ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM (COMPLETE, for now..)

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

Oh damn, that is a great build!

9001 thumbs up! (Over nine thousand, geddit?)

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

Ahoy!
So i'm getting back in the swing of things, and this is just a little update to help get the ball rolling. Been finishing up a few side projects but I'm back on this now that I can paint comfortably again. So here's everything as it stands currently, not a lot changed :/

The helmet just got a thin coat of primer so I could buff out the final bothersome bits. That means one more pass with plaster, some knife-work, and the addition of some finishing details before sealing it up (probably with PVA, but I'm considering using some miniwax urethane).

And I finally got around to the Med-Ref detail. Not knowing my own blood type definitively, I just went with the coolest blood type, Universal donor bby I went ahead and laminated it, it seemed like the kind of thing that needed laminating and I'm just going to slap this right on the shoulder.

I want to add the grime and weathering with paint all at once which is why I've postponed it until the helmet is done and ready for painting.

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

Woohoo! Missed this. Gonna be awesome. :thumbsup

(Might be an idea to put a note on your patch that it may or may not be your real blood type though, in case of con emergency)

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

@RobTC, muchly appreciated! & excellent thought about the blood type, although I think it so happens that I'm type O anyway. Will confirm and adjust accordingly pre-con.

To business!
So I slapped some more plaster on the helm

aaand again..

Threw on some more primer to see what was going on, and it turns out there's still a bunch of edges I'm unhappy with. But screw it. I'm becoming very impatient and I believe the remainder can be fixed with my lazier methods of filling.

And while the helmet dries a bit, I started thinking about my ventilation solutions. I set this extremely thin and breathable, patterned, lining into the raised vent ports I made of thick card. I'm pretty happy with how they are coming along and I've got a couple of these fans that I'll be experimenting with for optimum airflow/cooling.

I'm still working on this tonight, so there'll be another update incoming soon.

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

Bedside hospital visits followed by a severe flu were keeping me down for a bit there, but here's the progress I promised before I had to drop everything!

I have mixed feelings about the helmet at this point. I'm ashamed of myself for completely skipping steps, particularly in the sealing stages, and also pleasantly surprised by the end result given my excessive laziness. There are more imperfections than I'd like but I made the decision to stop myself from applying glazing puddy endlessly since I threw perfection to the wayside in the earlier stages and it just wouldn't be worth the effort to me.

I was at this stage 5-6 times and I told myself "last pass, move on" each time. I still can't believe how many little bits I missed, and I was really on the fence about going back a few steps to clean up some of the waviness in the front grooves that really show up in these shots. I decided to just lightly take a knife to the edges and then do what i can with paint. I really just wanted to finish it though, haha

Same deal as the rest of the suit, its all still really shiny and that's because I wanted to get everything to this stage before wearing down and griming the paint, for the sake of uniformity.

I'll be making a head for my twin and taking chrome and black-wash to everything (including the SOCOM) for some depth while also adding little details with enamel, I guess. I'll just be doing this in spurts with my spare time over the next few days and working out my visor problem. I'm really excited to pull this all together quickly so I can get someone to take some good shots of me suited up! I've been toying with the idea of adding accessories like flashbangs, ammo pouches, and a custom antenna array to the helmet.

That's all for now, feedback/questions/advice welcome as always, Thanks for taking a gander :thumbsup

EDIT: so I'm looking at these pics... and they make the helmet look a little wonkier than it does in life. Sorry about that, I'll aim for better angles once I start the hand-painting.

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

That's hot. Gonna go perfectly with the suit! Definitely worth taking the extra time to perfect the details, pushing as far as you can along that last 5% makes a significant difference compared to the general population.

Just sprayed the BR85 test build butt and grip with underbody coating, thought of you.

Looking forward to the M6C/S!

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

Great looking helmet. Nice paint job but i would also go back and add some details. In the end you'll be glad your suit looks that little bit better. Are you going to tint the visor or just leave it as it is?

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

@RobTC
ty ty, I do feel rather dashing when I put it on at this point. I'm doing my best to "hide the crimes" in these final painting stages, I even plan to clean up a few seems on the suit. I'm afraid I am all too familiar with the endless work that goes into the final few percent to make a truly worthwhile piece, haha

& I've been keeping up with your progress, that fully assembled first cast is a thing of beauty! In your round of action shots it looked spot on too, size-wize. I've been questioning the custom scaling I went with on mine now, lol

@LoneLegionary
Thanks! Still a ways to go on the painting front, especially since i'm still adding physical details to the helm and probably suit.
As for the visor, there wasn't one in the previous shots, although it'd be great if the material I was working with was that clear haha. Thisss...

is what I've managed thus far. It's sitting very loosely in there atm, it should look nicer around the areas it meets the helm once anchored it in place and made to be a more flush fit.

As always, thanks to anyone passing by!

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

that's awesome! I love the details on that helmet!

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

The helmet looks fantastic! Great work!

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

looking fantastic!

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

m00sem4n said:

@RobTC
ty ty, I do feel rather dashing when I put it on at this point. I'm doing my best to "hide the crimes" in these final painting stages, I even plan to clean up a few seems on the suit. I'm afraid I am all too familiar with the endless work that goes into the final few percent to make a truly worthwhile piece, haha

& I've been keeping up with your progress, that fully assembled first cast is a thing of beauty! In your round of action shots it looked spot on too, size-wize. I've been questioning the custom scaling I went with on mine now, lol

Click to expand...

It's amazing how many crimes can be hidden with a two-tone approach prior to weathering- on the "grey" parts of the gun, I alternated misting bright silver and gloss black over the base layer of silver until it ended up bright, but kinda smoky. It was mostly intended to dull the silver down from almost chrome to a sort of aluminium tone, but it makes the imperfections pretty much impossible to see except when they're directly specular-highlighted. Then I did the simple weathering after that, which kinda called some of them back out again, just a little, but for the most part there's too much detail to really see properly.

On a model like this where there are significant undetailed planes, it might help to have a "primary" weathering pass as part of the main paint job. Basically just mist gloss black on it from 2-3 feet away. It really depends on your level of problem though, I don't really see any issues in the photos.

Yeah, it's pretty awesome considering it really still needs a bit of Bondo work to seal some of those seams, but they almost look deliberate so they're not as noticable. Yeah, should be interesting to see, given that ODSTs are human sized. The M6 is a vast weapon though, compared to standard pistols, whereas the BR85 is really just a fat G36. So it may not be an issue, in the end. The M6s in the game never looked that huge, so I'm not convinced they weren't scaled down against canon there anyway.

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

Just finished looking at your EVAfoam build and i am blown away, Great job!!! :thumbsup

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

Thank you all muchly! I aim to pleaseee

Your two-tone approach intrigues me, RobTC, were these alternating layers applied in quick succession or between drying periods? I may attempt something similar on my pistol in areas because I really like the effect. I also had a similar thought about misting the suit as a whole, I was planning on lightly coming at the edges from a couple feet away with some matte black. I'm just gonna go ham on the boots since those will likely receive several coats of faux mud. Or real mud.

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

m00sem4n said:

Your two-tone approach intrigues me, RobTC, were these alternating layers applied in quick succession or between drying periods? I may attempt something similar on my pistol in areas because I really like the effect. I also had a similar thought about misting the suit as a whole, I was planning on lightly coming at the edges from a couple feet away with some matte black. I'm just gonna go ham on the boots since those will likely receive several coats of faux mud. Or real mud.

Click to expand...

Fairly quick succession, yeah, I used the heat gun on 200-250F for 20 seconds or something to almost-dry each layer, then moved onto the next layer. I wasn't really fussed about drying times or anything, hahaha. The gloss black I used was auto enamel though, which takes a week to fully cure and sort of binds everything together into one hard coat. Used hand-held paper masks (not sure I got a pic of those?) to do the detail bits, one a rectangular slit and one a 3/8" circle. Holding them at different distances made the results more or less crisp, depending on whether I was edging or blending. It wasn't very regimented at all, just kept correcting back and forth until I liked the appearance.

Not sure about matte vs gloss, maybe try both on a test piece finished similar to your actual armour. I found that gloss "blends" with the shininess of the surface, almost more like smoke staining than surface dirt, or something. Note on mine that when the grey bits catch the light, the surface is still fairly uniform. Matte would be significantly noticable in the light, so I guess be more careful with that to stick to actual dirty areas, or at least generally go easier with it. Probably increasingly concentrated the lower down the body you go, as you say.

When it's tacky, paint lets you drag it around a bit in areas you want it less splotchy and more streaky, which is handy if an area being spattered just looks wrong. Remember also that re-application of paint will sometimes tend to re-dissolve and lift up dried paint underneath, so try not to get into any rubbing wars or you'll be down below the primer double-quick.

I think that's pretty much everything.

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

Fantastic notes, per usual, thanks for laying out your process! I must now proceed to mull, you've spurred some new thoughts :thumbsup

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

You're helmet looks stunning Moosem4n! The level of detail just blows me away.

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

I just read your whole thread, and I have got to say that I am really impressed! Your work is very clean, and very detailed. And it looks like it all fits really nice too. Great work man!

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

@FlyinPhil & @CLOTHAR, Thanks oodles guys, you've both assembled some mighty fine suits yourselves! I am particularly fond of the level of detail in your recent foam work, Phil.

In keeping with my tendency to postpone painting as long as possible, I've gone back and added some shoulder detail that eluded me on the first pass, as well as affixed the Med-Ref tag.

I also prepped a form/mounting surface for the visor and perforated the edge of the plastic to create the necessary anchor points so that it keeps its form. The plastic is flimsier than it may appear but holds its shape very well once seated correctly.

It's staying loose for now to make padding, fan installation, and painting easier. There's a band of detail that i need to mount around the back of the helm too, forgot to photograph but more to come soon. :thumbsup

Thanks for looking!

EDIT1: will re-up first pic, unknown issue.
EDIT2: Driving me nuts, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to this problem after trying several photos and methods. I'll just upload a fresh pic of shoulders in next update. Grr..

Re: ODST build with EVA foam + M6 SOCOM

I went back and touched up/added to the forearms a wee bit. A combination of removed paint from the cutting process and topical glue catching the light differently makes areas look much more rough and uneven than they are. Hoping everything will photograph better with some paint.


aaaand finally... four fresh shots later and I got one that worked. lol I've never had an issue like this, and it was only with pics of the shoulder pieces. Lol, weird. :confused


Thanks for lookin'!
I hope to start painting today, but I may decide to give my BR w.i.p. some love instead.