Destiny Warlock Manifold Seeker - First Full Build with Tips!

Hello everyone! I decided it might be a good idea to document my first build, and everything I have gone through to research and implement it, in the hope that this will be of use to other new builders. I will try to give credit to everyone and everywhere I found my information, but I'm not perfect so if you see something that needs crediting, or just want to add your opinions feel free to let me know! I'll also be copying this thread over at TheRPF.com, so let me know if anyone knows a good way to possibly link the two.

So first off some backstory, because reasons! (Bonus points if you get the reference) Ever since I saw Destiny and played the Alpha and Betas for Destiny and then saw the Manifold Seeker set for Destiny I knew I wanted to make a set of armor based on My Little Pony, I mean Destiny.

Ok, actual information time. I would HIGHLY recommend reading through a lot of the threads on this forum and doing some general research into what and how you want to make what you want to make. I probably spent two or three weeks of just researching the different methods and materials used. Also keep in mind your price point, because things can add up quick. Now obviously if you're here you've probably decided to go with Pepakura like I have (for now, seriously looking into a 3D printer, but I'll get into that later). Obviously we need to start with some paper, so after doing some research into cardstock I found that there are various types of card/index/bond/cover stock. The best way to measure them is in grams per sq meter, otherwise you may see 50lb cardstock and 50lb indexstock and think they're the same thing.

I chose this:
Neenah Exact Index, 110 lb, 199 gsm, 8.5 x 11 Inches, 250 Sheets - the weight I wanted and seemed to be most recommended, so far working great.

Other materials I needed:
Premiere 9411 Disposable Scalpels with #11 - I don't remember who recommended these (I think on one of the tutorial threads) but they are perfect! Super sharp and cheaper than xacto knives. Blade #11 is the most like an xacto blade with a fine tip.
Professional Self-Healing Cutting Mat Size: 18" W x 24" D - Something to protect the furniture.
Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue 8oz - I know there's a lot of debate on this, but I decided against hot glue because hot things in small spaces and I do not work well together, and I really hate those stringy bits. This stuff gets tacky in a few seconds and it's got great hold, but you still have a few moments to position everything correctly. But once it's there it's there for good, you can see the results on a piece I messed up below.

A ruler - I had a metal engineers triangular ruler around and it works well, I can hold down firmly on the top while cutting and scoring.
Tweezers - good for folding small parts and holding them in place while gluing. Also using a collar stay I had lying around to spread the glue, just put a drop on the tab, spread it out, and stick.


Scoring - I also had this thing (with the red handle) lying around from my computer repair days, I picked it up at Radio Shack. I've been using the pointy end to score along the fold lines. Gives me nice crisp folds. The other end is more of a blade, and is great for pressing down on tabs when gluing and pushing into creases. You could also pick up one of these bone folders to do the same thing, I almost did, but wanted to try what I had on hand first. EK tools Bone Folder


Ive been using it by dragging it upside down along the fold, not point side down. I think that would rip it too much, instead of just compressing the fold line.

This:


Not This:


That's most everything you need to get started with the printing/cutting/folding/gluing parts.
I also picked up some things for the next part, hardening. I plan on using epoxy resin, but I'll get into that more when I get to it.

3M Tekk Paint Project Respirator, Medium - So I couldn't find much of ANYTHING on sizing respirators so I went with medium. The 3M Tekk came with Organic Vapor cartridges, perfect.
Blue Nitrile Gloves - Cheap, disposable, protective.
Uvex S3970D Stealth OTG Safety Goggles - Safety first, and these fit over my glasses (OTG)

So for now I've set up a workstation on an IKEA desk I have:




Gamma radiation! Does this mean I become the Hulk if I nick myself?


This is the piece I messed up I mentioned earlier. I glued the tabs over the matching numbers instead of under. Helps to go over the instructions again, especially your first time! You can see the paper was ripping before the glue would give out.

So that's pretty much it so far, once I get more pieces cut out and more pictures taken I'll add more!

For anyone still interested I mentioned I was looking into 3D printers, currently I am deciding between the Ultimaker 2 or TAZ 4, if I decide to get one. Not only would it make it super easy to print props, but there's plenty of useful stuff to print too, I hope. So if anyone has any experience and/or recommendations let me know!

Inspiration!:
http://www.therpf.com/f24/3d-printed...ia-suit-186414
http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGa...and_raise_you/
http://www.3ders.org/articles/201410...ion-rifle.html

Update:
So like I said, scaling. Very important! You don't want to spend hours upon hours printing, cutting, and gluing something together just to find out it doesn't fit! There are a few threads on the site about how to scale your Pepakura armor to fit, so go check them out!

Also check out this tutorial by HaloGoddess!


"Once you have this measurement, it's good to add AT LEAST 1 extra inch to leave room for padding. Also because when you fiberglass the inside, this also takes up space. If you plan on installing mini fans for better air circulation inside the helmet or lights, adding a total of 2 inches to your original measurement will help give enough room for all that extra equipment you wish to place in your helmet."




Since I'm doing a helmet I measured the height and width of my head, added the extra space, and converted to millimeters. Now Pepakura locks the scale of your project, so you really only need one measurement, but it's good to check the new measurements in the program against the ones you've taken, to make sure it didn't make it too small or large in one dimension, find a good middle ground.

To scale, go to the 2D view menu -> Change Scale -> Scale Factor... and put in your number. Also in the 2D menu, select the Show Edge ID option so it is checked. This will put numbers by your tabs that makes it much easier to line up matching edges later. Keep in mind once you rescale you may have to move your parts around to fit them completely on the pages to print. Also check the "Check Overlapping Parts" option and look for any red highlighted objects, this means they are overlapping and need to be moved.

I'm building the Manifold Seeker by Remraf, found on his thread here.

One other thing to do is give your model and it's 2D view a going over and make sure things look right before printing everything out. It was only after I had put this part together I found out things didn't quite add up.



For some reason Pepakura is unfolding this part wrong and I can't seem to figure out why. It's correct in the 3D model at 12.15 mm, but translates incorrectly to 17.641mm in 2D. Time for some creativity! So I 'disassembled' the already glued part, cleaned it up, flipped it over and used it as a template to get the cut right.

So if you've scaled correctly, looked over everything, arranged it to print correctly, and turned on Edge ID. Print that sucker out!

Let the cutting, folding, and gluing commence!

Well *ahem*, quiet in here or is that just me?! :lol

Wanted to post an update, been working on the Pepakura in my free time (which thanks to Destiny and Sunset Overdrive is less), but it's nearly finished! Should be ready for the hardening process this upcoming weekend if I can get a warm day *shakes fist at polar vortex*.



Side piece! And inside of side piece! Thrilling!

Well it's harder to see than I thought it might be on that second picture, but I wanted to talk about some things I've discovered about tabs.
Pepakura does, for the most part, a good job at placing the tabs so that they don't overlap each other. MOSTLY. Sometimes they do, especially in crowded locations where several pieces come together, so some tabs needed to be trimmed down to fit up against each other well. It's always a good idea to test fit your pieces with a couple tabs held down with tape to see any potential issues ahead of time, rather than after you've glued down a few tabs.
Also it seems to be consistent with alternating the tabs on one side of the project, but on the other half the tabs wind up all on one piece or the other. (If you look at the first picture, the piece lying right next to the cutting mat has those 3 tabs on the left side next to each other, IMHO it would be better to swap that middle tab to the other piece if possible (can be done in Pep designer), so that there is less chance for error when fitting and gluing the tabs down, because they hold each other in place.



Pieces coming together! I liked building them in sections then connecting the larger sections together.

Another thing that I didn't see discussed much was the build order for what you're doing. I decided to start with the bottom half of the helmet, starting at the neck. That way I could put together the components that make up the neck hole, and see how it would fit! Since this is my first scaling and pep build I didn't want to get finished and find out it was too big or small! So far thankfully everything is looking good.

Also, huge shout out to Volpin for mentioning The Engineer Guy here. It's a little hard to find, but I was like a kid in a candy store...with rubber candy, that you really don't want to eat.

(If you're reading this I'd really love to pick your brain sometime about finishing this thing for casting, I'll bring good beer!)

So I picked up a few things I would need for the upcoming steps:



I decided to go with SmoothOn EpoxAmite Laminating Resin, 102. Which means medium set time (22 min work time). 101 is quick setting (11 min) and 103 is long (55 min I think). They said the laminating resin would be thinner than casting resin, so hopefully it will soak in a bit better and give me a nice thin smooth surface layer to work with.



Apoxie Sculpt. It's a two part clay-like epoxy. Mix them together (thoroughly) and you have 6 hours or so to sculpt it just like clay, overnight it hardens just like bondo and can be sanded, drilled, etc. Used for making detailed parts or shapes, patching, etc.

Looking forward to the finished project!

This is awesome and is going better than if I were making it.

Are you also planning on making the Warlock cloak thing?

Gee2 said:

Looking forward to the finished project!

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It's not going to be for a while but I am too!

Wezeldog said:

This is awesome and is going better than if I were making it.

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Thanks, but I doubt that! Hopefully anything I discover will help your own projects!

SuperSkeptik said:

Are you also planning on making the Warlock cloak thing?

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By cloak thing do you mean their long armored coats? If so, yes. Still deciding if I want to go with the Manifold Seeker I or II though. Opinions?

http://destinydb.com/items#name:Manifold Seeker

And now, progress update!



So first off, that whole decide how you want to build the thing I mentioned in the last post is coming back to bite me in the @**. I didn't think about how I was going to get in and glue the tabs along the edges of the front 'mandible' pieces (where you can see the gaps in the picture), since it's a very small inside part, curved, and there is a lot of tension at this point from everything trying to pull into the correct position it's going to be a huge pain finishing gluing those parts. Also it's going to be the first and probably most viewed part of the helmet, so I want it to be nice and perfect! So again, think about how your project is going to come together at the end or in stages and try to plan around parts like these. A better way of doing it would have been to put together the entire front/side pieces starting at the front edge and working back, gluing tabs as they came together, THEN attaching to the rest of the helmet. Ah well, Pep and learn!

Also, another huge shout out to my friend Cathy at God Save The Queen Fashions, she does a wonderful job of teaching how to sew! I took a class on leather (my first ever) and will be going back for more! I didn't know there were so many kinds of leather! Deer, lamb, pig, cow, elk, garment splits, veg tan, oh my!



I can haz leather now!
Hong Kong finish on garment split and how to do ribbing (hint, it's backed with auto headliner foam!)

Gotta make up some patterns for it, but I've heard rumors that Bungie has released the helmet and armor models somewhere, so unfolding the texture from the armor would give me a great pattern to work from with some scaling and modifications!

I'm not exactly sure how to get the model into pepakura but destinydb has some 3d models.

Wezeldog said:

I'm not exactly sure how to get the model into pepakura but destinydb has some 3d models.

Click to expand...

Yes, people have been working on that for a bit (myself included). The models are in a proprietary format and can't be used in any modeling software yet. BUT, there is a program 123DApp that apparently turns pictures into 3D models, so a roundabout way is taking lots of screenshots of the model from DestinyDB and then using the app to recreate the model. Haven't tried it yet since I've already got the helmet model I needed, but I may try it with the armor.

BAM!

Finished! ...with the Pep, at least. Those last few tabs involved quite a bit of swearing. Learn from my mistakes! Don't leave a tight enclosed area as a place you're going to join pieces. :facepalm



Anyways, it didn't turn out entirely horrible! Those front pieces will need some TLC during the cleanup/finishing phase, but then again all of it will. Now I just need a warmer, drier day to go epoxy! (also need to pick up some Bondo)

Moving on I/we all appear to have gotten a bit of good luck. It looks like the fine fellows at Xentax have been working on deconstructing the models from DestinyDB and are having some success! This thread details how they are converting the geom files to obj, I haven't had a chance to try it myself but I will soon. Hopefully any future modeling will have a head start from their hard work!

I've also been looking through the texture files to find the manifold seeker armor set. I'm hoping I can get the correct shapes at least for the armor patterns, or something close since I've never patterned for cloths/coats/anything before! Most of the warlock coats appear to be a combination of heavy cloth and leather, along with armor pieces so I'll probably be sourcing some foam soon.

In other news, I think I am about ready to pull the trigger on an Ultimaker 2 3D printer. After about month of research and wavering between the TAZ 4 and UM 2 I've made a decision, now I just have to justify the cost to myself.

I'm back! Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, etc. I was away and couldn't get anything done, butttttt.... I did get the first layer of epoxy resin on before I left!

Pictures!



I think the sizing turned out just perfect, I had scaled it down just a bit from the original. It has just enough clearance around my ears to fit, and a little padding on the inside should hold it where I want it. I was trying to get a shot with the light behind me so I could see where my head was sitting inside, because there isn't much room from my nose to the front 'window' and I do want to be able to see at least a bit when I'm wearing this. Also I don't want to look like a bobblehead.

As for how it looks compared to the in-game helmet. I haven't found one yet in-game, gah (PS4 btw)! I've gotten exotic helmets left and right, but no Manifold Seeker! RNGsus PLEASE! I've got a couple of reference pictures that I've been comparing to, and I think it looks amazing. The only thing that I could think seems off is that the front top seems just a tiny bit stretched vertically. Although now that I look at the pictures more I need to be angling the helmet down more when wearing it. I have a thought, I'm going to take the reference photos and then take pictures of the helmet that match said reference photos and put them up to compare. Can't do that right now because the second, inside, layer of epoxy is drying! I'm so excited!

So I decided to follow the suggestion on Impact Props to slush cast some casting epoxy (SmoothCast 300) inside the helmet form instead of dealing with fiberglass. So I sanded the outside, and the inside as well as I could to help adhesion of the layers. It worked for the most part...



But there were some small sections that didn't get much (if any) casting resin on them, and the middle section was looking like it was doing the same thing, so I tried spreading some out on it and well...



Yea, messy. Thankfully this part is only for reinforcement so I could move on to Bondo and finishing, and that middle piece will be cut out and replaced with tinted plastic in the final piece anyways.

I think part of the issue was not using enough casting resin at first, I started with 4 oz mixed which wasn't enough to coat the entire inside surface, and the SmoothCast 300 thickens up REAL quick. So I added more layers, but having the big open neck didn't help any as I had to try and get it down into the recesses around the 'ears' without it all dripping out. And once it hits the partially cured layer already inside it accelerates the thickening of the new layer so I tried to aim and pour small amounts where it needed it.

I think in the future a better way would have been to create a cardboard cover for the open neck area and left a hole in the middle to pour the resin in, more like a true mold. Although I still wonder how you can make sure it gets on parts like that middle recessed piece...just using more and more vigorous slushing I guess.

But hey, this stuff is STRONG. Once it cured in a hour or so it was solid. I almost feel like I could stand on the thing (not that I'd recommend trying!).



So my first attempt at Bondo-ing is in progress, and I'm trying to stick to the 'less is more' philosophy which seem to be the way to go. I will say, situational awareness is a must, I messed up one side as I was trying to do the other because I let it brush against the work surface...a few times.
Getting thin layers of bondo into that 'death star trench' running along the sides of the helmet is going to be a challenge. Might try cutting a tiny piece of spatula to just the right size for it.