Halo Reach Custom Spartan -- First Build w/ Custom Undersuit

Well howdy y'all!

It's Mrs. Chief again. You guys remember how I asked for advice a few days back on what armor I should make? Well, I decided I'm going to do my Noble Six/Spartan-III from Reach. Here's some beautiful pictures of my beautiful girl. (taken on my phone from my TV because my dang capture card died. I'm salty, lol)



Since I'm a perfectionist, I knew that I want a game-accurate undersuit to go with, or as screen accurate as I can make. So I began Sunday with sketching out the undersuit in Photoshop (thanks to the thousands of references pictures I've saved over the years), and then I began roughly taping up my dress form to match.
Also, this is where I officially apologize for all the Snapchat pictures. I constantly forget to take progress pictures, but I do put a lot of it on my Snap story so....yeah.



(Also, say hello to my dress form, John)

Sunday night into Monday morning, I began mocking out a pattern in paper. When the paper got overly frustrating (working with curves and paper is just not a good mix), I switched to mocking the undersuit in this hideous flower fabric I have like ten yards of. I ended my Monday with roughly 80% of the torso mocked out.



Today, I finished mocking out the rest of the torso, then tried my hand at some of the padded bits on the abs and hips. I was originally going to do it in EVA foam, but after wasting one entire puzzle piece, an entire stick of hot glue, and seriously wanting to give up entirely after trying to bevel the foam how I originally planned, I went to my ever-intelligent brother and he suggested just layering it with packing foam. So I mocked out the padded bits in it and I seriously love it! It's a bit...thick and doesn't have the bevel I'm looking for (the middle piece and bottom piece are supposed to be one, with the lower half having a very shallow slope down to nothing....if that explains it at all lol) but it's a start, and I'm still really happy with how it currently looks!



Tomorrow, I'm going to be doing the final patterns for the fabric parts of the torso with the help of my new tracing wheel. I also picked up this new friend at JoAnn's, along with a yard of some test vinyl:


(my mom thinks it's John just because he's green. lol. I am taking name suggestions though!)

Any help or comments are much appreciated, and I can't wait to keep building with the 405th!

Hugs and plasma cannons,
Mrs. Chief

mrschief this is going to be awesome I am excited to see how it turns out.. your little Spartan buddy looks like a Bruce... Lol (they have those at JoAnn's?)

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

Awesome job so far! Looking forward to seeing more!

This is going to be good...


"I'm just a witness"

A Female bust form named John...........ok..............Looks good so far. So the packing foam is just a mock up? What do you plan to use as the suit itself?

Hi guys!
Long time no talk. Sorry about that. I went back to school for the second half of the semester and a Comp Sci plus ROTC schedule is pretty jam-packed. Since I've been here, I can't necessarily work on the undersuit, but I did complete the final patterns. My next step is buying the fabric and then sewing it up! The fabric is a bit pricey so it might take a bit of time though. In the meantime, I've been working on my Spartan enblem in Photoshop, along with some of the decals (the warning tape, danger stickers, etc) AAAAND I just got my BoomCo M6 in the mail. I got the red one with the intention of it matching my suit, but after looking at some customizations of them, I might be doing that. I'm not entirely sure yet though.
I'm also still not entirely sure how to do the foam bits of the armor. I can't find a way to glue packing foam and I can't get it in the exact shape I need. I've been thinking about upholstery foam, but I'll have to do some more research.
I'll be done with school for the year in 4 weeks so this build should pick up soon.
Thanks for reading and all the encouragement!
Hugs and plasma cannons,
Mrs. Chief

For furniture foam.....contact rubber cement works very well. Even foam to foam.......it has a long cure time so you can't just glue and leave it be for a moment........ Now, you are planing to use this type of foam for your armor? I would think that it would be 1) structurally weak: This type of foam is easily torn. 2) difficult to paint; due to it's lack of rigidity, a simple bumping in to someone could cause cracks and tears in the paint job. and 3) not durable; You might get a few days out of this but how would you store it? If you hang it, the foam will droop from the weight, causing issues w/ the paint job. If you box it up, it will flatten out because it has very little structural integrity, and again, cause issues w./ the paint job. Now painting.......I'm not sure how this type of foam would react to aerosol for a spray paint.....It may eat it. Have you ever tried to paint foam? I have. It's a sponge. No amount of paint is going to give this a good paint job. Now unless you have your cuts down exactly to the correct angle...there is no way to sand down this type of foam. You would need to shave it w/ a razor.....giving you unusual looking angles and cut marks.......If you are planing on using foam......go w/ EVA.

No no, I'm using it for the undersuit. There are padded bits on the stomach and hips. The packing foam in the first post is a mock up of the undersuit padding. EVA is too rigid to sit under EVA armor pieces (the chest/ab and codpiece).
Sorry for the confusion.
-- Mrs. Chief

oh....ok......here I am spouting off about this foam..........Under-suit armor.......not sure if this foam is going to help you either.....If you are looking to put this under your EVA armor w/o bulking it up, you may want to look into thick craft foam or yoga mats. Some of them have a puckered texture to give the appearance of it being stitched. Depending on your undersuit color, I have been experimenting w/ foam shelf liners in a checkerboard pattern.


It's a non-slip draw liner. I got this from my local National Wholesale Liquidator for 6 buck for 18"x 10' roll. Ikea also sells it but for a bit more $$ and they also have more colors. The problem I'm having is that I can't glue this to my undersuit so easily and I'm not sure if this can be sewn on. The grid edges may just tear open and the liner will fall off. Someone out there smarter than I am should know how to attach this....just haven't found him/her yet. But that is my problem.....give this a peek and see if its good for what your looking to do. good luck.

Have you thought about maybe wrapping it in fabric? You can wrap it tightly, perhaps, and leave excess fabric on the edges to sew it on to your suit, kind of like an envelope or a pocket. You might be able to stitch it on directly, but as you said, I'd worry about it tearing, and possibly breaking a ton of sewing needles depending on how powerful your machine (or fingers) are. This might be what I end up doing. Scuplting the padded parts in upholstery foam, wrapping them, and sewing them in.
I wish I was home so I could show you exactly what I mean, lol.

-- Mrs. Chief

I understand your idea.......I don't know enough about fabric and foam construction (furniture foam that is) to do something like that......wish I did...I need my daughter to teach me how to use the sewing machine.....so correct me if I;m wrong, take the foam and manufacturing a fabric "pocket" to stuff it in to then sew it closed then stitch the pattern on the top of that through the foam, then attach the whole thing to the undersuit..... ? is that right?

I was thinking more along the lines of making the shape out of upholstery/furniture foam, brushing whatever glue that works (contact cement, etc) onto the foam, laying a piece of fabric on it, pressing it into the grooves of the foam to maintain shape, repeating on the other side, maybe running a stitch through the both front and bacm pieces of fabric outlining the foam, then sewing it onto the undersuit like a panel. Kind of like...if you are brave enough to look it up, how fur-suits are made, or how car audio boxes are often wrapped in felt before fiberglassing or as decoration.
This is the only way I can see the padding maintaining its shape while behing able to be attached. A pocket being stuffed might work just the same, but sharp angles might not be nearly as defined without some sort of adhesive.
-- Mrs. Chief

It's a great idea!


"I'm just a witness"

mrschief said:

I was thinking more along the lines of making the shape out of upholstery/furniture foam, brushing whatever glue that works (contact cement, etc) onto the foam, laying a piece of fabric on it, pressing it into the grooves of the foam to maintain shape, repeating on the other side, maybe running a stitch through the both front and bacm pieces of fabric outlining the foam, then sewing it onto the undersuit like a panel. Kind of like...if you are brave enough to look it up, how fur-suits are made, or how car audio boxes are often wrapped in felt before fiberglassing or as decoration.
This is the only way I can see the padding maintaining its shape while behing able to be attached. A pocket being stuffed might work just the same, but sharp angles might not be nearly as defined without some sort of adhesive.
-- Mrs. Chief

Click to expand...

Then I'm not getting it......What sharp angles do you need?

If you look closely at my spartan's stomach, you can see the beveled edges of the padding right underneath the ab plate, and under the codpiece on her hips.
-- Mrs. Chief

If you look closely at my spartan's stomach, you can see the beveled edges of the padding right underneath the ab plate, and under the codpiece on her hips.
-- Mrs. Chief