Coalition Deadboy Armor -WIP-

[Brien]

Been trying to come up with something to try the EVA foam armor method. Thought about doing a "realistic" Buzz Lightyear but instead thought I would try the Coalition Deadboy armor from the old Rifts game.

I am not sure how I am going to tackle the helmet so I will just worry about the armor for now.

To begin, I asked my wife something all women long to hear. Can you wrap me in duct tape? I used the tape/t-shirt to create the template for the basic chest piece. I used only one side of the front and back so the left and right would be symmetrical. Finally, I cut the pieces from some mats purchased at Harbor Freight.

Tomorrow, with luck, I will have a basic chest piece and a start on the templates for the chest designs. The goal is to have at least the armor for Halloween. The helmet will have to wait.

 

[hellome]

Hey man excited to see this build! I have custom armor I want to make that is very close to this and have no idea how to make it. So this will be very interesting! Subscribed.

 

[Brien]

Not nearly as far along as I wanted, 4 year olds are so very needy and unable to use a hot glue gun, but I have made some progress.

Looking for some good shots of the back but I am thinking I might have to improvise.

 

[SonOfPumpkinhead]

This is looking awesome! I officially want to play with this EVA foam now...

 

[dropshipbob]

This is getting ahead of where you are now, but for the helmet you could try using a Halloween mask of a skull. From the illustration you showed, it looks like it has a dome on the top. You could get one of those large easter eggs they sell at that time and maybe cut it down to the size/shape you need.

Just throwing that out there for future reference.

(for excellent skull masks, check out deathstudios.com, they are a bit expensive, but they are high quality and VERY sturdy.)

 

[Nightfall]

Oh lord...I've always wanted to do a dead-boy. I might have to use this as motivation to finally build my own.

 

[Brien]

I had not though of using the mask, but that is an excellent idea. I am thinking of using lighting globes for some of the helmet. You can get them in a smoke that will act as tint in the final helmet.

 

[Brien]

Haven't got as much as I would like done on this yet as my wife insisted I spend a week in a campground with her family. I am nearly done with the chest piece though, just some filling and some strapping. Then I will plasti-dip the whole thing and do some paint. Pretty easy...black and white.

For the Shoulders I went with the traditional design from the Rifts game. The ones on the source photo above look like football pads to me. Most everything else will be based on the above photo.

I put some velcro on the side panels to allow me to actually put the armor on.

Front:

Back:

My question not is whether to strap the shoulder bits or glue them down to help maintain the shape. I will be strapping the mini shoulder bells that will go under the shoulders.

 

[hellome]

How do you plan to maake the abs?

 

[Brien]

Not sure on that. I am thinking of attaching them to the undersuit with some space between the segments. That should allow for some flexibility.

 

[Hamsterstyle]

RIFTS ftw!

Next do a full size Glitterboy!

 

[Wooly]

The illustration posted isn't actually dead boy armor.

It is a re-imaging by an artist named Arne Niklas Jansson (Android Arts). He is not in any way affiliated with Palladium Books.

Here is an actual image from Rifts World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign pg. 101.




To my knowledge there is only one person that has made a complete set of Dead boy armor in any variation. It was the original CA-1 Armor but it wasn't really up to snuff. It was worn at the 2007 Palladium Books Open House. I don't think the builder had any costuming experience.



and the original illustration




There is also a guy on YouTube who did an awesome clay sculpt of the Special Forces CA-7
Heavy "Dead Boy" Armor helmet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGMgZ7zgftI

For those of who are interested the Rifts RPG property license has been optioned and renewed by Walt Disney Pictures since 2004. Don't know if a movie will ever get made but we can hope. The last news on this is stale, from 2009 in fact. That writer Rawson Marshall Thurbers (who also wrote the comedy Dodgeball) screen play was well received by the folks at Disney.

 

[BoozeBeGood]

Great progress on this! I really like it

 

[Wooly]

RIFTS ftw!

Next do a full size Glitterboy!

That would be wild considering a Giltterboy armor is like 10 ft tall.

 

[Brien]

The illustration posted isn't actually dead boy armor.

It is a re-imaging by an artist named Arne Niklas Jansson (Android Arts). He is not in any way affiliated with Palladium Books.

Here is an actual image from Rifts World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign pg. 101.




To my knowledge there is only one person that has made a complete set of Dead boy armor in any variation. It was the original CA-1 Armor but it wasn't really up to snuff. It was worn at the 2007 Palladium Books Open House. I don't think the builder had any costuming experience.



and the original illustration




There is also a guy on YouTube who did an awesome clay sculpt of the Special Forces CA-7
Heavy "Dead Boy" Armor helmet.

Rifts coalition special forces dead boy armor helmet - YouTube

For those of who are interested the Rifts RPG property license has been optioned and renewed by Walt Disney Pictures since 2004. Don't know if a movie will ever get made but we can hope. The last news on this is stale, from 2009 in fact. That writer Rawson Marshall Thurbers (who also wrote the comedy Dodgeball) screen play was well received by the folks at Disney.

I will clarify...

I am basing my deadboy armor on the re-imagining in the illustration I posted, though I am probably using bits from each. I prefer the Helmet from the game as it lacks the teeth in the re-imagining.

I have seen the other Dead Boy, I was not impressed with it.

 

[ChosenPredator]

Been trying to come up with something to try the EVA foam armor method. Thought about doing a "realistic" Buzz Lightyear but instead thought I would try the Coalition Deadboy armor from the old Rifts game.



I am not sure how I am going to tackle the helmet so I will just worry about the armor for now.

To begin, I asked my wife something all women long to hear. Can you wrap me in duct tape? I used the tape/t-shirt to create the template for the basic chest piece. I used only one side of the front and back so the left and right would be symmetrical. Finally, I cut the pieces from some mats purchased at Harbor Freight.

Tomorrow, with luck, I will have a basic chest piece and a start on the templates for the chest designs. The goal is to have at least the armor for Halloween. The helmet will have to wait.

how did that get to this?

trying to custom design my own armor and use eva foam but im interested on understanding how you conntected everything to get that form?

 

[Brien]

I had my wife duct tape my chest over an old T-Shirt. Once I was in there she drew lines marking the seams on the sides and shoulders, along with some hash marks to guide putting the shirt back together, and cut everything off of me. I only made a template for one side and reversed it to make sure I had symmetry to the finished chest piece. After that it was just a case of using sheets of poster board and paper to develop the templates for the phone. Mostly I would draw directly on the foam to get an idea how I wanted it to look and created the templates off that.

Going to Columbus for a couple days, I hope to finish the chest and seal it when I get back. Then it's the arms. Not looking forward to that stuff.

B

 

[Brien]

SO I was browsing ebay to find a skull mask to adapt to a helmet when I came across one of these. Skull paintball masks, either full face or half. Should make the helmet a lot easier.

 

[Brien]

Quick question. How many layers of the spray Plastidip do you guys typically use to get a good base for painting?

 

[hellome]

2 or 3. I have tested it. I use around 3.