**Carpathia's Mk VI Armor: Master Chief Going into Cryostasis!

Cereal Killl3r · Sep 16, 2013

Hahaha! That's awesome!
I never would have EVER thought of... let alone attempted using filler with foam. Good on you! It just makes me giggle that it worked out so well

Carpathiavh, the build is great, the video is great. Total WIN all around!
A product of true hard work and commitment!

Looking forward to more!
Dave/Cereal.

Carpathia · Sep 17, 2013

Thanks! Yeah, like I said, I had been planning this for a while. It definitely requires a bit more care than applying filler to a glassed pep piece, but it's working out pretty nicely so far. The real test will be seeing how well the finished piece holds up to wear.

recon313 · Sep 19, 2013

this kinda simple quetion but how you stick the foam detail to the armor?

Carpathia · Sep 19, 2013

recon313 said:
this kinda simple quetion but how you stick the foam detail to the armor?

If you're referring to the new boots, the craft foam detail is applied with hot glue. If you're talking about the rest of the armor, there is no foam detail other than the thighs, which was also put in with hot glue.

recon313 · Sep 20, 2013

carpathiavh99 said:
If you're referring to the new boots, the craft foam detail is applied with hot glue. If you're talking about the rest of the armor, there is no foam detail other than the thighs, which was also put in with hot glue.

What i mean is the things you use for detail for making trenches like in page 45 http://www.405th.com/showthread.php...r-Finished-(Live-Action-Video-Now-Up!)/page45 i read it again and you called it mat board or something .

Carpathia · Sep 24, 2013

So, I've received a few requests for a few more detailed pictures of my undersuit. Over the past year, it's gotten some wear, which will be pretty apparent in the close-up shots. But here you go...

FRONT

BACK

SIDE

ARM

I'm still plugging away at the build. The left boot has gotten some progress. I didn't need to apply any bondo to it, so I was able to get it painted after the two coats of epoxy resin cured. I still need to blackwash it and weather it, but I'm going to wait until I finish the remainder of the boot first. Once that's finished, I'll get building the right boot.

Here's the heel of the new foam boot next to the original pep boot...

Redshirt · Sep 25, 2013

Good to see the wear and tear. I know you've put in a fair amount of time wearing the costume. How have the actual hard pieces held up? How much repair time per wearing does the suit take? My suit is hardened cardboard so I expect to take 3-4 hours to repair it every season. The boots are the worst. I had to wander around the desert the morning after the first appearance trying to find missing pieces of the toe cap. I may also take on foam boots also as my first attempt switch to new material. As always, thanks for the step by step entries.

Redshirt

JUSTINIAN 117 · Sep 25, 2013

The undersuit really does look perfect. I'm sure I can put those pictures to good use.

Carpathia · Sep 25, 2013

Redshirt said:
Good to see the wear and tear. I know you've put in a fair amount of time wearing the costume. How have the actual hard pieces held up? How much repair time per wearing does the suit take? My suit is hardened cardboard so I expect to take 3-4 hours to repair it every season. The boots are the worst. I had to wander around the desert the morning after the first appearance trying to find missing pieces of the toe cap. I may also take on foam boots also as my first attempt switch to new material. As always, thanks for the step by step entries.

Redshirt

I haven't worn the suit nearly as much as I'd like to, but when I do, I'm usually wearing it for hours on end. I need to get out to a few conventions! The hard pieces are holding up pretty nicely; some of the edges of a few pieces are worn down a bit and there are a few minor cracks in tight corners, but nothing major and barely visible. The boots, while still holding up, need to be retired; which is why I'm building the new ones. I'm hoping to have them complete by Halloween, so I can walk around the neighborhood with my daughter (she was a bit bummed that I didn't wear it around last year).

JUSTINIAN 117 said:
The undersuit really does look perfect. I'm sure I can put those pictures to good use.

After seeing what you've created over the past few years, I'm sure your undersuit will surpass my own. I can't wait to see it!

Mstruvmgc · Sep 26, 2013

The pictures make it look so simple lol

Carpathia · Sep 26, 2013

Mstruvmgc said:
The pictures make it look so simple lol

It really wasn't that difficult; just took a bit of time. Which makes me wonder why there aren't more undersuits out there that aren't motocross body armor. This was a heck of a lot cheaper.

Spartan 420 · Sep 26, 2013

Wow, that is literally one of the nicest undersuits I've seen on the site. I love the fact you've only made the parts of the undersuit that show, and just placed straps on the hidden parts. The idea seems so simple now but I never would have thought of that myself.

Carpathia said:
It really wasn't that difficult; just took a bit of time. Which makes me wonder why there aren't more undersuits out there that aren't motocross body armor. This was a heck of a lot cheaper.

If I were to guess, it's probably because to people who have never sewn before, creating your own undersuit seems like a near impossible task. There are so many tutorials for how to craft your armour pieces, but not many for sewing an undersuit. I've never sewn anything besides a pillow case I made at school when I was a kid, so I have basically zero experience in the subject. Without some form of experience in sewing, I don't think I'd ever be able to pull off making my own undersuit.

Who knows, maybe it's easier than it looks.

-S420

Carpathia · Sep 26, 2013

It's just one of those things you have to jump into and not be afraid of messing up. I had very little experience with sewing myself; like you, I made a pillow in Jr. High school. I did put together a medieval-style cloak a few years ago as well (I say a few years ago, but it's been more than a decade since I made that). I had also been making maille shirts and steel medieval armor before I got into Halo armor, and you need a bit of tailoring know-how for those as well. But, everything I learned, I learned from research. My medieval armoring days taught me a lot about hand-stitching and how to get nice straight, even stitches that you see on my undersuit; even building maille shirts gave me ideas that you liked, like building only the parts of the undersuit that are visible and strapping everywhere else; the maille armor from Lord of the Rings was constructed in much the same way.

I am by no means a master tailor, and I was still able to create this. Am I 100% happy with it? As always, no. I see so many flaws and things that could have been done better, but the aesthetic effect works well enough for me.

Maybe I should take some time and do a bit of a tutorial on my process.

Spartan 420 · Sep 26, 2013

Carpathia said:
It's just one of those things you have to jump into and not be afraid of messing up.

Maybe that's just what I'll do. I'm not to keen on wearing thick motorcycle padding or a full body suit, I'd roast if I ever attempted to take & wear it in the US, I can always practice on some scrap pieces of material first and ask my other half for some help.
If you made a tutorial I'd 100% watch it. I can imagine a large portion of the community is also getting sick of motorcycle jackets, and would appreciate it too, but you should only do it if you have the time, don't let my ideas mess up your schedule

. Maybe there are tutorials like it already out there, I'll have a little search for one around the forums and youtube,

One of the most important things I wanna know is the name of the material you're using. I imagine you have probably mentioned it in this thread somewhere but this is a BIG thread, and with 670+ posts to check, I think it may just be easier to ask you.

Thanks for the reply!
-S420

Carpathia · Sep 26, 2013

The material is vinyl that I found in the fabric section of Hobby Lobby, a national hobby chain. Essentially, it's faux leather; the look of leather without the cost and heat, and much easier to sew. My neck seal is made from real leather, and while it's comfortable, it was a pain to sew.

Also, in the future, the material and construction method for each part of the suit is listed in post #2.

Carpathia · Sep 30, 2013

Uh, yeah, for some reason Photobucket decided to stop sharing all the photos linked; yet it says my account is only 32% full. Not sure what's going on there.

Edit: Nevermind, my bandwidth for the month was exceeded, they should be back up soon. I may have to do something about that.

RobotChicken · Oct 1, 2013

I had the same problem and didn't like the idea of intermittent blackouts for my photos so I switched over to Google+. It's free, there's no bandwidth restriction, and unlimited storage as long as each photo isn't more than 2048 pixels in the longest direction. Since all my forum photos are 800x600, I can upload as many as I want without worrying about a 2GB limit.

Carpathia · Oct 1, 2013

I may look into that. Thanks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I got a little more done tonight...

I just have to get the second boot built, then resined, bondoed and painted, then I can add the blackwash and scratchmarks. After that, it's just a matter of figuring out how to hold it all together (I do have an idea). I'm thinking of getting a few cheap pairs of sandals to add in the tread detail that I have on my pepped boots.

RobotChicken · Oct 2, 2013

This may sound like a dumb question (but hey, I'm a noob!) but wouldn't adding resin and bondo to foam turn it hard and rigid? If so, then I don't get the advantage to rebuilding them from foam instead of paper. They're still turning out awesome, though.

Chernobyl · Oct 2, 2013

I've seen people rondo their foam builds before, so it's viable - you'd just have to be careful, since it's possible that your product has an additive that the foam disagrees with. I've seen instances where certain products will attack the foam and dissolve it - or at the least, weaken it, but it's a rare occurrence. Rondo most likely wouldn't cause issues like this, but it's worth noting and testing on scraps how your materials interact before going at it.

The main advantages of foam building are:

- Greater range of flexibility
- Ease of building over Pepakura (though I personally prefer Pepakura to foam)
- Lightweight (fibreglass builds can weigh an awful lot)

Most people tend to use Plasti-dip to 'harden' their foam builds, if they even bother at all - foam has the advantage of being lightweight, yet fairly rigid even without using anything else to solidify it. It really bubbles down to personal choice.

**Carpathia's Mk VI Armor: Master Chief Going into Cryostasis!

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