Joey Geko's JODST (get it?!?!) Build [WIP/PIC Heavy]

Status
Not open for further replies.

Joey Geko

New Member
So, about a month ago I was brought into this site and hobby by my friend Joe B(http://www.405th.com/member.php/44235-invisablehero). I have always loved the ODST, in the Halo EU and the Halo games, so I picked up Hugh Holder's ODST pep files (http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/24388-Hughs-Odst-Build?highlight=hugh+holder) and started on my helmet.

I completely botched it, by not following Hugh's instruction (follow instructions people!!)

So I grabbed Kirrou's Helmet (http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/22471-New-Hd-Odst-Game-Accurate-Pep-Files) and started again.

At first blush, the pep process can feel overwhelming:

Especially when you come across some ******** like this:

lol

But really it's worth it cause you can turn THIS:

Into Things like THIS:


Now, my personal recommendation is that you get yourself some Netflix streaming. I've been using my iPad and running Star Trek: TNG in the background. This really helps to fill the silences, and it also lets me know that since I began this project I have watched 137 episodes, which is roughly 103 hours (plus a Season of DS9, and a couple movies) so far. OUCH! This is a pretty intense hobby to get into on an impulse one night at about 2 am. ;)

But slowly, and with a **** ton of cutting, glueing, and folding, cutting, glueing, and folding, cutting, glueing, and folding, cutting, glueing, and folding, oh and some more cutting, glueing, and folding, the pieces start coming together.



I resined and glassed the inside of my helmet almost as soon as I finished the cutting, glueing, and folding, but decided I would concentrate on getting the pieces all cut, glued, and folded, rather than work one piece to completion. I feel like this was a good approach, so if you're going for a full suit, I recommend this. It allows you to really see a steady progress that I found reassuring during the really long hours when it felt like I was just slicing paper and not actually progressing. Being able to turn around and see this

gave me an extra push when I needed it. :$

More follows...
 
Now, I currently have the Helmet, 2 Shoulders (with base plates), 2 Gauntlets, 2 Shins, 2 Boot Covers, 2 Bicep Plates, 1 Thigh, the Belt Buckle, 2 Hip Plates, the **** Shield, and the Butt Pouch pepped, resinated, and fiberglassed.

One day, I thought, hey, I wanna get a rough preview of what this thing might look like when its done, so I grabbed a can of dark gray primer (though that will not be my destination color!:p) and 'Voila!'



This brings up an interesting feeling that I have found in regards to this project. Every time I make a significant step forward, like applying the primer, finishing the second Shin guard, sanding down my first layer of Bondo correctly, ecetera, I am stunned and amazed that I, Joey Geko, The Gek, am (with a HUGE helping hand from the guys who actaully did the hard work of modeling and unfolding these files [BIG UPS, yo!] for us) making something THIS gorram sweet.

To be clear, I am not claiming that my work has been stellar, or even above average, but simply that my reaction to turning cardstock into awesome is one of great excitement and not a little pride. It's really cool to put so much effort into something and have tangeble result at the end.


I think that one of the areas I was most concerned with was the fiberglassing and application of Bondo to the pieces. Lacking almost completely in the artistic talent department, I was sure that I was gonna botch it. Hard.

So I was very cautious at this stage. Taking each piece slowly, and making sure i examined and re-examind every spread of fiberglass.

My internet is 'living-in-the-country' garbage, so my other pics are not done uplaoding. I will return soon, with further updates...
 
It's nice to see how well you've picked up the Pepakura path of armor making. Sounds like you're doing everything right, as therefore, you will be rewarded with an awesome set of armor and being a contributing member of this forum/community (unlike most noobs ;))

You did it right by taking your time and going slow as you learned how to use the various materials. I also has never used Bondo before I made my suit, but by doing small pieces at a time, I grew my confidence with it. And yes, seeing what you've done is an awesome "Wow, I made that!" moment, and is a great help to keep your motivation up.

Keep up the great work. :cool I would love to see that ODST helmet with some Bondo on the top to smooth out the folds/edges.
 
So, after applying a coat of primer to the helmet, I refocused on getting as many pieces prepared for resination as possible.


One of the toughest, from a technical point of view, pieces for me was the Shin guards.


Not only are they round, but they have a tone of little ridges, half ledges, and grooves and channels that really tested my folding. In fact I will mention it here: anyone-ANYONE-who isn't using the red pen/blue pen or back edge of the knife scoring method is an idiot! Or perhaps incredibly talented. I did my ill-fated Hugh's Helmet before I became aware of theat technique, and while it was not the cause of its ruination, doing the subsiquent pieces WITH the pre-scoring is so good. Folds are much crisper, which makes the glueing easier, which makes the resining easier, which makes the fiberglassing easier, which-well, you get the idea.

One of the nice things about having to make two of almost everything, it that on the tought pieces, I was able to create a more effecient build technique on the second one, by butchering the first one. ;) For the Shins in particular, rather than create them in page order, I seperated the pages for upper and lower sections, crafted those, and then combined the two halfs together. I think it went much smoother that way personally, and its a technique I recomend for most of the "tubey-ier" pieces, where possible.



Ok, So I've got a table full of pieces, all at least at the resined phase.



And then I got distracted by that gorram Helmet again! Why must it look so cool?! WHY?
 
Your pep skills are looking sharp. Can't wait to see more progress on this.

Also, I recommend editing a post rather than double or triple posting.
 
So... Even though I had, at the start of this process, made the descision to work on getting all the pieces done simultainiously, I was dragged back to the Helmet. Unable to resist its siren song. Pulled by its inexorable gravity, and a desire to test myself against the unknown antagonist who's name is Bondo.

Before mixing the Bondo, I segregated, via duct tape, the section I would be working on.
I made my first pass on the top of the Helmet. Arguably the section that needed the most work. I used pretty small strips of tape because it was easier to get it to conform to the curves of the sections I was trying to protect from contamination.

What everyone tells you, but you can still never appreciate until you actually get your own hands dirty, is how FAST this substance becomes unusable. I mixed what I thought would be an appropriate amount of the stuff, and began spreading it atop my Helmet. I lost almost half of my initial 'glob' due to its hardening so quicly that in the end I was basically spreading soft gravel over the dome.

Don't do that. Use very small amounts of Bondo, and a very small dab of the catalyst. It's really easy to put multiple layers, or cover smaller sections under the substance. It's much harder to have to grind down the chunky mess that half-dried Bondo can make.

So, after it was spread, I grabbed my
and my

and ended up with this after my first sanding pass:


Not bad, still rough, and I found myself with a lot ot 'holes' from where I had sanded away the most 'crumbley' parts of the Bondo.

With firm resolve-this was the part I had dreaded the most, I didn't know **** about Bondo until I open that first can-I globbed an even smaller amount onto the table. I got about half the Helmet dome covered with a second layer. So I got a little more, and completed my second layer of Helmet Bondo, and began to sand again.

The results were pretty good, and my Daughter, who is all types of Awesome, tried it on.


The next day, I went for one of the upper ear sections, and the lower back panel. Again, I went with very small amounts of Bondo, thin layers, and duct tape to prevent the substance from going where I didn't want it to. Sanding quickly returned.

Thin layer. Sand. Thin layer. Sand. This seems like a good way to go about it to me. feel free to use it, or defend your own technique (which if better, I will steal and use, adding your strength to our own).


I like how it shines in the light with just a pass from a moist rag, makes me think its a good smoothnesshoodship...thingy. Anyway, I'm really happy with how the Helmet smoothing process is going so far.

I will be doing the opposite upper ear section, the chin, and the middle back soon.
 
Also, I recommend editing a post rather than double or triple posting.

Thanks Jimmy. The most amazing thing I've found about the 405th is the super supportive nature of the community.
As for the multi posts, the site won't let me put more than 15 pics per entry, thus my tale is made into instalments.
 
I decided to Primer all my pieces just for fun. I think they look super sexy all darkly shaded. Ran out of Primer before I could do the Shin guards.



I don't believe I will be doing body work on pieces like the Hip plates, Belt Buckle, Butt & **** Plates. They seem to not need it. Am I wrong?
 
You're fine, don't worry too much about the double or triple posts as long as they have good photos and updates about your work-in-progress project. The real issue is people who post "updates" of what they're doing with little info and no photos, or just random posts in their threads.
 
Thanks Jimmy. The most amazing thing I've found about the 405th is the super supportive nature of the community.
As for the multi posts, the site won't let me put more than 15 pics per entry, thus my tale is made into instalments.

Yeah, if you're making a post full of pictures like that, then you're fine. Its just like Spitfire said, people make multi-post without real updates.

A lot of the small plates, like the ones around the belt are already pretty smooth, so you really dont need it. For mine, I only used a really light coat of rondo to even out imperfections.
 
A lot of the small plates, like the ones around the belt are already pretty smooth, so you really dont need it. For mine, I only used a really light coat of rondo to even out imperfections.

I've scanned through the 'Rondo' tut. Thought about using it. Care to fill me in a bit on your experience with it? Easy of use, charachteristics, that sorta thing?
 
I really like to use rondo for a few reasons-

1. There is no set mix ratio. Which means you can make it as runny or as slow as you need.

2. Its easy to spread. You can mix a bowel, pour on the area, and spread it with a paint brush.

3. It dries smoother. Normally, rondo will dry a bit smoother than normal body putty, unless you are very good at spreading the Bondo. In the end it often means less sanding.

4. Rondo can also be used to harden in lieu of fiberglass and resin. A lot of my armor, with the exception of my helmet, chest plate and chest core are hardened with it.

Things I don't like about it-

1. It seams (at least to me) that its a little tougher to sand than Bondo. However, you have less to sand.

2. Rondo goes on in thinner coats. I mark this as a negative for me, because when you need to really smooth something out, you'll have to do multiple coats.

3. it can be heavy, so be careful not to over use it.

Hope this helps, good luck.
 
>.< ODSTs All the way!!! xD Awesome build. are you going to bondo some parts where you can see folded paper lines? the only one i noticed is the shoulders. Gud luck and keep it up :)
 
So, I took a couple days off of the updating thing. Here's what I've got done in the meantime:

I taped off the middle ear section in preparation for the upper ear's bondoing:


Then I realized, I should probably put a longer piece of tape under the arch so that I would have something to pull them off with! lol And with a little more, the areas were protected from spillage.


I applied the substance and let it sit for a while.


The key is to let the bondo sit long enough to harden a bit, so that you don't end up dragging off more than just the excess spread, while not waiting too long, or the bondo will crack off...

Like This: :(


That sucked. But that's why God made a second layer, right?

MEANWHIIIIIILE... I went and tapped off the lower portions of the Shoulders.


Slapped some bondo on em, and then... I think I smoked a cigarrette.


After that refreshing nicotine break, and at least a couple hours for the substance to dry up, I grabbed my sander and went all hog wild on dey asses!!


I also grabbed a shoulder, and a can of spray paint, taped off the sections I wanted to stay gray, and painted that sommabiatch pink. Cause that's, you know, just how I roll.


I'm at my 15 PIC limit, so I'll return...
 
>.< ODSTs All the way!!! xD Awesome build. are you going to bondo some parts where you can see folded paper lines? the only one i noticed is the shoulders. Gud luck and keep it up :)

Thanks Skully! Check out the above post (or this one) for the shoulders trying to be all Billie D. Williams with a Colt 45 (smooth, that is).

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top