Ok, did a bunch more stuff on the weekends. Mostly more symmetry fixes to the helmet and torso, at this point I think I can live with whatever wonk is still there. The other stuff:
-Tons of work on padding and a better suspension system. I did a bunch inside the helmet and on the back section, plus an elastic strap on the wrist guards to keep them from flapping around. I cleaned up the wrist joint a bit and added some foam layers, just to beef it up and keep it looking more unified.
-Got a belt thing going, still have to do the front section but at this point it's a good stand in. The whole thing is kept up by a clip in the back that attaches directly to the cuirass. The front seems to stay up fine on its own, and with only one attachment point the two pieces can still move pretty freely. I will see how the legs will have to get rigged up. I anticipate them to be pretty heavy, so I don't know if I can get away with hanging them off of the belt, but I also don't want to do a separate Urkel-style suspender system if I can avoid it.
-And a bunch of little details that I wanted to get out of the way, like bits that needed to be touched up and stuff I fudged the first time through.
The suit looks a lot better on me than the mannequin, which makes sense because the thing is a Frankensteined hack job. Here are some test videos, complete with my atrocious suit acting ability. I tried to throw a combo, because it feels like something you should do in a Doomguy suit, but halfway through I remembered that I have zero arm mobility. I can only assume that the Praetor Suit had some fancy no-clip space magic in the shoulder joints. First vid is a mobility test, second one is to look at the lighting. Ignore the clacking, that is definitely what an indestructible suit of space armor is supposed to sound like.
I'm really happy with how it's going so far. The elbows and wrists really gave me a lot of trouble, so it's great to see those look all neat and well-aligned. That stuff is really easy to take for granted when looking at a good replica costume, but in practice everything moves around and it's an absolute nightmare to keep it all from going haywire. Next up is going probably going to be the rest of the belt, then probably a leg mock up. I have some more red EL wire that I bought because it's just so dang cool, so I have to figure out where that will go. Maybe in the back somewhere.
I think I have the visor as dark as it will get, it's already pretty hard to see out of so I don't want to make it worse. If I was smart I would have just done a dyed vacu-formed visor, but when I put the helmet together I didn't think I'd ever be as deep into this as I am currently. I would have to pay someone or build my own vacuum rig, which is a lot more work than I want to get into right now. Maybe at some point I will just rebuild the helmet, but there's lots to do before I worry about that. Aside from that, I can't think of any loose ends I want to tie up. Mostly just need to keep building stuff, which is easier said than done now, but the finish line is starting to come over the horizon.
Thanks for reading, peace out. Might post again soon if I can get some good stuff done over the rest of the weekend.