Mass Effect Shepard N7 Armor

[smegheadsev]

Hey all! I've done a small amount of cosplay over the years but have never really taken on a serious project. I recently finished the Mass Effect series and still pretty stoked about it. I looked around online to see what all was out there and came across Freya William's project and decided to dive in head first and start my own build. I have a tendency to get half way through things before getting disheartened and giving up so I figured if I shared where I was with everything I could fight my way through to the end!



I'm going to base my build around the N7 armor Male Shepard wears during Mass Effect 3. Depending on how things go I may add some simple LED lights to the suit or build the good old Avenger rifle. I figure that's a ways away though but till then I'll post some pics as I go!

 

[smegheadsev]

Since I want to be sure this fits well and I have nice mobility I'm casting this armor to my body so I started off with a few body casts with help from some family members (I want to see you do a head cast by yourself).




And here's the mold together.


I was going to just do a plaster casting but I thought I would try making it out of fiberglass. I don't have any pictures right now but I'll post when I do. Once I get the mold I'll start using clay to make the N7 helmet. Just ordered my silicone today so it should be in by the time I'm satisfied with the model.

 

[smegheadsev]

While I was waiting on the helmet cast to dry I made a plaster mold of my hand. Got a little messy and actually broke 3 of the fingers when i was removing the cast from the mold. I added a little super glue to reattach the fingers and put a smooth coat of resin over the whole cast just to add some strength and smooth out the imperfections. You can definatly see the breaks in the pictures but overall it wasn't a horrible first attempt.



Once the resin dried I started my first attempt of the hand armor Shepard wears. I made it out of natural clay and in the morning it had hardened to a fragile piece. I only got one pic out of it before it shattered lol. Had to get some oil based clay so I would have a longer working time with it. I don't really like how soft it is because if I put any kind of pressure on the clay it deforms. Does anyone have a clay they would suggest that is closer to the natural clay's sturdiness with the long dry time of the oil clay?


This is where I'm at on the second build. Still pretty rough but since I made all the pieces this time I can see how they lay together. I don't think I'm going to use the clay for the mold though. I may router it out of wood once I have the dimensions I like. The centeral piece is definatly smaller than my first attempt and I'm not super happy with that so I'll end up adding some volume to that before I make the molds for the vacuum molder.

 

[smegheadsev]

Been a little bit and haven't made a ton of progress but i have my first mold done for the back of the hand armor which should fit both hands. I didn't want to use the good Rebound 25 so I just used 100% silicone caulking from Home Depot and minus a small void where I didn't spread the stuff very well it turned out really great!


I also decided to make a mold of my fingers so I could vacuum mold over them because I would like them to fit really well. I only have a picture of the negative on hand but all but one of the positive plaster casts turned out well. Haven't decided if I'm going to repair the one or just make a new one.


Since the hand molds are mostly done I've moved onto the forearms. The negative and the plaster positive both went smooth and look good. I'll post a picture as soon as I can with the finished clay model I'm working on right now. It's mostly there but isn't really smooth so I'll wait to post one of the model.


Unfortunately I can't use the same model for both arms so I'll have to repeat the process for my left one. That also means the perfectionist in me wont let me make the mold of the first one until I'm sure they are symmetrical as I can make them. Does anyone have any tips for making them as close as possible? I realize I'm only human but since I'm putting in the effort I want it to look good.

 

[Tarchinoko]

The first thing I always do when wanting symmetry is to make templates, I usually make them using masking tape so that it's pliable, you can then use that to check all your shapes are the same on both sides.

 

[smegheadsev]

Thanks for the tip. That's actually really simple and makes a lot of sense. I'm not going to do it with the forearms unless they don't look right just because I don't want to redo the right one if I don't have to but I'll definitely try it with some of the other pieces. I'm still working on smoothing out the forearm but I thought I'd add a few more pics since it looks closer to the final product. I still have to do the under arm but that's almost just a smooth piece.

 

[Alpha Proto]

I am not a fan of Mass Effect, but I am appreciating the effort put into this .
I am subscribing to see this through.

 

[dipti]

Mass effect is really great and its always attracts me to do better every time.

 

[YaelQuintin]

Wow.. awesome mass effects for shepard-n7-armor. i appreciate your effort. Thanks for the post.

 

[smegheadsev]

Thanks for the support guys! Means more than you know. Didn't do a ton tonight but started the mold of my left arm. Decided to pull the clay off the right cast to just check the fitting. It actually didn't stick to the arm casting at all and came off really smooth. I had to trim a little from the inside of the elbow so I could bend my arm so it's a good thing I gave it a fit. It's back on the cast now just waiting for it's twin to be crafted before I make the mold of both. Also ignore if I mix mold and cast. I have no idea what I'm talking about let alone what I'm doing!

 

[CLOTHAR]

Great start! It is cool to see you go the route of sculpting everything from scratch. Keep at it.

 

[smegheadsev]

Started on my left forearm so I could make sure they were close before making the silicone mold of them. I only did the top part of my right arm (haven't figured out how I'm going to get the bottom and have them lined up yet) but I did the whole of my left arm. The mold of my arm went really well and I'm getting the hang of when to use the plaster vs the gauze. There's a bit of a sweet spot of when it is no longer really runny but isn't getting chunky that works really well.




Didn't get a whole lot done since I made the cast because my wife and I had a race and I just took it easy for a few days afterwards. If anyone is in the St Louis area I would definitely recommend it. It's called The Battlegrounds in Wright City. Little slower than I would have liked but got 28th in my age bracket!



Away from the humble brag and back to the interesting stuff. Since I had to fill the whole mold rather than a half I had to take the pieces together and pour the plaster in from the top. I used some natural clay at the bottom to both hold the cast upright and to plug the end. The nice thing with the natural is it dries but just add a little water and it's good as new. It also seems to repel the Vaseline so it stays reusable until plaster shards start really working their way into it.



After it dried I pulled it out (had to break the hard shell) and got the arm! Needs a little sanding on the seam but I may leave it just for a reference as to where half way is. Since it's the whole arm I can also create the under area and get a feel for how the whole thing will fit! Don't have much going on the next few days so I'm hoping I can blitz my way through this part and move on to the upper arms (after the under part of the right arm).