It was a custom suit made by Global Effects. I LOVE this suit and plan to make one some day. I bought a box of the helmet parts from Global Effects at their auction last year.
I'm not sure who at Global you emailed, but yes, these were designed by myself, Erica Phillips, the costume designer and drawn by Patrick Tatopoulos.
Both designs are thermoformed. The gray ones are made of thin (.040") white styrene, then painted gray. This was used to get the most detail on the frame of the helmet. The blue ones where formed out of .060" blue Kydex. Any or all reference images we have are on the web. As for size, I'll try to remember to get a tape measure on one this week and post basic dimensions. But it should be pretty straight forward scaling it to your head, this will be as close as anything else.
@lmgill beautiful work. I remember falling love with the design when I saw Outbreak in the theater. So sleek.
About 200 times....Given the recent, uh, developments - has anyone tackled this suit?
The suits from Outbreak would work as real suits (The blue one would need minor modifications), the blue ones were sealed and both had positive pressure air supplies. In fact, in the first few months after the film came out, we received about a call a week from labs around the globe, asking if these were real suits, and where could they buy them.Studying some tailoring and using personal protecting equipment over the years makes me really consider making one of those for Halloween. I mean, it is not an actual suit and it doesn't have to be (real suits are so HOT to wear, literally...), it is a costume, all you need is basically to tailor a jumpsuit, make a belt, make the helmet (out of a face shield maybe? ) and then make the powered filtration unit prop. Gloves and boots can be purchased from the hardware store and the helmet harness can be scavaged from a face shield or a hard-hat and modified if necessary.
But, what fabric should one use? It should not look like a normal fabric, it should look kinda plasticky. Raincoats maybe? Or tent fabric?
And what about ventilation and breathing? Did they use actual powered respirators (most probably without filters) for comfort or they are just props? Are the suits like real suits (portable saunas and everything) or they used a walk-around, like ventilation holes or using a fabric that "breaths"?