KingDredd92
New Member
So I went to RTX last year and figured this year I'd go as Vic, my favorite character from Red vs Blue. He also happens to be just a random Pillar of Autumn Tech/Ops crew member from Combat Evolved.
Here's a screen cap of the guy I'm talking about. You've all probably killed him/watched him get thrown across the room hundreds upon hundreds of times.
I usually like to post in a sort of instructional guide way so that if anyone wants to make their own they have a nice guide. This can be used pretty much for any of these guys who are seen in gray (Command), red (Security), orange (Engineering) and light and dark blue (Sciences).
Ok here we go.
Belt and Boots
I started off with the easy things. I found a cheap gray nylon web belt with a unique belt buckle that seemed to fit the costume properly (I had to spray paint the buckle from black to gray though).
For the boots I noticed in the reference pictures that they were just plain black with what appeared to be some sort of subdued brown gaiters over the tops of them. With this in mind I figured the best and cheapest boots would be a simple pair of US jungle boots. There are two types; all black and olive drab and black. Either can work as the green ones pass for the gaiters but I wanted to try and be as close as possible so I went with black and got some subdued brown fabric to fashion some simple gaiters.
The fabric I got for the gaitors.
Name Tags
Next up was name tags. In the game everyone seems to have a white name tag of some sort on the left side of the jacket. eBay is filled with sellers who make custom ones in all sizes and colors. I ended up ordering five that I could use at different times.
Pants
I spent quite a bit of time figuring out what to do for the jacket and pants. Right off the bat I got the impression that the pants were just either plain work pants or BDUs without side pockets. Before I ordered them I tried to find both yellow pants and jackets, I ended up going white as yellow is one of the most obsucre colors for either items. So with that I found out that a pair of Dickies 874 Work Pants in white fit the bill perfectly.
For the stripes down the side (as well as the jacket sleeves and sides) I saw that they were sort of alternating bumps. At first I tried overlapping black ribbon material but it just didn't look right. I knew that this design was based on military ceremonial dress (reminded me of the Marine Corps blood stripe seen in their dress blues). So I tried typing in blood stripes and this came up in images:
Turns out the stripes down Han Solo's pants are just the thing I was looking for. They're called Corellian Blood Stripes. I searched a bit and found an eBay seller that made both the red ones seen above and the yellow ones that were in Return of The Jedi. So I ordered two sets and painted them black.
They were then cut down and sewn along the edge. The pockets were tweaked a bit to match the reference pictures a little better.
Jacket
The jacket proved to be a bit trickier to acquire. The jacket is a pocket less zip up with something of a collar. Again after failing at finding a yellow jacket, let alone one that resembled the right design I went with white. After days of searching all sorts of websites and style jackets (plus a few stores) I finally found something that would work, a white Members Only jacket.
Going white worked well not only because it was easier but also that it ensured that when I dyed it the color would match up as closely as possible. If you're doing another division you'll probably have an easier time. Anyway once the jacket came in I cut off the shoulder boards, any labels and most of the collar loops along with the elastic sleeve ends.
Padding
Next was figuring out the gray chest, back, shoulder and stomach padding. Right from the start I thought of neoprene. Being that Halo is in the future and in space I immediately thought high tech and futuristic and I feel that neoprene gives that sort of vibe and has that look. So with that in mind I started looking on where to source gray and black neoprene. After looking through different places for bulk neoprene I ended up buying a few cheap laptop cases of eBay (and later a local dollar store). Each one is one color on the outside and black on the other. So I bought four gray ones for about $15 and once they arrived I used a seam ripper and took them apart. I ended up needing a bit more black pieces so I went to a local dollar store and found a few more small tablet sized ones (they were blue on one side).
Cut up
Next it was a matter of figuring out the shapes of the padding and tweaking it a bit to fit the jacket.
- The sleeve cuffs (two pieces per sleeve)
- The shoulder bells.
- The chest pieces (they wrap around to the back).
- The lower stomach piece
The back piece stencil (segmented because of size constraints)
- - - Updated - - -
I'm still working on the sewing everything so I'll update the original post as I go along.
Here's a screen cap of the guy I'm talking about. You've all probably killed him/watched him get thrown across the room hundreds upon hundreds of times.
I usually like to post in a sort of instructional guide way so that if anyone wants to make their own they have a nice guide. This can be used pretty much for any of these guys who are seen in gray (Command), red (Security), orange (Engineering) and light and dark blue (Sciences).
Ok here we go.
Belt and Boots
I started off with the easy things. I found a cheap gray nylon web belt with a unique belt buckle that seemed to fit the costume properly (I had to spray paint the buckle from black to gray though).
For the boots I noticed in the reference pictures that they were just plain black with what appeared to be some sort of subdued brown gaiters over the tops of them. With this in mind I figured the best and cheapest boots would be a simple pair of US jungle boots. There are two types; all black and olive drab and black. Either can work as the green ones pass for the gaiters but I wanted to try and be as close as possible so I went with black and got some subdued brown fabric to fashion some simple gaiters.
The fabric I got for the gaitors.
Name Tags
Next up was name tags. In the game everyone seems to have a white name tag of some sort on the left side of the jacket. eBay is filled with sellers who make custom ones in all sizes and colors. I ended up ordering five that I could use at different times.
Pants
I spent quite a bit of time figuring out what to do for the jacket and pants. Right off the bat I got the impression that the pants were just either plain work pants or BDUs without side pockets. Before I ordered them I tried to find both yellow pants and jackets, I ended up going white as yellow is one of the most obsucre colors for either items. So with that I found out that a pair of Dickies 874 Work Pants in white fit the bill perfectly.
For the stripes down the side (as well as the jacket sleeves and sides) I saw that they were sort of alternating bumps. At first I tried overlapping black ribbon material but it just didn't look right. I knew that this design was based on military ceremonial dress (reminded me of the Marine Corps blood stripe seen in their dress blues). So I tried typing in blood stripes and this came up in images:
Turns out the stripes down Han Solo's pants are just the thing I was looking for. They're called Corellian Blood Stripes. I searched a bit and found an eBay seller that made both the red ones seen above and the yellow ones that were in Return of The Jedi. So I ordered two sets and painted them black.
They were then cut down and sewn along the edge. The pockets were tweaked a bit to match the reference pictures a little better.
Jacket
The jacket proved to be a bit trickier to acquire. The jacket is a pocket less zip up with something of a collar. Again after failing at finding a yellow jacket, let alone one that resembled the right design I went with white. After days of searching all sorts of websites and style jackets (plus a few stores) I finally found something that would work, a white Members Only jacket.
Going white worked well not only because it was easier but also that it ensured that when I dyed it the color would match up as closely as possible. If you're doing another division you'll probably have an easier time. Anyway once the jacket came in I cut off the shoulder boards, any labels and most of the collar loops along with the elastic sleeve ends.
Padding
Next was figuring out the gray chest, back, shoulder and stomach padding. Right from the start I thought of neoprene. Being that Halo is in the future and in space I immediately thought high tech and futuristic and I feel that neoprene gives that sort of vibe and has that look. So with that in mind I started looking on where to source gray and black neoprene. After looking through different places for bulk neoprene I ended up buying a few cheap laptop cases of eBay (and later a local dollar store). Each one is one color on the outside and black on the other. So I bought four gray ones for about $15 and once they arrived I used a seam ripper and took them apart. I ended up needing a bit more black pieces so I went to a local dollar store and found a few more small tablet sized ones (they were blue on one side).
Cut up
Next it was a matter of figuring out the shapes of the padding and tweaking it a bit to fit the jacket.
- The sleeve cuffs (two pieces per sleeve)
- The shoulder bells.
- The chest pieces (they wrap around to the back).
- The lower stomach piece
The back piece stencil (segmented because of size constraints)
- - - Updated - - -
I'm still working on the sewing everything so I'll update the original post as I go along.
