Jareyes' Journey To Armour Awesomeness

[jareyes]

Hey 405th members!

Just wanted to use this thread as a means to introduce myself as well as my work. I've actually been trolling the internet for a couple of years (even back when 405th was still MJOLNIRarmor) on how to come-by a suit of the armour, a beautiful set of armour which has captured my imagination since I first saw the MKV in Halo: CE. Call it nerdy if you want, but I've always been big on mechanized, robotic looking things so it was love at first sight. In any case, I was looking through some of my super old computers (talkin' P II's here) and went scrolling through the old bookmarks I had left and when I tried to access a page on mjolnirarmor via a bookmark, it actually ended up re-directing me to here. LO AND BEHOLD!! I stumbled across an armour-making HEAVEN.

So, after stumbling upon this website, several months later (I think a literal seven months) I have a fair share of progress to show you guys as an offering in order for you to welcome me with open arms into your great forum (intimidating considering the kind of work going on around here, to say the least). To date, I've completed about half of a MK VI Suit (pepped so far), some helmet permutations, parts of an ODST suit and a Marine chestpiece. I'll add a couple of pictures now to tease you guys with, but deliberately leave the rest of them until tomorrow so I can learn how exactly to edit a post and avoid being shafted for double-posting haha. Without further ado!

--> The overall proportions of the MK VI pieces I've been working on:

--> Just some assorted parts: You can see the Hayabusa and ODST buckets, completed thigh piece, battle rifle, and mk VI chest (which, btw, drives me nuts everytime I even just THINK about assembling)

--> More assorted parts: Completed thigh and shin, boot still in progress (you can see it placed around a pair of Timberland 6-inch boots. Probably not the boots I'm actually going to use, but a good gauge nonetheless), battle rifle again, a thigh that was too small (damn you pepakura scaling!!) and the mk VI chest again.

--> and a bonus! ODST helmet with back of the marine chest piece.. playing piano! Debussy's 1st Arabesque if anyone's curious, great arrangement.

aaaaaaand more to come eventually, I'll maybe take some more pictures tomorrow but I'm not too big on in progress shots a.k.a. stopping work to have to take pictures of stuff. If I don't get anything up tomorrow, it just means I was doing more work on my pieces . To be fair, I've started resining my ODST helmet so I'll at least try to get pictures of that.

P.S. In the future, I will try to avoid rambling while making posts. Also, don't be afraid to critique!

Edit: I was too curious to not try to edit now so I shall edit. Just as a quick add-on, things you don't see here are a completed recon helmet, rogue helmet (way too big), mk VI helmet (a little too big), ODST shin, ODST smooth chest piece and DOZENS OF FAILED ATTEMPTS! As they say though, s'all good. Hopefully I'll get some pictures of those aforementioned items (minus the failed attempts, those are in the garbage) up tomorrow.

 

[eggfooyoung]

Wow you certainly been busy! Great work!

 

[UNSC Spartan]

Very nice, I like it a lot keep up the awesome work

 

[SteelSpartan]

wow... great work...

now the pleasant part of glassing it all... (I would normally finish one project before doing another... but you'll end up with 3 different suit when you'll be done... you have way more patience than I have)

can't wait to see it all finished

 

[alsmail]

That's great work man! Can't wait to see it finished!

 

[jaalt]

great work looks like you put alot of time into it.

 

[jareyes]

A little update:

So I goto check up on that ODST helmet I resined a little while back to see if it is in good order. For my first time resining or fiberglassing anything, it turned out pretty good but I'm not happy.

The ODST shows the slightest of warpage on the parts just above the protrusion for the ears and on one side, the parts leading up to/ the visor dips in a little bit (pictures at the bottom). I have no idea if this is fixable with bondo?? Or if resin can be magically reshaped after setting with applications of heat perhaps? (I realize that second suggestion is probably closer to a hope and a dream than reality).

In any case, I'm going to redo an entirely fresh ODST helmet from the pep stage and completely redo every step now that I'm a bit more familiar with resin and fiberglassing. *sigh* You live, you learn.

Pictures:

At first glance it looks alright.. also, probably because I sprayed it with dark primer before glassing it's harder to pick out imperfections..

A look from the bottom reveals the ugly innards resulting from resin and a messy fiberglass job courtesy of using the fiberglass strands rather than the matting (though I think I still prefer the strands). You can also kind of see the warpage I'm talking about. From the red circle on the left proceeding up to where the yellow arrow on the left is, you can see that it comes in at a sharper angle than the right side does.

The last one shows the lesser kinds of warpage I got towards the upper curvature of the protrusion by the ear. This kind of warpage I think can be fixed with bondo body filler, I have yet to reach this stage though so I guess I'll find out soon.

Like I said before any suggestions for fixing warping or critiques otherwise are welcome, I don't want the helmet I have completed up to this point to be a complete waste! Thanks for all the positive comments so far!

 

[stick83]

looks great!

very clean

 

[alsmail]

The last one shows the lesser kinds of warpage I got towards the upper curvature of the protrusion by the ear. This kind of warpage I think can be fixed with bondo body filler, I have yet to reach this stage though so I guess I'll find out soon.


Like I said before any suggestions for fixing warping or critiques otherwise are welcome, I don't want the helmet I have completed up to this point to be a complete waste! Thanks for all the positive comments so far!

You can resurrect that with bondo....imagine it like magic liquid plastic that you can schmear into any shape

 

[jareyes]

Thanks Perth! I will probably try to get to the body filler stage tomorrow. As for today, I started glassing my recon helmet (pics up tomorrow I guess) and to fix the ODST helmet... well.... I tried something a little different.

Admittedly... I was feeling a little frustrated with it so I took it outside and because I was half curious as to how much abuse it could take and whether or not this was going to work, I beat it with a hammer and stepped on it .
AMAZINGLY, it takes an incredible amount of abuse for what it is. I was also able to come close to perfectly fixing the main curvature I was worried about by cracking some of the resin along the curvature and bending it back: it is not definitely fixable with bondo.

One last note, a question:
I tried it back on for the first time today since I glassed it and it seems to be a tighter fit. Again I'm not sure if I should chalk this one up to warpage or if resin shrinks or something? Like I know people say to accomodate for the space fiberglass takes but is it really THAT much? Thoughts and comments please.

 

[box o crayons]

its barely any i make it as small as possible so i can get it on and thats easily fixed with some bondo and sanding dont worry

 

[jareyes]

Well here are the pics I have of today's work. It is absolutely AMAZING how much work you can feel like you're doing and when you finish up whatever particular thing you're working on, you realize it is barely anything at all.

Got the back and sides (the part that hugs the sides of the rib cage) completely fiberglassed today. Kind of difficult to get a good angle but I thought I'd put up a picture or two just for fun.

*tear* my first pepped chest piece is now my first glassed chest piece.. they grow up so fast!


and here's a quick shot of my recon helmet. At first, I actually didn't like the design of the recon helmet/armour but it's grown on me a LOT. Hope this one doesn't turn out with any warping at all like my ODST did. It looks pretty even so far though.

You're probably wondering why the recon helmet has all the fiberglass strands stuck to the outside haha. Long story short, I liked to spray all my pieces with shellac first before resining them as I read somewhere on here before that it helps to prevent warpage. What I forgot to do though is sand the pieces with shellac and now the resin just kind of stayed on the outside, remaining tacky =\. I tried dealing with it and ultimately decided to just recoat with shellac, then try sanding it with the inside fully glassed.. I'll give that a try tomorrow and hopefully that flies.

buuut, what I'm actually wondering is this:
I have a FS HD MarkVI chestpiece shellac-ed already and as I don't want to repeat the same thing that happened to the recon helmet, I want to remove the shellac. I don't want to have to sand all of it away though because there are a lot of tough nooks and crannies, is there any way to remove the shellac by some sort of liquid application or spray, like a... shellac solvent or something?

This would help me GREATLY and probably speed up my process, meaning I'll have more stuff to show you guys.

 

[jareyes]

Whooo weee! Alright sooo I haven't posted in a while, got really caught up with numerous things (other hobbies, day-to-day life, applications for school, etc.) and as such, I haven't got a lot to show =(!!!! But there is[/] something of significance!



In the time I last posted, I created... a man in my own image!!!!! No really, I created a mannequin with relatively similar proportions to myself; Introducing the (not-so) sexy Manny!!



I'll spare the details of how I made it (plus you can find a Duct-Tape-Dummy or DTD tutorial online), but let's just say as careful as I was there were lots of lost leg hairs *sigh*... it was worth it:





--> The wooden frame that I used to support the duct-tape form I made of myself (with the help of my sister, this is impossible to do alone =S)

Many, many hours and bunched up newspaper later:

--> And here, I've got him modelling my ODST chest piece; useful because I can't get my head through the hole /tongue.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" /> but I do like the way it fits overall.

This mannequin doesn't really help with the armour part except for helping to get a third-person perspective on the proportions and sizing of everything. What I created him for mostly is so when I'm working on the underarmour sections, I can place a spandex one-piece suit on him, pin things up on him, hot glue things on without burning myself (well everything but my fingers), place things more carefully on the suit, etc. It should help a ton. It can also double as a display when everything is done ' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />



I wanted to get more resin and bondo done outside but lately, the weather has been terrible up here in Canada. Cold weather =( and if not, then cold and rainy and if not THAT, then hot and muggy because of the rain from the day before..

Anyway! The weather calls for more rain this weekend so I've printed out about 10 separate items of pepakura so that should keep me busy until next week/update and then I'll hopefully have something really good to show you guys. Stay tuned!



P.S. Also, to carry on my question from the last post: Does anyone know of a liquid-form solvent for Shellac spray? I think I can do without it but it'd still be nice to know, for future reference.



Oh uhh..also, a question about the ODST torso piece. The bottom of the piece that's supposed to wrap around the body, is it supposed to meet the body underneath the ribcage? on the ribcage? surely not above the ribcage? Suggestions on fit would be great, I think it looks ok.

 

[jareyes]

Alright so, I know double posting (edit: and necro-ing) is evil and I should confess my sins after but my thread hasn't been getting much attention although, with E3 passed a while back and all the hype with natal, ODST, reach, etc. I don't blame anyone . Anyhow, it's just a small update and kind of a bump as I need it for encouragement!



Anyhow, over the passed little while I've mostly been doing pep, the Canadian weather is not cooperating at all: it's been raining for like the passed week or week and a half. Can't resin, can't bondo, so this is what I've done so far:



New Rookie Helmet. A quick note, I definitely prefer this build AND shape over the WETA odst. I also used an angle threshold of 170 instead of 175, just in case anyone wondered why some of the lines on the actual build are missing from the pepakura file they view on the computer.

Here it is pepped:

--> and a closer look,

I know I'm not the only one to have noticed this but the folds for the details at the top are incredibly difficult. I got frustrated today after trying to figure out a better way to do this part for the last two days. As you can see, my solution: mash the pieces together and get the general shape . If anyone ever has a different unfold of this, I will try it.. either than that one part though, the rest of the unfold is really easy, a joy to build really. Anyhow, the bondo I will eventually put over this will cover it up anyway and I'll have the rest of the detail line to know what shape to dremel in.

I also did the new ODST shoulder but there are pictures of that in the main Halo: ODST pepakura thread.





I've also finished glassing my Mk. VI torso and hopefully I can bondo tomorrow, provided it doesn't rain.

Here are two pictures. It came out really well I feel, very minimal warping even without the supports.

Lastly, I've also begun work on an undersuit. It's in the very early beginning stages but I should be able to give progress pics of this in about a week, I want to have something substantial to show.



And a quick question: does anyone know where to find small hydraulics? Like.. I'm not sure how to explain it but they're the kind of hydraulic pistons attached to some doors (mostly the rear doors on cars and vans) that prevent them from swinging back down when someone is getting stuff out of the back of their vehicle. If anyone has an online source for these, a link would be aweesome.



Comments please.

 

[City Static]

The new ODST helmet model is great. I still prefer the weta though, it looks more like the in-game model. You're the first person I've seen to pep the new model. Congrats!

 

[phenry]

Awesome work so far. I just finished glassing my HD torso not too long ago and have a new found respect for anyone that's done the same.

And a quick question: does anyone know where to find small hydraulics? Like.. I'm not sure how to explain it but they're the kind of hydraulic pistons attached to some doors (mostly the rear doors on cars and vans) that prevent them from swinging back down when someone is getting stuff out of the back of their vehicle. If anyone has an online source for these, a link would be aweesome.



Comments please.

You should be able to find them on most car parts sites. I'm not at all sure what car makes/models will have the size you want, so I would just suggest looking at yours and your friend's cars and going from there.

 

[Dagger06]

Nice to see a pep of Rundown's model! I'm going to have to give that a try eventually. My helmet actually suffers pretty much all the same defects as your original ODST helmet. =P Like you said...live and learn. I do want to salvage it a bit also though...maybe give it to a friend to wear with his Mk6 or something.



I like the picture of the ODST helmet with the Marine back. I'm actually thinking of using that as a basis for my ODST suit instead of the WETA form.



I'll have to make myself a mannequin one of these days. ^^



All your stuff's looking good. Can't wait to see more!

 

[halodude164]

wow, this is great stuff! and all of your posts are so detailed. the things that happened to your first odst helmet happened to my mk6 helmet... so i know the suffering. so i'm working on my new one. great stuff and keep it up

 

[Haven923]

Great work!! You have a lot of stuff done so far. I understand how you feel with the weather. I live in Florida so it has been raining on and off every day for like the past two-three weeks Good luck with the rest of your armor!!



PS: I might make one of those duct tape dummy things

 

[jareyes]

The new ODST helmet model is great. I still prefer the weta though, it looks more like the in-game model. You're the first person I've seen to pep the new model. Congrats!

Ah thanks man, it was in all honesty a pain in the BUTT!!! But thank the pepakura gods that Ral released his unfold, it's much better.. just a suggestion to anyone else who wants to build it.

Awesome work so far. I just finished glassing my HD torso not too long ago and have a new found respect for anyone that's done the same.



You should be able to find them on most car parts sites. I'm not at all sure what car makes/models will have the size you want, so I would just suggest looking at yours and your friend's cars and going from there.

Yeah man tell me about it. The HD Torso gave me nightmares because I worried so much about it warping.. and all that work going to waste because it warped... guhh.. I don't even want to think about it.



And for the car parts, I shall look around. There's also an electronics store I want to hit up but I hear the parts there are very specific and very expensive. I'll save up some money and hit it up. Thanks for the comments!

Nice to see a pep of Rundown's model! I'm going to have to give that a try eventually. My helmet actually suffers pretty much all the same defects as your original ODST helmet. =P Like you said...live and learn. I do want to salvage it a bit also though...maybe give it to a friend to wear with his Mk6 or something.



I like the picture of the ODST helmet with the Marine back. I'm actually thinking of using that as a basis for my ODST suit instead of the WETA form.



I'll have to make myself a mannequin one of these days. ^^



All your stuff's looking good. Can't wait to see more!

haha yeah, the helmet is very much salvageable but because I like rundown's sooo much more above the WETA one, I'm just going to continue testing techniques (bondo mixes, sanding techniques, etc.) on the WETA one, it's pretty good for making mistakes on so I can transfer what I learn onto other things .



Also yeah, I noticed that the marine armour resembles the ODST suit in some ways, especially the back piece. I would actually suggest to some people to make the marine chest, cut off the front half and alter the back to fit the ODST body.



And make sure you have someone help you with the mannequin, it is a long and difficult process to do it in one piece haha.. lots of cuts, lots of lost hair, and it's just overall irritating. If you can do it in two pieces, it'll be harder to put together but easier on you when you have to cut it all off of you after. Thanks for the comments!

wow, this is great stuff! and all of your posts are so detailed. the things that happened to your first odst helmet happened to my mk6 helmet... so i know the suffering. so i'm working on my new one. great stuff and keep it up

Thanks for the comments man. Yeah after I checked up on my first odst helmet after the first resining, I was CRUSHED to find it warped.. but it's all good. Keep working on your ODST helmet, it'll all be worth it in the end .

Great work!! You have a lot of stuff done so far. I understand how you feel with the weather. I live in Florida so it has been raining on and off every day for like the past two-three weeks Good luck with the rest of your armor!!



PS: I might make one of those duct tape dummy things

Thanks for the comments! Man, nothing sucks like crappy weather eh? Well, here's to hoping for sunnier days.

BTW, the duct tape dummy is invaluable to me now. I will show you what I mean in a couple of posts.





Anyway, thanks to everyone that commented man. I really appreciate it, the first like two months my thread was up it wasn't garnering too much attention, nice to see that it's finally picked up. Gives me a much needed confidence and morale boost!

From my last update, I resined/fiberglassed the new ODST helmet, started bondo-ing the Mk. VI chest and started resining assorted ODST pieces, a Mk. VI Bicep and pepped a whole bunch of pieces. LOTS of things being done, I'll have pictures up tonight!