The Martian Space Suit

I'm going to Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday with my family. Maybe I'll have some luck finding the brass NASA logo pin.
 
It looks custom and I even think they might have left the Wild Country logo underneath it.

Backpack Bottom2.jpg
 
I'm thinking I could do a laser rastered, paint filled version, May be a way to easily replicate the enameled look. We have laser engravable plastic at my shop that looks like brass.....

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I'm thinking I could do a laser rastered, paint filled version, May be a way to easily replicate the enameled look. We have laser engravable plastic at my shop that looks like brass.....

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It seems like it would be easy enough..... It's funny how lo-fi that one from the actual suit is. I think I'd use the high resolution available to do a version more like the actual NASA logo below , which is ripped from NASA's site. With all (or most of) the stars and a better overall fit and finish.

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killer, ill run a test tomorrow at work, the big issue as i see it will be doing multiple paint colors and multiple raster sessions.... but i have the file made, with all the proper layers and order to make it work.

my plan is to do the following.

mask off the metallic coated acrylic
raster the field that will become blue
cut the piece out
hit it with some blue spray paint to fill the area
mask again
put the piece back in the lasercutter and raster the red detail
hit it with red spray paint
let it all dry and peel off the tape.

Heres my planned design. If its a success I will ask the boss what the material cost is and come up with something.... never done a run of anything (new on the site and all) What is the general etiquette on such matters? Also if anyone else is interested please drop me a line, maybe ill be more motivated to make it work out and do more experimenting.

NASARASTER.png
 
Very much looking forward to this. Honestly, id prefer a version that's the low res like the screen used on. 100% accuracy would be awesome.
 
I can definitely do that as well, I am of the mind that in-person screen used stuff sometimes is lacking the detail I personally want to be there. Theres the whole thing that our brain fills in information, and seeing something onscreen for a second it looks great over the scrutiny a costume would get. This piece is a prime example, I look at it and cant believe that the paint filling is so rough, and the lettering is so imprecise. I guess the best thing would be to offer folks both as a set, the screen accurate version and the pristine NASA meatball version.
 
Spent the past few hours digging around trying to find the battle belt again. I haven't found the exact model, but I have come to the conclusion that its not a battle belt at all. I'm pretty sure they took the padded hip belt out of an external frame backpack (the ones for hiking/camping), and modified it by stitching down the elastic band. This would explain the unevenness of the stitching, the prettier design than the military ones, and the continuous piece instead of the 3 piece battle belt.

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This is the Mountainsmith Ghost

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Not the correct mesh texture for the darker grey, but this has the lighter grey trim.

Deuter Futura Women's

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Has the correct trim, but not the right texture on the outside again. Has the correct grey padded mesh on the inside though.

Each brand has their own style to the color palette, trimming techniques, and the base material. Most of them are all one solid belt, which we can see is the case for the Martian now, and all of them are removable.

I just don't really see why they would custom make the belt when it looks so similar to these backpack belts.
 
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Good catch on cutting the harness up, can't believe they went through the trouble to cut the harness up that much. That leads me to believe they managed to get their hands on some small sized harnesses and cut them apart to make them fit. It also explains the webbing in the front used to increase the size of the leg holes.

Since I got a larger harness, I think I may try to keep it as in tact as possible rather than totally destroying it. Will be easier than having to sew it on to the other belt I think.

Also, not sure there is a buckle in there or not. Definitely deserves more of a look though.
 
Spent the past few hours digging around trying to find the battle belt again. I haven't found the exact model, but I have come to the conclusion that its not a battle belt at all. I'm pretty sure they took the padded hip belt out of an external frame backpack (the ones for hiking/camping), and modified it by stitching down the elastic band. This would explain the unevenness of the stitching, the prettier design than the military ones, and the continuous piece instead of the 3 piece battle belt.
...
I just don't really see why they would custom make the belt when it looks so similar to these backpack belts.
It is probably not padded enough to be a modern consumer one. A lot of the modern packs are not actually continuous though. They go through, but rely on the pack for padding on the wearers back. They also tend to be wider around the hips and then slim down near the buckle. There may be older packs that match up to it

I am actually leaning towards a hip belt from a plate carrier. Or just a tactical belt still. But definitely looking for similar packs too.

Edit:
I should also say, definite potential in the military hiking pack area. They are far less comfortable, and may be that thin.
 
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I think it might be a modified padded hip belt considering they have an excess of the same webbing used for other parts. No luck on finding that webbing though but I'm starting to think it might come from the same source as the padded hip belt if it is one.

Harness Webbing.jpg

And eye-balling it makes me think it's going from 45mm webbing to 25mm
In other words, from a FC42A buckle on top to a FC06A under it.
 
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And I think I can have the metal parts done at a shop nearby, same guys that I'm going to do the suit at actually.

Getting those close up photos were extremely helpful since I now know how they did the black seams on the suit. It's just a black rubber tube of some sort but I don't know yet if it's anything associated with wetsuits or just something added for looks.

I can't upload any pictures right now but I remember the closeup of the gloves and I'm not sure if it's neoprene or some other fabric. What do you guys make of it?
 
Test day:

So I'll begin by saying Im not super happy with the paint, and the scale of things needs to change a little bit because of the limitations of the laser. I do feel that the concept is pretty viable, with some changes, which I will detail later.

The material I used was Rowmark Lasermark in Gold with black substrate. My prep was to cover the gold surface with transfer tape, this is used in vinyl plotting to move vinyl off the backer, but I used it because its basically thin, low tack masking tape available in sizes up to like 4 feet wide, I went with the 6" roll. I also used masking tape to lock in the registration to the bed of the lasercutter.

I am using a 45 watt Epilog Legend 36EXT

I began by rastering the field that was to become blue.

My raster settings for the entire project are:
1200 DPI
Speed 40
Power 30
5000Hz
IMAG0440.jpg

IMAG0441.jpg
IMAG0443.jpg

I then cut out the entire piece, making sure to not move the offcut, this is so the registration for the red field stays correct.

Cut settings were:
1200 DPI
Speed 40
Power 100
5000 Hz
IMAG0444.jpg
IMAG0445.jpg

After hitting the piece with blue paint I masked the surface again and taped the piece back into the previous cutout and rastered the red area.

IMAG0446.jpg
IMAG0449.jpg
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Here is the result of today's experiment.

IMAG0452.jpg

Things I will do differently in future experimentation, use a more aggressive masking tape, the transfer tape came away to easily, when cleaning up the sooty residue the tape came right off. Using a little brush to remove as much residue as possible, on a part so small and so detailed it really hindered the paint adhesion. Use primer, as the paint sloughed off some areas of the rastered surface. Use an airbrush instead of a rattle can, smaller atomization of paint would be beneficial. Change artwork to counteract some of the issues with the laser, ie: make the stars bigger, as they are about half the drawn size. Also the part cupped towards the laser, I think I could counteract this by doing an initial cutout about 1/4 " outside the actual cutout, and taking a few lighter passes on the rastering instead of doing it all in one go, also letting the material cool for a minute between rastering and cutting out.

All that being said, for a half hour of fiddling around on my lunch break..... not too bad IMHO.
 
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Thats an awesome first test. Think it might be better with some sort of thicker paint that pours in rather than gets sprayed on. It will hide the texture of the etching and give it more depth. Then you could do the red first, let it dry / set and etch the blue into it and have the colors the same height / touching. I would probably consider leaving it a square while painting for alignment purposes, and then cut it at the end. Would also probably help with the cupping.

Can't wait to see what you come up with. Definitely thinking about my own laser, and this would be an amazing project to do with it.
 
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