Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman! - Apo's HEV suit build

[ApophisV]

Hey all,

after christmas and with a lot of free time on my hands I started my new costume build: Gordon Freeman's HEV suit from Half-Life 2.
I'm going to wear it on my birthday party (theme of the party is "video gaming") later this month and it will be my carnival costume (end of february) as well!

Well, let's start with a pic of the suit as it is right now:



(I just realized my Dropbox didn't sync so I'm lacking the rest of the pictures of the build, will post them later when I'm back at home)

The suit is a foam build, I used Nugget's HEV suit pep files but heavily modified them to be foam compatible. It was my first try to do this and it worked surprisingly well so far, only minor adjustings were necessary after transfering the templates to foam.

The foam I used were mostly EVA floor mats (10mm) for the torso, upper arm and leg armor, the lower arm braces were made from 5mm floor mats (no EVA but something more "plastic like" -> Hint for the German builders: They are available for 13 Euro at Aldi Süd right now, pretty good deal!). Missing are the lower leg armors and the shoes. Both are started, the shoes will be scratch build using an old pair of Converse as base and a lot of Kobracast and foam. No idea if this will come out wearable though :lol

As you can see in the picture I used acrylic paste as putty to seal the foam seams, sculpt details and seal the rough 5mm foam's surface (which is kind of grainy). After getting a nice surface I will seal everything with Plastidip and then add spray can color. I have no idea if this technique will really work (should have made a test piece before going this route but was too lazy), but everything is looking good so far in terms of the acrylic's flexibility at least.

The gun is NECA's great replica, I won't carry it with me during any parties though. If there is enough time I'm planning to make a custom one using more lightweight materials.

Other than that I got NECA's headcrab plush toy which is very lovely (in a weeeeeiiiiird way!) and will sit on my shoulder. I also ordered a crowbar carnival "toy" from Amazon which turned out to be a real one. D'uh. I'm probably going to cast it with Kobracast and create a copy using expanding foam.

Finally the beard and hair: As you can see I build a great base for a fitting Freeman hairstyle and beard that only needs a haircut, so at least I've that going for me which is nice Worst case scenary (Armor falling apart and weapon replicas don't work out) I'll buy a white scientist suit and go as the pre-accident Freeman

Well, so much words and so few pictures, I'm going to post more later this day!

-Apo

 

[Matchbox]

Great minds think alike ey

Started mine as well, different techniques though! I didn't personally agree with using foam, it may be easier but I prefer the finish you can get off of the ol' body filler fibreglass, carbon fibre and kevlar... though not a budget route is one of the let downs I think...

Looks good! It seems foam builds are a bit quicker to actually build don't you think?

I got the long hair too not going to cut it all off though! You can have an excuse for it instead, I mean he's been out of work for what 10 years or so since episode 2! I would have let myself go a bit if that was my case

It'll be good to see more pics!

/M

 

[ApophisV]

Great minds think alike ey

Started mine as well, different techniques though! I didn't personally agree with using foam, it may be easier but I prefer the finish you can get off of the ol' body filler fibreglass, carbon fibre and kevlar... though not a budget route is one of the let downs I think...

Thanks for your comments! Well, my first suit I build two years ago (when I didn't know there are tools (e.g. pepakura), tutorials and stuff on the internet) was a Fallout Power Armor which was basically a huge, unprofessional pile of fibreglass and bondo. I made it for carnival and wore it over five days all day long (5kg weight loss despite heavy drinking and junk food eating!) getting a lot of hurt and bruises from it (realized that the day after when the hangover begun ^^). This time I haven't as much time on my hands for the build itself (more hours at the job and more private projects going on now) and I want something more comfortable for partying and I never tried the foam route before, so I thought I give it a go!

Looks good! It seems foam builds are a bit quicker to actually build don't you think?

Yes! There are a lot of aspects that add a lot of productivity to this project compared to fibreglass builds! First, the workflow seems to be a lot faster, you work with less parts (pepakura-wise), no real waiting times so far and what I like best is that always find some little time inbetween to work on the suit! My side project is a fibreglass Mk3 Iron Man for which I need to get to my workshop (situated a few hundred meters away from home, not a big deal, but nonetheless not "at home"), I need to dress in old clothes, I can't stop the work at any point and so on. The foam build doesn't come with those restrictions, I build it at my man cave at home and can do it whenever my private life allows

I got the long hair too not going to cut it all off though! You can have an excuse for it instead, I mean he's been out of work for what 10 years or so since episode 2! I would have let myself go a bit if that was my case

Well yeah, I probably could explain it in some way, but then again I like to throw anything at a costuming project I've got, and while I'm surely not the sporty guy for a Spider-Man I am pretty lucky with my hair, lots of it and fast growing! Even after cutting it next week
it will only take two months or so to be back at the length right now (which could need a cut since at least two weeks, oh well, I'm a lazy guy )

It'll be good to see more pics!

Incoming! I am right now preparing the pics for uploading!

 

[ApophisV]

Now for the pictures:



Since I'm exactly 1,82m (6 feet) most pep files seem to be fitting my height so I didn't scale the suit. Nonetheless I needed to widen the breast armor a little. I added a triangle at the back to ensure the armor isn't looking out of proportions at the neck but fits were needed. The armor is one piece, as it is now I can get into it pretty comfortably, getting it off is a little bit more difficult, but possible. I'm ot sure if this will still work after applying Plastidip and paint, but I still can add hinges to it later. As for the acrylic: It stays in place and seems to be flexible enough not to crackle too badly, I still hope with a coat of Plastidip everything will withstand the normal wear and tear.




Lower and upper arm armor, last pic shows the rough surface of the 5mm foam.




Suiting up the first time




Shows, still WIP. First test after adding the foam was a very wibbly-wobbly experience, therefore I added a lot of Kobracast (2 - 4 layers of it) for stability. As of now it seems to work, the cover will be two or three parts of foam losely connected since the shoes still bend to much...




My lovely baby!




Armor right now (sans the second upper leg armor which is already assembled as well)

That's it for now! Thanks for viewing!

 

[Jacobalcook]

Hey man, suit looks great so far! Can't wait to check it out with some plasti-dip and a coat of paint! You gonna grab a crowbar as well I hope?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[ApophisV]

Hey, thanks for your comment! The first iteration of the suit is already finished, I wore it at my (videogame themed) party:



The last layers of paint were added that day, since I was in a rush with preparing the costume and the party at the same time I had to make some cuts (e.g. the Lambda logo was missing). Since the paint chipped of very much during the evening I will have to repaint it anyway (I'm going to replace the breats armor with a fibreglass version anyway). Here is a picture of the breast plate later that night:



The rest of the suit looks similar bruised, especially the orange color chipped of very badly (and very quickly after drying!) And the breast armor's seams were damaged because I was drunk when I tried to get out of the suit in the early morning

As for your question, yes, I made a crowbar for the costume, which sadly didn't dry in time! Made it out of a cheap light saber toy blade, EVA, Worbla and hot glue.

I've got tons of in-progress pictures which I will add later when I'm back at home.

I'm going to wear the suit at carnival (end of this month) and until then I hope to finish the fibreglass breast armor and redo the whole painting of the suit, also adding armor to the boots and adding some padding to the abs and pelvis (I basically wore only underwear beneath the armor ^^). If there is enough time I will repaint a Nerf Mega Centurion (not yet sure which ingame weapon will be used as a reference) and I hope to recreate the Gravity Gun as well, but that is a very big "if"! After all, only 3,5 weeks left for the whole project :wacko

 

[Matchbox]

Looks good! did you seal the foam with Plasti-Dip or PVA before painting, and seal the paint after with a clearcoat? if not, that would be why it's all cracked

If you could tidy up the cracked bits and leave some there it does make for some realistic wear and tear, literally XD.

As for your fibreglass version! DONT DO IT lol so much pain and so much effort, if I had money/time to start over I'd do the Pepakura for it and Rhondo it 'cause damn if the fibreglass warps the pep and dries, or in fact if anything goes wrong while fibreglassing... it's an absolute biatch to reshape!

OR you could do a fibreglass mould from your foam version and you can make a cast from anything (so long as it's not too hot) save doing the pepakura folding again!

/M

 

[ApophisV]

You gonna grab a crowbar as well I hope?

As I mentioned above, here are the first shots of the crowbar I replicated:



I painted the crowbar (red/silver), but sadly the red paint didn't dry in time for the party, no idea what went wrong, the text on the canister says it should be completely dry after 24 hours, now, after one week later, there are still some sticky spots. The whole crowbar project was weird from the beginning so it kinda fits Still need to get pictures of the finished prop will though.

Looks good!

Thanks, mate!

did you seal the foam with Plasti-Dip or PVA before painting, and seal the paint after with a clearcoat? if not, that would be why it's all cracked

I covered some parts with acrylic, thena dded two layers of watered down PVA (50-50). After that two or three coats of Plastidip and the color itself:



Your're right, I didn't think of adding clearcoat (or primer, for that matter) and after suiting up in the evening when the first spots of paint came off it was already too late to change something. Lesson learned, at least
Something I noticed afterwards: The grey (semi matt) was sticking way better than the orange (glossy) spray paint, the grey only came off at heavily used sections while the orange needed only slight touching to chip off.

Guess I will do some experimenting before applying the final coloring later this month.

If you could tidy up the cracked bits and leave some there it does make for some realistic wear and tear, literally XD.

Well, I guess I achieved a nice "postapocalyptic weathering" effect by accident:



I actually would leave it like that if there would be any hope for the rest of the paint not to chip off as well, but considering I will wear it five days in a row in crowded places this isn't very likely. So redo is in order...

As for your fibreglass version! DONT DO IT lol so much pain and so much effort, if I had money/time to start over I'd do the Pepakura for it and Rhondo it 'cause damn if the fibreglass warps the pep and dries, or in fact if anything goes wrong while fibreglassing... it's an absolute biatch to reshape!

Hehe, yeah, I'll probably agree with you in a few days, but actually I'm more comfortable with fibreglass builds than with the foam experimenting and it will keep up to the demands of carnival a lot more than the foam build. And the pep base is almost finished (only those annoying rings at the bottom missing) right now, so I'll continue this route for now

OR you could do a fibreglass mould from your foam version and you can make a cast from anything (so long as it's not too hot) save doing the pepakura folding again!

I never did moulding / casting before, I actually considered this option, but I'm afraid the circumstances (restrictions in time, money and experience) won't allow me to do this.

Nonetheless thanks for your input! Highly appreciated!

Okay, so let's show more pictures of my build progress:

The custom shoes were abondoned after wearing them and realizing that they are too risky to wear, nonetheless some pictures of their last status:



Another part that annoyed the hell out of me were the shin armors: My lower legs are somewhat larger (all muscle! no fat! ) in diameter than the pepakura file demanded, so I had to expand the whole part. I needed like three tries to finally get a result that didn't look too bad, and then I realized I'd need some sort of opening mechanism. So I had to redo it AGAIN.



That's it for now, I have to finish the pepakura build of the torso this week and will start fibreglassing it on the weekend. So stay tuned

-Daniel

PS: Here is a little, somewhat unreleated picture of my girlfriend who sneaked into the amor while I wasn't looking, then realized she wasn't able to get free of it on her own and called for help. Well, I was on the phone at that moment and wasn't in the mood to interrupt the call, so I let her wait for a few minutes until releasing her :devil

 

[Jacobalcook]

Hmm, I know your post says you did plasti-dip, I'm planning on using a similar method for my build, but did you use a primer before the orange paint? I figured out in my test that plasti-dip on it's own is not a great surface for painting, at least with spray, but once primed with a spray primer, it's great.

By the way-this costume=AWESOME, especially crowbar :thumbsup

 

[ApophisV]

Thanks for your comments!

Yeah, I sprayed the color directly on the Plastidip layer, didn't use primer nor clear coating. At the weekend I'm going to do some tests to see what works best with the materials I have at my hands...

As for progress, I am almost finished with the pep of the breast plate, hope to finish it tonight

And I did some research and decided which HL weapon I will use as inspiration for the Centurion mod, it'll be the Sniper Rifle, that was cut from the game, here a little comparisson (I stole the pics from the internet to be honest ^^):



Another candidate (also cut from the game) was the Heckler & Koch GR9 which features a somewhat nicer paint scheme but isn't resembled as nice in terms of shape than the Sniper Rifle by the Nerf gun.

That's it for now! Thanks for reading!

 

[ApophisV]

Small update: made some pictures of the painted crowbar this morning!



Not the final coat, probably I'll try to smooth the end parts a little and repaint it then.

 

[ApophisV]

Hey gang,

more progress on the suit:

I finished the pep build a few days ago and adjusted it (freehand). I had to widen the back to fit in, having the fitting foam armor helped a lot to get it right (at least I hope so, havenÄt it worn yet )




Over the weekend I moved my workshop from our basement to our garden shed, that led to a lot of sorting and cleaning up of tools and materials, so I was only able to do the first coat of epoxy on the armor on the outside. Tonight it will get its second coat or maybe even the first layer of fibreglass on the inside (depending on the strenght, I used slightly heavier paper than in my previous builds, so I don't know yet, if it is already strong enough)



I thought about Matchbox's technique of deviding the armor and decided to use a different approach so I don't have to cut across the breast section: I probably will cut out the two sections beneath each arm...

Small side note: I had a little bit of resin leftover, so I used the chance to coat my very first pep model I ever build a year ago

 

[Matchbox]

haha, healthy competition, No sand in the eyes

Your pep folding is already waaaaay neater than mine, actually looks symmetrical mine was well bent. Also dont know if it helps but I did 1 coat of resin on the inside quite thick and a lighter coat on the outside, held the torso solid enough anyway, might have done 1 more if I had the money to buy more resin at the time

 

[ApophisV]

Thanks for your comment! Actually I'm often surprised by the outcome of my pep builds as well since I am more the hyperactive kind of guy in normal life. But papercraft lets me calm down, so it's kind of "my thing"...

BTW, I used paper rods (triangularly folded) to stabilize the build on the front part, this helped a lot to keep up the symmetry! I originally planned to add rods inside the armor as well, but due to a lack of time I took the risk to get deformations, but as of now the outcome seems to be more symmetrical than I expected!

Yeah, resin is expensive, but I buy it in larger quantities (minimum 10 liters) off ebay every now and then, that keeps the costs down at least a little... (and leads to having more than enough available most of the times )

Yesterday night I applied a second coat on the outside, I probably could have started directly with adding fibreglass to the inside, but my workshop time was very limited yesterday. An additional layer surely doesn't hurt
I'm going to add the first fibreglass layer later this day, so hopefully the armor is ready for bondo later this week (at the current temperatures resin curing time seems to be almost one day).

After returning home I started working on another accessory, I'll replicate a Medkit as my "bag" to transport wallet, cell phone, and so on. I started with building this pep file as a prototyp to get a feeling for form and dimensions. I'm not really sure yet how to proceed since I plan to rebuild it completely, it needs to open up with some locking mechanism (at least velcro based). And I plan to make it attachable (and removable) to the suit in some way, probably at the belt piece.

Well, that's it so far, thanks for reading!

 

[Matchbox]

great idea on the medkit bag, I like this designt of medkit better http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090527042234/half-life/en/images/1/19/Medkit.jpg you could put a strap on it and there is still space for your stuff.

I find Velcro isn't strong enough to hold the weight of the bondo (maybe just cause my piece is caked in the stuff XD)

Looking forward to the next update!

 

[ApophisV]

great idea on the medkit bag, I like this designt of medkit better http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090527042234/half-life/en/images/1/19/Medkit.jpg you could put a strap on it and there is still space for your stuff.

Yeah, that one looks wicked, but considering the time left (in exactly two weeks I will be already costumed and drunk ) finishing the the boxy version is already a challenge!

I find Velcro isn't strong enough to hold the weight of the bondo (maybe just cause my piece is caked in the stuff XD)

Ah, I didn't mean to attach the Medkit with Velcro to the suit, I was talking about the opening mechanism of the Medkit, that needs to be lockable in some way (after all I don't want to loose my phone or wallet while drunk ). For attaching the Medkit to the suit I will probably use some toy construction systems I stocked during the last years (as a second job I'm working at a toy store and I sometimes am allowed to take those damaged / returned toys that could be useful for my projects and that otherwise would be thrown away! BTW thats how I got the Centurion as well )

Looking forward to the next update!

Thanks! Actually I applied the second batch of fibreglass yesterday, so right now the armor is completely fiberglassed (at least first layer). I noticed that the resin didn't cure completely yet, not even the first layers. It isn't sticky anymore, but it is slightly more flexible than it would be if cured at summer temperatures. First I freaked out a little noticing this, but now my plan is to apply another layer of fiberglass and after it cures to a similar flexible state I'll take the armor to my apartment and let it fully cure inside (at the non sticky state it doesn't smell anymore, so my girlfriend hopefully won't kill me for doing so ^^). As a little bonus this should allow me to do some last adjustings regarding the symmetry before the full cure!

In other news, I started to disassemble the Centurion for painting, the gun doesn't work since the trigger machanism is damaged in some way. I originally planned to leave it that way, but yesterday night I got a little obsessed with the gun and starting to try to fix it. I (think I) identified the part that causes the problem and I hope to be able to repair it tonight. Repaired or not, the gun will get it's colirng this weekend.

I also did some progress with the crowbar, I removed the original paint job, sanded it, added some Worbla here and there in order to flatten the transitions between plastic and foam and applied Plastidip.

That's it for now!

 

[ApophisV]

Hey there,

finally here is the update on the suit! Had lots of stuff to do the last weeks, earlier this week I had to submit a six page comic book for a comic drawing course I'm attending that took my whole free time since carnival. So here is my late progress update

The suit had been finished in its second version a month ago, just in time for carnival, actually I had to to a nightshift on it to be ready and even then I was like 6 hours late to the party, oh well!

Anyway, let's start with a picture of the finished suit:


As you can see, it is missing some details and I reworked it a little after the first day of partying, escpecially since I had to do some minor fixes to it using duct tape (mostly upper leg armor suspension). I also added some color to the lower leg armor later. Sadly there aren't pictures of the revamped suit yet, but a friend of mine offered to do a little photoshoot in spring or summer! So hopefully then there will be for once "final pictures" of one of my costumes! (BTW, the clown is my girlfriend in a completely scratch made costume! :love)

Now, here is some progress writeup:

Breast armor:

First test on how smooth I could get the surface:

I actually hoped to get it that smooth all over, but due to my tight schedule (yeah, always last minute ^^) I wasn't able to achieve such a clean surface everywhere. Especially the lower rims are still pretty rough.

And then the sanding started...


Last two pictures show the final smoothness before starting with the paint.

Then the part I was most nervous about started: Cutting out the side parts beneath the arms.


Don't let yourself fool from the huge pullover I'm wearing (I did at first!), actually the breast armor fitted pretty good, though one problem occured: While the armor has the same dimensions of the first foam version, it doesn't bend and I didn't take into account, that the foam version was bended to a more oval form when wearing. This led to the armor being somewhat too wide not allowing me to move my arms properly.
That's why I restrained from the idea of attaching the side pieces with magnets or something similar, instead I used flexible straps. This way it allowed the panels to move closer to the body while moving my arms. Not accurate, but worked out pretty good in terms of comfort

The last picture with the grey coat is the last one I made during the build, I'll make some better pictures of the single suit elements in the next weeks

Well, since I've to go back to work the rest of the write up will follow soon, there is the abs armor, reworked upper legs, the crowbar, the sniper rifle and the medikit left to show

Thanks for reading!

 

[Matchbox]

looks good in the end! you can see the nice pepakura folding paid off

I need to pull my finger out, haven't had time on mine recently... a slave to circumstance :/

 

[ApophisV]

looks good in the end! you can see the nice pepakura folding paid off

I need to pull my finger out, haven't had time on mine recently... a slave to circumstance :/

Thanks! Make sure not to enforce progress on your build if there is no need to, here in Germany we have the saying "Gut Ding will Weile haben" which means more or less the same like "Rome wasn't build in one day"... Those last days of my build where I rushed through it resulted in a loss of quality that still annoys me everytime I notice it (the suit is on display in my living room right now so I am reminded quite regularly)!

Well, here is some more progress shots of my build, this time the sniper rifle:



Starting point was the damaged Nerf Mega Centurion. I tried to repair it, but didn't succeed at the first tries, and the deadline was coming closer, so I decided to go on with a non working gun. I disassembled it completely (removing the front barrel was a hell!) and started removing every part I wouldn't need later. As you can see, with the front barrel panels removed the gun's shape ressebled the sniper rifle's a lot better. At my "trash nerf gun bin" I found a Super Soaker gun that had a matching barrel so I removed it and used it as as the new tip of my rifle:


All Nerf markings were removed, as well as the little boxy texture, and screwed together again. That orange tip was cut down and reattached. Then I used polyester filler to get a clean shape, especially at the screw holes and the front of the gun where the cut down part is attached.



Then some priming, coloring with some dark grey hammertone finish and finally drybrushing some silver. This was my first try on drybrushing ever and I am pretty happy, though it's not really perfect. Hope some exercising this cool technique in the future will give me better skills to get it a little more natural looking (in terms of wear and tear).



I also made a scope for the gun, which wasn't photographed yet, pictures of it will come next week or so (Sniper rifle without a scope is pretty pointless, eh? ^^)

OK, noon break is over, gotta get back to work, so more write up coming soon!

 

[Billybones138]

Outstanding! This has to be one of if not the best hev suit ive ever seen. Did you make the gravity gun as well?