Hey I got a few Quick Q's for all of you Veterans.

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Hey Guys My name is Adam, but you can call me Beck.
I have done tons of Modeling action fig customizing and a bit of costuming. I definatly know my way around Clays, Styrene, Molds and Resin. I even do custom head sculpts for my custom figures.

I Have been looking at these Chief custom suits and I must say, some of these just blow my mind.
My best friend and I are Sci-fi nuts, and therefore have been doing things like this(well not as complicated) for a while.
I was Looking at the Pep designs, but there is too little detail in those suits. I was thinking originally that I would start with a Pep suit, fiberglass it, then Use bondo or other putties to add the detail to the armor. Then I realized that the adding of bondo will throw the proportions off. Therefore I began thinkin' "Would Styrene be the way to go"....... :cautious:

By first basing my armor off of a Pep plan I can then go into making it in Styrene. However My Hobby town only carries small sheets and at a ridiculously high price, so once more is this the way to go. Would I be able to get a high amount of Detail in these builds?? Money is not overly abundant as I'm only 17, but I do know styrene can be bought in the form of yard signs and in just plain old 4' length sheets(i dunno if theres a plastics dist. in my city)

Also I'm not a muscular guy, just average. Chief on the other hand, is a monster, a BEAST. :lol: Are these pep plans small enough that they give that Muscular look, but will be tight enough to fit a normal guy, or will these need to be padded.

Finally. Molding in Silicone IS EXPENSIVE.... like I said I do not have a ton of money. So vacu-forming came to mind. I looked through the molded section and could not find any Tuts on it. Any help? Do you make 2 piece molds in the vacu-former then cast it?? or is the actual Vacuforming the amor..... o_O

oohh one more. Where do you guys get the ribbed inner thighs on the armor, is that a seperate piece or is that built into the armor?

Well There we have it. Those are just the first Questions That I was wondering about. I greatly appreciate the help that you can all supply. I'm here to learn :lol:

Beck
 
first off, welcome.

you seem to have done a fair bit of research already which is awesome, alot of people just come on here begging people to tell them things that are already explained, you're already ahead of the game.

A lot of people do use styrene to make their armor and to me it seems like a really good way to go if you're handy with that sort of thing. If you do decide to use the pep route make sure you read the tuts on how to make mjolnir armor with pep, they'll explain about how chief is a 7ft monster and we are but mere mortals and the scaling on pep so it can fit us properly (look at my avatar, i'm 5'8" 145lbs) scale the arms and legs slightly less than the chest and groin and the head slightly more. like you said some will need to be padded, the forearm for example will be way too tight on the wrist and floppy towards the elbow if you do it right haha, so there are parts that needed to be padded and some that require creative strapping.

yes silicone molding is expensive, its the best way to go about the molding if you decide to go that route. vacuuforming isnt typically good for MC armor, there are alot of sharp angles and vacuuforming doesnt capture them very well, Rob Westerfield of westerfield studios on ebay does vaccuuforming, so you might try him for reference on that, Or just read a storm trooper Tut, everything of theirs is vacuuformed.

the ribbed inner thighs arent on the pep files i think do to sizing issues, if you do decide to make molded armor, you can just sculpt them on their and cast them like the rest.

hope I helped. and welcome again.
 
Pep and Bondo will not necessarily throw off your proportions if you layer it, as in building it up, and a lot of the bigger pieces, like the chest and back wont need much Bondo application, just some details added because they are mostly large flat surfaces. The parts where you will get into trouble are the thighs and Helmet... as they are curved surfaces and we know how pep looks where it's supposed to be curved. Honestly though it can be done... I created my first Helm from a pep base and a lot of work later its smooth and detailed, and I now can make molds of it as well, which I have done.

Now if you just pile on Bondo products and try to sand it down to shape like its clay, your proportions will be thrown off... but then how many suits are you trying to make. It may just be easier and more economical to find someone you can purchase your suit from, pre-built, because it will take a fair bit of money just to get into the game of being able to make duplicates of a suit you create. My Helmet project alone put me back almost $700 and 3 weeks of my free time, and that was just to make the first molded copy. I am now over $1000 into it now that I have bought some more material, and I have created 2 complete built helmets for me, 2 being built, and several more pulls for friends... granted one was a bad pull, and one pull was my test dummy for toughness...
 
Check out BlindSquirrel's blog. He built his own MC suit out of styrene back in '05 from scratch without a community like ours for support. I think our latest pep helmets have surpassed his, but his styrene construction techniques are impressive. I like the detail of his arm and leg pieces. IMHO a hybrid armor of Pep/styrene is the next evolutionary step toward the perfection of molded armor.

-dwoo
 
Spase said:
My Helmet project alone put me back almost $700 and 3 weeks of my free time, and that was just to make the first molded copy. I am now over $1000 into it now that I have bought some more material, and I have created 2 complete built helmets for me, 2 being built, and several more pulls for friends... granted one was a bad pull, and one pull was my test dummy for toughness...

Thanks Spase, I actually talked with a few Prototyping businesses in my area. Vacu-forming is one of their specialties(and at a low, low, low cost, you can rent it for half an hour for like 30 bucks)!
I have done Tons of stuff with Styrene before, so this wont be a very big set back for myself.
They also Sell 4' by 6' sheet styrene for about 20 dollars a sheet. (TAKE THAT HOBBY TOWN):lol:

Thanks A bunch

Beck
 
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