"Masternewbie's 2015 Halloween Costume Contest Entry"

Hi,
I figured I'd give the contest a go again. My son is 10 yrs. old now, he was a Halo Elite last year and this year he wants to be the Halo Noble 6 team member, "Emile." Emile is a tough one since his helmet has a larger visor than most so most people that attempt this vacu-form one...so guess what....I'm building a vacuform table and it is Oct. 14. I leave the country for a week....so a one week build...wish me luck! :)

This is his last year of halloween parades at his school and the "skills" I have picked up from therpf from pep, to eva foam, digitgrade legs etc. have helped me a lot.
I never owned a hot glue gun until 4 years ago. :eek

Last year's submission

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This year's goal:
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[EDIT] Finished costume!
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Pictures will be forthcoming....this late in the game I am not too concerned with total accuracy....just the focal points of what makes him recognizable.

[Edit: more additions here and further in the thread. Thanks!]
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Thanks,
Dan
 

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And it begins!
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Beginning trying to size the helmet and the visor.....
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So...this costume has $200 on the credit card...but nothing has been done...am I the only one that buys tons of supplies "just in case" I need something at 2 am some night? :( What lengths parents go for their kids :)
 

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I saw some youtube videos on vacu-forming parts so I thought I would give that a try. I have done the EVA foam, then sintra...and now the vacu-forming. I like the vacu-forming better than trying to shape sintra, and you can see how simplistic my bucks or molds are. The shortness of time made me go with what was accessible and it was .06 PETG. I hope it holds paint well....the next two days should tell me. Lots of work to do....

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Joy! My son just fractured his ankle in gym class....so I'm modifying his leg armor to fit the protective boot....not that I still have painting to do or anything and it is the...um...28th! lol

I made it harder on myself with the Emile helmet....a little bondo goes a long way....mental note! Now I will be sanding all night. :-(

I have a little battery car that holds my 10 year old...it's painted like a mongoose from halo....so I guess I'll have to un-mothball that to for trick-or-treating...swell :)
 
Finished down to the wire AGAIN! I was really nervous I would not have the costume finished. At about 4am, I decided everything else could be left out, except for the helmet. So the helmet had the last layer of bondo.....so sand, paint some filler and ....paint....starting at 4am! I was nervous about free handing the skull face, but it worked out.

The blue shoe cover is over his protective boot for his broken ankle...I ran out of time to make proper "armored" footwear.

Of course we had time for only one pose in the morning before school after I showed my son how to put on the gear. At school some classmate dropped the helmet off my son's desk cracking it.....I finally included battle damage on this year's suit....so now there is more :)

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Lights....kids love lights, right? This is the ONLY benefit of using a vacuform table for me. At $10 a pop, this gauntlet was $20 and cleat PETg. I used .06 which was a bit too thick. I had "dollar store" lights inside the gauntlets that I had to remove from their casing to fit, then I roughed up the clear "windows" on the forearm to diffuse the light a bit with a "million"-grit sand paper ...and finally a blue marker colored the plastic light.

I also had a dollar-store light at the very front of the gauntlet for more lights and to help if trick-or-treating when dark....

[edit]unfortunately it was rainy/drizzly and we ended up going to only 3 houses.


I have always wanted to do battle damage....here is some, but I had no time to do any blackwash :-(

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In summary:
This was the last year for my son to have a halloween costume at school so I wanted to put forth the effort. The techniques I used were eva foam, some pep files for reference, vacu-forming PETg. heated eva foam, bondo filler and epsilon epoxy. I had wanted to do a vacu-formed visor but after 4 pulls with only one real success and time ticking away, I had to go a different direction. I started my build on Oct. 19 but started "thinking" about how to do stuff since mid-September. I did not leave myself much time....since I thought we were homeschooling this year, and I would have this year "off." A last minute decision to go back to school meant that there would be a halloween parade/party at school. By the time my son decided what he wanted to be...it was early October.

Fast forward to the night before his Halloween party and I am again, finishing last minute. Things that should go quickly ....do not. There were so many hiccups that delayed me...my son tried on the costume...the morning before leaving for school.

I dreaded the feeling at 4am on Oct. 29 (School party was Friday Oct. 30 this year) when I look around and I had the helmet bondo'ed but nothing sanded and painted and the realization that I might not finish by 8am...my son might not have a costume. I stopped work on the ammo belt since the grenades were not sticking with hot glue and the paint severely sheared off....and set to work on sanding, and painting the helmet. The hand painted skull was scary for me (afraid of failure I guess) but I had to push on and get "something" completed for his halloween.

I did fewer coats of paint on the helmet than I wanted and did not allow for drying time. The gold paint was leaving fingerprints when I picked it up, but most areas were covered by the acrylic free hand skull painting. I used mostly rustloleum brands of paint. I tried krylon over rustoleum and had terrible, time-wasting results. I wanted to go darker silver for the helmet, but the normal silver paint was drying quick and coming out fine...so I stuck with that since the sun was coming up. By the way, I used the 2x coverage Rustloleum which I liked, but they didn't make a suitable color for the armor so I used the twice more expensive Rustoleum "Universal" paint and primer in one paints. It has a grip trigger which I hated and the paint took much longer to dry...not my favorite!

Also, I wanted to try a black wash for weathering with black acrylic paint, but I ran out of time. I did the battle damage with three layers of paint...first a base of plasti-dip over the eva foam, then silver, white, and then top color. I read some tutorials about using rubber cement...that didn't work well at all for me....surprisingly....what I thought would be worse and messier....I used toothpaste. It was difficult to get out of some crevices...I actually used an old toothbrush to clean out some of the dents of toothpaste..but worked much better for me than the rubber cement did.

I want to thank the RPF for the countless of ideas and posts to help me the last four years of making costumes. I wish I had time outside of work to get on here more often, but I am usually here out of necessity, and I do appreciate the great work people showcase here.

And finally, at the request of my daughter....I whipped this out Saturday/Halloween morning (thankfully there was a break this year between the school parade and trick-or-treating).

The Ipug:
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Thank-you for your consideration and votes. :)

Dan
 
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Re: "Masternewbie's 2015 Halloween Costume Contest Entry"

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Rainy Halloween :-( I wanted outdoor "action" pictures but this was the best the weather would allow.
My daughter was nice enough to stand in as an alien Elite (my son's costume last year) for the pictures... she quickly changed into her "real" costume.



some pictures were not displaying on my computer...so I am trying in separate posts :)
 

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Re: "Masternewbie's 2015 Halloween Costume Contest Entry"

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After the rain let up...

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his battery powered ride on that I painted to look like a vehicle in the game (I did this 4 years ago when he was a 2nd grade Master Chief)
 
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Re: "Masternewbie's 2015 Halloween Costume Contest Entry"

more gratuitous pictures...Nov. 1st...much better weather

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Thanks! I appreciate it. Yeah it was a bummer that I just finished the thigh pieces and then he broke his ankle in gym class, so I had to do some extra work putting clips on instead of just slipping on the piece. I had to leave off the knife too (school rules and all) and luckily the shotgun shells on the forearm, or the chest full of grenades, did not get the notice from the administration. :)

The school has a no weapons policy, and the costume must fit into one bag, and the kids must need no help getting dressed. It seems simple enough but sometimes it's more of a challenge for him to assemble the costume by himself.

Dan
 
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