A Reach Caboose (WIP, with pictures)

[Shadowind]

Update, no pic's this time.
I hope to finish the hardening before it gets to cold outside to work, but right now I'm packing up to move back to college for the semester. Next up date will hopefully have more progress on the undersuit design, boots, and overall armor process.

 

[Shadowind]

Getting the glassing done (hope to be finished with it by the end of the week). Since I'm trying to get the armor at least somewhat identifiably finished by Nov 6 (plan to wear it for the Halo 4 release) I made a decision to only go with two layers of fiber glass on the helmet, torso, and belt and one layer on everything else as opposed to my original plan of three layers all around. I figure I can always gut the armor of attachment pieces and add more glass at a later date.

I also plan to get the undersuit done in the next two to three weeks (cause that's when I'll have access to a sewing machine), more on the design ideas for that next time. For now, picture time. And I do wear a respirator when working on the armor, the pictures with me in them were taken after the fiberglass cloth and resin had hardened and weren't giving off anymore fumes.

The torso is strong enough to withstand me leaning on it. That makes me happy.

 

[DuffmasterFresh]

Your pep skills are most impressive and very detail oriented, also great job on the fiberglass work it looks great. You can always add more glass later so if you are in a rush, nice plan, just be gentle with the armor till you add more strength.

 

[Shadowind]

Your pep skills are most impressive and very detail oriented, also great job on the fiberglass work it looks great. You can always add more glass later so if you are in a rush, nice plan, just be gentle with the armor till you add more strength.

Thank you, in the beginning I was worried that the pep might be the only thing I would get right. I'm glad someone else thinks this is a good plan too, helps to keep me from worrying about whether or not it's a good idea.

From now on I'm going to try my best to make time to respond to more comments on my build.

 

[PigBenis]

Nice progress so far and i didnt notice anything bad im curious where this is going !

 

[Shadowind]

Nice progress so far and i didnt notice anything bad im curious where this is going !

Thanks for the comment. I finished all the hardening (for now at least) yesterday and now I'm trying to speed my way through designing the undersuit. Need to figure out how much and what type of fabric I'm going to use.

 

[Shadowind]

Ok, for all intensive purposes the helmet is done. All that's left should be adding lights, paint and furnishing. Some shots of dremeling out the visor and lower back.

Looks pretty good with the visor in,

 

[Shadowind]

Update time: The armor is currently on hold for the most part until summer when I can do more body work, but for now it's looking pretty good. I tried to get it in a wearable format for the Halo 4 release but didn't get quite make it in time. Some pictures of the first undersuit torso I have made, I'll be redesigning it and the pants later.

And now some pictures of the main armor after a little dremel work.

I am so glad I had the respirator for this.

 

[Skullptura]

Nice works mate. Ill be watching this one!

 

[Shadowind]

But wait, there's more, I have also finished the first attempt at painting the armor (the blue I picked out was much too dark for Caboose blue).

Following a simplified version of harican89's spraypaint tutorial I started with a coat of silver.

followed by a coat of black

I put hand lotion on the armor in certain spots before adding the black layer to help with the battle damage look later on.

Then came the blue,

Some parts taped off for the blue coat,

and the blue coat.

Quick look at the battle damage.

Battle damage was done following harican89's video. Some silver on a brush which is lightly dragged across the edges, and wiping off the lotion spots I added earlier gave me a pretty good paint job.
Next step was working on the foam for the armor.

 

[Shadowind]

Nice works mate. Ill be watching this one!

Thanks, I still got a long way before this suit is "done" and hopefully I can update more regularly in the future.

Now for the nice pictures,

 

[Shadowind]

More photos, sorry if this is getting into the double posting area,

Ok, that's all for now. Again, I'll be doing more body work and repainting the armor when it gets warmer... and when I have money to do it. Until then I'll answer any question people may have about what I've use/done up to this point in making the armor.

 

[Skullptura]

I may die from a headsplosion.... yup im gonn..... *HEADSPLOSION*

 

[DagothDraal]

Wow, awesome work!
How did you install your visor? I'm still planning for all of that.

 

[Shadowind]

I may die from a headsplosion.... yup im gonn..... *HEADSPLOSION*

Thanks, but like I said earlier the armor still has a long way to go.

Wow, awesome work!
How did you install your visor? I'm still planning for all of that.

Since I'll be doing more body work on the helmet the visor is currently being held in by its own pressure. I had to bend it a little to get it in the helmet and the force of it wanting to return to its normal shape is enough to hold it in for now. So it's not really "installed" yet, but I did put a thin layer of foam around the opening to keep the visor from getting scratched by the rondo and fiberglass.

 

[cuse]

Pro pep job and Caboose ftw! Stoked to see the finished product!

 

[Shadowind]

Pro pep job and Caboose ftw! Stoked to see the finished product!

Thank you. As odd as it may sound doing the pep's was a great stress reliever for me.

Update:
I am back home for Christmas break and I left my armor at the place I'm staying at for college so I won't be working on it for a little while. Also due to money (or rather the lack there of) I won't be working on editing the armor like I want to anytime soon. All I can do at the moment is glue some more foam, solder some more wires, and make another undersuit design.

Before the semester ended I was able to give a presentation on the armor in one of my classes. It was interesting to see how many people didn't know you could do this.

 

[Skullptura]

Keep it coming mate...

 

[Sara]

This is looking really good, I particularly like how your chest piece and biceps turned out. I'm still surprised out how many RvB inspired builds are out there, FTW!

 

[Shadowind]

Keep it coming mate...

I will, but for right now I have a few college related things I need to pay for. So anything I do for this build in the near future is probably going to be messing with the electronics or adding more foam. I still need to figure out a viable boot design and a couple of padding issues, but currently whatever I don't have the materials to work on I can't work on.

This is looking really good, I particularly like how your chest piece and biceps turned out. I'm still surprised out how many RvB inspired builds are out there, FTW!

Thank you, I still need to recoat the pieces to make them smoother and give them a better finished look. And as I may have mentioned before the blue I picked out was way too dark for Cabooses color. There are a lot of RvB related threads here, aren't there?