AND DONE! (mostly) Sorry about the lack of progress updates,.. things got really crazy the last few weeks before Dragon Con. Most all of the progress photos I took are available on my Facebook page,.. if your into that "how to" sort of thing,.. but probably not many of those types on here huh?
Here is some basic info on the costume. When time allows I will do a full detailed writeup. Check out my "Project Didact" image album on facebook for most of the WIP build photos and more info on the process.
First off I want to thank Kolby Jukes and 343 industries ( Halo 4) who graciously provided me with the much needed reference materials to model this build from. Without their assistance it would not have turned out nearly as detailed or accurate.
The entire suit was Sculpted in Chavant NSP Medium Clay, Molded in Rebound 25 Silicone (Smooth-On) and cast in SmoothCast 300 (Smooth-On). The Hands and some soft parts of the under-suit were cast in Flex-Foam-It III (Smooth-On)
The Paint job was a little rushed due to time constraints and consisted mostly of Rust-Oleum Black and Polished Nickle Rattle cans. Detailing and tinting was done with Createx Airbrush Paints. (Createx Colors)
Materials cost for this build is in the $5 to $6 K USD range so far. (not completely done with this project yet. Still more to add and improve. When finished I'll do a more detailed expense breakdown)
Time to create, about 4 months,.. with a lot of procrastinating and video game playing in the early months,.. until things got real about 3 weeks out from Dragon Con. Final 3 crunch weeks consisted of non stop work with about 3 hours of sleep a day. (at most)
The scale is about 1:2 actual size. I considered doing a 1:1 scale but with the Didact being over 12 foot tall I decided that comfort and mobility was more important to me then being 100% accurate on size.
The Lighting and Electronics were all purchased from Super Bright LEDs I used 2 types of spooled LED's in the suit. The Helmet has a slightly lower output than the ones in the body to help with vision. Helmet LED's are yellow tinted and waterproof. (colored to cast the proper glow from under the chin area and waterproof to keep sweat from shorting them out) The body uses the highest Lumen LED's they carry and are Natural White. (the armor parts themselves were cast in tinted yellow SmoothCast 300 to give the proper color glow) In total the suit has about 650 LED's, powered by 16 AA batteries total. (2 - 12v battery packs mounted in the back of the suit) For the dimming and strobe lighting effects I used simple, off the shelf, in line controllers also from Super Bright LED's. (.com)
Total weight of the suit is under 50 lbs.
In several of the Photos I'm holding a totally bad-ass Needler Prop Weapon. This was created by my friend Harrison Krix at Volpin Props. Harrison does amazing work so be sure to check out his page for more really cool stuff.
More photos/video on my Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Evil-FX-Props-Armor/305941566119243
