Hey Doc Welcome to the forums!
i will try to help you out as much as posible but i will not go into details
if you need details you should do some research on the Section of the project that you are working on at the time anyways here is a list of what steps to take:
The fiberglassing and Resin Method: will cost roughly 300 Dollars or somwhere around thoes lines, for a whole suit which is probobly one of the easyest and cheapest ways of making your own Prop armour
Here are the basic steps to making it :
now on to the process of making it, you download the program called Pepikura, link here:
http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/
dowload *Designer not Veiwer, you will not be able to scale your helmate to fit you if you get viewer **(note it will mention that you need a passcode for it, this is not true, you can use it without a passcode, however if you make adjustments to the file you will be unable to save your
progress)
after you get the program you than can go to this website to get the Suit files if you look around the 405th forums you can find some that are also not listed on the website:
http://halocostuming.wikia.com/wiki/Pepakura_File_Index
before you just dive right in you need to size the suit to your size, for this i recomend you go to this thread, it is very helpful and easy to understand
:
http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/...aling+Tutorial
the only thing about scaling the armour, is that the 2D peices will no longer fit on a normal page so you must move the peices around so they will fit on the pages
you than print the peices out on Heavy weight Cardstock (a thick, Speical type of paper)
you cut out the 2d peices, fold, glue and follow the template for peiceing them together.
you will then resin the Fully pepekured Section or Peice of armour once on the inside and outside.
you will than go and fiberglass the inside of the suit *NOT OUTSIDE*
after this is done you can apply the bondo body filler to the outside of the suit to buff and add details
after this is done you will use a painting technique, depends on what kind of style you want your suits color scheme to be
and after it is all painted and made to your standards than you add all the Misc. on it like lights
like i said this is probobly the quickest way, and cheapest way to make a suit, but it still requires patience
like i said, this is just the steps to take, browse the forums for the spacifics on the steps
i hoped my info helped
good luck on your build
//Jeremy