5 foam odst builds

[ttrigger]

I have recently started a project to get some friends in my area to all have Odst costumes. may have bitten off more than I can chew, building 5 of them at once, but sounds like a fun challenge. I have already gotten a start on building them and glued together the chest plates a few weeks ago, before I thought to do this thread. I have since thought it would be beneficial to people in the group and myself to get some feedback as I build, if I made a build thread showing my process and how I went about building these costumes. Any feedback I can get would be much appreciated and would hopefully help anyone working on building their own costume a reference point for making a costume in the future

 

[ttrigger]

For starters, this is my first ODST build. I built this based on the foam templates found within these forums(very useful tool for anyone wanting to build with foam or pepakura). There are files on for the helmet. Due to the complexity of the recon helmet that I use, and my inexperience working with foam at the time, I went with a resin cast helmet. however if anyone is interested, I may do a single helmet build for this thread, just for anyone who may want to see it. I opted out of the chest/vest armor in the templates because I felt that getting a simple tactical vest would also have the right look to it and would be quite a bit more durable than foam, and with that, a bit more comfortable to wear. The other piece I opted out of was the thigh armor. Most of the reason for this is that no matter what I did while trying to build the armor, whether it be scaling, I couldn't ever get them to fit comfortably. I replaced those with a holster on one side and a tactical pouch on the other.

Some of the things im planning to add to the new round of ODSTs is some sort of back plate. Taking some of the templates from the vest and adding them to the armor, just as another detail point. im planning to make some different templates for the shoulders due to the current templates(to my perfectionist self) not being completely accurate to what's in the game. im still undecided if im going to try and make some modifications to the thigh plates just so they are present. Lastly, make some modifications to the way that the shins are built to make them easier to wear and less prone to breaking.

 

[ttrigger]

For starters, the foam that I am using is SKS HD FOAM. For the majority of this build im going to be using the 10mm thickness with some 6mm for detail and maybe some 1mm or 2mm(I can't remember which I bought) for the backing to reinforce some of the pieces. I am using contact cement for gluing all my pieces together. I still haven't figured out how im going to seal the foam for paint. I used fiberglass resin over all the pieces in the first build, which appearance wise i think works really well. It's not completely solid, so it still has a little bit of flex to it. which is kinda nice, but after a while it starts to get brittle and starts cracking, and the paint chips off. I've been told about an epoxy called epsilon that is supposed to harden the foam. may be an experiment that I'll try while doing these builds to see how well it works.
Just thought about this too, if I remember right, from my first build, it takes 3-4 sheets of 10mm foam to build the entire armor

 

[ttrigger]

The first piece I have built is the chest plate, and im working on the forearms. The process I have been doing is starting with tracing out all my pieces and left and right, as well as putting arrows in order to show if I need to make an angle cut anywhere. When cutting out the pieces ive been going through and cutting all the angles first, what I have found is that it is much easier to make cuts at an angle when there is material on both sides of the piece you're cutting. After making all the angle cuts i go back through and make all the straight cuts, then lay out all the pieces as sets and finally glue them together. With contact cement, you need to wait a few minutes so the adhesion will set up before putting the pieces together, so if youre impatient like me when it comes to making props, it may be beneficial to you to try and work on a few pieces at a time to make sure your glue has proper time to cure before putting the pieces together.

chest plates

forearm template layout

forearm foam sheet one

box, hopefully full of enough foam to finish this project