Costume/Armor Count

[Spartan 270]

So I have an idea. We should have a total armor count on the top of the page or something that says how many CQBs have been made or MkVIs etc. That also includes ODSTs or marines.

EDIT: Ok I just realized, the 501st has this. But still would a nice edition right?

 

[Adam]

buuuuutttt... we're going to have to go into the "what is good enough to be included" thinking.

 

[volkov]

yeah, the 501st has some deal where you have to submit pictures of your full costume and it has to be judged (and movie quality). Stormtrooper armor is a bit more common so this makes it much easier on the 501st, not to mention I've never heard of a peperuka stormtrooper, so they can afford to set pretty straitforward standards since there isn't a huge variety.

 

[Spartan 270]

yeah, the 501st has some deal where you have to submit pictures of your full costume and it has to be judged (and movie quality). Stormtrooper armor is a bit more common so this makes it much easier on the 501st, not to mention I've never heard of a peperuka stormtrooper, so they can afford to set pretty straitforward standards since there isn't a huge variety.

Well, then under certain circumstances, can't we judge it differently. I mean, yes it has to be good quality armor, but considering some members have created their armor using other means besides molded armor such as pepakura etc, there could be a column for all the molded armors and a seperate for the rest.

Like so,


Molded Armors Total

MkVI ?

CQB ?

etc....



Pepakura/ Handcrafted Armors Total

MkVI ?

CQB ?

 

[AoBfrost]

For pep armor to be accepted, I'm sure, you'd need to mud/bondo it heavily and sand it all down making it look molded, if your not going to mold it. Just pepakura resin and glassed and still angular probably isnt accepted.

 

[paradoxdj]

people like me can't get/afford bondo (mud) on their armor. so i don't think this is fair

 

[Chief]

Beside the discussion about standards for a costume a little idea from me if this type of statistic will be created:

It would be great if you would also record the homeland or even exact location from the members then, if you create such a list. So it would be possible to list other costume-owners near you or even show them in a Google Maps World Map of UNSC and Covenant Locations on Earth . For example I wonder if I'm the "only lonely Spartan" (LOL) here in Germany . I saw some people here who wants to do armor or other costumes but noone yet who already HAS a Costume near me. So it would be very cool if you could list Costume-Owners by Country / Location to find new friends near you to meet or do convention visits sometimes together or so.



(OMG I hope I wrote this down without a horrible grammar... :rolleyes )

 

[Spartan 270]

Beside the discussion about standards for a costume a little idea from me if this type of statistic will be created:

It would be great if you would also record the homeland or even exact location from the members then, if you create such a list. So it would be possible to list other costume-owners near you or even show them in a Google Maps World Map of UNSC and Covenant Locations on Earth . For example I wonder if I'm the "only lonely Spartan" (LOL) here in Germany . I saw some people here who wants to do armor or other costumes but noone yet who already HAS a Costume near me. So it would be very cool if you could list Costume-Owners by Country / Location to find new friends near you to meet or do convention visits sometimes together or so.
(OMG I hope I wrote this down without a horrible grammar... :rolleyes )

There already is. There is a geo-location map for members in the general discussion.

 

[BlindRascal]

There should be maybe a thread where everyone posts ONE TIME, their finished armor. They can update their post if they have changes. There is the hall of fame but thats still a bit messy. And I could go on about the idea of the "ranking system". That would just be easier to keep track of who has armor, how it looks, etc. "Judging" is a whole new subject.

 

[Spartan 270]

Already is, the Hall of Honor in Molded Discussion.

 

[Chief]

There already is. There is a geo-location map for members in the general discussion.

Oh thanks found it now!
Guess there was too much Grunt blood on my visor to find that before.

 

[volkov]

my point was we have a huge variety of armor quality/style/ and effort, unlike the 501st which has essentially a few armor suppliers, and then a quick review of the kit to be sure it was assembled correctly, and then basically it doesn't have to really take much consideration/rating. If you were going to put a count on our armor, you would have to specifically choose to deny certain people and risk offending them and diminish the achievements they have made. Many suits I've seen (including my own) are not movie quality or anything like it, but some people have still toiled for hours with limitted resources to come up with the best they can and they should be very proud, even if thier armor is leaps and bounds away from something like adams in terms of quality. I think an armor count which would have to exclude some of these people could be potentially damaging.

That being said, if you REALLY wanted to implement some system, I suppose you could tier it based on the opinions of the mods and other experienced people around here. Stuff like adams suit could fall into the top tier, stuff that doesn't quite have the same quality feel (like a lot of good peperuka or badly painted molded stuff) could fall into the second, and it could go on and on. Would be interesting to bascically be able to progress from tier to tier as your armor quality improved, but again, it could create frustration.

But I suppose as a final point I could make on this, a rigid pass/fail system could help us to become more established, as we know more how many quality suits we have and have a standard we shoot to achieve, if we don't differentiate we can't really organize as easily, but if we do differntiate, we have the problems mentioned above..

I don't know, just my 10 cents really. It's probably not even worth that tho.

Personally I like my armor for what it is, and if we did create a "these are the completed awesome suits" list, I'd look through em and think cool, (especially if they went to conventions) and then continue to use the forum to improve on my own and enjoy the community, just because I like owning my own armor and working on it.

 

[SpartanForever]

my point was we have a huge variety of armor quality/style/ and effort, unlike the 501st which has essentially a few armor suppliers, and then a quick review of the kit to be sure it was assembled correctly, and then basically it doesn't have to really take much consideration/rating. If you were going to put a count on our armor, you would have to specifically choose to deny certain people and risk offending them and diminish the achievements they have made. Many suits I've seen (including my own) are not movie quality or anything like it, but some people have still toiled for hours with limitted resources to come up with the best they can and they should be very proud, even if thier armor is leaps and bounds away from something like adams in terms of quality. I think an armor count which would have to exclude some of these people could be potentially damaging.

That being said, if you REALLY wanted to implement some system, I suppose you could tier it based on the opinions of the mods and other experienced people around here. Stuff like adams suit could fall into the top tier, stuff that doesn't quite have the same quality feel (like a lot of good peperuka or badly painted molded stuff) could fall into the second, and it could go on and on. Would be interesting to bascically be able to progress from tier to tier as your armor quality improved, but again, it could create frustration.

But I suppose as a final point I could make on this, a rigid pass/fail system could help us to become more established, as we know more how many quality suits we have and have a standard we shoot to achieve, if we don't differentiate we can't really organize as easily, but if we do differntiate, we have the problems mentioned above..

I don't know, just my 10 cents really. It's probably not even worth that tho.

Personally I like my armor for what it is, and if we did create a "these are the completed awesome suits" list, I'd look through em and think cool, (especially if they went to conventions) and then continue to use the forum to improve on my own and enjoy the community, just because I like owning my own armor and working on it.

I know there is probably a better way to say this and this is probabaly the meanest way to say it.... im sorry if i offend anyone but if we included badly put together pepakura or no so good duck tape and cardboard and even some bad molded.... we wouldnt be taken seriously. If i saw a suit tht doesnt look like a master chief (or it looks like a mentally ill master chief) I would probably not take the group as seriously as i had before.

 

[Xavier]

people like me can't get/afford bondo (mud) on their armor. so i don't think this is fair

lifes not fair.

 

[volkov]

I know there is probably a better way to say this and this is probabaly the meanest way to say it.... im sorry if i offend anyone but if we included badly put together pepakura or no so good duck tape and cardboard and even some bad molded.... we wouldnt be taken seriously. If i saw a suit tht doesnt look like a master chief (or it looks like a mentally ill master chief) I would probably not take the group as seriously as i had before.

yeah but even great peparuka normally doesn't stand up to something like the quality molded armor.. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've seen a lot of good full pep suits that I only wish I had the skill to create, but none that were quite on the same tier as the molded.. Although this is seeming to be disproved by the efforts of people like spase, doc and sigma and the helmets they've made (I know I didn't mention a few people, but you know who you are and yes you kick ass); but still I have yet to see a "movie quality" full pep suit, but the people who made those suits still put a ton of effort into make something that looked quality, just not neccesarily movie quality. This is one of the key differences between us and the 501st.. I don't think they use pep at all... or do they? I wouldn't know for sure. Any 501st members about?

Another problem is, you see the 501st all marching down a street looking nothing short of amazing, all in identical looking armor. Think of if we did this, even with just molded armor theres a huge different between say links suit and NAS. But then again halo 3 has showed us that different spartans use different modified suits, so maybe thats not so much an issue. I guess I need to stop thinking about the 501st videos and realize that we are not mass produced white armored guys, we are unique badass individuals with different tastes, which makes organization a challenge, but is also what makes this so cool.

(btw I feel as tho pretty much everything I've said is sort of inconsistent.. but I've got the flu and am a bit cloudy headed so bear with me if I messed up too bad)

 

[BlindRascal]

Already is, the Hall of Honor in Molded Discussion.

Yes, I know, if you read all of my post you'd know I mentioned that. (Even if the name was disfigured)



And 501st doesn't use pep if I recall, mostly because it'd be too hard. Vaccuum forming for them if I recall.

 

[JediStumpy]

Think the main point of a/the count is really to just see how many piece of armor is out there. good or bad...that's not the point.

you can have a whole suits section, a helms section, etc.

I think instead of always trying to be like the 501th, lets just be us and share what we made.

 

[volkov]

And 501st doesn't use pep if I recall, mostly because it'd be too hard. Vaccuum forming for them if I recall.

yeah, this would be why their standards are so easy to set.

and jedistumpy, we already do that on the website, the point of this place is to build quality armor, show it to each other, and help each other, knowing the number of armor made here would be meaningless because of the range of quality. I think the issue here is if we went another step like "armor count" we would have to draw a line somewhere..

 

[Chief]

And 501st doesn't use pep if I recall, mostly because it'd be too hard. Vaccuum forming for them if I recall.

OUTING: I'm 501st member, too (8040).

So yes there are no Pep armors in the 501st but the material depends on wich costume you wear. Storm-, Scout-, Snow-, Clonetroopers, etc. are mostly Vac Formed from ABS or HIPS. Some armors, mostly like Boba or Jango Fett, are Fibreglass armors. But there are also some costumes mostly made with Leather or cloth (i.e. Boushh, Jawas, Tuskens). I personally have a Stormtrooper armor (ABS) and a Boba armor (Fibreglass). The standards for the costumes in the 501st are quite high. Depends on the costume. So Vader, Boba, Jango, etc. "Main Chars" have a quite strong standard. You have to ensure that color, "battle damages", forms, etc. aren't very different from the Film. For "side Chars" like Stormtroopers and so there is a little tolerance limit. So if maybe your helmet or your chestplate doesn't look 1000000% like the movie you will also get accepted. But if you just use any white shoes and not Trooper-Shoes for example you will not be accepted.

But I personally think that 501st and 405th are quite different so you can't really compare it. (Of course because both orgas are in "different Universes" ) Also its for example easyer to find Star Wars costumes than Master Chief / Marine / etc. Armor or Costume. And also the color schemes are bit more complicated in the Halo Universe. Depends on wich Graphics Card you use (if you play the PC Version) or wich scene you watch or wich settings you have there are quite huge differences between the coloring. And also you don't have as much possibilities for a costume than in the Star Wars Universe. I don't know what some people are able to do but i.E. some of the Covenant costumes would be very complicated to apply on a human wearer. So even there you can't do a 100% standard. (For example if you make size limits, you will never be able to do a Grunt if you don't put a child in it )

And I don't think an extremly high standards like "Color Skin as seen on Cutscene 3 on ATI Radeon HD with 8x Anti Aliasing, contrast 8, brightness 10 blablabla" would work


So if I watch both sides wich are really different from eachother (and both cool in their own way of course ) I think that the 405st has to create its completely own guidelines and standards if you decide to make some. Especially because you don't find as many costume providers as in the Star Wars Universe its very difficult if you make very high limits. Not everyone has the possibility to create molded fibreglass armors or knows someone who can vac form an armor. And you also don't find complete sets 24/7 on eBay or so...



I think how you do it you have to weigh out: Lesser high standards wich bring more members and more members who can do their own costumes. Or high standards wich guarantees that all members have super-accurate costumes but lesser members and maybe more people who have to find someone who can make good armors. (I also bought my armor and didn't do it myself because of missing talent and possibilities for DIY).
And you have to weigh out what you want to be. A costume-club or mainly a platform to communicate with other fans and share tips and tricks on any type of armor build as it is now?


Just some of my thoughts.

 

[Deadguy]

As far as counting armor goes, I think that's fine, because of the concept of "expanded characters" in non-formal events.
so, regardless of quality, if you have a spartan costume, it could be recognized.

A list of "canon" level costumes would be different, and be based on whatever it is our costume guidelines require.

Those guidelines haven't been set yet, but that's off topic in this thread (no one will find those guideline discussion comments later unles they get curious about an "armor count thread".. that's why it's important to stay on topic, and make clear, descriptive topic titles..

I recommend a new thread for "costume quality level guidelines" discussion so they don't get buried in here, even if it's just a cut-n-paste of things you've said in here). When I was mod on another board like this, and saw the threads doing this, I often split topics so that stuff could be found later. The mods here aren't that strict so they don't do that, and it's likely that folks appreciate that, but man...what a mess when you're trying to get something accomplished.

Right now, these forums are all over the map, and the super useful stuff is hard to find when it's buried in only semi-related threads. That's fine when you're talkihng about 6 people yapping, but these boards are much bigger than that. Like, if someone leaves here for a week or so, everything posted on this thread during that time with regards to guidelines, will not be seen, unless they're looking for a topic regarding whether we should count costumes on the website. Or if they ARE wondering about counting armor, they're not going to read anything beyond the 3rd or 4th post if the guidelines have been established, because it'll just be a buncha posts arguing about something that will have already been decided instead of discussing the topic.

How about a month from now? "I didn't see this topic, and thought it'd be important to.." etc, etc..

One off-topic post or two is fine, but by the second or third one, it needs it's own thread, don't you think? For example, a reply to this post should be in a new thread because it's become a discussion. I merely put this here to illustrate my point.. if we argue THIS topic here.. would anyone know?