GuitarMaster's ODST (on hold or never to be finished)

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Hello, 405th! My name is GuitarMaster157, and I've been lurking around on the forums and YouTube and such, and I've finally decided to post my progress on an ODST build I've been forging away on. To give some background, Halo 3: ODST is my favorite video game EVAR, just because of its awesome weapons, atmosphere, and awesomeness. So as soon as I had heard of pepakura, I was interested, and had to try it out. So I whipped up a few little things, and then started work on a full suit. I've recently decided that most of it will be made of foam, but some detailed parts are and will be pepped.
So enough of all that, on to progress!

Based on TD-0013's idea, I'll have a list of progress right here.


Helmet - DONE
Shoulders - DONE
Forearm 1 - ?
Forearm 2 - ?
Chest Plate - DONE
Stomach Plate - DONE
Side Plates - DONE
Chest Core - DONE
Belt Buckle - DONE
Fanny Pack - DONE
Crotch Plate - DONE
Hip Plates - DONE
Thigh 1 - DONE
Thigh 2 - DONE
Knees - DONE
Shin 1 - DONE
Shin 2 - DONE

1500/1700

88.235%




Alright, now on to pictures!


Here's the helmet, it's Kirrou's HD helmet pep, which is absolutely amazing! I'm currently in the process of wet sanding, and I've learned a lot of things while building it. I'm not gonna be able to cut the detail lines because the bondo turned out to be too thin to cut through. There's actually a good few spots of paper showing through, but it's not noticeable. I'm sure it will turn out great, but I might end up making another one after the rest of the suit is done.
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Here's my workstation, or one of them. This is the one I work with foam at.
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The chest plate (Kirrou's file). I built this one a while ago with plain old pepakura. Later, after checking out rino626's build, along with TD-0013's and higdog827's, (all awesome builds btw) I decided to start working with foam because I HATE working with bondo. So thankfully, I hadn't built much at that point, so I decided to rework all of my stuff, minus the helmet, out of foam.
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Here are some stencils I cut out for the chest piece. On the left is my emblem, and DARK is my service tag.
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Here's the chest core (Hugh's file). I don't know why this has given me so much trouble, but building it has just been a pain in the neck.
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Here are the shoulders (Kirrou's file). They were pretty hard to figure out, but when I did, I finished them super quickly. I had pepped a shoulder piece, but decided to remodel it, and I'm glad because these turned out great! After trying to make that center box out of foam, I decided it would be easier to pep, so I made two, only fiberglassed the inside, and it fits in seamlessly! I used Hugh's shoulder base and hot glued it to the shoulder and it works perfectly! I plan on securing these with some strapping to the chest core when it's done. The reason they're at 95% is because I'm waiting for a good day to spray paint some red detail on the bicep part and then I have to weather it.
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Here's a right forearm (Kirrou's file). I pepped it a while back, and it took forever! That's probably a good thing, because it's a beautifully detailed file. I'm gonna make two more out of foam. I have cut out some templates, but I'm gonna do some more stuff before I start these.
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Working down the arm, here arm some cheap paintball gloves I got off of Amazon. I don't know why my first finger seems so stubby, looks kinda weird, lol. Anyway, they look great and will go perfectly with the rest of the suit. If anyone has any suggestions on an undersuit, that'd be great!
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Here's the stomach plate (also Kirrou's file). I actually decided to pep this one because it was too detailed to make out of foam. Can someone give me a suggestion as to what I should use for the ring on the inside? I didn't want to pep it because I didn't want it to be all pixely.
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Here are the side chest plates (Nightshade's file). Not much to say, pretty simple.
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Here's the belt buckle (Hugh's file). I don't know why I've never seen anyone do this out of foam, it was such a simple file to modify. Just need to weather it.
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The crotch plate (Hugh's file). This is such a simple file, there's nothing to really say about it at all. Oh! The little rings you can see on other peoples' builds, I couldn't figure those out, but I eventually was able to find them at Jo-ann's, they're called D-rings.
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Hip plates (Hugh's file). Not much to say here.
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Welcome to the 405th!

your pieces look great keep up the good work!

and concerning the undersuit for my build i am getting this in black
 
Here's some stuff on the dreaded ODST visor.


Here's the first visor I tried to build. I made it out of a 2-liter bottle. It would have been a really good visor, except for how much it wants to curl. It just did not work out, so I don't recommend it.
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Next idea I tried was some plexiglass from Home Depot. The thinnest I could find was .09 of an inch. This worked well for higdog827, but not for me. I tried shaping it with my trusty heat gun, but it's really hard to get to do what you want. I don't recommend this either.
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Here's my next idea, recommended by Hugh in his ODST visor thread. I got it for pretty cheap off of Amazon. It's pretty similar to the plexiglass idea, but this is .03 of an inch, which, cross your fingers, should be much easier to work with.
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I'll keep you guys posted, see ya!
 
Your ODST appears to be coming along very well. Its almost a shame not to use the gauntlet because they're go detailed, but I understand not wanting to do the other one. I waited to the end of my build to do them, and they were horrible to pep, but they look so awesome now.

For the visor, if that doesn't work, you could always make a vac-former. They are really easy to make, and cheap too, provided you have a shop vac already. If you are interested in it, I can give you advice on making it.

Also, feel free to ask me if you have any questions with the armor. Good luck, keep up the good work.
 
First of all, welcome! And second thing : wow, the shoulders are fantastic. truly, they are!

Also, for the visor, feel free to check my thread, it's got a link to the method I used (fairly easy at that) and a picture of what the result was for me. I don't have it bookmarked and I'm kinda lazy, ahah :p

You got some great stuff going on, keep up the good work! I might steal your idea for the shoulder hinge when I re-do mine, too...if you don't mind ;-)
 
Wow! Thanks for the positive feedback, guys! I checked out your stuff, and right back at ya!


Here's what I got done today:


I sprayed on some red to the shoulders. I've decided I like the colour, though it is a bit glossy. The red parts still need to be weathered, so they're still not done :(
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Finished weathering the belt buckle, I may have overdone it a bit, but I'll still consider it done!
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I tried out the stencils on a piece of wood today. Combined with the fact that it was wood, and that it's always SUPER FREAKING HUMID in Maryland, the paint cracked quite a bit. It'll do better on the foam and when it's less humid out.
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That's all for now! Time to watch the Olympics!
 
Looks very nice! I really need to get back onto my ODST, havent touched it in a few months, just some finishing touches with foam and paint and then need to finish the helm. But bravo my friend and keep it up! :D
 
Great work so far, I'm impressed how well you're able to replicate the core Pep files with foam. I don't have the talent for that, so I'm doing plain old Pepakura for the entirety of my suit.

Speaking of which, does anyone know where I can download Kirrou's ODST forearm Pep file? I've searched the forums, but every link that I've been able to find doesn't work (something about the file being removed). A working link would be great, or if not, if someone wouldn't mind sending it to me, I would be incredibly grateful.
 
I worked on the chest plate today. Finished building it, too. Anyway, here's some pics!



So this is Kirrou's file, which I haven't seen too many people build out of foam. It wasn't too hard, though. At this point I know a lot of techniques, so it came along pretty quickly. The shininess that you see is hot glue. After gluing all of the pieces together, I take my hot knife and melt down the protruding bits of glue so I can make it nice and smooth.
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Here it is next to the pepped chest plate. I feel like the foam one is a bit shorter, but overall I think I did a great job remodeling it!
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Instead of cutting it up into a bunch of little pieces, I used a technique introduced to me by TD-0013 in which you dremel little channels in the back of the pieces, so it will easily bend in on itself. The technique came in a lot of use when building the chest plate and shoulders. Those puzzle pieces at the top was just some scrap foam I glued there to hold up a piece of craft foam detailing the indent at the top (see first pic).
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Here's the fanny pack (Hugh's file). This was super easy to do, I just need to do the ribs on the bottom. I'm gonna try pepping them, but now that I think about it, I probably don't want to be sitting on paper. I'll see what happens.
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That's all for now!
 
Okay, just finished building the fanny pack.

Here was my first idea for the ribs, to pep them.
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And here is the final, I just cut some pieces from foam, wasn't too hard to angle them.
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Now I'm gonna start sealing the chest plate and fanny pack. My method to sealing is probably a bit different than other peoples', but it works for me. I've noticed that a lot of people say that they just coat the pieces in plasti-dip a few times. Itried this, but the foam isn't completely sealed afterwards. So what I do is paint on some watered-down glue over the whole piece, and then I give it a coat or two of plasti-dip. I hope this helps you if you've never sealed armor before.
 
Nice Work! I'm very impressed with your foam work. I took a crack at it once and well, something hit the fan. It's a skill i could never be skilled at.
 
I did the ribs/details that way too on my own ODST fanny pack, using some leftover foam. Yours turned out very good. Keep 'em updates coming through! Great job!
 
Okay, got some more stuff done today.


I finished weathering the shoulders, so they are done.
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Here's me in the middle of sealing with some PVA glue. On the right you can see I made a piece out of polyurethane foam to go behind the fanny pack to make for a more comfortable seat.
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And here's some paint drying after I primed the chest plate, fanny pack, and stomach plate. I'm gonna have to spot putty the stomach plate.
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The paint is cracking quite a bit on the fanny pack and chest plate. How can I fix this?
Also, what can I use for that ring thing on the stomach plate?
 
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Okay, got some more stuff done today.


I finished weathering the shoulders, so they are done.
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Here's me in the middle of sealing with some PVA glue. On the right you can see I made a piece out of polyurethane foam to go behind the fanny pack to make for a more comfortable seat.
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And here's some paint drying after I primed the chest plate, fanny pack, and stomach plate. I'm gonna have to spot putty the stomach plate.
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The paint is cracking quite a bit on the fanny pack and chest plate. How can I fix this?
Also, what can I use for that ring thing on the stomach plate?
Looks great!
What brand of Paint/spray-paint did you use? because that could be one cause for cracking paint.
 
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What brand of Paint/spray-paint did you use? because that could be one cause for cracking paint.

Rust-Oleum auto primer. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the brand, it was just the combination with the humidity, and it was so dark, I couldn't see how much paint I had sprayed on (it was too much). Tomorrow I'm gonna try lightly sanding it, and hopefully that will make the cracks go away.
 
Rust-Oleum auto primer. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the brand, it was just the combination with the humidity, and it was so dark, I couldn't see how much paint I had sprayed on (it was too much). Tomorrow I'm gonna try lightly sanding it, and hopefully that will make the cracks go away.

Ah okay. well good luck with everything!
 
Here's what I got for today. Not too much because I've been wetsanding the helmet a bit, anyway...


So after sanding the pieces down to hopefully get rid of those cracks, It barely worked. The only thing that could help was scraping the paint off, and I did not have the time to do that in fear of it turning out crappy anyway. The fanny pack wasn't too bad at all, so I kept it as it was. The chest plate, however, was way too cracked up, and I didn't want one of the most visible pieces to look terrible. Because of this, I decided I'm just gonna redo the chest plate altogether, which shouldn't be too hard because I know exactly what to do.
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Here's the fanny pack, completed.
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And here's the stomach plate, not too bad.
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I hope I can rebuild the chest plate by the end of tomorrow. The helmet is almost done being smoothened, just a little bit more. I just got some polypropylene webbing in the mail, and I also have some side-release straps and velcro, so I can start getting some more done with the chest core. I'll keep you posted!
 
If you want a cheap, easy to make center "button" for the stomach plate, try spray-painting a plastic bottle cap and simply glueing it in place. It's not a RING, but hey, close enough ;-)

Looking very good! Keep it up!
 
That's some really slick foam work you've done GuitarMaster. It's a real shame about cracking. Sounds like you might just have to bite the bullet and sand back til they're gone and do another coat. Mind you, how bad is it actually? It might be possible to make it look battle damage-ish if its not too bad.
 
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