Re: HALO Master Chief Costume Progress Thread
Just a thought for the visor while driving around earlier..do you prefer the look of the details being attached seperatly? I was thinking that it might be easier to vac-form the visor buck witht the details already attached. Think that would save on plastic and will look even sharper IMHO
That's basically my next plan, I just need a bigger oven and then I need to upgrade my vacforming rig. In the meantime, I'm stuck with what I've got. I think it looks okay, but there's definitely room for improvement:
UPDATE: I'VE GOT GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS
Good news: I've made a few castings of my kid-sized helmet. Here's the first one I started painting up:
In other good news, I decided on a color and started the paintjob on the rest of the armor:
The plan is to probably ebay the suit after I've gotten a bit of use out of it, so I decided to make a battle-scarred version of the standard green paintjob worn by the Master Chief in the game. To that end, I start with a black primer and then put on a solid metallic coat (DupliColor Chrome if it matters):
Then I use mustard to mask off all of the areas where I want to have scratches showing bare metal, spray the entire thing with Rustoleum "Army Green" gloss spraypaint, then dust it heavily with Krylon Camoflage Ultra-Flat something or other. It's the dark green from that color line-up. Once that starts to stiffen up, I go over the whole thing with a rag, wiping off all of the mustard masked portions to show the bare metal color underneath:
I think the effect is pretty good:
It does still need a bit more wear and grit, but that's later.
I still need to finish the prototypes for the thigh armor. They're still at the 75% point right now:
With a little bit more smoothing and the addition of some detail, I'll be ready to mold them up. I ran out of moldmaking rubber the other day and the new shipment arrives Wednesday. In order to make sure I'd have something to brandish threateningly, I also went ahead and ordered a new and improved, lightweight Assault Rifle cast which will arrive Wednesday. All of this is good news.
Now for the bad news. For those of you who don't know, my day job has me sailing as the Second Mate (ship's navigator) aboard big commercial cargo ships. After three months of stopping by the union hall to see if a ship has come in that needs someone with my qualifications, it wasn't until yesterday that I finally picked up a gig. I will be leaving for 70 days, circling the North Pacific on a containership, starting Friday.
I
will be completing this project as soon as I get back. I'll be coming home to gallons and gallons of casting resin and silicone and a whole pile of lessons learned for how to do things. At that point you can count on all sorts of pictures and even video updates.