FINISHED - Halo 4 Prefect Build [FOAM]

[Demogorgon]

Build Completed!



Original Post

It's been a while but it's so good to be back and making armor again. I'm finally getting around to building my Prefect Armor. As I wait for some supplies to get delivered to start building my armor, I decided to start off with the weapons.

I found these BOOMco toys for pretty cheap so I figured I'd just repaint them.



I started with the M6H2. Disassembly was a pain but fairly straight forward. Basically just trying not to break the plastic of the top slide when prying it apart. I took out the air piston that was inside and just gutted the whole thing. This allowed me to put some magnets in the upper receiver, which I'll be putting magnets in my thigh armor and my back as well for holstering the weapons. I forgot to take pictures during the paint process. I just put a matte black coat over everything and then went back with silver over the upper receiver and parts of the slide. There is some touch up work that needs to be done but overall I'm really happy with it.



One last thing, I bought this software called Armorsmith Designer for $15. It's basically a digital mannequin that you can import PDO files into (and other files like OBJ, etc.) to get your sizing right before you print. It allows you to set your arm, torso, leg and head measurements so it takes most of the guesswork out of scaling your armor. You can also unfold files in the program but I'll stick with Pep Designer for that.

[/HR]

 

[Demogorgon]

Update 1:

I started my build with the chest piece. It's about 95% built, just have to close the gaps at the pec/collar areas and add the raised bit at the bottom of the chest/abdomen area. The under-arm straps will have buckles in the front that will clip into the chest piece to make putting it on and getting it off easier.



I also built one of the shins to make sure the scale was good, which it seems to be so I'll be building the other one next.



I'm trying to get this done for MegaCon Orlando which is in a month... so this is going to be a fun speed build haha.

 

[Reclaimara]

Good luck! That's very interesting choice. I don't think I've ever seen a Prefect IRL other than in-game, which makes it even more interesting.
I'm looking VERY forward to seeing your progress. Your work is very clean.

 

[Demogorgon]

Update 2:

I finished the second shin along with both shoulders (minus the tricep/bicep parts for the right arm).



Once I finish building out all of the parts, I'll be going back and adding in the detail which, for this particular armor permutation, is mostly just some recessed line work. I used the texture files from the modelers asset pack and applied them within pep designer. This way when I print the files I have the line work details on the templates that I can use to trace onto my armor. Then I'll use the x-acto blade and make very shallow cuts for the line work. Running a heat gun over the shallow cuts will open them up, making nice clean recessed line work detail.

I purchased a black morph suit to use as my undersuit. Eventually I'd like to take a stab at adding all of the fun undersuit details and making a somewhat proper looking one, but I don't have the time for it right now haha.

Good luck! That's very interesting choice. I don't think I've ever seen a Prefect IRL other than in-game, which makes it even more interesting.
I'm looking VERY forward to seeing your progress. Your work is very clean.

Thank you, CommanderPalmer! I've gone through about 20 X-acto blades at this point haha.

 

[Demogorgon]

Update 3:

Moving right along with this build. Finished up the tricep/bicep parts for the other shoulder and practiced the detailing on them. It turned out pretty good.



Also finished building the thighs and a forearm. The forearm is the correct length but fits very loosely on my forearm so I'll have to stuff some soft foam in there to take up space. Any suggestions on the best type of squishy foam to shove in there and take up space?



I started thinking about how I was going to go about strapping up the armor. I really don't want people to see any straps holding the armor in place (mainly thinking about the sort of "floaty" parts like the shoulders, bi's, tri's and abs, also the thighs as they don't completely wrap around the leg) and I don't want to glue those parts straight to the undersuit, so what I'm thinking about doing is fixing some 2" and 1" side release buckles to the morph suit and to the inside of the armor parts. Theoretically this would allow me to simply "clip" the armor onto the undersuit and not have to worry about visible straps. There was also the option of Velcro but I've heard enough horror stories with that within the 405th alone so I ruled that out. Other ideas and tips would be appreciated as this is my first time strapping up armor.

 

[Demogorgon]

Update 4:

I've finished building the other forearm so all that's left to build are the boots, butt and helmet. I haven't really been working on this as my time has been shifted to another project which will end up being part of this project anyway (retopologizing and unfolding Techsuit parts for foam). You can view the progress and download the files HERE (around page 3).

Here's the groin piece of the Techsuit. A little clean up to do on the edges and some seams to fill but it came out really well.



I started using Barge Cement instead of hot glue.... IT'S ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I've seen other people use it (Evil Ted) and decided to give it a shot. I'll never go back to hot glue haha.

While I was editing the helmet unfold, I found a little surprise hidden in the file:



I've got the side release buckles for attaching the armor parts to the morph suit. I think it will work nicely. I'm not sure how I want to go about attaching the Techsuit parts to the morph suit though. The more I think about it, I keep leaning towards just gluing them to the morph suit using Barge. Any ideas?

 

[SI3RRA 117]

This is looking great. I have yet to see someone build this armor. As for attaching tech suit pieces I think your going to get a lot of diff opinions. This is what I am going to be doing for my builds I'm currently working on.

The lower abdominal is all Eva and kind of like a corset. It will buckle in back and have a velcroed spine piece covering the seam. The pectoral pieces and such will be attached to the chest armor. And the corset piece will kind of slide up inder the chest. Sorry it's tough to explain in text. I think mobility may be a little hindered but the upper and lower being 2 separate pieces should help. I think the foam adds alot as my two kids are very skinny. Plus with help the lower piece can be removed without removing any armor. I am still in the building stage so this is all still kind of concept. I think the hip pieces I'm going to attach to the thigh armor and buckle or snap to the lower abdominal piece

 

[Demogorgon]

SI3RRA 117

I completely understand what you're saying haha. I was actually thinking about taking a somewhat similar approach as you did in your picture. I was thinking about cutting out the patterns in EVA but then just gluing the sections straight to the morph suit. The only issue with that, as you said, would be flexibility. I wonder if a sort of rubber could work, like sponge neoprene or something (not a neoprene fabric like wetsuits). If you ask me, the black parts of the Halo 5 Techsuit look like rubber with a matte finish haha.

 

[SI3RRA 117]

I agree the tech suit does have the appearance of rubber. Ya I just chose Eva because it's cheap and I was looking for a way to avoid attaching foam to fabric. Hopefully you find something that will work for you. I'll be checking in on your progress. Good luck and happy building

 

[Demogorgon]

Update 5:

The helmet is 95% complete. Just need to finish the shapes on the back of the helmet and fill in some gaps with caulk.



Also got the side release buckles in place on the shoulders, bis, tris, and thighs. All that's left to build is the butt, boots, and maybe the undersuit hips.

Here's the color scheme I'm shooting for:



I've got a week for the suit to be completely done so it's crunch time haha.

 

[Demogorgon]

Update 6:

Small update tonight, or morning rather haha. Finished up the butt plate.



I'm down to a single foam sheet and I have 2 boots to build... that need to fit size 13 boots.... I'm going to need more foam haha. I've already scaled up the boot files and hopefully they will be alright. I basically just adjusted the scale, printed out the sole of the boots and placed my boot on the template. Six solid pages for a boot.



Tomorrow I will be fastening the side release buckles in place on the morph suit so I'll finally be able to wear the costume as a whole and see how it looks. I might have to skip on some of the detailing to get this done in time but I'm dedicating all of Saturday and Sunday for detailing so we'll see how far I get. I've now got 6 days to finish this thing. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

 

[BDUB]

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

and it totally isn't a train...

Haha, nice work man! your foam work is super clean! Yeah, you can definitely get this suit done in 6 days, and once it's all done, it'll look so awesome! I'm looking forward to detailing, seeing detailed armor really makes my day.

what do you plan on doing for the undersuit? I see you have under-armor parts, but are you gonna paint an undersuit instead of adding more foam to the undersuit? Assuming you can in the given amount of time...I think you could. I don't think you really specified the whole plan before.

 

[Demogorgon]

Thanks, mblackwell1002 !

For the undersuit, I plan to go all out and try to replicate the in-game one as close as possible.... eventually. It wont get done before the Con so I'll have just a Morphsuit with a couple of the more prominent undersuit parts.

Here are my plans for my eventual undersuit:

I planned on building some parts out of foam like the groin, hips, shoulders, elbow, knee etc, basically the protruding parts, and then use a foam neoprene material for the rest of the suit (not wetsuit material, that's a different material) and then just adhere the parts directly to the Morphsuit. So basically the Morphsuit will be acting as a stretchy backing for the parts, hopefully letting the suit be flexible enough. I was originally going to build the whole thing out of foam but then mobility wouldn't even exist haha.

 

[Demogorgon]

So I used up my last 15 pack of #2 x-acto blades last night and I got to open up my 100 pack. I've gone through about 30 blades in total on this project so far. I was so excited when I opened the box and saw all those pretty blades in there . I used about 5 on the butt plate. The first few blades seemed pretty dull but I figured hey, there's bound to be some bad ones when you bulk order. Now working on the boot, I have to change my blade after 4 - 5 cuts! I've gone through 6 blades already on the front part of the boot (basically 1 blade per shape) just to keep the cuts somewhat nice and clean. It seems that not just some, but all of these 100 blades are dull. The first 10 inches of cutting are great and then it just starts tearing the foam. I've never had this degree of degradation on blades before. Has anyone else had this issue or did I just get a bad batch of blades? I've even tried using a nice blade sharpener on the blades (the one Evil Ted uses) and this makes the blade useless on the foam. It did work wonders on my scissors though, so that's a plus haha.

I mean just look at this...

Cut #1 - Good for the first 3" on the right of the part then you start to see some slight tearing towards the left of the part, not bad though:



Cut #2 - Seriously??? This sort of tearing on the 2nd cut???



Anyway, I'm able to fit 1 boot on a sheet of foam so I'll need to run up to WalMart to get more supplies. Might as well pick up some more blades too.

 

[BDUB]

Eugh...that's unfortunate. Yeah, that 2nd cut is especially bad. Kinda makes me wince...I actually have never used X-Acto knives before. I always use snap knives and buy Husky brand black replacement blades. I really recommend trying them out; they have a lengthy blade lifetime with peeeerrrffeect cuts, and instead of replacing the blades, you snap 'em. You can usually get 4-5 "snaps" out of a single blade, Minus the occasional dull blade. They come in a little black plastic box about 1x4 inches.

I might buy some X-acto blades just to do a test to see which one has a higher quality blade. Thanks for bringing up the topic...cosplay homework...

Also, when you finish your convention, are you going to keep this build thread for upgrades? If so, I'm going to go ahead and sub. you've got some serious talent, and I can't wait to see your whole suit. (plus, I want to observe your undersuit-making process)

 

[Demogorgon]

Eugh...that's unfortunate. Yeah, that 2nd cut is especially bad. Kinda makes me wince...I actually have never used X-Acto knives before. I always use snap knives and buy Husky brand black replacement blades. I really recommend trying them out; they have a lengthy blade lifetime with peeeerrrffeect cuts, and instead of replacing the blades, you snap 'em. You can usually get 4-5 "snaps" out of a single blade, Minus the occasional dull blade. They come in a little black plastic box about 1x4 inches.

I might buy some X-acto blades just to do a test to see which one has a higher quality blade. Thanks for bringing up the topic...cosplay homework...

Also, when you finish your convention, are you going to keep this build thread for upgrades? If so, I'm going to go ahead and sub. you've got some serious talent, and I can't wait to see your whole suit. (plus, I want to observe your undersuit-making process)

Thanks. I'll have to look into those husky blades. I bought 3 packs of 5 blades from Walmart and they are so much better. I don't know what it is with that 100 pack but they just suck. And they're X-Acto brand, not a rip off brand, which just baffles me. Walmart also didn't have any foam so I had to buy some from amazon which will be here Sunday.

I think once I finish the build it will be the end for this thread. I'll start up a new thread for the undersuit as that's a whole build by itself haha.

 

[Demogorgon]

Update 7 - Test Fitting:

Alright so now that I'm out of foam and waiting for more to get delivered, I started placing parts on the morph suit. Not shown in the below pictures are the ab plates, boots, bis and tris. Just fitting the larger parts to see how the overall look is. There's some placement tweaking that needs to be done but overall I'm pretty happy with everything.



The chest is a little on the big side but it's not too bad. I had the worst time trying to get my forearm parts to stay in place. The length is perfect but it's sooo loose on my forearms. They kept flipping upside down every time I went to take a picture. I'll need to put a lot of padding in them to keep them in place. The shins have the same problem, perfect height but super loose.

Here's a look at the buckle system:



Things still left to do:
- Build the heels of the boots (both toes are done)
- Fix the little gaps on the Pectoral area of the chest
- Fix the little tear on the bottom of the chest and the left under-arm strap (it came loose)
- Build the triangle-y parts on the back of the helmet
- Maybe build the hip parts for the undersuit
- Make the Finger Armor - I totally forgot about that haha
- Make the Elbow armor piece - forgot about that too
- Detail everything
- Paint

 

[Demogorgon]

Update 8 - Detailing

Alright, it's really getting down to the wire haha. I'm taking a quick break to post this update and give my hands a rest.

First up, I very quickly and roughly made some finger armor, no fingertips though. I ended up tracing my hand and drew the armor. I only have the thick EVA so I had to slice the parts down to the proper-ish thickness.



Next are all the parts that have been detailed and are ready to be sealed with plasti-dip (everything but the helmet and chest).



Here's the back of the helmet now:



I've also decided not to go with the side clips for this build and simply adhere the floating parts directly to my undersuit. I was using the side clip buckles because I planned on building a proper undersuit with this but I'll be buying a new morph suit for my upcoming undersuit project, one without the full face cover but still has the neck cover.

I'll get some better shots of the detailing work later but it's really not all that much and I'm not really happy with it haha. I rushed the detailing to get this all done in time. I started by using a straight edge to score the details so the linework was all nice and straight but it was moving too slowly and I just started freehanding it. We'll see how it looks with paint. Using the score and heat method worked great but I had some troubles with the hot glued parts coming apart with the heat gun (which I expected would happen anyway) so I have a couple of seams to fix up with barge. The only thing left to do is detail the helmet and fix up/detail the chest and it's off to painting!

--------

And of course the Florida weather decides to kick in at the most inopportune time and has been storming all day. It's overcast right now but super windy. Looks like there's no painting today

 

[Demogorgon]

BUILD FINISHED

My 1 month speed build is finally done! I can't believe I was able to get this done in time for MegaCon Orlando. For a speed build I think I did pretty good. I had to rush the detailing and painting so it's not where I would have liked it to be, the helmet and chest don't have any detailing work and I wasn't able to use caulking to fill in seam gaps , but I'm happy with the end result nonetheless. There are some split seams that need to get fixed but other than that it's ready to go!

More pictures to come!

 

[Xs SHAD0W sX]

That looks really good for how fast you put it together.
I've never been able to make a good looking helmet out of foam.