Foam Custom Reach Armour - Year 12 'Muck Up'/'Dress Up' day

[ARCsaber987]

Hi 405th, long time no see.
Well, end of year 12 is upon me which means folios are done, exams are coming and the best day of secondary school has come and gone: Muck Up day!
Not sure if this occurs exactly outside of Australia/UK (though I'm sure there are equivalents), but the idea is to dress up in costumes either homemade or rented and roam around the school pulling pranks and generally having fun. Sadly past years have ruined it for later years, so the 'pranks' portion of the day is all but dead, so now it's all about having an awesome costume.

So during the year I have worked on and off on this:


Constructed from 6mm thick craft foam, hot glue, PVA coats, gap filler and paint (and a $5 visor, best find ever!) Grenadier Helmet, Standard Mark 5, Gungnir Shoulder, FJ Para Knees.


.....and walking in trying to look bada**:


Most of the work was done in the past month, so it's rather rushed and there is SO MUCH I want to improve on, but if I do I think I'll just leave it and restart. Anyway, here are some progress pictures, enjoy!



By the way, the blue/orange armour is my friends project which he should be posting soon, i'll throw up a link when he does. Link


Oh, and finally together we made a 'box tank' for one of our friends, attaching it to his wheelchair so it could drive away. Needless to stay, it stole all the attention..........until the box darlek turned up!


Thanks to the following people for the use of their files:
Raziel 1981
BMcClain
Ruze
Rhinoc
lganderson
ForgedrReclaimer
(and if I left you out please tell me)

[Black Underdog5]

Nice
Here is my link to my post if anyone wants to see my builds.
http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/...d=1#post577509

(Team Warthog: If you want something done right, call someone else)

[Sniperbaas]

Great build you have there! For five dollars, that visor was a steal. Everything seems to have worked out with your suit. I might recommend working on a bit of an undersuit, but it's not that big of a deal. I have to admit tho, that tank is pretty awesome. And pretty inventive. In the off chance that I might be in a wheel chair next Halloween, I know what I'll be doing.


Great job and Cheers!

[Zat German]

Is that just Elmer's glue(white glue) or something else?

[ARCsaber987]

Is that just Elmer's glue(white glue) or something else?

It's labelled a wood glue, but really it's just standard PVA Glue (which I assume is the same as ELmer's Glue). It was just to toughen it up a bit.

Great build you have there! For five dollars, that visor was a steal. Everything seems to have worked out with your suit. I might recommend working on a bit of an undersuit, but it's not that big of a deal. I have to admit tho, that tank is pretty awesome. And pretty inventive. In the off chance that I might be in a wheel chair next Halloween, I know what I'll be doing.

Thanks man, and yes, the undersuit was just slimmed trackpants and a long sleve shirt with a neck added, I had intentions of more but time is always against you!

I'm currentl waiting to pick up a maniquin to store this on, so I'll throw some images when it gets here (got no where else for the suit to go but the corner of a room)

Thanks for everyones interest.

[ARCsaber987]

With no where for my armour to live and no intentions of wearing it again (not really costume party practical) I bought a maniquin off ebay ($75, second steal of the build) and set it up in the corner of our rumpus room:


and now he watches you as you enter the room, it's a little creepy!


(why yes, we did used to collect lego, how did you know?)

Bonus Images:


We won $20 now we just need to work out how many contest to enter to make the costs back!

[PepperChip]

Ha! That's awesome. Good stuff
If only people were that cool when my yr 12 muck-up day came and went - sadly my year level got muck-up day banned forever due to large amounts of idiocy.
Bit of a freak out, at first I thought it was my old school!

I'm also curious to know where you got your foam from? If you don't mind me asking that is.
All I could find locally was stuff some 12mm thick EVA tiles from Clark Rubber. Which is a bit thick for this sort of foam work.


Also, nice collection you have going there!

[ARCsaber987]

Ha! That's awesome. Good stuff
If only people were that cool when my yr 12 muck-up day came and went - sadly my year level got muck-up day banned forever due to large amounts of idiocy.
Bit of a freak out, at first I thought it was my old school!

I'm also curious to know where you got your foam from? If you don't mind me asking that is.
All I could find locally was stuff some 12mm thick EVA tiles from Clark Rubber. Which is a bit thick for this sort of foam work.


Also, nice collection you have going there!

Thanks man,
the foam i'm using is the brand "foamtastic" and it comes in 2,3 and 6mm thick around A4 size (i think 1-2 bucks each) and it can bend really nicely if you know what your doing (which for the most part I didn't. I was buying it from a chain called Riot Art, so if your in victoria there may be one near you, but I'm sure you can buy it cheaper elsewhere as they dont seem to stock much and I went through a fair bit. As for muck up day being banned, ours is refered to as "Dress Up Day" and we are restricted to where we could be during the day, but given that I think we're one of the lucky ones to even have that!

[PepperChip]

Awesome, thanks.
I'm all the way up in Far North Queensland, so there tends to be a little less selection in, well, stuff. Haha. We've got an expensive craft shop, a general art store, and a Spotlight that doesn't even sell craft foam - just felt sheets :/
Heading into the art store today (it's a bit hidden and I had forgotten all about it) so I'll hopefully be able to find something in there. I was having a hard time checking through online for places to order the big rolls and blocks chunks from.
Dress-up Day would have been a much better alternative I think. We had a lot of silly people doing very silly things - like gladwrapping all the toilets seats and putting honey over them - and paint bombing the principal

[Gamemaster]

That's some nice looking armor you've made, you're well on your way to foam crafting stardom. My only advice is the same advice I give all foam crafters, you can join some of your seams together and then cut the foam shape, afterwards you can carve out the back of the foam along the seam lines to give it shape and definition. A heatgun is also a great tool.
@PepperChip: You can find everything for foam crafting online via amazon and ebay, tools, materials, visor, paint etc... I have all the relevant products with links to buy them on this page www.squidoo.com/how-to-make-halo-armor
I get good results with 10 and 12mm foam with 2 and 3mm for details, although I notice the 6mm is also popular. The 12mm takes longer to work but produces sturdier armor. For areas you want rigid try glueing craft sticks to the back of the foam, worked wonders for me.