Grrr! We're freelancers! Red vs Blue WIP

[Sara]

What are you going to do for Maine's visor? I was thinking different layered sections of various gold motorcycle visors so you can see through the whole thing instead of a tiny piece of it. But hey that's just me.

I started the bondo work on Maine's helmet last night, just getting the basic shape before I start the detail (with video) . I'm really excited about how it's looking so far. I've decided to cast the helmet when it's done and vac-form the visor. We're also going to have a go at vac-forming the MKVI visor.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm pretty proud of our results so far

 

[Doctorwho10]

i was gonna suggest vac-forming the visor as it seems a lot easier to just tint the vacuformed piece rather than canabalise a bunch of motorcycle visors. nice work with the brute shot

 

[thorn696]

Latest up date is awesome loving the amount of detail you're getting into the bondo layer.

 

[jamestfox]

Everything here is so great!!! I love all of the stuff you guys have done. I can't wait to see some finished freelancers!!!!!! The finished group shot will make all the pain and hard work worth it. I love your attention to the detail because it is the small things that make the biggest difference. Keep up the great work guys! (and gals!!!!)

 

[demo084]

If you keep this up I see it going into the elite category. Extreme attention to detail, and you're going to make a video. In the words of Jungle from AFT "he11 yeah"

 

[TheMagicNumber]

So, um...are you girls single?

Lol JK..Absolutely amazing work...I hope I can do as well as you cos your armor is looking awesome.

 

[Sara]

Everything here is so great!!! I love all of the stuff you guys have done. I can't wait to see some finished freelancers!!!!!! The finished group shot will make all the pain and hard work worth it. I love your attention to the detail because it is the small things that make the biggest difference. Keep up the great work guys! (and gals!!!!)

Anytime I'm feeling a bit defeated I think about how amazing it's going to be to suit up as a group of freelancers, it really keeps me driven. We're definitely going to Pax Melbourne (1st international Pax, woo!) we're road tripping down so we can haul the armour with us, it's over 900m miles away. Roosterteeth has announced that they're going to be there as well!

If you keep this up I see it going into the elite category. Extreme attention to detail, and you're going to make a video. In the words of Jungle from AFT "he11 yeah"

Thanks very much Once the basic shaping of the EVA helmet is complete I'll be shooting the video.

So, um...are you girls single?

Lol JK..Absolutely amazing work...I hope I can do as well as you cos your armor is looking awesome.

lol thanks Our boyfriends (well, one bf and one fiance') have been talking about helping out on the armour lately but they aren't quite up for the level of detail we're doing, so they can keep playing day-z and we'll do the heavy lifting... JKs We're actually really happy to be able to do something nice for them.

Ok update time! I'm going to apologise now, I'm going to ramble on and there's going to be a lot of photos, you have been warned

First of all; the back detail, decided not to make this out of foam after all. Bondo is my thing so I'll stick to what I know for now.

I started by creating the stepped base that the detail lines are going to go on top of, it's not done and it's far from perfect but it's a start. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it off tomorrow. (click on any photo to view larger)



Now onto my new pet project, the EVA helmet. First up, I've decided that I'm going to cast this helmet and vac-form the visor, I'm also going to try vacforming a MkVI visor but that's a different update for a different day

My inspiration from this piece isn't the game model or the animated stuff from RvB, I'm modelling it after a 1/4th scale replica made by WETA Workshops. It's pretty much the same as the H3 model, there's just some small differences in the visor and other detail.

Photos of my WETA Model:







it's a bit dusty :s but here you can see a lip that goes around the jaw line of the helmet, this doesn't seem to be in the H3 model.


So it's a little different, the round shapes on the visor are more round, it has a raised lip around the jaw line and the detail around the nape of the neck seems to be raised rather than carved in.

And here's the hardened pep before I started with the bondo. Ignore the ugly pen marks, they were there because we wanted to mock up the shape of the visor to see if there was any chance of seeing through it if we made these sections transparent and the rest solid. IMO there wasn't.





I'm really going to have to build up the height of this area to fit all that juicy detail in, this face is much taller on the WETA statue.


I started by measuring and sketching out the plan for the visor and then I cut these shapes out with a dremel as they had to be lower than the surrounding areas. The round shapes haven't been cut out because on the WETA statue they aren't lower faces, there's just a groove around their edge and I'll carve this in later. I really love the design of the WETA EVA helmet so I want to replicate it as best I can.

I took the faces I cut out and reattached them on the inside of the helmet so that they were lower than the surrounding area. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately lol) I didn't take any photos of this process.

So now I'm working on smoothing out the visor shape and getting it ready. What I've got so far still needs work. After that I'll smooth out the other faces, build up the back and then get ready to shoot a tutorial. Enough talking, here's the photos:







It looks pretty blotchy and uneven in some of the photos but I think that's from the different coloured layers of body filler. I'm really pleased with it so far, I think it's going to be a thing of beauty when it's done... so round ... so smooth ... my precious ... anyway, where was I?

I've never vac-formed before so if any one familiar with the process has any ideas or considerations I should take into account now that will save me some headaches later on, let me know. Also, if there's anything in particular anyone would like to see in the video just say so. Cheers guys.

'til next time
Sara

 

[TheMagicNumber]

This thread never fails to impress me every time I pop in for a look.

I dunno how many times I can keep saying how impressed I am....might as well start saying thanks instead Keep it up and PLEASE keep posting as many pics and I'll be plaesed to be there to say told you so when it gets shifted to the Elite showcase

 

[spartansonny]

so precious, tee hee. The helmet is looking off to a great start, and the bondo work is awesome! LIKE ALWAYS! lol, can't wait to see your behemoth of a project done Sara, your eye for detail and beauty is amazing.

 

[Doctorwho10]

if you need a more HD EVA helmet pepakura file, I found this link, but judging by the quality of your work so far, you won't need it

http://www.4shared.com/file/6ulzmWzQ/Weta_EVA_Helm_by_Suzerain_unfo.html

 

[drack]

Stunning work as usual. You guys are extremely talented and hope I get close to how perfect your builds look when have a go at my first bondoed helmet.

Tom.

 

[Spartan_127]

Latest pics look awesome. Can't wait to see what's next. Keep it up.

 

[socom]

Good gawd you guys do work fast. Eveything looks sooo amazing. I keep coming back to look and pick up some pointers.

 

[Sara]

This thread never fails to impress me every time I pop in for a look.

I dunno how many times I can keep saying how impressed I am....might as well start saying thanks instead Keep it up and PLEASE keep posting as many pics and I'll be plaesed to be there to say told you so when it gets shifted to the Elite showcase

Thanks very much, I'd be honored if we made the elite thread someday but there's a lot of amazing builds that never made it there so I'm just happy to make a suit (or 2) that I can be proud of

so precious, tee hee. The helmet is looking off to a great start, and the bondo work is awesome! LIKE ALWAYS! lol, can't wait to see your behemoth of a project done Sara, your eye for detail and beauty is amazing.

Cheers, I can't wait to see this project done either, not because I'm sick of working on it, I'm not - I love it, I just can't wait to see us as a group. I don't know what I'll do with myself once we're done... although I've got a crazy idea for a AI Delta MkV suit...

if you need a more HD EVA helmet pepakura file, I found this link, but judging by the quality of your work so far, you won't need it

http://www.4shared.com/file/6ulzmWzQ/Weta_EVA_Helm_by_Suzerain_unfo.html

I searched high and low for a file like this when I sat down to pep the EVA, where has it been all my life!? Oh well, I kinda like the roundness of the one I've got, this will be a great reference though, thanks!

Stunning work as usual. You guys are extremely talented and hope I get close to how perfect your builds look when have a go at my first bondoed helmet.

Tom.

Thanks, I have no doubt that yours will be brilliant!

Good gawd you guys do work fast. Eveything looks sooo amazing. I keep coming back to look and pick up some pointers.

We'll have to work fast lol, there's still soooo much to do if we're going to make our deadline.

Anyway, I've got a bit more progress to share with you guys. I'm nearing completion on the visor part of the EVA helmet. When I say nearing completion I mean most of the shape I want is there, everything is still in need of a fine sand and spot putty, followed by another sand etc, etc.

I started by rounding off the two points on the front of the visor and then I smoothed out the rest of the shapes. I've raised the depth of the top sunken face, I think it looks a bit silly when it's too deep although now I'm a little concerned that it may not stand out enough once vac-formed. Does anyone with vac-forming experience have any thoughts on this? I've left the depth of the others as-is, I quite like them deep like this, it's nice and dramatic.

I haven't rounded off the corners (much) of any of the shapes, I figure that the vac-forming process will round things out enough and if it still looks too sharp I can round off the forming buck. As you can see some of the edges aren't perfectly straight yet, I'll fix these when I give it a final going over.

Photos:




Now it was time to start the round detail on either side of the helmet (I'm going to refer to them as 'eyes') I started by sketching out the shape I wanted, I traced this onto one side of the helmet then flipped it and traced it onto the other. I then set about the task I was dreading and started carving this line into the bondo with a rotary tool. Here's the result:



Not pretty, I grabbed some various needle files and some sandpaper and went to work. A surprisingly short time later I more or less had the result I was after. It still needs work, as does the rest of the visor, but I think it looks pretty decent. I am a little worried about how well it'll vac-form. Anyway, photos:











I'm itching to give the visor a fine sand and a coat of spot putty but it's pointless until the 'eyes' are done. We picked up some molding and casting supplies last weekend so I'm ready to mold this thing as soon as it's done.

Thanks for looking in and enjoy the holidays
Sara

 

[Doctorwho10]

This is just an idea i've been toying around with, After you've vacuformed the gerneral shape of the visor you'll need a heat gun and a paint brush. use the heat gun on the areas where you put the "eyes", when the plastic is soft use the end of the paint brush's handle and push the plastic into the "eye" grooves that you've detailed, this should leave the impression in the plastic. do this for the "head" "nose" and "chin" parts of the visor but for them you'll need to cast a shape from the parts you've carved out and once you've heated the other areas push the cast shapes onto the area and wait until the plasti cools and the impression stays and take the casted shapes out. As i've said, this is just a theory i've had and i'm not sure it would work. The person you might want to ask about vacforming would be Sean Bradley, he's done vacformed ODST costumes and might have the advice your looking for when it comes to vacforming your visor. Hope this helps, if not, sorry

 

[thorn696]

Awesome work.

 

[TheReconSpartan]

I started the bondo work on Maine's helmet last night, just getting the basic shape before I start the detail (with video) . I'm really excited about how it's looking so far. I've decided to cast the helmet when it's done and vac-form the visor. We're also going to have a go at vac-forming the MKVI visor.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm pretty proud of our results so far

I was thinking of that, probabally because I had to do it for my halo reach pilot helmet. Here's the place where i got my plastic from.
http://www.widgetworksunlimited.com/PETG_Thermoform_Plastic_s/49.htm

 

[Sara]

Thanks for the info Doctor, I'll definitely take it under advisement. I think I'll see how the first few forms go before I start troubleshooting problems that I might not have, doesn't hurt to think ahead a bit though. And cheers for the link ReconSpartan, I've been looking for plastic locally but haven't had any luck so far, I'm told there's a couple of places in Brisbane I can source plastic from, we'll see

 

[Annanymous]

holy smokes. How is this the first time I've seen this thread?! This is INCREDIBLE.

 

[spartansonny]

sara that eva helm is fantastic work! can't can't wait to see your whole suit