Foam ODST (WIP)

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TuckerN17

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Hello everyone, it has been several years since I've even been on this website and my old username is long gone. This first post is going to be quite long as I have been working on my armor intermittently for about a year and a half.

This is not my first attempt at making armor. I have tried pep and fiberglassing a Halo Reach spartan before, but I ended up just endlessly sanding and bondoing so I quit.

Last year in January I saw AndrewDFT's tutorials for ODST foam armor and after thinking about it for awhile I decided to give it a shot. I started out by making a shoulder piece. I had never worked with foam before and decided to proceed with caution as I have a tendency to dive in to a large project and get overwhelmed.
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Much to my surprise it didn't turn out half bad. So I kept at it and before I knew it I had all the foam pieces cut out and glued together. During this process I also started working on the under suit. I found fabric on Amazon that I liked and made a template from a button up shirt and a pair of pants.
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The under suit was actually quite easy to sew (those 8th grade home economics skills came right back). That was in about November. The weather got cold outside so Plastidip wasn't an option. I tried sealing the foam with glue then painting it with acrylic paint but I wasn't satisfied. The armor just didn't look right to me. So I decided to shelve the project for awhile and ponder what to do.
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So the project laid dormant for a couple months until recently it started getting warm outside. Over the winter months I would randomly think about the armor, what I liked and what I knew needed to change. The thing that seemed to bother me the most was the placement of the straps. So last month I pulled everything out of the closet and laid it all out on the floor. The first thing I did was carefully remove ALL of the straps. Next I Plastidipped all of the pieces. Then it was time to add on the strapping again. I bought adhesive Velcro for fabric and added it to the under suit where the armor pieces would go over top. The Velcro would do most of the work of holding the armor in place on my body. The straps were there to hold the armor piece against my body so it wasn't flapping around. I ended up liking how well the Velcro holds that I'm using it all over the place.

So this brings us to today, and the current state of my project. All of the foam pieces are cut out and glued together, with the exception of the chest plate which I am currently remaking. Today I finished adding strapping to the legs. The ab plate and back plate are finished and fit great. I am able to sit down comfortably which is a huge bonus.
legs.JPG front ab plate.JPG back.JPG
The main chest piece is almost finished, it just needs the chest plate. The forearms are finished and are held in place just by sliding them up my arm. The shoulder armor need a bit of work as I don't like how they rest on my upper arm.

Last but not least is the helmet. I did originally build an AndrewDFT's helmet but I didn't like it very much. I tend to think that people look at the helmet more than any other part of the armor so I wanted to make sure it looked good. So I decided to 3D print the helmet. After many, many hours of printing, gluing, sanding, applying primer, and filling this is how it looks. I still need to put some work into it but I'm overall happy with it.
helmet 1.JPG

I do have a M6SOCOM pistol and a silenced SMG in the works, but I'll save those for another time.
 
chest front 1.JPGacc 1.JPG acc 2.JPG helmet 2.JPG
Today I finished up the chest plate and temporarily attached it. I'll need to be able to remove it later to attach the straps to the plastic pieces and then attach those to the back of the chest plate. I also put a coat of black on the helmet. There are a few spots I missed that need a little more work. I also 3D printed the buck to vacuum form the visor a few days ago. Well I should admit its actually the second one I've printed as I melted the first one, who would of thought that hot plastic would melt plastic :) . I have a busy couple days coming up so I won't have much time to work on the project for a couple days.
 
Awesome work sir! I bought the files meself but haven't really had the time (or space!!) to get to work, but this is very inspiring, looking forward to seeing more of this.
 
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It's always interesting to see how people build stuff, so that I can from everyone's mistakes ;) my ODST is still a ways off but I'm heading your route - foam armour with 3D helmet and props. I think my helmet is the same 3D file as yours. Assuming the buck I should print from ABS or PETG and some others reinforce it too. Guess I'll find out ;)

Curious about what you'll do with the inside of your helmet re cooling and padding :) I saw a fellow cut out parts of the back and used black mesh. Nifty vents :)
 
It has been quite a few months since I have been able to work on my armor. My summer has been fairly busy, but now that the weather is cooling down I should have more free time.

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First, I mounted the visor in the helmet. There is a bit of a gap at the bottom part of the visor, but I'm overall quite happy with how this turned out. I ordered black and blue dye to tint the visor. I'm going to try for a blue/dark blue color with the visor. Everything for that should be here on Tuesday and I'm quite excited to give that a try.
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Second, Ive been working on the sidearm. I 3D printed and assembled this a couple of months ago. When I originally assembled it I just used CA glue, which was a mistake! I had placed it on a shelf about 8 inches off the floor, it slid off and broke apart. It only broke back apart into its individual pieces and I used epoxy this time. Now it's really solid. The trigger is actually not glued in place. I put two small springs behind it and it moves. The magazine isn't glued in place either, it's just a friction fit. I've also put a few neodymium magnets in the left side. My right thigh will have a small strip of steel so the sidearm can just be set on my thigh and will stay there. Ive done some tests and it seems to hold on pretty strong. For anyone that is wondering, the 3D files for the pistol can be found here: M6C/SOCOM Magnum Sidearm by fergal_kelly

Hopefully my next update won't take as long as this one.
 
I dyed the visor today. I used the method shown in the Punished Props video "How to Tint a Visor," and it worked great! I originally planned on using two packets, one black and one blue. I ended up only using the blue one. I did three rounds of 5 minutes in the dye at 140 degrees. I dyed two visors, the first one was a failed vacuum form and it was just used as a test. The color on both visors turned out fantastic. The only problem is both visors ended up with smudges where the tint seemed to have extra effect, and its in different spots on both visors. It can be seen in the last picture. Luckily it can't be seen from the outside looking in when the visor is mounted in the helmet.
Visor 4.JPG Visor 5.JPG Visor 6.JPG Visor 7.JPG Visor 8.JPG Visor 9.JPG
 
Last night I finished painting everything a base coat of flat black. This morning I had time to put everything on and managed to rig up a way to hold my phone to take pictures. The only difficult part about putting the armor on by myself is the shoulders. I have to put them on after the upper torso piece and it is difficult to reach around to attach it. The armor is really quite comfortable.

All1.JPG All2.JPG All3.JPG All4.JPG All5.JPG All8.JPG All9.JPG

Next I really need to finish the undersuit. It looks fine in the pictures, but all of the problems are hidden. There bottom of the shirt and the ends of the sleeves and pant legs aren't sewn off so they are frayed pretty badly. I will probably make a neck seal or at least extend the neck up a bit. I don't have access to a sewing machine so that will have to wait a little while.

Also, I'm going to add a color to the helmet, chest, and shoulder pieces. Ive been testing a couple shades of blue on scrap parts. Then once the color is added I can work on adding detail pieces like the shoulder straps that connect to the chest piece.
 
Looks good man. I think I printed the same helmet :). I might have to watch that how to dye a visor vid, as I just used tail light blackout for mine. But great job overall so far!
 
Looks good man. I think I printed the same helmet :). I might have to watch that how to dye a visor vid, as I just used tail light blackout for mine. But great job overall so far!

I originally planned on using the tail light blackout before I found the tutorial on how to dye a visor. The most difficult part about dying the visor is finding a disposable pot large enough to heat the water in. I got lucky and found one at my local Goodwill for $9. The dye method is nice because there are a lot of color choices.
 
I originally planned on using the tail light blackout before I found the tutorial on how to dye a visor. The most difficult part about dying the visor is finding a disposable pot large enough to heat the water in. I got lucky and found one at my local Goodwill for $9. The dye method is nice because there are a lot of color choices.
Yeah, I vacuum formed my visor this time though, so the vht nightshades kinda applied thicker is some areas tha others, which while not visible from the outside looking in, is really annoying to look through.
 
I have a few questions that I would be eternally grateful if you answer them:
1. What 3D printer did you use for your helmet and buck for visor?
2. Where did you find said buck file to print?
3. Where did you find the helmet files to print?
4. What type of plastic did you use for the visor?
5. What material did you print in?

I am a beginner and had started out with the AndrewDFT build templates, I just finished the helmet and boy that is a tad tough. My twin brother and I are looking to work together on this and we would love to go for accuracy, if we could manage to 3D print the helmets, that would be great! I am learning and would love to know how you did what was asked above. Thanks!

-Caleb
 
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