Hello from Croatia - Halo and GoW projects on Balkans

[jsobin]

UPDATE: FOR HELP ONLY, and not spending your time reading my intro, please scroll down to where photos and questions are.

Hey guys,

I posted a quick hello in introductions thread, but I wanted to make a more detailed introduction here. Why? Well, there are many reasons, but one that might interest everyone else is that I will be working on making armors and helmets in a country where materials are not nearly as available as in the U.S., and I will have to use alternative materials and methods. This might be something that could help everyone else just as much as it would help me.

So lets get started.

I live in Split, Croatia, where I was born and raised. I lived in Wisconsin for four years, and in Austin, Texas for five. I moved back home in 2008, and have lived here since. I am a huge fan of Halo series, and even bigger fan of Gears of War.

Every february we have a big carnival in Split. Similar to Halloween, except its even more for adults than for kids. Kids have their fun during the day, and then we go out to rock or techno parties in our costumes during the night. It's one of my favorite days in the year. Last two times I went out in my Assassin's Creed costume (I will post pics later on). My dream, however, was to have my group of friends with whom I play Horde on GoW go out as an entire GoW team. Until a few days ago, that was only a dream...

So what happened a few days ago? My 10-year old asked me if I could get him a Halo costume for upcoming carnival. He wanted to be a marine from the game. Out of curiosity I started looking up videos on youtube. You can imagine my surprise when I realised that people actually MAKE these, and pretty damn good! For the following 4-5 days I spent a decent amount of time watching videos and reading forums (which inevitably lead me to this site), did a bunch of reading and research, learned what I could about pepakura in as little time as possible (carnival is in less than a month, so I am on a tight schedule), and decided to give it a shot. So, exactly 10 days ago, I started working on the low detail ODST 2 helmet. I finished the paper part in one night (no sleep), and then started printing out that 60 page BEAST (fenix BP). Today, 10 days later, I put the primer on my sanded, bondoed helmet (that's a lie - we don't have bondo in Croatia, but I did find an alternative), and this morning I glued the last piece on the Fenix BP.

I will post pics in a couple days, and I'm sure everyone will think it's crap, but I think it turned out pretty damn good for someone who has never done anything like this before, and, most importantly, it gave me a motivation to start doing this more. And that is exactly why I decided to join the 405th forum, and write this post after watching the intro video.

I am sorry about the length of this post, and I'm sure that there won't be many individuals who will read the entire thing, but maybe I manage to catch interest of few individuals who might end up being kind enough to helm me out and share their experiences. I already have a couple of specific questions about the pieces I made, but I will wait a bit before posting them, to see if anyone will actually read and respond to this. I hope some will because after looking at pieces that a bunch of you made, I think you guys are amazing, I think you have extreme talent, and are persistant or stubborn enough to make this into a fun art.

So, to put it in one quick sentance: Hello from Croatia

 

[sandy1973]

Welcome to 405th and I am looking forward to see your build.

 

[jsobin]

Ok, here is the end of my week 1 of armor making attempts:

Helmet is bondoed, sanded and primed, GoW armor is finished as far as paper part is concerned, low detail ODST 2 armor is just for practicing some techniques.

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS:

1. For the helmet - yes, I know it looks like crap and it kinda lost its shape as well (noob did not put visor in and cut it out after resining, forgive me), but its a decent starting point. I think I got a hang of most of the stuff (took me a while to figure out how fast bondo actually dries) but I do have one question: what do you do with edges? In my case, they are too sharp, and I don't want my kid to cut himself when he wears this.

2. For the armor - IT WON'T FIT! Size is fine, but my head aint going through that hole. Neck should fit, but... I went to the help sticky thread for armor fitting, and read through first 13 pages, but all I found is stuff on how to put pieces together. I'm sure among several hundred pages of the thread someone has answered my question, but it's impossible to go through everything when I have to finish this in 3 weeks. So question: how and when do you cut the armor. Before bondo? After bondo? What do you use? Any suggestions will help.

Also, everyone who has seen this GoW armor knows about the very complicated collar. Not sure what to do with it - maybe just fill it with fiberglass, or maybe just cut the damn thing out.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[tahu653]

to get it to fit you will need to split it into two halves so tht it is a front and back and put it on that way. btw, those are some nice folds on the chest peices

 

[Mustangseatrice05]

Not a lot of people here to help with the Gears stuff anymore. I been trying but after a very popular Gears 3 armor thread was shut down for no good reason, Gears died on the 405th. People who previously did that Marcus chest piece had the same problem & a lot of them just cut out the collar piece entirely.

 

[jsobin]

Yea, I think I will remove the collar myself.

Thanks tahu. Do you have any pointers on how though? At which stage do I cut it, what tool is the best to use, etc...

 

[tahu653]

i would if i had even done it myself, i think you have to do the same thing that you forgot about with the visor and split it after you resin and fibreglass

 

[Spartan159]

Pozdrav iz Samobora! Tko bi reko(čuda da se dese ) da u hrvatskoj ima ekipe koja radi ovakve stvari.Respekt buraz,respekt. Kaj si koristil kad si mazao kacigu?

 

[jedi tomray]

I cut out the inner collar and glued in a black foam one. my head just fits through do not split it in two parts it will not look right i cut out the bottom just enough to squeez my shoulders through.

if you still can't get it on cut one of the sides out so you can slide it on then reattach the part you cut out i did it on my baird armor

pop rivet some heavy matarial on the inside as a hing

 

[jsobin]

So, like a little gate right under one of the arm openings - brilliant. I might play around with the bottom opening after I fiberglass it and see if I can put it on. I am afraid that my head won't fit through the opening even after I take off the collar. No, I don't have unusually large head but for some reason my opening turned out pretty small. Maybe it just seems that way - I'll see when I put it on.

@Spartan159 - ima lokalna prodavaonica koja se zove Kemilak i proizvode svoju smolu. Nije cak ni skupa, 30-ak kuna kg. Ali ne mogu nac ekvivalent crafting foama-a. Jesi ti sta pravia? Aj javi se na skajp - jsobin

 

[jsobin]

Jedi is there any chance we could chat on skype or something similar? I need like 10 mins to figure out what replacement materials to find in Croatia.

 

[Spartan159]

Crafting foam?Misliš ono što ima rubove kao puzle?To ti se još zove EVA foam kolko sam ja skužio. http://www.klio.hr/repro-materijal-graviranje/Spužvaste ploče Evo link,možda pomogne u potrazi.Što se tiče mojih radova,napravio sam cjelo spartansko odjelo od kartona(osim kacige i nogu),ak odeš na moj akount onda češ vidjet,odmah kad klikneš imaš sliku na ljevoj strani.Poslje toga sam još napravio NOBLE 6-ovu kacigu i sad radim na MK-4 kacigi iz HALO WARS-a(koju radim od kartona tako da preslikavam djelove od normalnog papira na karton...koje muke buraz moj).

 

[jedi tomray]

I used Craft foam sheets for the armor plates you can get them at most craft stores and used 1mm 3mm 5mm thick. and used 3/4" maple board for the two black chest disc i cut them out then routed a 45 edge on them on a table router or if you can find a black speaker cover about the right size. and when you go to buy the craft foam buy black do not buy colors i made that mistake and every time it gets bumped or scratched it's green or orange with black foam when it gets scratched its black and it makes it look like battle damage.

this is the foam i used for the collar

 

[jsobin]

Yea, that's the problem. You can't buy that in Croatia - I checked with all the stores and few 'handymen' that I know. The only thing I could get is polyurethene form in a tube, make frames for plates, and then fill them, but that would turn out like crap. It might be better to just use styrofoam. Is there any way I can bug you or someone else to maybe buy some and ship it to me? I can send 50-60 USD to cover whatever foam and shipping via paypal. Considering foam is light, shipping shouldn't be more than 10-15 USD for 7-10 day delivery.

 

[jsobin]

Actually, Spartan159 found out something that might be equally good. It's Ethylen-Vynil-Acetate foam. It says it's thermically craftable, so it might be similar to what you are using. Maybe I'll just order a sample of that from Zagreb first, and see if it will work.

 

[jsobin]

Hey Jedi, I resined the BP this morning, and I just finished with fiberglass part. It took me 4 hours with a bit of help from a friend to put two layers of fiberglass to make it really stron (I'm gonna be really pissed if I don't find a way to stick my head through ). One question - did you bondo the outside before putting in details, or did you start putting the foam onto the resined outside?

 

[jedi tomray]

i put 2 layers of just fiberglass resin on outside and one on the inside then put another layer on the inside but used resin and fiberglass cloth then sanded it. then a layer of bondo its good to prime it between bondo layers after sanded it makes it easy to see were you need more bondo. then another layer of bondo only in some places to build up and shape.

 

[jedi tomray]

here is some pics of mine before paint

here is one of my collar cut out

here is one just paper

back view

 

[jsobin]

Not sure what happened to my reply, but it didn't post so I have to redo it.
Here is the thing - I used the other PEP file for BP. It has way too much topography and a lot of edges on the outside. There is only one kind of bondo-like kit that we can get here and its crap - it dries too fast, and it doesnt spread to well. Which is why I wanted to see if there was a way to avoid the bondo step. I thought that it was for making the outside look nice only, and figured I may not need it if I wanted to put foam details on the outside. Would it work if I diluted it with resin to make rondo-like mixture? That would spread on the armor better, but if I understood correctly, it is sticky and you can't sand it. Any thoughts?

 

[jedi tomray]

what might work is sanding it as smooth as posable then dont't weary about sanding through paper then resin over it maybe two layers i have done that on my helmets and it seems to come out smoother each layer if you build it up and sand it smooth you might be able to get away without bondoing