My first attempt at Mk VI armor!

Looking good!! Cant wait to see how this progresses .

Lookin great I'm makin a jorge helmet mahself

Happy Sand-urday, everyone!





So after playing around cutting mat board to do the detail pieces I decided to give the "pour & fill" technique to do the details. Of course, when I got up this morning it was ~65% humidity, hence the sanding pictures above. But, once it got to ~50% I decided to give it a try. Last night I did the taping on the biceps:



and filled with creamy rondo goodness:





Peeled away the tape:







and used the excess to fill in some holes from sanding earlier - waste not, want not!



I have family in town, so I didn't get to sanding it...but it looks like it has promising results! I will probably be able to get the sanding done tomorrow morning and will upload pictures then.

Oh, and at the store last night I came across this:



Couldn't pass it up - that was the only ODST they had, but I snagged a couple of other Covenant drop pods when I had to made a 2nd trip to the store later in the evening.

Thanks for looking - more to come!

Awesome! I just got 4 drop pods from Wal-Mart Flood, Recon, Ultra, and Snow Elite. I thought $6 was good, Nice!

Nice armor too.

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No-pic update - nothing going on but fill, sand, fill, sand...oops, need to reinforce that spot...fill, sand...and doodling on the armor to see what detail I can add using mat board. Kind of a blessing in disguise, I left the mat board out in the garage and with all the humidity it kinda warped...but now it is "curved", so I can use it for the backs of the calves and maybe parts of the forearms. But, still in the doodling stage...no cutting just yet. I am using the Halo Encyclopedia for reference shots - I'm not sure how detailed I will end up going, but it does need something to make it "pop" a little more

More to come...at some point!

ok, one photo



One of my 501st Squad-mates had a house warming party for his new digs & we all brought buckets - just me & an ODST representin'. He forgot to wear his ODST shirt, though

Nothing exciting or sexy to report - just sanding & filling. Wizard World Austin is a week away...I plan to make a strong push the next two days to see if I can finish up. Tomorrow will start out with resining the detail pieces I have cut from mat board:



I'll report back Sunday evening...let ya'll know where I'm at in the build.

That pretty much killed a lot of things I wanted to do on Saturday. It did dry out this afternoon, so I did make a little progress:



Adding some detail to the LD file codpiece - not a whole lot, but it needed SOMETHING. I'll fill the seams between the pieces with waterweld and sand it down. Or, I might just make the cut there so I can actually put the damn thing on!



I polished off what was left of my can of primer - hard to see imperfections or where it needs sanding when it is all mottled...so, still need to do a little more and it will be good to go. I have the shoulder vent covers cut out, just need some screen/mesh for them & it is all good. The piece to the left of the spray can I cut from the side so I can actually put it on/take it off now! I had the buckles to cut it at the waist/shoulder, but decided to try a simpler approach.



The big bummer is the calves. I decided to not add detail/depth to them...for now. But, the part I cut from the back above the heel wasn't enough to get my foot through...so I cut more out & now have to re-attach the two pieces



Last pic - I painted the toe caps...and realized I didn't have the "teeth" put on yet. So, gotta go back & do that. Also, I need to cut the "body" of the boots so they can actually go over my foot . On the plus side, I was able to get my forearms somewhat reassembled. I had cut a piece out awhile back to I could get my hand through the opening. To re-attach it, I drilled some holes and used pop rivets to attach a 2" piece of elastic, which I then attached the cut piece to, along with a piece of webbing as a hinge. I'll take a picture of the assembly another time. I had meant to do some depth details on the forearms as well...but that will have to be revisited.

So, still an outside chance it will be done by next weekend...if it will just stay dry and I can get home in time to have some daylight (my garage has horrendous lighting...). Stay tuned!

No-pic update: Getting sooooo close...and still so much to do!
I have everything except the chest painted with its first coat of italian olive green - the chest is still getting some holes/seams filled with water weld. The inner thigh foam pieces are saturated in plastidip and will soon be installed. The boots...well, they are a challenge to get the Dr Martens to fit inside. I am using a lot of foam to fill in the space and today will be installing the strapping to hold the boot inside the boot. I still haven't figured out what to use between the toe cap & "body" of the boot. I know a lot of people have been cutting out plungers and gluing them in place, but I would like something a bit more accurate...still haven't figured out what that will be just yet.

I had a bit of a setback for the strapping: I was planning on using the extra snap plates left from my TK build, but E6000 does not make a strong enough bond to keep them in place. BIG difference in weight between the ABS plastic of TK armor and pepakrua pieces. So, I'll probably be riveting the snaps directly to the thighs & biceps...and am kicking myself for not figuring this out earlier, as I could have covered the rivets with some of the detail pieces I added. Oh, well. I'll try to put bondo or water weld over the exposed rivets or just paint the damn things as they are. I hate to say it, but I am getting a little impatient with myself and this build. It will be what it will be, though, and I will be making new bicep/shoulders and calves from HD files. The same will probably go for the pelvis/cod. I am not happy how it has turned out. Oh, well.

Everyone have a nice holiday season - I am hoping to be "finished" by next weekend, but the weather has once again turned poor...stay tuned!

So...really stupid mistake time confession:
for the most part, once I have a piece glassed & bondo'd, I'll try it on - so far so good and all that. what I haven't been doing is wearing multiple pieces together...which has now become a HUGE setback. The chest, which is all nice and painted...is too big. I tried it on with my shoulder/biceps and could not raise my arms. my impatience has been part of this ("hey, it fits - move on to the next piece!"), and I haven't been referring to reference pics as much as I should have. had I done that, it might have clued me in that the chest piece rests just inside of the shoulder, not just outside of it. so...re-sized and am building a new chest. This brings me to my next dilemma. I sized the v2.0 chest in about an inch each side (50mm overall width reduction), but since the neck hole is also smaller, when I was gluing it together I couldn't really get a feel for how it will look/fit. I did a side-by-side and I think it will be ok, but won't really know until I am done glassing and split the front & back. Ug. But, such is life!



Started glassing it today - waiting for the first round to cure a bit before continuing.

Next dilemma - I have the electronics kit for my MA5 but have been putting off installing it because of how much cutting I"ll have to do to install the trigger. Yesterday I was at the point that I almost decided to make it a static prop and just glue it all & be done with it. However, I have already glued in the LEDs on the side of the ammo counter. I thought I'd just let those be and have the ammo counter always read "32"...and then I had an epiphany: wjat if I made a "trigger assembly" that I could just drop in? So, dug through all of the various parts I have lying around in my garage and found a 2" fastex buckle that the trigger switch slid right into (after I cut the top part off):





I'll still have to cut a bit, but this will (hopefully) make it a bit easier. More to come on that part of my build!

In related news, a good number of my 501st squad have invested in Sean Bradley's ODST armor & have been having a lot of fun with it:







So, I will hopefully be joining them soon :



Thanks to Sean's more than generous holiday sale, my armor kit is on order. I'll likely do a separate build thread on that.

Stay tuned for more of the Mk VI...

That's funny, not that you have to make another chest but i ran into the same problem you did with sizing the chest. What i did to test the chest was i left out the collar/rim part of the neck out for size testing. Once i was satisfied wit the sizing, i glued on the collar/rim part on. Hopefully the chest fits in the end.

That's a good looking squad of ODST's. I'm sure you'll join them soon enough.

I've been looking every where for a Sean's kit but had no luck :\. Also MK IV coming along nicely.

Frozensnot said:

That's funny, not that you have to make another chest but i ran into the same problem you did with sizing the chest. What i did to test the chest was i left out the collar/rim part of the neck out for size testing. Once i was satisfied wit the sizing, i glued on the collar/rim part on. Hopefully the chest fits in the end.

That's a good looking squad of ODST's. I'm sure you'll join them soon enough.

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Thanks - I hope so as well. I should have thought of your idea to glue the neck hole last...

thanks!

if you're on Facebook, go to the Replica Prop b/s/t page - Sean posts there and you can contact him that way about a kit

Arctic Nirvana said:

I've been looking every where for a Sean's kit but had no luck :\. Also MK IV coming along nicely.

Click to expand...

boomshakra said:

thanks!

if you're on Facebook, go to the Replica Prop b/s/t page - Sean posts there and you can contact him that way about a kit

Click to expand...

Thanks and i hope your armor turns out the way you want it to.

Alright - some photos to upload

So, very little progress on the new chest piece & shins - it has been either too cold or I had other things trump working out in the garage. We had another photo shoot coming up and I decided that I would just take my oversize chest & we'd see if we could make it work. First off, though...the MA5:



It has been bugging me that it wasn't assembled & ready to go, so I made it a priority & got it done! The counter reset button is inside the magazine well...but I haven't put the mag together yet. That is kind of low priority in the grand scheme of things as I am not planning to trooping at a con in my Spartan until it is ready for it. It needs some weathering as you'll see in the photos below.

I did some blackwashing and a little dry brushing on the armor - you can't really tell from the pics, except that the italian olive green looks a little "dull":



You'll notice that in the pics I am in that you can only see my armor from the thighs up...as I said before, the calves aren't ready and neither are the boots. I also discovered that the thigh armor is REALLY tight and uncomfortable where it contacts above my knee. That is going to need some modification. Also, the biceps twist around/slide down despite my best efforts to pad them. I was utilizing an elastic band that looped around my arm, riveted to a piece of webbing that had the buckle (sound complicated? it really isnt...), but the weight of the piece still pulls it down, and the padding slides when I have underarmor on, so we had to adjust them between shots. Again, something to dial in, as nothing is "done", per se.

This is without a doubt my favorite shot:



Yes, I know this is the 405th, but with the exception of Matt and his blue Spartan, everyone in this picture is 501st Legion, so that is what we go with as a group. The ODSTs outnumber Spartans, so the "feet first" is their doing as well

So, weather should be clearing up this weekend so I can work on v2.0 chest and finish resining one of my v2.0 calves (the other is still being cut).

One last picture, just for grins:

(ok, photobucket decided to eat my Blue Army t-shirt...will post it up later...)

I plan on moving on to a Halo 4 Master Chief Spartan build (FOAM this time!) in the future (after my ODST is done), so my Mk VI will be painted Caboose blue

Stay tuned!

Your armor looks awesome! I really like how crisp all of the edges are! I still struggle with that part. you mentioned that the coloring is a little "dull" and that you need a little weathering, I have found that drybrushing a slightly darker green to some of the "sunken" areas gives a much more 3-Dimensional look, and makes the lighter areas pop.

I am also excited to hear you are turning it into Caboose! He is certainly one of the best characters ever! (In my humble opinion)

Spartan1313 said:

Your armor looks awesome! I really like how crisp all of the edges are! I still struggle with that part. you mentioned that the coloring is a little "dull" and that you need a little weathering, I have found that drybrushing a slightly darker green to some of the "sunken" areas gives a much more 3-Dimensional look, and makes the lighter areas pop.

I am also excited to hear you are turning it into Caboose! He is certainly one of the best characters ever! (In my humble opinion)

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip about drybrushing with a darker color - I hadn't thought of that!

Yeah, Caboose will be fun. Gotta build a Mk V helmet to make it accurate tho...one last pep project!

So, some progress on the shins:





They are resin'd & glassed, starting on bondo today after going over the seams with the Dremel to smooth things out a bit. Tomorrow will be sand, sand, sand...

Started the paint job on my ODST bucket as well:



and some color:





The visor in the first picture is made for a H4 MC, but I just held it in with magnets for the picture. I have a red reflective one that will arrive with my armor from Sean. I had originally wanted to paint the ODST crest on the front of the helmet, but wield a paintbrush about as well as I do a dremel, so I'll just be using a decal.

I'm also going back to the original set of boots I made for this armor...the v2.0 are really, really big.

Stay tuned!

I let myself get burnt out on the Mk VI build, so hopefully powering through my ODST build will renew my enthusiasm Enjoy!















Still needs some weathering and getting all the straps adjusted so everything sits properly (comfortably!)...and the MA5C could use some weathering love as well. Managed to get some bondo on the chest of my Mk VI yesterday, so I'm moving in the right direction...slowly, but still moving!

Stay tuned!

That's some wicked ODST armor you got! The red visor really adds to look. You're churning out armor really fast. I'm looking forward to more updates.