Hello! My foam Halo Reach Noble build

Hello all! Figured it was time I got on here and posted My husband is Jobe Devian and has been posting his build here http://www.405th.com/f21/mkv-build-2-weeks-till-deadline-weathering-fitting-43857/

Now it is my turn This is my first attempt at foam armour building. I have dabbled a tiny bit with making Jobe's sith boot/ shins that were customised from iron man boot and shin sections and some armour for my Jedi which has since been scrapped and remade since I know much more about what I am doing now!

Unlike Jobe, I have been building mine from foam rather than pep and resining, and I am building Reach armour with a few customised pieces. I haven't aimed to be 100% screen accurate, but to be fairly close I've hit a lot of road bumps and potholes along the way, either running into the challenges of making pieces fit (especially being female) or pep files that I just wasn't happy with. Some pieces are either half or entirely made from scratch from screenshots and gameplay.

At current the pieces are done but awaiting sanding, sealing etc. To get the layering etc we have ended up using four different types and thicknesses of foams and it has worked out well most of it is built from that checkerplate patterned garage floor matting. This suit will be sprayed in a metallic blue- Vauxhall arden blue to be exact I work in an auto parts shop and can paint mix to any colour I want so I have chosen that one

My pieces as of a few weeks ago:



Bracers (I will eventually be adding a tactpad which holds my phone to these but that's for when I have more time!)





Shoulders with HAZOP add on





Thighs- these have been given a slight trim in places to fit better and make a little more accurate since this photo





Shins with FJ/ para knees


My belt/ codpiece, I am holding it as it will be velcroed shut at the front




Boots- which just slot over my shoes. I have an injured ankle so I still have to be able to wear my good supportive footwear



temporary pistol and knife- we will build proper pistols and assault rifles later but for the sake of saving time we are using Nerf Megashot Magnus pistols. I sanded off all my warning labels and logos (except the nstrike badge on the grip as that was too much stuffing around). The gun still needs more layers of silver and weathering. Jobe carved the knife in sheath from two layers of interlocking foam mat glued together, then shaped with a Dremel and a piece of coat hangar wire shoved into it to hold it firmer (also was handy for the painting process!). It has since been painted all black, I'll soon be painting the small section of exposed blade silver and weathering the grip and sheath.


backpack


and tada! full suit minus the helmet! excuse any tape you see. The thighs will be attached with studs to the shorts I am wearing, which then go over the pants. The front and rear of the torso are attached at the top, and will buckle together plus Velcro at the bottom where the sides meet the backpack.








My helmet is the only thing that has been pepped, resined and slush cast in the same fashion as Jobe's as I wanted it to be a little sturdier. It is a Mk5 reach variant as I have always loved the peaked helmets over those without. I jumped into the deep end up unfolding the 3D model myself Due to deadlines it was put aside to be worked on later, this is a photo at its recent stage part way through body filling:



And just after it was pepped up







I will post updates as they happen

The plan eventually is also to add undersuit armour to the legs, torso etc but that is a build for later!

Looks good so far. Keep the updates a coming =)

Looking good so far. What is your main color?

looks good, very clean. Keep it up!

Insider info. This build looks good. Super busy trying to have it complete in next few days. Hopefully there will be updates....

very good looking foam armor so far! bravo!

Okay sorry I haven't been posting updates! Been a hectic few weeks, and after a very busy weekend I've just been dead after work and not had the energy to sort this out!

So my armour (and me) survived ComicCon! We BARELY got it finished in time, a big thanks to my beloved husband Jobe Devian for putting in so much time and effort helping to get it finished (well, finished enough!)

firstly, a few progress photos:

Pretty silver undercoating- along with first photos of my hand plates which I literally made up in a few seconds. They were prepped with a product similar to plastidip as we didn't have the time to stuff around with PVA, they had to get painted asap!







and now in blue on Easter morning! I changed my mind last minute, went with Subaru world rally blue pearl... it makes it very red vs blue standard blue (and people keep calling me Caboose hmmm) but it is my very favourite blue, always has been, and the effect is pretty amazing in person!



I had pretty much given up hope that my helmet could be finished in time, but Sunday morning I woke up to see that Jobe had covered it in a layer of filler- let me remind you that the photos in my first post were the state it was in Saturday night, so very little of it had actually been filled and shaped. So Sunday both of us worked non stop to get the helmet done- for pretty much 12 hours straight if I wasn't sanding or filling it (I did need a couple of breaks!), Jobe took over. I am now very sick of sanding and wearing masks! This resumed on Monday morning, with both of us working our butts off to get it done. This was the state it was in before we cut the back off (that's how I get into the helmet as the neck hole is too small)- an amazing effort imo! If I had had more time, I would have filled in air pockets etc with blade putty and gotten a smoother finish but we were REALLY running against the clock!





Monday after getting the helmet to a satisfactory point so Jobe could paint, I masked off my sections to be black. We used a metallic black paint to fit in with the metallic pearl blue.



The neck piece is actually separate and was coated with a product similar to plastidip to give it the rubberised undersuiting look. We were very pleased with that finish. The neck piece goes on, then I put the torso on over the top. The neck piece fits in snuggly with some Velcro at the front to help locate it and keep the front bit locked in place.





The front and back are latched together with some slide release buckles. When the armour is on me the front and back sit snuggly together with a barely noticeable gap.

Some additional pieces with black detailing (I had forgotten to do the heel on the boots in this pic and we'd missed a piece on each shoulder, hence they are still masked off )

Everything looks pretty proportioned when it comes to sizing. I think you are doing great. Keep up the good work. I am glad to see your a blue

And now for pictures from the con! The undersuit is compression pants and an activewear long sleeve shirt which breathes quite nicely, plus I have shorts which pull up over the pants and a lycra neck piece which latches into place with hook and loops under my shirt. I was surprised how cool I kept- I was actually much hotter in my Jedi costume the next day (something like 4 layers of cotton plus singlet) than I was in my Spartan! The fans mounted in the front of my torso probably helped greatly, one was directed slightly down and the other directed slightly up at my neck.

The codpiece sticks to the belt with Velcro as I figured it was the easiest way. The thigh piece latches with grip studs to the shorts. I also had my tactical belt on with a large pouch sitting over the back section of the belt so I had some storage space, but it isn't visible in these photos as they were taken after we got home and I didn't bother putting it back on. The foam knife velcros into place as I want to be able to swap it with a training knife and sheath, but the one piece thing is better for cons, especially given how grumpy the weapons check security were being this con! The helmet back is held to the main helmet with strong elastic, with a bolt on each side with oversized nut to locate it and magnets to hold it shut. There is a small fan located in the front of the helmet. The rest of the pieces held in place just with foam padding. If people want I can get photos of how I latched things down








And with Jobe Devian


And for the fun of it- a photo from a photobooth, I particularly love this one!



I found that while my shoulders were padded well enough for wandering around the house, once they loosened up from wear they just kept slipping which was very annoying! Thankfully a 501st friend had some extra foam which I taped into place just to get me through the con. I am going to attach straps with studs to attach them onto the torso armour so they can't keep slipping. My helmet was the main problem- we didn't have time to put in breather holes, big mistake! The fan helped a bit, but I was constantly dealing with fogging up issues. We just chucked in a few breather holes with plans for more when we have more time to let paint dry (since we are in the costumes again this Saturday). We originally only had one magnet each side on the helmet but it wasn't quite enough, we just fixed that by adding an extra to each side. Leg movement is pretty damn good and I (thankfully) can sit down in the armour, but upper body movement is atrocious- the torso and shoulders make it very limited!

Other than that the armour held up fairly well. The expected cracks in the paint which will be touched up with the airbrush, and I have plenty of scuff marks to paint silver and weather. We will also be weathering the entire armour, but I was just glad to get black and blue armour to wear at the con! I also have lights to still mount in the helmet and a few pieces of the suit, plus undersuit sections to make especially on the shoulders.

So been a while since I've updated. Helmet has had vents put in, lights are also being installed and I'm weathering the armour. Here are the first pieces:

(Looks more impressive in real life, the metallic paint reflects so much light thats all the camera picks up.)

Silvered

Dirtied

For your first build, this turned out amazingly !!!!! It looks sweet, keep up the good work

pipninja said:

For your first build, this turned out amazingly !!!!! It looks sweet, keep up the good work

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thanks! I've learnt so much doing this, can't wait to build my Mk6 Halo 3 Tex after this one has been finished

B1ondeange1 said:

thanks! I've learnt so much doing this, can't wait to build my Mk6 Halo 3 Tex after this one has been finished

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sweet that would be a cool build

Some new pics from the Con this weekend! We organised for a heap of 405th in Perth to join up and were amazed by the turn out! Had so much fun, and a film crew had us do an ODST vs Spartan training firefight

Now i just have to do add my LEDs to my suit, maybe a bit more weathering and decals then its done!