Space Marine Scout Sniper Build

[mruntidy]

(Monday 8th April)
I think this started off as; 'Wouldn't it be awesome if...' and then grew a little each weekend from there until after months of looking at RPF posts, my first convention in costume and a few people I know saying this would be a good idea I decided to start putting ideas into reality.
So with that here is my first scratch built costume which hopefully I can update regularly with my progress.

I think what I found more than anything was projects that were started and went off half ******, not enough research, too little time and too ambitious or expensive from the outset. What I learned from putting my Resident Evil costume together was that if the deadline is too tight then you
really won't enjoy the undue stress it causes trying to get everything finished for the event you want to look awesome at. Not enough research means you could start to cut corners or fill in blanks with something that doesn't fit because you didn't know what was on the rear or a costume or even where to pick up parts and again the tendancy to rush to get things finished over rules the thought process for getting it right.

So it has admittedly taken me a long time to get to this point personally, where I have the time and the resource to enjoy building a costume and that's what I will try and follow through with though this project.

Enough waffle - what the hell am I making?

My project is a Raptors Scout Marine Sniper - I have a lot of respect for everyone who has built complete Space Marine costumes because frankly the work that goes into them is phenomenal especially the ones which are to scale pepakura builds
So my first thought was, scale it back you're not ready for that plunge yet - what do you have to work with.

Mediocre carpentry skills, a shed sized (literally) bits box, a fair amount of equipment that I could utilise and a lot of zeal for the project.

First things first was research. I chose the Scouts because they have minimal armour and no helmet which would give me a flavour for building armour without spending a fortune on foam and resin, I also selfishly chose it as motivation for myself. I have been trying to get fit for some time and after shedding 40lbs of fat, decided this would be great for showing off some guns and at a later point my arms.
So, two images sprang out after a quick google, though I have been a hobbyist for years I wanted my reference material to be bigger than an inch and a half high so these were the two images I settled on;

What came next was what I can only describe as a campaign of procrastination and website/image hoarding on my part about two months. Both due to a mix of fear 'don't bother, it'll just look terrible' and excitement.

Ironically it was because of a purchase for my other costume that this one got off the ground. In brief, I'm part of a Resident Evil Group in the UK and for my 30th birthday my wife got me the Zombie Mall Experience so I decided to go in costume as a UBCS soldier from Res Evil Apocalypse, then found the group, then went to the 2012 MCM ExPo in London and got my photograph taken, a lot. I thought I was Tom Cruise at the end of the first day (only taller) thankfully my wife brought me back down to Earth - hard :$
Anyway I decided to make a pair of night vision goggles for this costume in addition to a few other things and thought, why not just start the Scout Project?

The link to all the pictures from a great day below

London Excel ExPo 2012 | MyFitnessPal.com

Getting things in order was my primary concern and not just throwing everything together in a fever of excitement so I have put my list of component parts together, not exhaustive and to be added to as and when I think of a new stage;

Blueprint/technical drawings
Brainstorm shapes/parts/ideas
Budget

Goggles - strap - headset - lenses
Shoulder Pauldrons
Upper carapace armour - skull - wings
Collar
Lower stomach armour
Gloves
Belt
Daiper
Tail
Cloak - hood
Shin Guards - straps
Trousers
Boots - toe tectors

Sniper rifle
Optics - fabrication - connection - lighting?
Stock
Barrel
Underside rail - fabrication - ribs
Suppressor - fabrication - connection to barrel - aperture - fins
Magazine
Lighting - magazine
Power cables - lids - connection points
Connections - to rifle - to rear pack

New Side Projects (12th April)
Purity Seals – casting – sealing – painting – litany


So with these elements as a jump off point I set off drawing up some blueprints. By blueprints I mean childish spider scrawl drawings and notes but I really recommend doing this if like me this is your first project because as I was drawing I realised how easy it was to forget what you scribbled on the left when you were scribbling on the right.
Translate that to working on the actual project without at least rough notes or a picture and the potential for an expensively frustrating mistake is high.

Effectively it was a spider diagram I could carry around with me and if I was out shopping or had a thought on a particualr piece I could jot down where I saw a product I could turn into a bolt or a magazine or a shin pad.
Then once I had a good idea of what to do - I decided to order some parts this weekend (which I will list as I go along) whilst this is in the mill I thought I would commence work on one of the feature pieces just to see how it looked so this was where I am now up to designing and making templates for the chest wings out of foam.
Firstly I checked out a few examples of both recreated and artistic representations

Then moved on to using craft card to cut draw and cut out the feathers, I liked the design of the piece I had used for reference because they weren't all uniform. Essentially it is a very basic design and I used a patch I have for some scale representation of the skull. Though I will say a few of my friends then went on to say; 'are you making Decepticon armour?'- pipelined

Update (12th April 2013)

So seeing as the computer decided not to let me open my text file I couldn’t post anything up on Monday when I wanted to so I have a little more to throw up – I decided to take on little projects that I can complete in an evening or as down time from the major parts of the project.

This week was my first attempt at casting and creating Purity Seals for the armour. I had one with the special edition game but decided against just using that one because I wanted to make it myself. Again seeing as I didn’t want to put a lot of money into something that I would fail at I have been practising with play doh, plaster and brute force;

Seeing as the costume I am making is a sniper I wanted to create one of my own that reflected this role on the battlefield. I just used some household goods to make the impressions; medicine jar, wooden skewer and the back of a knife with a plastic lid to make the reticule. Then while that has been setting over night I worked on the first litany

This was a lot easier than I expected it to be, I started out with a couple of sharp pencils but the effect was that it just ruffled the material up and didn’t draw at all. I really didn’t want to paint these but it turns out that fear was unfounded as the painting went well and the effect looks how I expected it.

Materials used here were a synthetic pillow case, acrylic paints, scissors and a few matches along with some creativity in the scripture.
Once I had cut the shape and painted the litany it was then a simple case of singeing the edges and putting a few holes into it, then cauterising them so to speak. I decided against using tea, coffee or resin to brown the material too much and instead danced the match along the material when it was about two thirds on fire.

Tonight I will hopefully see the two sharp shooter litanies completed and will pop out my moulds as they should be more than dry and ready for smoothing out the rough edges before painting.

Let me know what you think so far…

 

[kwalsh0000]

Very cool! Your off to a nice start!

 

[made007]

Gonna keep my eye on this one too, im gonna start my ultramarine in afew months, im preparing everything, nice start

 

[mruntidy]

Thanks

Just popped out my moulds and they look great, a lot better than i expected. I'll be working on these inbetween my sniper rifle today so will update later...

 

[mruntidy]

Well, the plaster casts came out great! I had no problem popping them out, although it is a one shot deal with this type of casting as you destroy your mould as you take it off.

Then it was a case of scraping the backs off with a knife to make them level, scraping off the jar bottom code that came through and on to painting. It was really great seeing each coat take effect.

The coats were all watered down because the plaster would just waste paint otherwise.

First coats (two coats) blood red

Then three coats of watered down dark flesh, really watery - be sure to get it in the recesses rather than on the top as this is what gives it depth

Then a couple of coats of 50:50 pva glue with a touch of chaos black mixed in, this was the final was which makes it shine like wax as well as giving it some age

So in between all of these coats i was hand painting the parchment for the marksman seal. Realising it was twice as long, twice as small and had two parchments made parts of me go numb i didnt realise could go numb hunkered over painting each letter and then decided to try my hand at Gothic lettering too. I admit i had to do this in four chunks and it took about two hours to do but I stuck with it until the end result below

Finally side by side with the original - did someone say copyright :unsure

Now on to the rifle and the list - it's getting longer!

 

[jimrush51]

do you mind if i ask where you got the aquilla seal>

 

[mruntidy]

do you mind if i ask where you got the aquilla seal>

No problem i got this with the THQ Collectors Ed Space Marine game when it was released. It has a magnetic back which I considered using on my costume but thought two things;

1)I want to make as much as I can myself
2)If I lost that at a convention I would be mighty annoyed - at release it cost me £80 if I remember right

Upshot is, I'm glad I had a crack at these myself

 

[mruntidy]

Well, it's been a while due to a birthday, gastric flu and work but i have a couple of updates finally. I started work on the sniper rifle and the biggest problem was deciding which rifle to go for so I stripped it back to basics and thought it best to just go with the model rifle and work on that.

Basically I found four types of rifle each with their own merits and pitfalls and it actually got me down so much that I put the rifle on hold. I picked up the cloak in the meantime while I mulled over what to do with the rifle.

I had an old US army poncho, must be 20years old now actually and started drafting a blueprint of what to do. Though you don't see the back of the cloak I figured a nice touch would be to paint the Raptors chapter symbol on the back. A quick couple of chalk outlines with a tailors chalk using google for reference and then went to town with the paint. First coat is done.

To make the cloak long enough I cut out the hood and trimmed the cloak just past the pocket. I made a couple of neat folds where the hood was, tacking it with superglue before sewing it closed. The tricky part was hemming the top, I want it to sit right like a cloak not just a sheet so i put two 4 inch pleats either side of the centre and a slight sweep to the sides. All that's left is the hood just to finish it off.

I'll update the rifle pics tomorrow - I'm pooped. Good news is it's looking better than it did!

 

[mruntidy]

Ok so here goes, the rifle part to the project - I had to decide on which Astartes rifle to build and which parts to take from each one to make mine individual.

I liked the original one in my inspiration picture but got rifle blinded by three others

So i made the first few cuts into an old raider nerf gun. Effectively all i wanted was the trigger frame but i realised i could use it as a base to cloak my rifle so worked on keeping it intact.

The great thing was, a lot of it was saved to be used elsewhere on the build. I moved the feedtube to underneath the rifle which took some considerable dremeling to get the fit right.

Because of going gun blind, progress was slow after this. I put the main build down and worked on the barrel/silencer. Using a silicone sealant tube and an old railing from a clothes rail to make a barrel. I locked it in with some packers prior to drilling and capped it with a seat foot cup. I'm a sucker for 9mm weapons so put the 9mm hex socket in for the barrel aperture.

I bought a plumbing ring to give it some detail as a normal bottle cap wasn't interesting enough and after using a sanding disk and a full charge in my drill later it fit! I just had to hammer it down the barrel.

I used an 80/120/200 grit method of sandpaper on the barrel and silencer to give it some texture too.

Now that was done i lay it down in its parts and realised it was waaaay too long. I drilled out some of the innards and couldnt resist putting the basis for my scope on top to see how it looked. Took about 6 inches out of the barrel length.

Now the fun could start. I decided i wanted a couple of light units and rather than make more cuts in the cowling that i would put a groove in the back and draw it in with screws. Superglue just wouldnt hold it together so i put some brackets in and some 23mm screws. These will be covered with polytop caps once fabrication is complete. The idea here was to make the rifle look less boxy and more akin to the bolter it hails from, the tricky part was not going too deep with the groove otherwise the whole piece is ruined.

I cut and sanded the foils for the silencer

Then we just started messing about during a break

The rifle has a charge in the side rather than a bolt pull so i had to fabricate the cradle and clip, i then used a film tube to make the power cell. I thought about what id expect this to be like and used a green wash of paint inside, then again, and again to give it a marble like bubbly effect as if it was charged. I like the grungy look i got with my LED unit inside so tested it in the dark too

A quick cuppa and worked on the foregrip, it needed detailing putting on it so mulled over plastic spoons, fimo, mains wire and string but decided to use phone wire instead. I marked out and dremeled oval holes in. Cut ten lengths before running out, then worked very slowly;

Glue end in hole
Glue an inch
Check alignment
Glue an inch

And so on, heres where i am up to below. (i also recut and superglued a new sight rail and attached my scope for fit otherwise i couldnt use one with the new sides on)

 

[Markandson]

I just discovered your thread and wow, your build is so creative! Thank you for showing and describing the process in detail!! Fantastic, keep it up!!