Aeon
Well-Known Member
Hey guys! I know I bugged a few of you on making molds and such... so I finally decided to unveil what I was working on. 
Before the accuracy purists nit-pick, I would just like to mention that this project was started earlier this month and it's been about 3 weeks of work. I had to cut back on certain detailing to try and make this armor possible by Halloween. Unfortunately, due to midterm week at school, I won't be able to finish this armor on time.
As for construction details... I spent about 2 weeks working out sizing and prototyping the overall shape and dimensions of the armor using reference photos from other fan made armor and resized images of the video game stills. I prototyped using regular corrugated cardboard and then transposed them onto tracing paper to create stencils for my molds. My intent was to vacuum form the armor from .060 and .080 styrene.
I decided to build the molds from mat boarding (inspired by Chris Bryan's armor on the Bungie and Mjolnir Armor sites) and fill it with expanding foam. Originally, the intent was to fill the molds with Smooth On Foam-It 3, but due to lack of funds and a rush to make the Halloween date, I tried to substitute it for Great Stuff insulation/sealant foam. I then decided against it thanks to the advice of our fellow RPF members here, so I am opting to fill it up with TAP's X-30 expanding foam. The Smooth On foam worked terrific on test pulls I did for past projects so I know it should work great for the bucks I'm making. I also plan on taking the first few vac pulls of this armor and creating Hydrocal molds from them so I have something more durable to keep.
Here are a few photos of the chest mold I created so far. I still plan on detailing the piece a little more before finalizing it and filling it up with expanding foam. I will have more photos of the other pieces later on into the week. Hope you guys enjoy!
Before the accuracy purists nit-pick, I would just like to mention that this project was started earlier this month and it's been about 3 weeks of work. I had to cut back on certain detailing to try and make this armor possible by Halloween. Unfortunately, due to midterm week at school, I won't be able to finish this armor on time.
As for construction details... I spent about 2 weeks working out sizing and prototyping the overall shape and dimensions of the armor using reference photos from other fan made armor and resized images of the video game stills. I prototyped using regular corrugated cardboard and then transposed them onto tracing paper to create stencils for my molds. My intent was to vacuum form the armor from .060 and .080 styrene.
I decided to build the molds from mat boarding (inspired by Chris Bryan's armor on the Bungie and Mjolnir Armor sites) and fill it with expanding foam. Originally, the intent was to fill the molds with Smooth On Foam-It 3, but due to lack of funds and a rush to make the Halloween date, I tried to substitute it for Great Stuff insulation/sealant foam. I then decided against it thanks to the advice of our fellow RPF members here, so I am opting to fill it up with TAP's X-30 expanding foam. The Smooth On foam worked terrific on test pulls I did for past projects so I know it should work great for the bucks I'm making. I also plan on taking the first few vac pulls of this armor and creating Hydrocal molds from them so I have something more durable to keep.
Here are a few photos of the chest mold I created so far. I still plan on detailing the piece a little more before finalizing it and filling it up with expanding foam. I will have more photos of the other pieces later on into the week. Hope you guys enjoy!
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