!!!!) But soft enough to bend.
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For the back i used reference of the textures from HL2 beta. There is not much info about the back. I know in HL2 itself it is just a backpack kind of thing. But that’s waaaay to boring. So I made something with pretty lights instead :D. They go on and off with a simple switch visible on the back as well. It wasn't easy though as the back was all done on the fly.

First paint:
I used a simple paper stencil to spray on the logo. You can still see the 'V' used to keep the middle part on the right spot.

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Weathering and final clear coat.
Now I wanted to test out if I could do painting better than my iron man suit. So I went nuts with old Warhammer paints and acrylic paint. I am really happy with the result, for a first time actual weathering. Also i wanted the orange to be dirty and dark. I looked up some cosplay's of Gordon and the orange was to bright for me most of the time. But its a personal preference.

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Now if you wonder how i get in???? I split the back right in the middle along circle. Its held together with magnets i had left from a Warhammer project and sintra ‘locks’. It opens just enough to slide in from the bottom. Help required sadly enough. But the chest is the only thing i need help with getting in and out. The first chest i made back in 2013 had a backpack clicker at the side but that was complete crap. It bend open and didn't held its form on that side. So i had to find a better solution.

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Belt:
I made the belt with foam. Using a piece of bend sintra keeping it in form. The nice thing about this foam is you can cut a line in the foam, heat it up and it will spread open creating these nice panel lines.

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Arm and Leg pieces.
I don’t have allot of pictures from these. The bracers where made out of foam on a sintra ‘cage’ I made a round cage that opened at the bottom with a simple slide lock. So I could open them a little bit to get in. They fit perfectly snug.
The upper leg pieces where the easiest build together with the upper arm pieces. A piece of foam cut to the right shape and glued in circle. :D.
Now the biggest pain on the whole build of armor pieces where the lower legs. Not having any base to go upon these where made from scratch. I used a dovetail like joint to close them at the back. They still need painting though.

The other pieces got the same weathering techniques like the chest piece (with fake blood and all).

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I put a HP gauge and AUX (power) guage on the bracers to give them more detail. (these are the health and armor from the game)

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The following posts will be my progress on the undersuit. Yes!!! Its getting an undersuit. :p. The only thing I have finished on that is the red ring that goes around the neck. Its made from red fabric covering foam blocks. They will be kept in place with Velcro. So you can put on the suit and then put them in.
Also I’m trying to make a ‘safe’ crowbar for gamescom. I have a real one ready to be painted in the right colors. But I’m not getting that into a con :p.

Anyway I hope you like this so far. More progress to come and a suit up offcourse!!!!.

PS: sorry in advance for grammer or spelling mistakes. I did put this trough a spelling/grammar check so i hope they are kept to a minimum.

An overall picture on my dummy.

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Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

Half-Life 1 and 2 have been two of my favorite all time games. You do Mr. Freeman justice, This looks outstanding so far!
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

very clean, I like the style of the paintjob not proper grimy but then not super clean :)

I went full grime on my one!

Love seeing HEV builds, nice take on the back panel, it's a fun part to play with given the available reference and it adds a bit of a personal touch to the suit!

Also good work on the latch mechanism for the shins etc, using the eva foam edges, let us know how they stand up to wearing I never thought to try it!

The Crow bar is a tricky one 'cause it's a pain in the ass shape. (I wish I could have used my real one).

IMG_20141019_123324.jpg


I was also sent this in my thread for making "safe" props, might be worth a watch:
[video]https://youtu.be/fMARgHyDLbg[/video]


Keep it up

/M
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

very clean, I like the style of the paintjob not proper grimy but then not super clean :)

I went full grime on my one!

Love seeing HEV builds, nice take on the back panel, it's a fun part to play with given the available reference and it adds a bit of a personal touch to the suit!

Also good work on the latch mechanism for the shins etc, using the eva foam edges, let us know how they stand up to wearing I never thought to try it!

The Crow bar is a tricky one 'cause it's a pain in the ass shape. (I wish I could have used my real one).



I was also sent this in my thread for making "safe" props, might be worth a watch:
https://youtu.be/fMARgHyDLbg


Keep it up

/M

I'm really happy you like the paintjob. I'm going for a 'worn and some battle damage' kind of look.

The edges you see on the locks for the shin's are Sintra not eva foam. I cut out the lock kind of pattern in sintra and glued it to the foam. I don't think foam itself would hold for long.

And for the crowbar, I'm trying with a PU-foam version atm. I got a mold but its not a good one. Cost me some money though :(. If i had known the result from before i would have done it myself. Most of the time when i try to extract my crowbar it breaks somewhere. Or some of the foam hasn't cured well.

I have one pull that was 'ok-ish' but the shape is a bit bent. I'll post a pic tonight when i'm home from work. So i'm still in a personal debat about that one. Keep trying for a good pull. Or make a resin one. Or do somethign different. I got time till gamescom though.

What is yours made from? It looks really good.

Tonight updates on finished shins!
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

My Crowbar? ha that's a real one :( the only one I wish I could carry around. The actual one I used was a bit crap, made a paper mold sealed it up with tape and filled with liquid plastic... suffice to say it leaked... a lot. My logic is, it's an external prop, it will most likely break, all mine have so far, done about 3 crowbars for 3 cons, so if it doesn't look as good as you'd like, does it matter? just wreck it up.

If you're interested here's my thread (go to the bottom for all the pics or page 1 for the build):
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=202179&page=2
suit is fibreglass limbs are Eva Foam.

I'm not gonna Hijack your thread with shed loads of pikitures :)

/M
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

Update!


I would of posted earlier, but we got a damn power outage -.-. And i had stuff to do in the new baby room etc etc.. Anyway, I finished the shin's tonight. And this is basically the end of the 'armor' making. I am so happy how they all turned out. But i'm not there yet!!!!

All foam pieces are now finished and i am going to focus on the undersuit now. Well especially the flaps under the chest, the rest should be easy.
And after that the crowbar. I am also thinking of making a health/battery pack to put my wallet and phone n stuff in. I do have lots of time left. But not sure of that yet.

Pic's:

with lights and no flash (this is the best presentation of the color on a picture IMO, for my suit that is)
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with flash and no light:
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Next updates will be undersuit!
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

I absolutely LOVE Half-Life! This is a fantastic representation of G.F.'s suit! Your weathering looks very good. Thank you for sharing!
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

This looks great. Nice detail on the build log.

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

Beautiful work! Do you know, or anyone for that matter, where to find this foam in the US? Great work though!
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

I absolutely LOVE Half-Life! This is a fantastic representation of G.F.'s suit! Your weathering looks very good. Thank you for sharing!

Thx, its the first time I did weathering. And its a great tool to bring it more alive and to hide some foam crimes. I noticed when making my Iron man suit it looked to much like a costume and really flat and lifeless. From now on i'm weathering everything i'll ever make.

This looks great. Nice detail on the build log.

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

Thx!

looking really good, nice work

Thx!

Beautiful work! Do you know, or anyone for that matter, where to find this foam in the US? Great work though!

Not really, i could ask the shop owner for a product number or a type number. Maybe you can use that as a search ref. All i can tell you its actual EVA foam but 100 kg density. Where most of it is 40. I even think the floor mats are 40.
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

Update!


Its a small one though. But still an update :D. This evening i built the supports for the foam inserts in the chest piece. The picture's explain it.

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With inserts. Going to add velcro later on. So they can't shift.
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Wasn't sure on how i was going to do the arm inserts. In my foam build they aren't perfectly round. I was not planning on changing it either, i kinda liked the shape. So i build ridges inside to support the inserts. Again velcro is being add later.

These aren't wrapped in the fabric yet.

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The plan for the inserts is getting in the suit. And then adding them with velcro. Easier for me to get inside this way, and to avoid damage by getting stuck on an insert.

Next i'm going to do the flaps on the abs area. After that all i need is a pair of gloves and boots and all done!
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

hey man. amazing build so far!. i just went out and bought some 7mm thick eva foam after seeing your build but i am having a hard time finding the templates for the EVA Suit already pre-made to foam. any chance you have a copy of yours you could throw my way? email: as_dreams_die@hotmail.com

thanks and keep up the amazing work!
 
Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

hey man. amazing build so far!. i just went out and bought some 7mm thick eva foam after seeing your build but i am having a hard time finding the templates for the EVA Suit already pre-made to foam. any chance you have a copy of yours you could throw my way? email: as_dreams_die@hotmail.com

thanks and keep up the amazing work!

Thx for the compliment! To awnser your question I used the files described in this post: http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=192894
But those are the pep files.

I went and build most of the parts roughly in paper (roughly meaning i didn't glue any of the small edges giving thickness to the armor. Just the big parts.) After i made them in paper i decided where to cut. And what to keep together to make foam patterns.

For example the upper arms and legs are all one piece. So print out the pep, cut the parts, glue all the edges together, leave one edge open. transfer to foam and glue shut. Just think good about the edge you wanne leave open, on where it will sit when you put the part on. I can show you most of the choice's i made. But for the lower legs it was all done freehand. (it was a pain in the ass =( ).

When I'm home from work i'll try and make some pictures of what i kept together and how i cut the patterns. Its pretty much straight forward though.

EDIT: the examples

The colored area's represent one piece. The thick black lines represent where i glued them together. (i know the back and front are not the same side but u get the picture. Note though that i freehand the back of the chest, and the shins so there's nothing to show there. upper and lower arms are same like the upper legs, really simple just everything together and 1 cut line. The belt is made from 1 piece aswell. This should give u a base to create foam templates from the pep files linked above.

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Re: Half life 2 - HEV Suit. (pic heavy)

Wow, really impressed! That's a really clean build

Thank you!

Test fit!

Some of you might wondered how it looks on a person so i did a small test fit.

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Few thinks to note though. I still need gloves and different shoes (these are my safety shoes from work :s). I need to do something around the knees, maybe pads or so. The inserts for the arms aren't done yet. And i still need the 'flaps' for the abs area atm its just a 'long sleeved turtle neck t-shirt.' Also ignore the crowbar its nowhere near finished. =p

Anyway it fits quite good. Need to make straps for the upper legs cause they drop when walking. I can walk and move really easy!!!! that is a huge relief.

I'm lucky that my beard and glasses are things i wear every day. If i don't wear my glasses i can't see s*t in the distance.
Will be posting the finishing touches soon. Starting with the abs area and the arm inserts. Next month i'll go fetch myself some new gloves to. (i lost my old airsoft gloves which where perfect :( )

-Hopli-
 
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