Foam - BR 85 - Secret Santa Build

[rickrtickr]

Hey there 405th!

Here I am now, largely past the holidays, and with a small amount of free time on my hands, so now is as good a time as any for my wrap up for my secret santa build this year.

I had been tasked with a build for Emp Frosty and as such, given his request, I decided to make a custom BR 85 from Halo 4/5.

I wanted to make something to match his armor colors and came across this image:

I played around in Photoshop for a bit and made this recolor:

So now I had my idea, and it was time to execute, but I still needed my reference for the build. So I used these 2 images:

And I was off to the races. I balanced my build scale with something that felt just right for a carry-along prop for any Spartan.
I printed out my template to balance just slightly larger than the NERF AR:

With my template printed, I started the foam cutout by tracing onto polystyrene foam board:
(I had originally wanted to build one for myself at the same time, but I ended up running out of time to complete a parallel build)

With the core of the prop cut out, I needed to insert and add the barrel. For this, I used a dowel rod and various PVC piping:

it is now time to build up the major details:

It was around here where my build came to a screeching halt, and I didn't have much time to be in my craft space, but I did have access to a computer.
So what else was I to do but think?

I decided to make the scope a 3d print, but I needed a model. So I looked around the internet for inspiration. I eventually found this model from a Google search:

But I couldn't find anything other than images for it. So I did what any sane person would do. I hopped into a CAD program and made it myself:


I then printed it and made it compatible with my build:

Around this time, I also completed the end of the barrel:

from here it was back to adding details:

At this point, I had largely completed the build and just needed a few minor but impactful detail parts:
first up was the ammo counter:


I also detailed a panel for the scope, but it seems I didn't take any specific images for that.

So on to the painting process.
As always, when working with anything polystyrene, it needs a protective coating since a regular spray paint will dissolve this foam.


Final stretch in 2nd post:

 

[rickrtickr]

From here, I finished the painting process, and we ended up with a completed prop:

primer:


Base blue:


silver detail:


black detail:


And at the end, here is the completed prop:
(scope removed)


and full with scope:

This was a really fun build, but it ended up being a real monster because of my own time commitments.

I hope you enjoy this process walk-through, and I hope Frosty will be able to enjoy it!

Until next time!