Foam MK VI Build

My wife and I have decided to embark on a Mark IV adventure, so after a week or two of research on here, I dived in and spent the entire day starting my build.

I'll be building two full suits, one for her and one for me... it's a lot to tackle, but it's really fun, and while this is the first full foam armor build I've done (I've done other more basic chest and arm armor pieces with Wonderflex) I have been using foam on other items for a long time now, so I feel pretty confident with how it's going to turn out.

I think at this point, I'm not expecting or planning for a perfectly accurate build. In the future when I have a bigger workspace and a more permanent home instead of just an apartment, I might tackle something more detailed and accurate. For now I'm happy with something a bit more rough-and-ready, and I know it's going to blow all of my friends away anyway. Plus, the build is actually kind of a memorial for a family member who was a huge Halo fan, and he always preferred fun above "omg perfection" so it seems like the right course!

I went with foam because I've been making props and weapons for cosplay with foam for a long time now so I have a good handle on how it works. I've done actual pepakura builds before but I don't have the space to do any kind of resin work right now, so pepakura would not be an option for me anyway! I am using Robogenisis/Demolition patterns for the majority of it, although some parts of it are definitely gonna be winged or freehanded! I'll be using 10mm and 5mm EVA foam for the bulk of everything, and I'm sure I'll end up with some styrene and other parts in there too. I live in South Korea right now so finding certain materials will be a challenge!

Here's the helmet so far! The upper visor/hood is curving upwards up a bit further than I'd prefer but I think that once I attach a faceplate, and finish the rest of the dome of the head that it'll tame itself a bit. I'm not looking forward to doing it all over again for my wife's helmet, but I think that it'll go even better the second time. I'll have a better handle on the bevel angles for all the foam pieces for sure.

This is the result of working solid from about 4 pm to 3 am. I can see a few places where there are problems to fix, and there's still a lot left to do, but it's been cool to have something so recognizable taking shape! Seeing a 3-by-5 foot sheet of foam turn into a real thing is incredibly satisfying. Don't mind the messy desk, haha...

Definitely a great start. Looking forward to seeing your progress!

I haven't given up!

I ended up losing out on the month of August because of a really bad work schedule combined with 90+ degree weather and no air conditioning in my apartment leading to having no energy to do anything besides sit and sweat, but I'm back at it now..

I've got two helmets mostly constructed, and two chest armors mostly constructed as well.

I had one significant problem: the Robogenisis/Demolition patterns had some really weird proportions on the chest armor. In making the neck hole big enough to actually wear the armor, the whole chest piece ends up extremely wide, to the point where the boxes that should be on top of the shoulders end up riding outside the arms.

I solved that problem by basically taking about a solid inch (the width of my ruler) strip off both sides of the armor, so the boxes are much narrower, but now everything actually fits and it isn't hanging way off the shoulders.

I think even if the neck hole was made so small that you had to actually split the armor open from the back to get it on your body, it still would be way too wide.

Anyway, photos coming soon...

Thanks for your comments, I intend to start a build this winter (foam) so any little obstacles you run into are very valuable to me. Post build pictures so I can ooh and ahh at the awesomeness of your build Looking forward to seeing how it comes together.

Nice! Yeah, I've encountered a few weirdnesses about the pattern... if you use the same ones I used, you're gonna have to wing a few parts of it I think.

The problem I'm dealing with now is that the two pieces that go under the armhole, are *massively* too long, like 25 or 33%.

I'm going to attach some buckles and stuff under there to make the chest actually wearable, and those two pieces that curve along the bottom of the armor to connect the front and back are gonna have to get cut down by almost 3 or 4 inches, otherwise I'm gonna look like I'm a dude with DDD's stuffed under my armor, haha. (which would be amusing, but not really the kind of look that I think the Halo armor is supposed to convey)

I actually wonder how on earth that would work if I made it in real paper+resin, because the size would end up totally crazy. Especially the width; I had to cut a total of two inches off the width of both mine and my wife's chest armors, otherwise it was incredibly disproportionate. In foam it's just a little seam to sand out, but it only took a few minutes to do. With floppy-ass paper it might have been more difficult.

The biggest thing I have to suggest for you so far is that as you're cutting your pieces out, think very carefully about how you bevel the cuts. The pepakura pattern is expecting paper that is basically infinitely thin, but you and I are making out of presumably 1cm thick foam. Remember to angle the cuts in or out, otherwise they won't glue together properly, and you won't get the right shapes. It's almost always gonna be angled in (narrower than the pattern) but there are a few places that will be angled out (wider than the pattern).

Also, one big problem area to be careful with is right around the back of the neck on the chest piece; the raised "ring" there ends up getting really funky and strange because of the foam thickness. I'll take some photos and explain about that soon.

On the helmet, I basically had to make the center of the crown (where a mohawk would poke through if you had one) entirely myself because the pattern didn't work at all there. And, the ridge between the top of the crown and the band that goes around the back of the head ends up really, really weird too in foam, so there are some odd gaps in the back. Although, to be honest, I'm probably going to leave the gaps open (maybe put some metal screen material in them) to improve the ventilation inside the helmet.

Basically, there haven't been any major problems, but there will be places where having 1cm of foam makes problems, but there are other places where 1cm of foam is really nice (you can shave off 5mm to fix a corner or edge and still have plenty of foam left). The pattern works about 80%.. the other 20% it "almost" works, and you just have to kind of wing it. If you're going for total accuracy it's not a good choice at all, but if you want to make something wearable and fun it's more than adequate.

Oh, another problem I'm having is that Barge cement is insanely expensive here in Korea, so I've been using superglue to put all the pieces together. It works well but it's not as clean as Barge, so I'll need a bunch of sanding and shaving to make some of the edges look better. I'll probably be reinforcing the insides with tons of hot glue and extra foam as well; it feels pretty strong overall but I don't want to rely on just the superglue.

My goal is for my wife and I to be able to wear these outdoors in Seoul for halloween, so I've got a lot of work left to do, but I think I can do it. The helmet and the chest are by far the most complicated and important, and they're both almost done for me now. The codpiece looks like it won't be too bad to make, and then the shin/arm/thigh/boot pieces look much, much simpler. I foresee some late nights over the next month and a bit, but I think I'll end up with something I'm not ashamed to wear outside.

(I think I'll use my Fallout 3/4 laser rifle as my weapon. It looks cool and it'll be a fun mashup)

Got both her and my codpieces about 90% constructed, just have to attach the "thong" now.

I pretty much nailed the measurements on them ... I measured across our hips, then used that exact number as the width in the pepakura scale window, and it is basically fine.

Mine fits great, it might actually be slightly large but not by much. Hers fits perfectly, except that I forgot she has hips so she has to pull it from her head down. (It does fit over her hips but it's a bit tight.. i might try stretch it with a heat gun) This means the "thong' has to be removable on hers, but that's no biggie.

Going well so far...

After two helmets, two chest pieces, and two codpieces, I just made the first cut into my 3rd sheet of foam.

So far, two 100x150cm sheets fully used. Probably will end up with a total of about 3 and a half of them used, depending on how the arm and leg pieces go.

Pics or it didn't happen.

[emoji51]


"I don't know what's weirder, that you're fighting a stuffed animal, or that you seem to be losing" - Suzie

Thanks for the bevelling tips, I will have to do some practising before I get too far in. Your build seems to be advancing quickly.

My bicep guards are almost done now. These pieces are *weird*... they don't handle the transition from pepakura model to foam very well at all, so there's a lot of weird little gaps and things that have to be dealt with. The problem is that the long, thin angled paper strips that are supposed to be there are gone, so a lot of the pieces don't line up exactly. Definitely requires adjusting the templates on paper before you cut it into foam, to make sure the pieces line up correctly.

The biceps came together pretty quickly, but compared to how smoothly and easily (albiet complex) the other pieces have been so far, this one was pretty weird.

Still, the nice thing about 1cm foam is there's a lot of room to carve and sand and clean up, so it'll look good in the end.

Sorry for slow updates... I've been super busy getting everything done, as well as dealing with real life.

Anyway, all the pieces are done except the boots, and the painting process has started. The leg pieces went together really quickly and easily, especially compared to the arm pieces.

I ended up being able to make the chest solid (no straps or latch needed to put it on), as the foam flexes enough that you can shimmy into it well. I ended up cutting almost 6-8" off the pieces that were supposed to go from front to back under the arms.

For my visor I'm using a 0.5mm plastic sheet with gold window tint sticker stuck to it. It looks pretty darn good, although the problem is that the gold part is also the sticky part, which means that the sticker is actually inside the plastic rather than outside the plastic. So i'm a little bit worried that as the plastic is curved in, the sticker might un-stick because it's being folded in rather than stretched. We'll see what happens. I'm mounting 4 panel-mount LEDs (the little silver frames) on the sides for lights, and I'm putting two really tiny (they're so cute!) 50mm 12v fans inside the helmets for ventilation. All will be run off of one or two 9v batteries. The 12v fan runs fine at 9v. Airflow is not that strong but it'll help a lot, and because it's being under-volted it's basically silent.

So far, the chest is actually my least favorite part of the whole thing... the proportions were just so whack, if I had been doing it with actual pepakura and was making it solid, it would have been unwearable. They came out okay but I'm tempted to try and figure out how to use some 3d modellers and re-proportion the chest piece to make it a little bit more human.

Anyway... I'm hoping to get it done in 4 days. No pressure.

Success!

After a whole lot of sleepless nights and a ton of stress, I managed to get the two armor sets into a presentable state, literally just in time. Here in Korea, most of the major Halloween celebrations were on Saturday night, and I was able to get everything finished at about 7pm on Saturday, just in time for my wife and I to put everything on and debut to the public.

It went awesome. We were out for about 4 hours, walking around Itaewon (a huge foreigner neighborhood in the city, and one of the two major locations for Halloween events, and luckily within a 10 minute walk of our apartment). We must have taken photos with 300+ people.. even a group of four police officers (real ones, not costumers) stopped us and took photos with us. All the foreigners (westerners) recognized as as Master Chief. A lot of the Koreans thought we were Iron Man, hahah, but quite a few of them recognized Halo as well. xbox is not all that popular over here, so I was surprised at how much recognition we did get.

The costumes held up great, even as the night progressed and the crowd was getting drunker and more handsy. Nothing broke, although some repainting will be necessary. We used velcro sewn on to our shirts and pants, which held all the pieces on extremely well. Almost too well; taking them off was a nightmare. Moving was easy, other than walking up and down stairs we got around with no significant difficulty. My wife had some condensation problems inside her helmet, because I didn't have time to install the fans, but mine was fine.

The only significant problem has to do with the visors. I'll detail it in another reply, but basically the gold foil slowly comes unstuck from the plastic and so by the end of the night the visors were rippling a little bit. I can replace it though so it won't be a huge deal.

What now?

Well, we're planning on going to a photo studio in a week or two to take real photos, so by then I need to repair the visors, add another coat of paint, to repair the damage from walking around and also just for looks, as well as go crazy with rub-n-buff and weathering to make them look better. I need to finish the boots, as I ran out of paint for them, and I need to add the little panels to the gloves.

I'll write up some more conclusions and information in another reply... For now, here's some quick shots we took right before we finished for the night:

....

Sorry for the bad quality shots... better ones will come in a week or two!

Visors:

For the visors, I used stuff which is supposed to be for tinting office windows. It's like a thin foil sticker, with a kind of one-way-mirror effect. The "out" side is gold, and the "in" side looks silver. You can actually see through it quite well, as long as there isn't too much bright light bouncing around, otherwise you get some really disorienting ghosting and reflections inside. I used some thin (0.5mm I think) clear plastic PVC to stick the foil on, which worked great.. It looks awesome as a visor, you can't see your face through it and it looks killer in photos.

View attachment 33049

Except, the big problem is, that the sticky part of the foil is the gold part. Which means the foil is stuck inside the plastic sheet, which therefore means that it's being curved back on itself (compressed). The best way would be if it was stuck on the outside and being stretched rather than compressed, but unfortunately that's not how it works.

The result is that after a couple hours, the foil starts lifting from the plastic.

View attachment 33050

My helmet isn't so bad, because it's bigger and so the curve is less severe, but my wife's helmet is smaller so the curve is tighter and so hers shows the problem more quickly.

I think I'll just make a new set of visors and install them right before we take photos of the uniforms next time. It lasted two or three hours before it started becoming noticeable so that'll be fine. And, actually even after 4 hours it was only a tiny sliver that was bad... the photo above was after 24 hours, so it looks way worse than it did while we were wearing the costumes.

The only other solution I think will be to try and stick the foil on when it's curved, which would be a huge pain in the ass, for find some new foil which sticks on the other side, which is rather difficult due to language issues.

Here's all the pieces after we were finished walking for the night!

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(The shields on the left are from a Vikings cosplay we did a couple months ago)

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Here are the fans I'm planning to install into the helmets. My helmet was fine outdoors, but my wife had problems with fogging, even though we were walking around in 50 degree weather. The photo studio we're going to go to will be much warmer, so these fans will help. They're tiny little fans (the coin is about the same size as a quarter) and are rated for 12volts. I'll be running them off a 9v battery. They don't blow very hard at only 9v but you can feel the wind and with two of them in the front of the helmet, it should help a lot. I think i'll have one blowing in and one blowing out, but maybe having both blowing in is a better idea.

How did the sizing go?

The helmets need some tweaking.. hers was tending to tip forward, and mine was tending to tip backwards, even with a chin-strap in the front. Plus, mine was hitting some kind of pressure point on my scalp which after a couple hours gave me an absolutely insane headache by the end, although dehydration may have been a factor as well. I'll re-adjust the padding inside anyway. I suspect my helmet is about 5-10% too big. Hers is about right.

I need to tweak my waistband/codpiece too... the belt part of it is about 10% too big so it started looking a little bit diapery on the back, which I didn't notice until it was time to go out.. It actually wasn't that bad, but I can fix it to make it better. My wife's was proportioned better.

I got most of the other pieces just right.

The shin pieces were a little tight, the thigh pieces were basically spot on too.

The forearms were pretty good, although the wrist area seems a bit too tight whereas the part near the elbow seems to flare out too much. I'd definitely adjust the templates a bit before I made them again.

The upper arms are not very good.. the design and shape of the piece is really weird, and even though it looks like it did in pepakura, it doesn't really work on the human body well. It seems like that's a common pain point for these costumes. I got it to work okay but part of me wants to cut them apart and re-do them a totally different way. but, with the velcro we used, they were passable I suppose.

The shoes I ended up just whipping up and making by hand without a template. I took some design cues from the real models, and I think I'll add some more details for next time, but still for about 45 minutes of work on each one they came out alright. I did run out of paint though, so they were black, but for walking around on the street in the middle of the night, they were fine! I used a pair of $10 sneakers for mine, and an old pair of boots for hers. Hot glue was my friend, although I used screws and nails to hold the foam onto the soles. They held together perfectly, even despite being stepped on and whatnot on the streets.

The one part I'm not really that happy with is the chests. I mentioned it on my list here a few weeks ago, but the proportions on the chest were pretty massively wrong. I actually wonder how it works in real pepakura instead of the pepakura->foam templates, because I had to adjust them to the point where I had to cut huge chunks off the sides to get it to actually fit. Some parts around the arm holes curve a bit weird now because I had to pull it back so much, and the ratio between neck hole and the size of the boxes on the side are way off now because of how much I had to cut off to make it work. I think if I made the armor open in the back, I could have scaled the neck hole smaller so that I didn't have to put my head through, and maybe that would have worked a bit better, but then I'd need some kind of buckling mechanism.

Anyway, all told, the sizing worked out okay. It all stayed on well, and fit okay too. Not bad!

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