Foam Board Build MC Helmet

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Dirtdives2424

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Hello all......this is my fist build and first thread about it. What is it you ask? well its FOAM BOARD. for those of you not familiar w/ crafting, foam board is a thin slice of Styrofoam sandwiched between 2 pieces of laminated paper. It comes in 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 inch thickness. I have been costuming for about 6 years now and have had great success using it so I figured, cardstock??? Hell, its too flimsy. I'm going to use my handy dandy foam board (mistake #1)!!!! Got my non-Pep Gamescanner MC plan-o-gram because I'm too cheap to spring for PEP Designer (mistake #2), and spray glued everything down to a nice sheet of FB (tired of typing foam board), and started cutting everything out. I did my homework in regards to tabs and at least i had the foresight to cut them off.

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So here I have my plethora of pieces........Now I'm ready. By step/piece 4 I know I'm in deep doo doo. I managed to heat wrap the FB for the back piece and came to the conclusion that FB is too thick even at 1/4" to join up correctly. So cutting away began in earnest. By piece 8 I was exhausted. Every joint had to be beveled and each piece had to be re-cut to accommodate for a curvature of some type.

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Ok, so w/ little choice, I resigned myself for a long and probably painful ordeal. By piece 12 I was stuck. Not knowing if the fold was mountain or valley, I had to reverse engineer my build. I restarted w/ the most distinctive aspect of MC helmet: The brim. Good move. In 2 hrs, I had re-pieced that whole part.

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Now that I have a more specific idea where everything goes.....things picked up. That was until I realized what time it was and that I had work the next day (few hours actual) and that is where I stand at this point.

Comments and suggestions are all welcome as well as constructive criticisms. You can laugh, I am. But in the end, I will be a Spartan. Again, not an ancient one this time......a modern......um..... futuristic ......um.......futuristic fantasy Spartan, yeah...that's the ticket.
 
Howdy. It's sounds cool but I can't see the pics :(

And I have the same problem with work.... it get in the way of progress!! Lol

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Forget what I just said.... I can see em now :)

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Looks like this is gonna be an interesting build... keep us updated :)
 
once I realized I couldn't even see the pictures, I re-posted them.
 
Quick snapshot of where I am up to. Only got in 1 hr last night.....I couldn't see straight after the night before........getting old........any-hoo, I got a bit frustrated w/ my build. Things were not lining up, I wasn't getting the right curves and the top was looking very flat. Could have landed the Pelican on it. I then hit it w/ a heat gun to try and bend it in to place and realized what an idiot I was. Besides melting the hot glue on to my fingers,and even after years of working w/ it, I keep forgetting FB is not only sturdy and flexible, you can really abuse it and use force to get it into position. And that is what I did.

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Now its really coming together. Another helpful tip, at this point you can even sand it down. I don't have to wait to use a hardening element. If the area is thick or the joint is jutting up/out, just use a knife and carefully slice the top of it of and then sand it smooth. Any gaps can easily be filled in w/ either a paint-able caulk or Bondo Putty. The Bondo is a bit thick but if the piece is already smooth, all I really need is to do is fill in the gaps.

Not going to be able to work on it tonight but I should get something done over the weekend. I'll keep posting pics and comments on the pros/cons of FB.
 
Nice material you've chosen. Can't wait to see the end product.
 
Ran into some major issues w/ the build. The one positive aspect of foam-board, its rigidity and overall strength, has turned in to a negative. I must have began the whole project on an incorrect angle. Once i attached the brim and top to the back of the head piece, it looked more like a mid-evil torture device. The opening was actually facing inward toward the top of the helmet. I didn't want to start over. I had already some parts perfect. I cut away at the area i thought was incorrect and will have to remake the piece from scratch since i don't think the plan is 100% accurate. That is just my opinion though. Anyway, didn't get a chance to work on it this weekend. Wife was at work so I had to play dad. I did get in some time to work on a tangent project. A spartan Light-rifle!!

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I might be having problems w/ my helmet build, but for a straight up weapon, FB is working just fine.........1/4 done in a single night. I think the overall length will be almost the same height as my son!!
 
Well, FB didn't turn out to be all that great in the end. Once glued it had no flexibility, so when it came to attaching the 2 parts I did do, nothing lined up correctly. The helmet resembled something more like a mid-evil torture device than HALO armor. So scratch one. Picked up some cardstock last night and going to start over. I'll post more once I get started. Perhaps some of the smaller detail pieces of armor can be cut from this.


I did complete some more on the light rifle but didn't get current pic. Again will keep you advised on any progress.
 

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Hey Dirtdives,
Nice work on the Lightrifle so far!
I hope my templates are easy enough to understand and work with :)
I have been looking forward to someone finally using these to make their own rifle.
Can't wait to see more progress on how it turns out.
 
I haven't done much lately. W/ the holiday so close, I'm kind of swamped w/ work. I did manage to get the core of the light rifle done so the actual size is much larger than I expected......for my son that is.

IMG-20151125-01007.jpgMy suggestion, do the core first then the templates for the other pieces. This way everything will lineup. I had to start over twice because the end product for each template was slightly off and didn't fit the core.

So Foam Board for a helmet didn't turn out so good. Perhaps I just need more time to work out the kinks, regardless I went w/ cardstock on a new one. Here is where I am w/ that so far:

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I have 90% finished. Just 1 piece needs repair, and just a few pieces left to attach. It just fits my son so there is no way I will be able to use this same template for myself. Me and my fat head. But now that I have an actual helmet (almost), I think that w/ a bit of work and visualization, I can get one to fit me out of the foam board.
 
Hey Dirtdives,
Nice work on the Lightrifle so far!
I hope my templates are easy enough to understand and work with :)
I have been looking forward to someone finally using these to make their own rifle.
Can't wait to see more progress on how it turns out.

The templates are great. I'm not so artistic as to recreate something from visually seeing it, but if I had templates and plans, I can build it. I usually freehand costumes for myself and my kids but this is a different animal entirely. I like to be accurate when building so I take my time and if I don't like it, I start over but I keep the bad piece just to remind me of what not to do. I had to redo the Light rifle twice so far and it looks like the 3rd time is the charm now that I have more experience w/ it. And again through failure comes success. I have formulated ways to strengthen the core and install lights. So, thank you for creating the templates, and know that they are greatly appreciated. If you have any armor templates of the same caliber, I would most certainly put them to good use. I don't have Pep Designer. My work computer will not allow the download and I only have Macs at home. I don't have the time nor the computer expertise to convert for Mac use so I have been relying on any PDFs I could get my hands on. So your templates were a God-send.

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It all look great but.... DAT light rifle O.O

Thanks for the compliment. Coming from the both of you (BU and yourself) means a lot. Your work so far has been inspiring.
 
UPDATE:

Well I came to the conclusion that foam board will work. I can't re-size the low-rez templates but more on that in a bit.

I have completed the frame build on my son's helmet and have begun the hardening process. Due to the cold I'm going a different route since I can't work in my workshop at this time. I'm going w/ Modge Podge glue to start the outer shell. I already have 2 coats on it and I think that 2 more and I can work the inside.
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Problem is I need to do this in the workshop. Brrrrrrrrrr. get the portable heater started first.


Any way, as I was saying, Foam board!!! I know that there will be issues but I think that the main problem I had was using templates designed for cardstock. Going to use the EVA foam templates but us foam board instead. Not as flexible as the EVA but I should be able to heatgun them in to place. Now that I have an actual "model", I have a better understanding of where pieces go. So that being said, I will immediately begin on my own suit.

I luck out at work today. Came across 2 full mannequins that are near perfect in size that my company is throwing away (mine now). My height, my arm and leg length, chest.......OK my waist is a bit bigger.......3-4 inches is not much considering that this time last year I was 50 lbs heaver but now I can work on templates w/ a bit more accuracy. And almost see where things will fit and where they wont. Yay me!!! More as soon as I can get to it.
 
Score!!!! I just came across a pair of "armored" gloves that is going to save me time on my build.

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The plan: Remove the reflective tape on the upper wrist, paint the yellow rubber finger armor tabs the color of the full armor (Haven't decided on a color just yet), paint or scrape off the Premium Defense letters, and try to dye the yellow stitching black (or the darkest I can get it). If this works out I will match the under armor "plates" to the light grey coloring. I have an old all black skydive suit which I'm going to trick out w/ the same color craft foam in the light grey. Light grey on Black for the under-suit. Got to get one of the mannequins in the basement so I can put all of this together in a progressive picture slide show.......or something like that.........




Well I couldn't wait till I got home so I did a little work on them. It went from this:
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To this: in about 20 minutes.

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I now have a near finished set of gloves. I couldn't scrape off the letters so I went old school on it. Black marker!! Popped the stitches on the reflective strip, which came off easily and left no mark. Now all i have to do is paint it to match my suit armor.

More later. have to get back to the helmet.
 
Brought in a mannequin and suited him up.....

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I think my wife is going to have a heat attack when she goes down to the basement to do laundry..........oops.......Gloves look great.

The arms and legs are baggier than I remember but I should be able to tuck all that under the armor pieces. Speaking of armor pieces, since I'm more familiar w/ foam board than EVA foam, I'm going to test out some pieces of armor using foam board before I continue. I haven't given up on this stuff yet but its going to take some time and a lot of patience.
 
forgot to tell my daughter that this was downstairs...........got home and she punched me and wouldn't talk to me for an hour. She's 10.
 
Its been a bit since my last post and I'm stuck on foam board. I figure that to build a suit you need to start at the bottom and work your way up. I have the low def temp for EVA foam and gave it another try. here the result so far:

Started w/ a cardboard test piece just to have a reference:

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Looks decent for a semi-free hand piece.

Now here is the near finished foamboard boot:

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A little bit of tweaking here and there, and I think this will be good to go. Some of the seams didn't line up correctly but that is the down side of FB. The up side is my son tried it on, walked around and accidentally kicked a chair leg w/o taking any damage. So he kicked it again to make sure. looks great and fits him perfectly. Very light weigh and strong. Got 1 more boot to go then on to the shin and calf.

Back to the helmet:

Started to fiberglass the inside.

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I know it adds weight but I wan't prepared for how much more it would weigh!! One question if anyone is actually listening.......how do I fiberglass the area in the brim? I can't see what I'm doing almost as is. I figured I would wait till what I have done already to dry and then just shove a wad if fiberglass in there and slather in some resin and hope for the best. Any one have a suggestion?
 
OK, now that my Samurai outfit is on the tail end of completion, I can get back to my son's MC build. I got the other boot finished yesterday, sorry no pic right now, and will get started on painting shortly. I was thinking about using plasta dip but he will be only using this suit once, maybe twice aside from running around w/ it on when we have our occasional Nerf gun battle or to terrify his twin sister (I can hear the screaming from now). Not sure I want to lay out the cash for that..........cheap I know, but he is going to outgrow this very soon regardless of what I do. He's 10 and grows like a weed. I'm going to go for the low def templates and use that as a starting point. And yes for those of you following, I am going w/ an all FB build, except for the helmet which is also almost ready for the next stage. 1 more layer of fiberglass on the inside and I'm ready to work on the outside. The weather should hold for the next couple of days so I have a small window of opportunity. Got to get this done.
 
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