Help sizing for small child

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hacxor

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It would be awesome if someone can help size a whole suit for my son.
He is 4 years old and I would really like to make a combat evolution suit for him.
I found all the files in the download section and I was hoping a sizing master can help me get the proportions correct.
His sizes are as follows:
Total height: 40"
Head height: 9" Head circumference: 24"
Chest across: 10" Chest circumference: 24" Torso: 12"
Bicep(top of shoulder to elbow): 7"
Forearm: 6"
Shin(top of foot to middle knee): 8"
Thigh(middle knee to inseam): 6.5"
Foot length: 8"

I put a little extra in the chest and head for growth.

I would be willing to paypal a 5$ tip for helping me.
Again, thank you very much!


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helloooo. I think for the helmet, you just scale it probably 9-9.5 depending on if you would want to add foam to the helmet which you would want. So i would say the helmet height should be around 229 mm rounded to 241 mm rounded. The chest however, im not to entirely sure. For, the legs and feet, what you can do is use the measurements that you have, the 8, 6, 7, and 6.5, use those numbers as the height. there is also the feature called "Measure distance between two points" and with it, you can make say point a be the highest point on the file, and point be as the lowest, and it would give you the size in between the two points. That same little process/ step can also be used for finding the diameter as to if the body part will fit into the actual armor piece. The same also goes for the gauntlets and biceps as well. :D
 
I'd be very interested to know how you plan on building the armor. Pepakura with a fiberglass resin, or perhaps foam, etc. it always seemed to me that building such a small suit of armor would be difficult beyond words if you planned on high levels of detail. As for your "adding a little for growth", how much extra room did you allow for? I am really curious when it comes to projects like these.
 
Hey Hacxor,

Welcome to us kiddy builders ;) I'm building a reach suit for my 8yr old at the moment.

I'm guessing for your things will be a bit more difficult then for me as the body proportions for a 4yr old will be more off. Also why can't you imperial descendents just use the metric system ;) Not sure if you can set Pepakura to measure in Inches (if not, multiply all your figures by 2.54 I think it is). Under the 2D menu, in the first submenu the last options should read something like "meassure between two points" (I don't have my copy handy, on a Mac atm).
Even though the option is under the 2D menu it also works in the 3D window. Pick a point on the model, say the top, then pick another point, say at the bottom, and it will tell you what the distance between those two points are. If you start by rescaling to 100% and then measure, you can simply divide the distance you require by the distance pepakura gives you and you've got your scale factor (adding a bit of margin).

Obviously do this for a few strategic points on the model, you could make a part wide enough but it may still not be high enough but I found it an immensely good tool as you can get a good idea if something will be the right size.

Just keep in mind that for kids we'll never get the fit perfect. I found with my daughter that while the thigh piece of my reach suit has the right diameter, it looks slightly to long but I can't make it smaller or it wouldn't fit around her leg. That said, its better to have something slightly too large, after gluing it all together you can always adjust the shape slightly by cutting out a part.
 
Dante Nero said:
I'd be very interested to know how you plan on building the armor. Pepakura with a fiberglass resin, or perhaps foam, etc. it always seemed to me that building such a small suit of armor would be difficult beyond words if you planned on high levels of detail. As for your "adding a little for growth", how much extra room did you allow for? I am really curious when it comes to projects like these.
Click to expand...

Dante, this is something I am definitely facing but I think will be more difficult for hacxor. Depending on the technique he's planning on it will take a few weeks if not months to build. A 4yr old grows a bit faster then an 8yr old so you might find that by the time your ready, things will be too small.

I'm building slightly larger then need be and hope that parts won't bang into each other, but I'm pretty sure by the time she a year older it'll start being to small.. I'm doing Pepakura/resin btw but as its my first build I'm taking it easy on the detailing.
 
mux213 said:
Dante, this is something I am definitely facing but I think will be more difficult for hacxor. Depending on the technique he's planning on it will take a few weeks if not months to build. A 4yr old grows a bit faster then an 8yr old so you might find that by the time your ready, things will be too small.

I'm building slightly larger then need be and hope that parts won't bang into each other, but I'm pretty sure by the time she a year older it'll start being to small.. I'm doing Pepakura/resin btw but as its my first build I'm taking it easy on the detailing.
Click to expand...

As i've heard most armor sets take at least a month, give or take a week or two, a small child like that could very easily outgrow the armor before he finishes, or have the armor be way too small. It's almost a matter of luck. And as I am a very cautious person by nature, that sort of dice-roll is very off-putting to me, but I have seen people do it very well, so I tend to wonder how they did it.

Is your build currently on the forum, because if so, and there are pictures available, I would be interested to see them.
 
Dante Nero said:
As i've heard most armor sets take at least a month, give or take a week or two, a small child like that could very easily outgrow the armor before he finishes, or have the armor be way too small. It's almost a matter of luck. And as I am a very cautious person by nature, that sort of dice-roll is very off-putting to me, but I have seen people do it very well, so I tend to wonder how they did it.

Is your build currently on the forum, because if so, and there are pictures available, I would be interested to see them.
Click to expand...

A month for an armor set? My goodness, I wish I had that sort of free time haha. I think I am running on about 30 hours for my chest piece alone. (Probably closer to 60, but netflix has a tendency to distract me while I build) Granted, I am quite OCD when it comes to parts being square and scaled perfectly.
 
I would say building a kid's costume is more challenging than an adult's because the scale is smaller (meaning smaller paper parts) and the darned cardstock doesn't grow as your kid grows so it's really a blind guess on what size to use so it fits when finished. For mine I'm sizing high (and hopefully high enough) because if it's too large when I'm done then he'll grow into it. Better that than it being too small and all that time and work for nothing. (I'm building a Halo 3 Mk VI for my kid, by the way - he was 8 when I started, and turns 11 next month. Part of that time was spent making a video tutorial for automated cutting, and now work is suspended while I work on more-accurate models with SirPalesAlot. Working a full-time job and not alienating myself from the family means not very much time each week working on the project.)
 
Dante Nero said:
That's only what I hear, though. No experience with armor myself.
Click to expand...

Mmmmm, I love hearing recycled words on the Internet ;)

Nonetheless, I would say on "average", most users take about a year to fully complete a suit. This of course depends in the level of detail and so on.

Back on topic, and directing back to the maker of the thread. Have you considered scratch building from foam? I realize I throw this suggestion around on the forum quite a bit, but it is my personal preference, and it makes it easy to scale parts properly without any computer work. Granted I would still recommend making the helmet via pepakura and fiberglass.

Going this route, you can make a lower detailed build that would still look fantastic on a little guy or gal. By not adding some of the intricate details, you will save yourself a lot of time on the build, as well if your son takes a spill while wearing the suit, he won't be hurt by any rigid parts on his costume.

I'm excited to see your progress on this suit, though!
 
I plan to start the suit after I finish my helmet.
I do not think it would take me a year, maybe a few months.

I suck at foam!! With a passion!! I tried this with the helmet and previous armor I tried to build. The resin and bondo doesn't scare me one bit. I am the one doing the dot helmet and I have gone from nothing to resin and fiberglass today.
The CE armor looks less complicated and less detail and this it why I have chosen this for my son. He will be caboss!

Y'all have helped me out tons in this post. I never knew about the point to point measuring.


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Dante Nero said:
....Is your build currently on the forum, because if so, and there are pictures available, I would be interested to see them.
Click to expand...

Hey Dante, they don't grow that fast, but yes, you do need to take into account that they will grow so its better to make things a bit roomy then to get things to exactly fit. My main worry at this point is that kids bodies are slightly differently proportioned then adults. We'll see.

My thread is here: http://www.405th.com/showthread.php?t=44842
 
hacxor said:
...I suck at foam!! With a passion!! I tried this with the helmet and previous armor I tried to build. The resin and bondo doesn't scare me one bit. I am the one doing the dot helmet and I have gone from nothing to resin and fiberglass today.
The CE armor looks less complicated and less detail and this it why I have chosen this for my son. He will be caboss!
...
Click to expand...

I have yet to try foam but you are the first I've heard dismiss it like that :) I'm loving the pep route as well though. I do hear what FlyinPhil is saying, From what I've seen others doing it does seem foam allows you to resize and correct things easier then pep,

Anyway, looking forward to seeing your build develop:)
 
Y'all are such awesome people. I hope to start this build in a week or so.


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hacxor said:
It would be awesome if someone can help size a whole suit for my son.
He is 4 years old and I would really like to make a combat evolution suit for him.

I think the sizing thing has been covered, but I wanted to point out that I'm doing the exact same thing: building a suit for my 4 year old son. The biggest problem I'm having right now is what others have pointed out, when scaled down the pieces become unbearably small to work with. I did the helmet with paper and resin. Fortunately heads are so big on four-year-old proportionately, that it wasn't that bad. But in an effort to move things along a little quicker, and for other reasons, I decided to try doing the rest in foam. I think it's going to end up being a combination of modifying existing phone models I think it's going to end up being a combination of modifying regular foam templates, using fit test templates where I can find them, and a little bit of scratch build.

How is yours coming?
Click to expand...
 
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