ODST - WIP 2.0

[Hikuro]

The reasoning I've called this the 2.0 WIP is mainly because the original thread I had started with nearly 4 years ago has been locked. To be honest with you I had become quite distant within the 405th due to a number of reason's and I'm not going to jump into that. I'm jumping feet first into something quite different and I wanna continue the progress of this project as I'm getting closer to completion. But I'm gonna recap everything so let's dive right in shall we?

Now a number of years ago...gosh, 13 years ago, I met an awesome dude who got me into Halo prop building. However during that time I just wasn't able to get into it. Course I had tried a number of times but due to my size I was given a lot of discouragement from people around here who I don't even believe are active anymore.
Things changed though and by 2014 I said forget about being a Spartan or any of that stuff, I wanted to be an ODST, those guys are tough as nails and don't even need enhancements or super expensive armor to kick some covie butt.
I came across Sean Bradley thru my friend and was able to purchase an ODST kit from him while my friend provided me a helmet and a couple of visors to try out. The down side to all of this though was it was also the time I was going to move into a new home...so the project sat for a long length of time.

Then here we come to 2019, I had moved AGAIN 2K miles away from a home I'd known for 30 years! Course moving half way across the country you sort of have more free time cause you're jobless. That's when I started to get restless and began working on the ODST kit finally....
Before that time though I had gained some confidence in my costume making abilities as I had joined the 501st and Rebel Legion...I'd made quite a few suits during that time such as a Republic Commando, a Biker Scout, Most of a Tank Trooper, and others. So working on ABS wasn't new to me anymore and had a fairly good grasp of the game.

While searching for work I began my progress, slowly but steadily at the time:

The helmet came together fairly quickly of course, I'd had tons of experience in building that sort of stuff. Adding a yellow stripe to it gave it a nice personal touch as it's my favorite color, and the silver visor turned out rather well. My vision isn't entirely impaired but it wouldn't be fun wearing it in a tight crowd.

The next step was trimming the parts. The only thing I really hate about this part was just the particles and bits flying all over the place. A lot of this stuff I didn't do to bad on seeing how it'd been a couple of years since I had done this....buuuut....

the gauntlets came out horrible. Things just did not want to line up right, and my forearms aren't exactly beefy or long so trimming this area was exceptionally difficult. I'm half tempted on redoing these by buying a new set from Sean as the etsy page now has the option of buying individual parts.

The legs came out alright though, and I need to apply a little heat to these, and a light amount of foam for comfort.

The next step now that I had these and the shins finished is to get some 2 inch elastic around them....it's going to be interesting as it's I guess a loose fitting, nothing snaps into place or anything...it's just held together via the elastic belt I gotta make.

I also began work on the backpack during that time frame. I had purchased it I think before my 2nd move going to Texas. I felt sort of awkward not having this piece to the costume, it just didn't feel right to me so I had to get it.
Most of the backpack has been coming together well but I'm having some issues with the handles and strapping. I'll finish it eventually though and it'll be used of course to carry some of my personal belongings.

Thigh pieces were coming along nicely, I had trimmed these and cleaned them up to the very edge. I wanted to be sure these could comfortably get around me as I have short but thicker thighs...it'd always been my bane to do any kind of costume with thigh armor because of this reason.

Upper body strapping has come around fairly easy but being such a larger guy at the time, I didn't feel a lot of confidence in this area that it would fit right. Placement is rather difficult

but not impossible. I feel like at the time this photo was taken I've lost a lot more weight, and I can push that whole front down a bit more so it looks more natural.
Things came to an end at that point. I had gone thru a number of jobs and then we hit covid. It didn't feel like the right time during that stage to really continue building something when cons and events were non-existent.
Now we jump to 2023, and things are improving. Conventions are certainly coming back in droves, there's always one every month around me, but I'm picky on the ones I like to go too. However there's a retro gaming event in July and I'm pretty sure I can have this thing finished before then.

So I dug around my garage after doing a bit of a remodel in there recently. I found all my parts again and started digging around seeing where I had left off and what needed fixing.

The backpack is still a mess, I need to trim the right side of the top flap so it can sit a little more flush with the bottom side and providing a more solid close.
I'm still sort of dodgy on the strapping for it, wish I could see a lot more stuff or some sorta tutorial that explains and shows it more clearly.

I had to of course get more rivets as I went and trimmed a few off as I wasn't happy with the results...some were just poking me super badly cause they were to long.

I also needed to add some to enhance the overall look, and I figured I'd start the day off by working on the shoulder parts. I know in Sean's build he used some sort of canvas or leather looking like material to form it around the shoulder armor. Me on the other hand I'm going with a different approach.

for now I've tightly got a 1 inch elastic strap around the bottom and it's not moving much at all as I move my upper arm around.

I strapped on my gauntlets and grabbed my old laser tag plasma pistol and posed for you guys! For now I feel like I got a good range of movement and nothings shifting around anywhere.
I'm hoping tomorrow I can get a few other areas cleaned up and touched up, followed by strapping the thigh pieces to my belt and the elastic wrapping around my shins.

 

[S229]

Good to see another ODST, best of luck to you mate, and I am interested to see where you go with this. Keep up the good work.

 

[Hikuro]

Today were small adjustments and a couple of additions.

I started doing touchups to the belt buckle and I felt it looked plane. I cut two slits opposite of eachother and slid a few inches of webbing between them to give the apparent look of a buckle with real material. Then I had to go inside and cut away a bit of the excess rivets as I couldn't get my belt buckle thru. It was pretty tight but I think it came out fine. Pretty sure though I got this in reverse but I'm not gonna fret over it...cause it still looks cool and it fits fine!

Following that I drilled some additional holes to create detail. As I was looking at it though I began to feel that the faux strapping there could be done in a similar fashion as my buckle, maybe I'll add more 1 inch wide webbing there to give it a real look to it.

Next up was adding the first half of the belt to the thigh strapping. I think this will look fine, but I'll need to adjust the belt side to be a bit longer.

Thigh strapping on the inner area was a bit of a guess. My first attempt was horribly flawed as I forgot to double up....yeah measure twice cut once. But I got tons of 2 inch elastic so it was just fine. It's still nonetheless on the tight side and the armor plating presses pretty hard against my leg. I'm starting to think I need to cut it down a lot more where it meets the knee joint.

 

[Hikuro]

Not much today, for the soft goods I'm going with black coveralls, I know BDU's are the prefered style but I never feel comfortable in them versus coveralls...and seeing how much is covered up in armor parts what's the dif? I'll be getting a cheap airsoft vest from amazon and the cheapest workboots I can in black from Walmart, it'll be covered by the leg armor and the boot cover that means I don't need to get crazy with the design.

Today's achievement was researching and gathering references. I'm not happy with the paint application on the majority and I know there's color separation going on so I gathered up as much photo reference as I could till I was satisfied. Thinking I need to go a little different of a route than gunmetal, but we're gonna stick to it and give it a misting of black or graphite, something darker....and of course I'm gonna need a new can of silver to accent some other areas.
I went to harbor freight as there's one in town and picked up a new roll of the thinner EVA foam.
Taking a good look at Sean's template for the shoulder straps I was able to get a rough idea of how it was done. The back portion has an angle to it and besides the very back being 2.5'' there's no calling to the angular portion there. So I took my ruler, figured out where the 2.5'' lines up on it via the screen then the angles giving it a rough guess.

In the end I came up with something like this and added my numbers there for reference to anyone who's going to make the straps. So we have 17'' length, 3'' at the front of the strap, 2.5'' at the back, the angle isn't quite that steep on either side but the length on one side is roughly 2'' and the other side is 3.25''. That should give anyone a good idea of how it works. It's not perfect, but it worked just fine for me.
Tomorrow I'm collecting fabric and ordering the tool belt straps I need to overlay with the shoulder straps. If I can get those before the weekend then I should have the main portion of the armor complete before next weekend.

 

[Hikuro]

I'm gonna share a pretty big picture update end of the week, but I'll just quickly go over what's been done these last 2 days.

The pattern on the shoulder had been cut on the thinner EVA foam, it was recommended to do 1'' thick but I felt it would been to much for me and I wanted to go thinner. I picked up some cheap cotton gray fabric at walmart along with some nice steel toed boots called Interceptors. I got the fabric wrapped around with masking tape until I can figure out how to secure it properly.
I got a pair of 2XL black coveralls off of Amazon for under 20 bucks, that was a great deal in my opinion and they arrived this evening. So I threw what I had finished, gauntlets, belt, shoulder armor, the back armor and looked via my front lense camera and I thought it looked amazing.
Sadly there's no timer on the front lense so nothing I can show!
To finish off tonight I started cutting straps of 2'' wide 14 inch, and 1'' wide 7 inch and 6 inch webbing for the shoulder harness. The buckles had been cleaned up and paint has been applied and waiting overnight for curing.
The shin buckle parts I had wrapped in 2'' elastic and measured around the lower leg armor and got them all in place. I think I'll do a 1'' elastic loop so I have a top half and bottom half to keep the leg halves secured. But I did try it on with the 2 inch and I felt it secure enough, it's just a little added precaution. I did notice that it slid a bit, but I wasn't wearing coveralls and if the problem persists I will add some left over EVA foam to it for friction.
I think, I'm not sure, but I could finish the strap work and have a test fitting this weekend then move onto the backpack. I'm super excited!
The next project has already been discussed with my buddy who's going to this retro game expo with me....he wants me to assist him in making an H3 Marine get up. He'll get his own soft goods, I just need to help provide the armor pieces. Luckily I have a left over helmet and orange lense goggles he can use.

 

[Hikuro]

Not a ton to report....so I've had trouble trying to find an appropriate tool belt like what's used in the instruction manual...so I've layered 2 inch webbing with 1 inch above that to create my layer on top of the padded fabric shoulder harness. It looks okay. But I've noticed the buckles given to me don't match what Sean used on his which have a half circle on the bottom designed to take the rivets and some shims. So I'm making it work the best I can, having to drill directly at the lowest points of the buckles to accept the shims I'm creating tomorrow.

I began stitch work but the machine didn't like the foam at all and had to do this by hand which is taking a lot longer than I'd like. So while taking periodic breaks for sanity reasons I began doing some additional paint to the armor.

I wanted to break down the gunmetal coloring on many parts to help add some separation and enhance some details,

the results work well I think and it'll be dulled down a bit once I begin my weathering process.

At least the belt looks a lot better now so I'll live with that.

Think tomorrow is going to be about finishing the shoulder harness and getting it attached to the body armor. Once that is done, it's pretty much coming to a close until I ge the rucksack finished...that one has been sorta problematic to understand on the last couple of steps.

 

[Hikuro]

I'm not sure I'll get much done today but lets share what I did accomplish.

These are interceptor brand boots, you can find them over at just about any Walmart for around $35 with size depending availability...I had to go a size down from what I'm normally comfortable with and seeing how these are steel toe I was a bit hesitant. However I didn't find much else locally I was vibing with on this project so these worked out fine.

I did a quick test fitting of my boot toe covers and saw that there was two ways this was going to work, either I was going to need to keep trimming and sanding and losing coverage OR I needed to thick 4th dimensionally and add some EVA foam left overs from my shoulder harness.....pretty obvious what I chose.

The boot covers came to a really great spot and I decided the best course of action to secure them was with 1 inch elastic and some left over rivets in a smaller length than what I usually use. I just punched a hole on both sides near the back end of the covers and away we go! It actually is a very snug fit and I don't foresee at this time there being any shifting around as I step. Though to be honest I have yet to try them out.
Finally the big test was to see how everything leg wise was coming along...

It all looks incredibly tight inside but it all fits very well together and pleased with the result. I showed my ol buddy and he was digging the appearance.

The next step was to work on the backpack a bit...it needs more work. However I got some harness plates and buckles being painted after mounting a few shims to them....and I hot glued the handles to the side. I don't really like using hot glue, it's not strong...but these aren't going to be load bearing areas at all so I just applied a few layers.

I do need to keep playing with the top lid to make it a bit more flush but I don't see how much more I can trim without it getting wonky.
I'm pretty sure I'll continue to play with the backpack tonight though I doubt it'll be finished. While all of this is going on and putting the finishing touches to certain areas I've begun working on accessory pieces beyond the backpack.
I'm contemplating purchasing some additional equipment from Sean's etsy page to add towards my chest piece like his magazine pouches, thigh and lower leg pouches. It's not set in stone because of the time restraints but it's possible.

The last is working on the suppressor type smg from ODST, a classic piece to a classic suit in my opinion. This was something I came across from thingiverse in two parts. The suppressor comes from Halo ODST SMG Suppressor by PiGood and the smg I believe was from M7 SMG (Halo 3) and M7S Supressed SMG (Halo 3: ODST) Credit: Brian Westgate: by CasuallyFlacid

I also have the option of going with either an MA37 or MA40 assault rifle but unsure which I would like more. The MA40 will take less time and material than the MA37 due to supports...but the MA37 is a classic. I'll probably do the MA40 since it's more reach style, and I'll let my pal borrow it to go with his Marine attire. WHICH, I'll be starting a new thread in about a month or so on that build.

 

[Hikuro]

Alright sadly did not finish like I had intended, I hit some snags which have required me to go back and fix some stuff! Not that big of a deal quite honestly.

I took a test fitting just to see how things were coming along, and as you can see, I lost a shoulder lol. During suit up the elastic had snapped off the rivet so I'll have to pop the rivet off and do it again. While doing this I realized the left shoulder armor tends to pull towards my back...I gotta keep that thing more secured

as you can see here. Not only that but my thigh armor should come a little more towards the back (noticed I got a saggy ass right there from the under suit, HAH!)
But along the way I forgot I didn't strap my thighs to the belt like I had originally intended. If I pull the armor higher up my thigh, they feel great! After taking the armor off and cooling off a bit, sweating like crazy in that thing, I fixed the thigh armor

which fit better. I think I should trim it a bit more though....I had also figured out my strapping situation on the shoulder harness

, right now it's hot glued into place and when I feel more up to it, I'll rivet them in on the front and back.

The rucksack...man I dunno. I either need to drill the existing rivets out and start again or something. Apparently Step 4 should of been more like Step 1, I'm a little miffed off about it but at this point what can ya do?

The SMG is coming along decently. The first of 2 small part group prints are coming along nicely, but the section of larger parts are not as good as I'd of liked. They'll finish in 2 days but still not thrilled over the quality the larger prints are performing right now. It's okay though I'll figure it out and make it look nice in the end, I'm pretty good in this area with all the droids I've built in the last few years.

 

[marinesniper]

looks great so far the colors look good too cant wait to see it completed with the smgs

 

[Hikuro]

Alright sorry for the lateness on any updates I've had a heck of a weekend followed by a week that's been a little odd.

I got a tactical airsoft vest I plan to repaint with fabric spray paint this weekend, sorta add some extra detail and depth to the suit overall. It's a pretty good vest, nice and plain. If anyone is interested I got it from https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBFRHL7?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details it'll fit up to a 60 inch waist so that gives me some extra room if anything bad happens to me and I explode like a whale again or something.

I have more or less finished the rucksack

pretty much tearing it apart thanking god I didn't put any washers on the rivets for this blasted thing. I don't know why but this thing just wasn't clicking with me until this evening to finish the strap work...I just pretty much copied it eye for eye to Sean's so if it sits to low, oh well, if it sits to high...oh well! But it's more or less finished in that area! HOWEVER

for the life of me I just can't get these two black parts to stick to the body. I've sanded the bejesus out of these but they won't at all conform to shape and stay flat. Even with freaking shims they won't stay on! I'm half tempted on busting out the leftover eva foam and filling it that way! .....actually that doesn't sound to bad I might try that.

and now for the big money shot....

WHAM! The print came out beautiful! I did it at 10% infill at 1.2mm wall thickness with minimal supports. The back is telescopic and I can easily remove the suppressor and replace it with a standard muzzle if I need too. This thing uses magnets at the magazine there to the side and for some reason the handle......not sure why. There was no mention of the size to the magnets so I busted out the digital calibre tool and got a good guess. Using a 7mmx2mm magnet will work just fine. There's 4 on the mag to the body 2 on each side, and then another 4 on the bottom handle 2 front and back. I highly recommend this print being on everyones list. Heck if this thing works out well and holds up, I may just put this on a commission list for anyone who wants one in the future. It didn't take long to print at all! Probably the fastest weapon prop I ever made!

With that, I'm going to bed to do another long day of work, and maybe work a bit on this afterwards, if not, well there's the weekend!

 

[BinaryHe1ix]

Alright sorry for the lateness on any updates I've had a heck of a weekend followed by a week that's been a little odd.

I got a tactical airsoft vest I plan to repaint with fabric spray paint this weekend, sorta add some extra detail and depth to the suit overall. It's a pretty good vest, nice and plain. If anyone is interested I got it from https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBFRHL7?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details it'll fit up to a 60 inch waist so that gives me some extra room if anything bad happens to me and I explode like a whale again or something.

I have more or less finished the rucksack View attachment 330541 pretty much tearing it apart thanking god I didn't put any washers on the rivets for this blasted thing. I don't know why but this thing just wasn't clicking with me until this evening to finish the strap work...I just pretty much copied it eye for eye to Sean's so if it sits to low, oh well, if it sits to high...oh well! But it's more or less finished in that area! HOWEVER View attachment 330542 for the life of me I just can't get these two black parts to stick to the body. I've sanded the bejesus out of these but they won't at all conform to shape and stay flat. Even with freaking shims they won't stay on! I'm half tempted on busting out the leftover eva foam and filling it that way! .....actually that doesn't sound to bad I might try that.

and now for the big money shot....View attachment 330543 WHAM! The print came out beautiful! I did it at 10% infill at 1.2mm wall thickness with minimal supports. The back is telescopic and I can easily remove the suppressor and replace it with a standard muzzle if I need too. This thing uses magnets at the magazine there to the side and for some reason the handle......not sure why. There was no mention of the size to the magnets so I busted out the digital calibre tool and got a good guess. Using a 7mmx2mm magnet will work just fine. There's 4 on the mag to the body 2 on each side, and then another 4 on the bottom handle 2 front and back. I highly recommend this print being on everyones list. Heck if this thing works out well and holds up, I may just put this on a commission list for anyone who wants one in the future. It didn't take long to print at all! Probably the fastest weapon prop I ever made!

With that, I'm going to bed to do another long day of work, and maybe work a bit on this afterwards, if not, well there's the weekend!

That SMG... good lord that came out beautiful! I can only hope mine turns out half as good as that one did!

 

[Hikuro]

Good news! My idea on the rucksack worked. I grabbed some of my thicker EVA foam and cut it roughly to shape. I picked up some really strong 5min epoxy and used some left over pricks as weight. The last two panels have been applied and are holding well. The tac vest is on it's final coat of gunmetal gray. Sadly though I'm out of 1/8'' washers so I can't add the last bit of strapping to the shoulder armor to keep it more secured in place. I'll have to go to homedepot in the morning to get a new batch which is fine cause I plan on using rivets to help add some more detail to my pal's marine armor.
Later tonight I'll start cleaning up the work station and getting things prepped for the SMG, then think we're gonna call it good!

 

[Hikuro]

an entire day to go from that to this

but I'm very pleased with how it looks overall. The mag is removable but I fixed the suppressor and stock in place. I also did not add the trigger for "safety" reasons if I were to take it to a con.
I was hoping to do a few other things today but I never got around to it. Mostly it's just strapping on the shoulders and wanting to add some extra foam into the helmet to make it more comfortable. I personally think the helmet is to big for me but I can't afford a new one nor do I really wanna print one.

 

[Hikuro]

Today I call a success, like SpaceX blowing up Starship kind of success!

Today was fittings and testing...I started by playing around with the visor to get it more tacted down. Sadly no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to hold in place without assistance. I ended up just using masking tape to put it all down.

There's a mixture of EVA foam and helmet liner to keep it more in place and comfortable compared to the last time I wore it 2 weeks ago.

Afterwards I had to redo my shoulder straps as they kept coming off the rivets, the key? bigger washers!
however I'm still stuck on getting the armor to stay up right and not sag.....the correct method would be to use a strap and buckle to connect from the top end of the shoulder to under the collar plating but it's a stupid tight fit and I can't reach that area at all without assistance...and I primarily need to get this on without assistance.
Next up was weathering

it's annoying when I can't get any good scratching effects on, the paint just won't apply properly cause it's over gunmetal so it blends in. So I just used my usual technique to dirty everything up

I also added a little dirty and mud from the backyard to it...yeah it looked okay!

Weathering around my helmet felt good, not to much, there's actual accidental chipping and paint peeling from a few years ago on there...wish I could remember how I did that and would of re-created it all over the armor.

this and

are probably my favorite shots because I can just feel like I'm wearing some heavy duty armor and gearing up for a fight...it just felt cool!

The next problem is trying to find a way for this collar plating to not bash up against my damn chin! Few times where it legit felt like I was getting choked out and had to rip the front plate off.

rucksack was snapped on with some help and I did just a quick couple of poses

It seemed okay but I do notice some problems still:
1) The thigh parts still rub in a bad spot, and really pull on my belt. It's making me think maybe I should have some kind of suspenders or something to keep it all together.
2) Adding the tac-vest added issues on getting the belt on because I'm essentially adding inches on there. Maybe by not wearing the vest I can keep the thighs and belt more secured in place so it's worth investigating later.
3) The shoulder armor needs to stay up right....I feel like had I done Sean's recommendation it would still be an issue. All my other suit use the buckle method connecting to a place around my collar area underneath. I may. need to do this again...it's just gonna suck.
4) My chin butting up against the collar armor plating is just making me furious. I think a part of this problem is the chest armor being to high up...it perhaps needs to come down by a couple of inches. But by doing this I'll expose some of the strap working. it may have to be a sacrifice for comfort versus accuracy.
5)

the rucksack I think might be sitting a bit to low, not much I can do about that honestly. But if you look the right shoulder harness is pulling down....I'm thinking, maybe veclro at the edging on the inside where the strap meets the colar plating will help keep it in place, along with not pushing the shoulder armor downward. to me it's worth investigating further.

So in the end that's about it, I didn't do much of any kind of movement testing, I think that'll be next weekend or sometime in the middle of May. Overall the look is there, you look at this and you go "Oh snap that's from Halo!" and that's what I'm looking for. But when comparing it to other suits I've worn, it's not quite there yet for comfort and confidence that I can move around and this thing isn't gonna fall apart. But I'm getting there!

 

[Hikuro]

Update:
If you guys scroll a little further up on my last post you'll see a pretty good photo of the chest piece sitting pretty high up butting up against my front collar armor. This made things very uncomfortable cause not only was the front riding back up and hitting against my chin, but it was somewhat choking me as well.
Today having some free, I went and drilled the existing rivets from the chest plate off my shoulder straps. Moved the chest down a good inch or so and then reapplied new rivets.

As you can see here, it now sits a lot further down, AND the front collar plate is easy to install to my velcro straps. The front does still ride up a bit and I gotta constantly pull the front collar plate to adjust everything. So I'm open to suggestions on keeping the whole forward area from sliding back.

 

[Hikuro]

Well I'm back to the drawing board on this build. I've been looking at other people's projects and making some side notes along the way as I'm still not 100% happy with how my build has come along. Worst part was that I had actually planned to wear this next weekend for the first time at a convention for a day. Of course I feel a lil silly because the temps are not favorable for the suit as we'll be hitting between 103-110 for the day. I did manage to salvage a cooling fan from a previous cosplay I did some years back I hadn't been wearing. I had bought several sets of Henry's Helmet Fans back when I lived in oregon for a number of my Star Wars related cosplays....one of them just isn't in use anymore nor does it fit. It only seemed right to gut some of the stuff from that and get it into the ODST suit.
I've also been playing with the thighs on my suit....the back really pinches and puts a ton of pressure on the back and side of my knees making it very uncomfortable to walk, almost impossible really. I've trimmed a huge portion of the back area off making it far better, it looks sort weird, but it works. I'm also going to redo my shin straps...instead of doing an entire strap going around my armor, I think what I should do is add a couple of rivets to each side with the elastic there.

I feel like I should also touch up the colors a bit, I just get this irritation looking at it that it needs more pop to it, more substance other than some gunmetal and silver. So I'll go back and add a few things to it to see if that helps.

 

[Hein B287]

From what i can see you need some more dark colors on the panels. the metallic grey blends together al lot now robbing some of the details. personally i would go for some black or near-black here and there. or some oil washes for weathering.

 

[deutschchan]

really , really cool