Savvy's Mk V Reach build with Props

Hello everyone. It has been a long time since I have been involved with 405th. Due to mostly personal problems with time and space (the area i can work, not the forum mod), and also some people that are no longer a part of the forum. Now that i have built 5 ODST costumes and only gotten to enjoy one for a short time working on armor has not been something I have been looking forward to. My girlfriend has finally talked me into build building the costume i have been wanting to since Reach came out. She has gotten into the Halo universe and really likes it. (I think she was getting tired to me talking about it and her not having any idea of what was going on) So far its just me and her that I'm building for. I have had more people back out of a build than i care to mention. They see some things I have built, want in on it and discover its a lot of work, then back out. I have several peaces i have pitched in the garbage because of friends backing out. The rule is now "ill help you but you have to be there to build it". Its just too much work to not get paid. Now that i have given way to much back story on to my newest build.

I am building costumes for a two person hunter killer team. The GF will be the Sniper and I will be the Demolitions. This is a custom build and will take a long time to do. I'm just hoping to have the base done by Oni Con in Galveston. It's in October. It's a fun Con if you are in the area.

Lets see if i can figure out how to post pics.
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This is my suit.

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This is ReddGunn's suit I'm building. She decided to change her armor a little. New shoulders and chest. We are not putting the grenades on the belt/chest.

I will update as often as i can. But not in this one. My OCD will not allow me to clutter up this thread.

Reserved for finished pics.

Sniper progress.
I have done some on it before i got my account back up and working. So here is what i got so far.
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its sized a little small to fit my proportions. about %87

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I know its a lot of pics but I'm playing catch up.

Male Spartan progress.

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More to come. I need to take some pics of what i have done to the under suit.

The quad post is to keep the different parts of the build separate so i can track them better.

Well look who it is....good to have you back buddy!! Excited to see you in action again.

-Matt

Male Spartan progress.
Small update on the under suit. I have taken a lot of inspiration from lil tyrant.

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used double zippers since i could not find a 30" hidden zipper.

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I think i use a lot of pins.

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And what i have to date on the under suit. I still have a lot to build.

I Start looking at this thread. I am pleased that I can start following another armor build. Then I see that your working on an under suit and I think " this could be helpful for when I make my own under suit". Thus you now have a new subscriber.

looks real good can`t wait to see more.

Female Spartan update

So I have started working on ReddGunn's under suit today. I'm going to try to make it into more of a tutorial to help out some of the people that might want to use this as inspiration for their costume.
If I don't get much interest I'll go back to answering stuff on the facebook and just posting pics. (everyone likes pics!!!)

First thing I do is sketch the basic pattern onto the tape dummy. I used a kayaking shirt i have to see where the seams might work out best. For the female I thought "what curve do i not want to sew" and modified the male shirt to fit. (you can also look and form fitting female clothing for inspiration"

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You should also take note of how your fabric stretches. The fabric I am using stretches in three directions but not all four. So the front and back panels are stretchy sideways but not vertically. This will allow you to move your arms and chest better. The side panels are stretchy vertically so you have vertical reach.

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I traced the neck seal where it will be connected to the cloth part of the shirt making sure that it comes far enough down to not be seen when the chest rig is worn. I also trace a line down the middle of the dummy so i can cheat and only make one side of the shirts pattern. (I'm lazy) If you look at the Male neck seal you can see that the #1 panel is only half drawn on the dummy and it is just folded over to make the other half.

Tomorrow I will start building the pattern. (hope i remember to take pics!)

I love the look of the sniper rifle so far. Plus the neck seal is looking great as well. I'm really happy you are making a undersuit. The images of progression are very helpful!

I'm definitely diggin this thread already. Sub +1

Female Undersuit update

So now that you have drawn the pattern onto the tape dummy you need to make it into a pattern for the cloth you are going to use.

I looked for the cheapest most see though white fabric I could find. Then I used a fabric pencil to trace the pattern onto the fabric. I continued my pattern up past where the tape dummy was to bring it up higher on the neck. If you do this be sure to flare out the top some to allow for your head. (more is better you can always but some off the top to fit it later). Once you have the stencil drawn onto the fabric cut it out. (If you are new to sewing you may want to build this into a mock neck seal first by adding seam allowances and sewing it together with a lose stitch. This is called basting.) You can just turn over the patterns you have for the other side. This helps to make each side the same. Be sure to label the pattern and also label left and right.

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You can see that I have mine labeled 1-7

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When tracing onto the fabric you are going to use take note of the grain of the fabric. Mine is a "leather" fabric and has more lines running one direction so i placed all the peaces going the same way to keep them more uniform. At this point you also need to add your seam allowances. I use 1/2" because my tool for making them has a mark every 1/2". Normal seam allowance is 5/8". You can use a ruler too. They work fine for this part.

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Now cut out your peaces. You can see the seam allowance on the middle peace. Be sure you cut out a left and right side and not 2 lefts or 2 rights. Remember to label these so you can just go from 1R to 2R and not have to try and figure out what is what. Also mark the top too. (I had to seam rip one to flip it... not fun)

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Now pin the sides together face to face. Be sure to line everything up as close as possible. This will make it look better when its done.

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Now sew down the line with a strait stitch. It will look like this (-------) on the sewing machine. It should look something like this. This is where you can trim some off the top to fit your neck line and how high you want it.

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At this point it looks ugly and will not lay flay on the neck. So we will fix that.

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Use the zigzag stitch (looks like \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\) and sew down the seam to lay it flat. Then cut some off the excess of leaving about 1/5"-1/8" to keep it from pulling out.

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Here you can see the difference in sewing the seams down and leaving them up.

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And this is what it looks like when its done. You can see how i made the back of the neck go up higher because the helmets don't come down as much as the front.

Next time I will be finishing up the raw edges latter and be attaching it to the front and back of the shirt as it is made. Might even be able to add the zipper up the back.

I got called in to work tomorrow so i wont be able to work on this again till Monday or Tuesday.
Till then keep building.

Big Life Update

So I know this thread has been dead for a bit. But I have been vary busy with life.
I have a full time job, my own house and I got married. Needless to say life has been vary busy. I am getting back I to my build again but it will be slower than it was starting out. But I will try to do better at keeping it up to date than the last few months.

I just ordered a pep cutting machine so I can work faster with what little time I have to build. Ill post somthing on how well it works in the next few weeks. As it stands I only have 5 days off this month and 5 next month. So progress will be slow.

Wow Sounds about as crazy as mine too. But congrats on it all. Hope you get back on i soon enough for yourself. The build is looking pretty nice so far hoping to see more. Same style i wanna do to build my own undersuit. But best of luck with it all.