Recent content by Contrapaul

A couple quick updates today. I've added some bits to the top of the shoulder mounts to add a bit of extra stability. If needed I can add more to 'cap off' the mounts, but at present I think they'll hold just fine. I also created hand plates. I haven't trimmed down or sanded them yet, just...

The final product is very rigid, and I'll be adding padding to the interior of most of the armor later in the process. I may end up making some pieces with foam, such as the butt plate, and will certainly use foam for any 'softer' connections, such as the parts of the chest that directly touch...

Magnets in action. Shoulder attachments can be reasonably heavy. Using the design I'd created for the bicep side of the attachment I worked up a reverse version to go inside shoulder elements. The magnets are 1.5cm x 1mm, and I stacked 2 up on the bicep and the shoulder attachments...

I knew I wanted removable shoulder armor, and after a bit of testing I decided to use magnets for this. My first step was to design attachment pieces for each bicep. These resemble the Mark VII look, though they're more shallow, and the 'hook' element is flat, as an angled piece wasn't...

Following the success of my helmet build, I wanted to continue working with the same materials to create additional pieces. Mark VII armor looks fantastic, and the cosplay guide really won me over, however the only community files available were tailored for foam builds. Having worked with foam...

Fantastic work! How's the temperature when wearing it?

Mark V ish helmet, many layers of cardstock and lots of wood glue, no resin, foam, or 3D printing. Build detailed here.

Thanks for the kind words folks! I had a request from elsewhere to take pictures through the visor, and I'm sharing those here as well. I need to clean off both sides, as it looks a little smudged, but otherwise visibility is excellent. From the interior back of the helmet, ultra-wide .5x...

Lessons Learned and Takeaways: 1. It's totally possible to skip fiberglass and body filler. Epoxy putty was a useful material for finishing and adding some strength to joints, but I could also have only used it as a visor fit and fill material and been ok with card supports inside. I cared...

A final note before moving to padding- the visor was a struggle. As mentioned, it was highly resistant to paint- and the original visor paint became chipped and damaged to the point that I knew I wanted to respray it with better paint. I purchased 2 colors of higher quality gold, intending to...

My basic formula for weathering was to paint on a mix of black and brown paint, and quickly wipe it off. Depending on the texture of the green paint it sometimes took a few passes to get the effect right. Direction and strength also affected the finish when removing this paint, and allowed me to...

This was a fairly thick coat, and I wet sanded the helmet before the next coat. After this I sprayed it black and dark grey. I masked the dark elements and sprayed a the armor with a medium gray, allegedly a brownish gray. Had the color been a little different, or had I gone with a...

Once the seal and visor pattern were complete I again felt ‘almost done’ with the helmet, and was again wrong. I sprayed a light coat of white paint on to help spot or fill imperfections and issues, and it also helped to stress that the front ’nose’ seal element was wrong. Wrong enough that it...

Following this I had my 2nd ‘now I’m almost done’ moment, when I removed the cardstock visor. Once removed I began test fitting the visor. I quickly realized that I needed to make some changes to the elements around the visor, and cut out some parts. The angular bits on the sides of the visor...

This thread will detail the process for how I built my Mark V (ish) helmet, using a novel 'all paper and glue' method. This build also features laser cut parts, but no 3D printing, fiberglass, or resin cast elements. Album link without commentary includes many more photos not posted in this...