HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread (helmet rebuild begins on p.19)

[BRRogers]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

I'm REALLY appreciating how you're taking all of the modular pieces (IE: upper arm, diaper, and upper torso), and are keeping them MODULAR.
Most other builds I've seen, using pep or sculpted, tend to go with solid construction, which to my mind, doesn't make sense realistically, and I don't think the game designers inteded for it to be that way anyway.

Bravo to you sir. You are doing it the way I have wanted to see it done

Just out of curiosity, what are your plans for an undersuit?

 

[ROBOSTEVE 0671]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

Great work! Looking forward to the final version on this, I know I'd be up for one for sure!

 

[Risu]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

Dang, this is looking great. The bathroom issue is quite important to me as well. I'm currently working on a suit that will not only have to come almost COMPLETELY off to use the bathroom, but will be in enough pieces once it's off to fill a handicap stall. Comic con is gonna be an adventure.

 

[thorssoli]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

...I may have missed it, are you attaching the rest of the details seperatly on the top-front section of the forearms? I noticed it's missing some details

Good eye. The section you're talking about will actually be a separate casting. The plan is to have that portion be removable so that you can fit a hand through the wrist hole and then close it up with the details in place.

Just out of curiosity, what are your plans for an undersuit?

My plan is to cast the more noticeable details in urethane rubber and adhere them to a lycra bodysuit or some modified underarmor. I'll be starting on those details in the coming week.

It's been a busy couple of days, so I'm overdue for an update. For starters, I've made all of the molds of the diaper parts (minus the hip boxes) and the arm parts. Here's some shots of the molds in progress:

Here's a bunch of castings out of the new molds:

With those parts shaping up, I pulled out my larger size torso armor and had a buddy (who will be Grif) try it on:

Now I just need to do a lot more fairing and detailing and it will be ready to mold as well. I also have to get back to work on the leg parts:

Fortunately, at least I know the thighs will fit:

More to come, stay tuned...

 

[tubachris85x]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

Looking great! Is that your "XL" size chest piece? That helmet looks HUUUUUGE on him lol

 

[thorssoli]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

Looking great! Is that your "XL" size chest piece? That helmet looks HUUUUUGE on him lol

This isn't my "XL" so much as my "L" size chest. The first one was the "M" that I built to fit me.

The helmet looks huge on him because it's not padded at all on the inside, so his head is all the way against the back of the bucket. With the stuffing in place it would set higher and further back on his head. In all of the pics which show me wearing the same helmet from the same mold, I usually stick a piece of upholstery foam in the helmet first to keep it steady on my head.

 

[tubachris85x]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

This isn't my "XL" so much as my "L" size chest. The first one was the "M" that I built to fit me.

The helmet looks huge on him because it's not padded at all on the inside, so his head is all the way against the back of the bucket. With the stuffing in place it would set higher and further back on his head. In all of the pics which show me wearing the same helmet from the same mold, I usually stick a piece of upholstery foam in the helmet first to keep it steady on my head.

Oh ok. One of the things that I see alot of the Halo costumers do, is make their armor oversized, and it looks "off." It's not too bad, but extremely noticable IMO. Thats the one thing about doing an MC, is although he's a big guy, the armor should be pretty form fitting, I guess "tight" to the body, so it should be smaller than I guess what most people would think. That's just me I guess. I'm just anal about details :lol

I won't even start a masterchief until I get out of basic lol

Good job!

 

[Aquaman]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

amazing work buddy! Alwasy thought this was a great costume but u are totally rocking it! Keep it up!

Will u be seeling this as well?

 

[CadetTK2386]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

This is shaping up to be the single greatest pepakura based set of Halo armor I have ever seen!

 

[thorssoli]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

amazing work buddy! Alwasy thought this was a great costume but u are totally rocking it! Keep it up!

Will u be seeling this as well?

I've got a Junkyard thread going with my items for sale. I'll be adding these parts to the offerings once I've got some successful pulls from the molds.

I ran out of casting resin yesterday, so all I got done today was the prototypes for the belt boxes. They'll be ready to go under the rubber tomorrow.

More casting resin arrives tomorrow. Stay tuned...

 

[thorssoli]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

I've kinda been skimping on pictures lately, so here's an attempt to make up for it...

First up, here's all of the pieces and parts of the pelvic armor(only one of the two belt boxes is in the pic. Oops.):

The parts are designed to be adjustable so as to fit a wide variety of sizes. This is why there are two sets of rivet details on the ends of the belt pieces. That way I can either cut off or fill in whichever ones I don't need.

I went ahead and strapped one set together and tried it on:

The whole thing is surprisingly wearable. I actually left it on while I was tinkering on a few other things in the workshop just to make sure it wasn't going to fall off or anything. It worked out pretty well and didn't start getting out of whack at any point. Sitting isn't a huge problem (as long as I don't sit far enough back to crunch the codpiece into my belly) and it doesn't get in the way of walking or kneeling.

Here's the little buckles installed on either side of the buttplate:

These are separate castings in a more flexible urethane rubber.

This is the strapping arrangement I came up with to hold it all together (the white dots are pop rivets):

Not shown are the parachute buckles at either end of the front and back pieces. It works well enough, but I'm thinking I'll go ahead and rig up the next set so there's only one buckle in the front and a smaller gap between the front and back pieces of the belt. The belt boxes cover the gap, but there was a lot of play in the area.

In addition to trying on my armored diaper, I got a bit of work done on the gauntlet molds. Here's the silicon jacket once it cured:

Here's the clay parting line built up around it:

Here's the mad scientist (me) with some goop on his gloves:

And the mother mold being built over the jacket:

I should have the mothermold done today and then I'll be able to pull a few gauntlet castings. Stay tuned for that...

In other news, I've got the early stages of the undersuit started:

This piece will be one of eight separate rubber parts that will be cast and then adhered to the fabric undersuit. More on that as it develops.

Side note: I've been dumping my fresh castings into a big tub full of water and detergent to get the oily film off and make paint stick easier. Along the way I've discovered that over half of the pieces float!

I realize it's probably a Darwin Award waiting to happen, but I'm thinking it'd be really funny to go swimming in this outfit.

Back to the shop now. Comments/criticisms welcome.

 

[tubachris85x]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

don't want to sound weird, but that's a really accurate and nice cod piece!

 

[Madmartigan]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

I realize it's probably a Darwin Award waiting to happen, but I'm thinking it'd be really funny to go swimming in this outfit.

But, hey -- the 15 minutes of fame might be worth it! Just put in your will that you also want to be buried in the suit once you dry out. :lol

 

[dom]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

I realize it's probably a Darwin Award waiting to happen, but I'm thinking it'd be really funny to go swimming in this outfit.

First, great work. I love seeing your progress threads here & over at the 405th. Second, your comment above sounds like an excellent mod. Where can we hide an air tank in all this armor... will a SCUBA regulator fit inside the helmet?

 

[thorssoli]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

...your comment above sounds like an excellent mod. Where can we hide an air tank in all this armor... will a SCUBA regulator fit inside the helmet?

There's plenty of room for a regulator, I'll just have to add a chinstrap to make sure my helmet doesn't fill up with bubbles and float off. The chest armor I've made up is pretty form-fitting all the way around, so I won't be able to hide a tank inside. Even one of those little "spare air" canisters would be a bit too big. I'm thinking I'd just have to strap a short skinny tank to the back and make sure I shoot the video so that the tank is on the side facing away from the camera.

I've been neglecting the forums for a couple of days again, but here's a small glimpse of what I've been up to over the weekend.
Here's the first set of castings out of my gauntlet molds:

I made the detailed section on top of the wrist as a separate casting. The idea is that it can be pulled off in order to fit your hand through the wrist hole. I need to add some padding to the inside to keep everything in place, but so far it works out pretty well.
Here's a shot showing some of the other details:

I had set myself up with a pretty ambitious to-do list for Saturday and Sunday. The top of the list was cleaning the shop and packing all of the items folks have purchased for shipment Monday. After that, I was planning on having the prototypes done for the undersuit parts and the calf armor. The undersuit prototypes are about halfway done and here's a shot of the calf armor at the end of the day Saturday:

Then at the end of the day Sunday:

I had some black primer on hand and couldn't resist the urge to spray on a quick coat to get an idea of how I was doing. I still need to do a lot of filling and fairing, then there's a few small details to add in (such as the holes on the sides of the kneecap) and then I just have to paint it pink and prep it for molding.
I've been procrastinating on working on the thigh armor, but the whole thing still looks like I might have it done in time for HALOween. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
As always, comments and criticisms welcome.

 

[MisriahArmory]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

Looks great as always Thor, keep it up!

I love your idea for the gauntlets/forarms by the way! How is the detail piece held with the main piece? Velcro?

 

[thorssoli]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

Looks great as always Thor, keep it up!

I love your idea for the gauntlets/forarms by the way! How is the detail piece held with the main piece? Velcro?

Gauntlet armor always worries me. Getting it to fit almost always means a wrist hole that's too small for your hands. When I was making my stormtrooper armor I used velcro to hold the two halves together, but it wasn't very secure. For my Predator and Fett builds I used piano hinges on each side and just pulled the pin out of one side to get them on and off.

Since there's no obvious seam that I could cut along to make these gauntlets clamshell, the hinge trick wouldn't work. I spent a lot of time staring at the pepakura model of these gauntlets before I decided to just hack out this piece and make it a separate casting.

I was planning on making it snug enough for friction to hold it in place. This works fine at the wrist end, but the other end is a bit loose and they tend to droop back into the gauntlet. That said, the detail section has a lip around its edge to keep it from falling out. All I need to do to keep it in place is add a piece of foam to the backside so my arm will push it up into place and hold it snug.

Once I had the first set out of the mold and cleaned up, I wore them around the shop for quite a while. They were a bit tight at the wrist end, but otherwise they're pretty comfortable.

 

[MisriahArmory]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

But could your trick with the hinges work with other pieces, let's say the thighs?

 

[thorssoli]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

But could your trick with the hinges work with other pieces, let's say the thighs?

The thing about thigh armor is that a hole big enough for your thigh is big enough for your foot. So there's no reason to make them clamshell open like that. I'm planning on making the black part on the inside of the thighs as a separate casting (probably in rubber so they don't rattle against each other and to make it easier to walk and drive), so there will be some room for adjustments there.

The calves don't have any particularly good straight lines where the piano hinges could be used, so I'm making them just big enough to squeeze my feet through with socks on. I'm also toying with the idea of making them integral to the boots, so the whole thing will go on at once like a pair of knee-high, slip-on boots. More on that as I figure it out.

 

[Megatron]

Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread

Gauntlet armor always worries me. Getting it to fit almost always means a wrist hole that's too small for your hands. When I was making my stormtrooper armor I used velcro to hold the two halves together, but it wasn't very secure. For my Predator and Fett builds I used piano hinges on each side and just pulled the pin out of one side to get them on and off.

Since there's no obvious seam that I could cut along to make these gauntlets clamshell, the hinge trick wouldn't work. I spent a lot of time staring at the pepakura model of these gauntlets before I decided to just hack out this piece and make it a separate casting.

I was planning on making it snug enough for friction to hold it in place. This works fine at the wrist end, but the other end is a bit loose and they tend to droop back into the gauntlet. That said, the detail section has a lip around its edge to keep it from falling out. All I need to do to keep it in place is add a piece of foam to the backside so my arm will push it up into place and hold it snug.

Once I had the first set out of the mold and cleaned up, I wore them around the shop for quite a while. They were a bit tight at the wrist end, but otherwise they're pretty comfortable.

magnets work well