FemShep N7 Armor, Valkyrie Rifle, + Omniblade (Mass Effect 3)

[Astrokid248]

Use EVA foam mats for bed. Cut up bed when necessary for costumes.

You joke, but EVA foam is hella comfortable. I'd just as soon use that instead of a real bed, with how bad spring beds hurt.

I dunno how many of you are willing to go to gun shows, but I've found that buying hides there is much cheaper than anywhere else. Although that would've deprived us of trashcan buttplates.

 

[Demonique]

I really like the look of the undersuit, I've been using a base layer suit I bought on eBay

 

[Freya Willia]

Although that would've deprived us of trashcan buttplates.

There was much rejoicing.

I'm taking a break from Shepard to try to squeeze in a photoshoot with Ocarina of Time Zelda. It rains a lot in the afternoons this time of year, but that is also when most of my photographer friends are available to help me... I want to get most of my costumes wrapped up with pictures taken before it starts averaging 100 degrees. The armor rig for this costume got about 50 adjustments and it's still somewhat floppy to wear, but as long as my shoulders are straight it will behave.



I'm super manic about the LEDs. As excited as I am to document this costume and check it off the list (started in 2010), I want to figure out the N7 rifle soon so I can sleep at night.

 

[ChelleB24]

I really like the technique you're doing with this armor.

I'm in the middle of researching ways of how to make my own N7 armor (steering away from the norm of doing the standard armor that has been done with Shepard's soldier armor and going to attempt the Serrice/Rosenkov armor for a biotic Shepard). I have been scrutinizing the pictures you have uploaded so far to figure out what the pieces are made out of. I know you posted that the breastplate was vac-formed from styrene, but the neck guard/pauldrons I can't make heads or tails of.

Building armor is one of the scariest approaches for me! Mainly because of the expense for more materials if the first few attempts go wrong.

 

[Freya Willia]

I really like the technique you're doing with this armor.

I'm in the middle of researching ways of how to make my own N7 armor (steering away from the norm of doing the standard armor that has been done with Shepard's soldier armor and going to attempt the Serrice/Rosenkov armor for a biotic Shepard). I have been scrutinizing the pictures you have uploaded so far to figure out what the pieces are made out of. I know you posted that the breastplate was vac-formed from styrene, but the neck guard/pauldrons I can't make heads or tails of.

Building armor is one of the scariest approaches for me! Mainly because of the expense for more materials if the first few attempts go wrong.

All of the costume parts except the upper thigh area are vac-formed styrene. The neck guard has some 3mm EVA foam under the styrene in a few places to make the styrene pop out more, like here. There are some strips I took from foam floor mats to adhere and stabilize the top part of the collar.

Also, if people aren't aware, I made a thread in the showcase forum for my photoshoot with Ocarina of Time Zelda. <--- GO SEE IT, that took me a long time to make, and I use completely different materials than this costume.

Now I'm back to work on space armor. Coming up soon will be a test-fit with the abdominal plates completely attached, and most of the belt area rigged.

 

[ChelleB24]

Ok. Based on the thickness of both, I thought you made them out of a thicker material

Definitely going to try making the biotic armor once my budget allowit and I can figure out how to make the template for the armor.

 

[Freya Willia]

I thought I'd just vent for a minute.

Made some templates for these in illustrator, because I planned on laser cutting them. Well, Techshop closes - no more laser cutter - and they aren't super difficult, so I decide to cut them out of styrene by hand. I print off a couple of sizes on paper and hold one up to my back that, for whatever reason, appeared to fit.



Then, after cutting them out and painting them, I realize - they do not fit.



There are supposed to be 6, and that torso is much, much longer than mine. About three of those would fit between the top of the pants and the back panel of the armor on me. I don't know if I grabbed the wrong print out to start working from, or what, but that is a huge, unbelieveable scale divergence from what I thought it would look like. I even put the paper-cut templates I used for the styrene ones on the mannequin's back and it seemed to work.

I appreciate the offers to help me with laser cutting, might take some people up on it in the future, but for things like this, it really is faster just to cut them out by hand once you factor in telling someone else how to do the work, and shipping the pieces back to me. Having my own access to a laser cutter made it simple and convenient to have a machine take the work off my fingers, but mostly that will have to be intricate things I could never cut on my own from now on.

That said, these are getting laser cut now, because I'm not doing that s*** again. There are just enough small curves and turns to make that process really tedious.

 

[metal wood]

nice styrene work, still loving this build! keep it up

 

[Saavik256]

Amazing work, that's all I can say!

 

[Nessy]

Wow, even your mistakes look amazing. What are you using for the strapping? Looks almost like seat belt straps, but I am guessing that is is actually some sort of wide elastic.

 

[Freya Willia]

Wow, even your mistakes look amazing. What are you using for the strapping? Looks almost like seat belt straps, but I am guessing that is is actually some sort of wide elastic.

My fabric store sells a variety of elastic bands by the yard. That's what I've used for the trim and various underarmor parts. I've browsed thrift stores and outdoor gear shops for interesting buckles and things for this costume, but mostly it's just looking, because it's either not what I need or too stupidly expensive.

Finishing up some parts to get ready for installing electronic stuff. I still don't know whether I'm using LEDs or EL wire for this, but I'm ordering a couple of things just to see if I like any of it.



The thing in the center is a lid from a magnetic storage tin. I heat formed the styrene, cut the hole out, and positioned a few pieces of acrylic under it - unimpressed with my layering attempt - when I looked up at my pegboard and noticed the lid was the perfect size.

 

[Nessy]

I like it, and the metal should have the added bonus of reflecting the light nicely.

 

[Freya Willia]

I like it, and the metal should have the added bonus of reflecting the light nicely.

I thought so, too

I am patiently (not) waiting for my electronic kit supplies to come in. I tried using my own heat tool to solder some wires together for practicing purposes, and I just ended up with blobs of solder on my cutting mat. For the record, I've watched youtube videos and tips on how to do it properly, but I don't think I had legit solder or the right temperature for that job. I suck too, that doesn't help make it legit either.

I don't have anything to show yet, but one thing I've tried is using magnetic-sew in snaps (the kind found in purses) for positioning stuff temporarily. AMAZING, MUCH BETTER THAN DUCT TAPE.

Also re-did an entire part of the costume, literally almost from scratch! I'm sparing everyone pictures of that because it just looked so upsetting and sad. I glued things down so well I literally had to burn off and scrap the useless ends. You'll have to guess which part it was next time I show the full suit! Trust me though, I had a very good reason.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Get some neodymium magnets. You can get sets with several sizes. They hold things in place pretty well.

I just redid a major part of a project I'm working on too. They sit there and taunt you "This isn't 100% accurate..." until you have to fix it. :lol

 

[TheBrickWall]

Ok so I just made this account just to say this but
Your Femshep armor is AMAZING! It looks so legit and I just spent the last 2 hours reading everything in this thread!
I am (as my first cosplay or a convention) doing a femshep cosplay ad was looking for ways to do it seeing I have one year to make it. Your painting technics are so helpful and I hope it's ok that I am using some of your pictures as reference. Thanks again and keep up the good work!
~Skyyler

 

[Freya Willia]

Get some neodymium magnets. You can get sets with several sizes. They hold things in place pretty well.

I just redid a major part of a project I'm working on too. They sit there and taunt you "This isn't 100% accurate..." until you have to fix it. :lol

I ended up sacrificing a bit of accuracy for comfort, sigh. It doesn't look that much different though.

Ok so I just made this account just to say this but
Your Femshep armor is AMAZING! It looks so legit and I just spent the last 2 hours reading everything in this thread!
I am (as my first cosplay or a convention) doing a femshep cosplay ad was looking for ways to do it seeing I have one year to make it. Your painting technics are so helpful and I hope it's ok that I am using some of your pictures as reference. Thanks again and keep up the good work!
~Skyyler

Of course, that's why I post them. :thumbsup

I have a rather exciting dilemma, which I probably wont even refer to as a decision anymore because I kind of made up my mind.

I ordered some more auto-vinyl (BECAUSE I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF SHINY STICKERS), and planned to use this brushed-metal stuff on a few of the brighter metal accents on the suit (like the spine templates and gloves). One foot of it is like 4' wide, though, so I have a ton extra.



I was pretty happy with how it looked after a bit of weathering. Right off the roll its a little brighter than I wanted for the suit...

...but since I had extra, I began to wonder what it would look like on the rifle.



I just slapped it on there. This stuff is much more flexible than the carbon-fiber kind I used earlier. So excuse the shabby trim work, this was a test.



This is on the side where the resin-skin texture is not finished, and I haven't painted a whole lot of the stock piece. It has just one rolled coat of silver paint so if I ended up not liking it, there wasn't a huge loss of glaze painting that I began on the other side of the grip. Have to say I really like the way the brushed metal vinyl looks when it is weathered. Didn't spend a long time dirtying it up and it already looks like it belongs there (at least in my opinion). It takes glazes very well, and looks awesome from different angles. You could get something very close to this by using paint and steel wool or a coarse brush, but the nice thing about this is that the gloss/sheen is exactly as reflective as brushed metal. That's tricky to get, when you work subtractively.



The stock piece will be the first section I try to do next, because the curves on that half of the rifle will determine if this vinyl actually works as a believable surface.

Just looking at this part done though makes it look a lot heavier than it actually feels in my hand, which is definitely a quality I like.

Thoughts? Feel free to disagree with me. Most of the screen shot references you will see of this don't exactly have enough detail to determine if the main body sections are brushed metal, but since it has that bright aluminum appearance in contrast with the black, I think it's a safe design choice in terms of accuracy. (But I've said before, because I'm working from video game stuff, real-life details are more important to me than faithfullness to a render).

My soldering stuff came in the mail today, so I now can finally attempt to do some LED wiring for this thing.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I like it, go for it!

 

[Freya Willia]

Had one of those days when I started at 10 AM and suddenly its 6:45 PM. It was a productive day but somehow I feel ripped off?

Wrapped vinyl around the rifle. Thats it. I didn't have the patience to really tidy up the edges yet, but I think getting out my hot knife will make that go a lot faster.



I tried to hide the seams as best I could. Weathering will obscure them further I hope. Sometimes I had a choice about where to put the seams, and sometimes I did not have a choice if I wanted it to wrap around some part of it but remain parallel with the strokes on the other side.

 

[electraflier]

Awesome work as always!!! Maybe I missed it, but what kind of vinyl is that as far as brand and where you bought it from?
It is self adhesive I take it?
Thanks!! I am thinking that this material would be great for my War Machine mini gun and arm guns as well as the parts that are silver/ metal like the thigh plates! This material would look great!
I appreciate your help! I really look forward to your posts!
M

 

[Freya Willia]

Awesome work as always!!! Maybe I missed it, but what kind of vinyl is that as far as brand and where you bought it from?
It is self adhesive I take it?
Thanks!! I am thinking that this material would be great for my War Machine mini gun and arm guns as well as the parts that are silver/ metal like the thigh plates!
M

I agree, I think it would look REALLY good on that suit because it's a bright silver, and the war-machine suit has that white/black kind of contrast (your suit is really coming along BTW!). I wondered why I haven't seen more people use vinyl on their IM builds and other things around here. Yeah, it's more tedious than paint, but for small areas like you're talking about it's perfect. It has adhesive on the back, and the Scotchprint 3M that I used on the rifle is SO easy to apply, you rarely even need a heat gun. When I use a file/sandpaper to scratch and weather the surface, it is extremely durable and doesn't peel or rip.

I would NOT cover Volpin's rifle with anything crappy - I asked him what he thought about essentially putting a sticker over his gun, and he said "Looks good so far. I've never seen someone change their mind on a project as often as you." (Dude, I'm a woman).

I've gotten everything so far from Top Vinyl Films, but this site One Stop Vinyl also has some nice looking matte stuff and a slightly wider variety of gray/metal tones to choose from (I've never ordered anything from there yet). Don't look at the prices, you will scream like a goat - click on the product you'll see you can order it by the ft.

And, boots are back! Almost a year later. That gave me plenty of time to find some shoes on sale that kind of already resembled space-footwear.