Custom Halo 4 Spartan IV

Hey everybody!
This is my first ever complete build of a Spartan suit I've ever attempted. I decided I wanted a flashy suit with lights to wear around at conventions. So I decided a Maroon suit with Cyan details.
Then came to the armor choice, I went straight towards one of my favorite helmets; The Recruit. I then made the decisions for the rest of the suit based upon what was available and worked well with what I already chose. So the armor will be as follows:
-Helmet ~ Recruit
-Chest ~ Venator
-Shoulders ~ MKV
-Forearms ~ Recruit
-Legs ~ MKV
-Boots ~ Recruit

I decided to do the entire suit in EVA foam (including the helmet), so I broke out the heat knife (not sure what the proper term is) and did some test melts and burns on the foam and found that it melted nicely with the max heat on my heat tool. So as I started my work, I decided to keep myself on track by dedicating an instagram account (suteferu) to my daily progress. So far I have have the majority of the upper body built and the helmet nearing completion. Does anyone happen to have an easier way to make a visor other than melting 4mm plastic down into the form of a visor? And does anyone have a good tutorial on one-way graphics?
This is the upper body armor with the torso having paint lines drawn and the helmet melted down.
I know the helmet is missing a few minor details (and is overall still a little rough at this point), but if I have time at the end of the build, I will ditch this helmet and make a warmaster helm.

Thanks for reading. Any criticism is greatly appreciated, I want to go for gold with this suit and keep working on it continuously.

Nice work so far. How long did it take to do all this, since it was your first attempt? (If you don't mind me asking)
Give yourself some credit on the helmet! For a foam built, you nailed the overall shape, and the rough edges give it a slightly war-torn look to it.

BlazedStarbon said:

Nice work so far. How long did it take to do all this, since it was your first attempt? (If you don't mind me asking)
Give yourself some credit on the helmet! For a foam built, you nailed the overall shape, and the rough edges give it a slightly war-torn look to it.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I am on the 12th day of my build and I have been working on it a little each day. I hope to have it all built, but not finished by day 30.

Like Blazedstarbon said, the overall shape of the helmet is good. Although, some of the seams appear they are not as filled as they could be. What kind of filling material are you using? It's different for everyone but I use caulk to fill in the seams/gaps. Sometimes if I want a corner or a jagged piece to be sanded smooth I use what Spacemeat recommends, drywall spackle.

In any case, you are off to a great start.

For the visor: http://www.405th.com/f11/flexible-visors-gold-silver-red-blue-41577/

Frozensnot said:

Like Blazedstarbon said, the overall shape of the helmet is good. Although, some of the seams appear they are not as filled as they could be. What kind of filling material are you using? It's different for everyone but I use caulk to fill in the seams/gaps. Sometimes if I want a corner or a jagged piece to be sanded smooth I use what Spacemeat recommends, drywall spackle.

In any case, you are off to a great start.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Frozensnot! I am currently over filling all seems with hot glue, then taking a heat knife and turning it on its side to remelt the glue for a smooth edge. This method worked extremely well for any part I took my time on, but I get carried away and after an hour or so of melting and remelting glue for the perfect seam, I just began to get tired and started to rush it. That rushing created some gnarly looking seams. Some of the seams even developed holes in them.

And the only reason I haven't used caulk ( I bought a lot of it) is because it would add a lot of unnecessary weight to my suit, which is already going to be bogged down with electronics and the weight it already has. I wouldn't mind the weight if I wasn't building this suit specifically for a convention (Sci-Fi Valley Con) where I will be wearing the suit for 10+ straight hours. So I am trying to make the suit as lightweight as possible.

Steveeemega said:

And the only reason I haven't used caulk ( I bought a lot of it) is because it would add a lot of unnecessary weight to my suit, which is already going to be bogged down with electronics and the weight it already has. I wouldn't mind the weight if I wasn't building this suit specifically for a convention (Sci-Fi Valley Con) where I will be wearing the suit for 10+ straight hours. So I am trying to make the suit as lightweight as possible.

Click to expand...

Believe it or not, using caulk will not add that much weight at all. My foam pieces weigh relatively the same after using caulk. Also, lightweight spackle is almost weightless. When you put your hand into the container of spackle it feels just what spacemeat says, "like putting your hand into a cloud". It really is amazing stuff.

Best of luck on the build

So I finally got around to working on the torso. This is the result I tried to weather the piece because the whole suit seems to be lacking detail due to only using one thickness of foam on the majority of the suit.
For the spine piece I plasti dipped a piece of foam, painted it the color of the suit and then used black tool drawer checkered rubber mats to build detail.


Does anyone have a good tutorial for "plasma burns" on foam pieces? I would like to add something to that effect on a thigh, but I am not sure how to go about doing it. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, what do you guys out there think of the weathering I did? I used a frayed paper towel as a brush and used some silver hammered spray paint to add the metal look and the "gone to hell and back" feel.

I appreciate any criticism!

Armor is looking wonderful, and to answer your question, I saw a wonderful Hunter build that took advantage of plasma scarring/burns, and it is explained very well with some humor by one of the builders! Her is the link; can't wait to see this costume come to a close:
Happy Building!

A little update, I have one week until my deadline. The suit is about 90% done.


The legs need painted and the Carbine and cod piece for the front need built and painted.

Do any of you have any opinions on this suit so far? This is my first build and I'm only 16, so I'm still in the learning process of how to create decent pieces. Any comments or criticism is appreciated!

You certainly got the weathering down based off these latest pictures. It might just be me, but your weather-detailed technique is making my focus turn to the visor of your helmet because that's the only piece unscathed. Nice focal point if you were to ask me. :cool
For a first build, you're progression has come along nicely. Like all things, practice makes perfect.

This looks awesome! You did a great job. The weathering is awesome! Here's a link to a bullet wound/plasma burn that I found:

IT'S DONE! I finally am done with this armor. I got a few quick shots of the armor tonight. More of the final piece will come tomorrow.



All the support and resources found here are invaluable. Everyone here is great and I am glad to be a part of the community (now with a spartan suit).

Any feedback is appreciated!

So here is the Carbine all lit up and everything. I had the pieces laser cut by captaincauliflower (hope I spelled that right). This picture is mainly just of my painting mistakes and it may not be 100% accurate, but I think it looks decent enough for my first costume.


What do you guys think?

The carbine looks great. Keep up the good work

Nice, you really made my laser cut pieces pop. If you wanna get crazier with the paint job I would suggest looking up Volpin's paint method for his needler. And for future reference my name is a joke, not a reference to terrible food