Help needed, mostly with Visor

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AIQ

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I am creating my first suit using a variety of Halo parts. I've chosen pieces and understand the process fairly. With Pep, resin, and bondo.

However, I have two questions (for now) first off is the visor. I've seen Vacuum forming, Plexiglas, and even coke bottles used. I would just like a decent materials list and method for making a smaller visor (The helmet is a Tracker from H4) I have no idea whats good plastic, whats good tint, or even the glue. :(
Whatever method someone has used on a helmet similar to the tracker I'm down to try out.

Second, next I'm going to try for the Chest plate, using the Prefect variant. Is EVA foam better on chest plates or should I just stick to resin/bondo? I guess that would extend to the rest of the suit as well. I know I wanted the helmet to be Resin/bondo, but I don't know about the rest.

I want a Resin/Bondo Covie Carbine as well, but I'm seeing videos where they have EVA foam weapons and say it's better.

As I am new, I'm very ignorant in many regards, so I'v been merely looking at a bunch of info and doing trial and error since I don't have any friends that do this kind of thing.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks




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Well as far as visors go PETG is the type of plastic that people go for visors. Its glass clear and can be dyed with fabric dyes.

Eva foam builds for body parts work pretty well so you can take that route. Eva foam is only difficult when you have a lot of tiny, angular, details.
 
As I am new, I'm very ignorant in many regards, so I'v been merely looking at a bunch of info and doing trial and error since I don't have any friends that do this kind of thing.

Best thing you can do. If you are going to devote time, money, and energy into something, it's best to take your time and study it out. That way you have an idea of where you're going and what you're doing.

As for weapons, I'm a little mixed how I feel about using pep at all. There's too much tendency to warp and sink and fold, and it takes a long time and blah blah blah.... What I recommend is using a combination of a lot of other methods. A little pepakura is great, but barrels can be made out of pipe, PVC, broomstick handles, surplus barrels from army surplus stores (Just kidding, not really) or anything else that is straight and rigid. I like to use the barrel / blade / whatever is the base to keep the whole project straight and even.

I tried making an MA5 out of cardboard as one of my first builds, and it worked great until I hardened it. I didn't have a barrel inserted, or anything else to help it keep shape, and when I went to harden it, it warped all over the place.

Foam has its own issues, though, I'm sure. I can't offer much advice on the subject though, since my experience with it is limited. I would use the same procedure, though, building each step on top of the previous one:

1) Barrel / blade / whatever to be the central base and keep things aligned.
2) Rough details and basic shapes build around it.
3) Basic details, if possible.
4) Harden.
5) Final details.
6) Finish (clear coat, paint and weathering, etc...)

That's just what I think, though. You'll come to find your own niche, and if it works for you, it works for you!

Good luck, man. Can't wait to see what you come up with!
 
Crackhead: PETG and Fabric dye, okay. I'll give that a shot. Any tips for forming it? Heat gun?

And yeah and EVA sounds the way to go.

Sean: Sounds good and I appreciate the insight, I like the PVC idea thanks a ton guys i should've done this sooner! lol.
 
well PETG is usually for vacuum forming. I have never tried to shape it. But heat gun is more than enough to get it to shape.
 
Crackhead: PETG and Fabric dye, okay. I'll give that a shot. Any tips for forming it? Heat gun?
PETG is good for a visor but if you're going to use a fabric dye, make sure it's a poly dye so that it bonds to the plastic. Using a poly dye requires heat so expect your PETG to deform slightly when adding it to the dye bath.

And yeah and EVA sounds the way to go.
EVA is definitely a good choice but definitely poses it's own set of challenges. If you've never worked with it before start small and work your way up to larger pieces.

Sean: Sounds good and I appreciate the insight, I like the PVC idea thanks a ton guys i should've done this sooner! lol.
Adding on to this, buried PVC is great but for knives and other thin ridges adding in hardboard or sheet plastic stiffeners is a good idea to keep EVA from bending and creasing. Sometimes flexibility is good, sometimes not so it depends on the prop.
 
PETG is good for a visor but if you're going to use a fabric dye, make sure it's a poly dye so that it bonds to the plastic. Using a poly dye requires heat so expect your PETG to deform slightly when adding it to the dye bath.

RIT is the only fabric dye that comes to mind for me, is that good stuff?

well PETG is usually for vacuum forming. I have never tried to shape it. But heat gun is more than enough to get it to shape.

Yeah, I don't have a Vacuum forming device, so I'll give a heat gun a shot first.

Again you guys are great thanks a ton for the advice. I'll try to upload some images in a few hours and show where I'm at. Need to get off work first.
 
RIT is the only fabric dye that comes to mind for me, is that good stuff?
I used Idye Poly for my Soldier 76 Visor and I liked that, Rit has a line of DyeMore dyes that appear to be similar for synthetics and plastics but it comes as a liquid as opposed to the Idye powder base.
 
So I uploaded the helmet. (Finally sorry a bit busy) Only half is weathered, what do you guys think?

Remember, it's my first be gentle. Lol
 
be gentle

Kay. Savage mode: disengaged.

For a first attempt it looks pretty cool. I'm not deeply familiar with the helmet you're building but I think it needs some more panels and splashes of colour along with the weathering to break up the uniformity and really make things pop. Painting which is the last step in a build for most folks is honestly the make or break point for cool factor so you might as well go all in!

Armour works best if it tells a story and right now yours shows that you are part of Red Team and have banged your head a couple of times or left the helmet in a kit trunk on the back of a Warthog and it rolled around and scuffed it up. More grime! More personalization!
 
I'll second what TurboCharizard is saying. Use dark colors to add contrast. Browns and blacks that will help highlight the red. It looks good, though. Gonna be pretty slick when you get it finished.
 
I was trying for just a really worn helmet. I was thinking about plasma scarring like it had been shot at. Some the areas that are exposed silver make little sense to me should I just cover them up with browns and blacks? At this stage I still really don't have a theme. I wanted to do a sand spartan, but the red looked so much better than the tan I couldn't resist.
 
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