Jorge Build (First pep, build, everything!)

[Reign]

Hey 405th! Great community going on here; I absolutely love it.

wiyumishere and I have been working on our own separate armor sets for a little while now, and I just started making some progress on mine! I've already trashed a codpiece, two shoulders, and a forearm on account of them being too big or too small. BUT, I am starting this thread with a few pictures of my measly progress!

Right Forearm

Torso
There's a ton of warping on the torso, some of which I can fix with bondo (which I am no stranger to), but the rest of the warping will be pretty much unnoticeable in the later stages.

Back of the Torso
Won't be able to see this due to the backpack, but hell, here's the back of the torso.

I'm hoping to get the forearm resined and rondo'd tomorrow, so that should be pretty exciting I suppose

wiyumishere and I have been planning pretty much everything from pepping to visors to custom undersuits to weathering. If you have any advice for a noob, I'd be appreciative to hear it! I do want to say that we are not tackling this without knowing anything, though; we've been reading for a while and know a lot of the basics

CREDITS for pep files (will add as I add pictures):
Forearms - rundown, unfold by McPrimus
Torso - AceHigh, not sure about unfold, my apologies.

 

[Reign]

Sorry for the double post, but do I have editing permissions on my own posts? It's not seeming to want to let me edit my first post. Also, my Photobucket pictures aren't resizing some of the pictures like it did the first one; I've had this problem before but I can't seem to remember how to fix it.

 

[Wolfo217]

very nice clean pep

 

[WVISION]

Nice job.. Don't worry.. I have had about 3 trashed or messed up parts myself. Sometimes I think it takes building one wrong to make the second one look clean.

 

[Shadowshail]

Nice build you got there!

As for editing a post you need to go into the advanced editor to edit something if it is not working just by hitting the edit button. To reach the advanced edit area just click on the Go Advanced button on the bottom of the edit box that appears after you hit the plain old edit button.

 

[Ral Partha]

Also, my Photobucket pictures aren't resizing some of the pictures like it did the first one; I've had this problem before but I can't seem to remember how to fix it.

When you get to your Photobucket account, right below the green box that says "Upload Images and Videos", click on "(more options)" and choose "Large" or anything smaller. This will reduce the size of your uploaded pic, however big, to this setting.

 

[Burns]

Reign, i totally feel you on the warping issue! i just finished my first full spartan two days ago. it would have been done a long time ago if not for the warping issue. i think i made enought pieces for 3 suits all together lol. ways i found to reduce warping are to first stuff the piece with bunched up newspaper, and second, put on several thin layers as opposed to one or two thick layers of your fiberglass. good luck man.

 

[Reign]

very nice clean pep

Thanks! It looks a lot better in the pictures than it does in real life, hahah...

Nice job.. Don't worry.. I have had about 3 trashed or messed up parts myself. Sometimes I think it takes building one wrong to make the second one look clean.

Yeah, a second one always comes out a lot better, as I've learned with the shoulder and forearm. Speaking of the shoulder (right), does anyone have any tips as to where I should start so that it doesn't come out warped?

Nice build you got there!

As for editing a post you need to go into the advanced editor to edit something if it is not working just by hitting the edit button. To reach the advanced edit area just click on the Go Advanced button on the bottom of the edit box that appears after you hit the plain old edit button.

Thanks, and thanks for the help! That should save me some frustration

When you get to your Photobucket account, right below the green box that says "Upload Images and Videos", click on "(more options)" and choose "Large" or anything smaller. This will reduce the size of your uploaded pic, however big, to this setting.

Yeah, I had resized it to width 500 in the editor, but for some reason some of the pictures have to "refresh" or something similar. They always show up as the right size in Photobucket, but when I stick them somewhere, they're the original size for a few hours.

Reign, i totally feel you on the warping issue! i just finished my first full spartan two days ago. it would have been done a long time ago if not for the warping issue. i think i made enought pieces for 3 suits all together lol. ways i found to reduce warping are to first stuff the piece with bunched up newspaper, and second, put on several thin layers as opposed to one or two thick layers of your fiberglass. good luck man.

Great job! Yeah, warping has been a huge pain in the neck, but I don't think I can bring myself to remake this torso. The newspaper thing sounds like a great idea...I may very well try that out for this torso. The way it is now, it doesn't sit straight when I just leave it alone. It pulls to one side, but I can pull it (which is what I was doing in the picture of the back of the torso) and it will straighten out and be perfectly aligned. Thanks!

 

[wiyumishere]

wooooooo, almost done with another piece when reign sees this he'll get mad haha

 

[Reign]

ANOTHER ONE? I have freaking two, hahah.

 

[Reign]

Finished up the forearm rondo...has quite a bit of warping, but I can fix some of it with rondo and the top will be covered by the attachment...no problem, hopefully!

 

[M071]

Your pep work looks really clean in the photos but you argue in real life that’s not the case lol I had some warped pieces also. I found gluing some card stock supports on the inside to help pull or support the pieces made a huge difference and this weekend after a few coats of resin on the outside I’ll find out if it does the trick so I can cut them out and fiberglass inside . I’m just a noob so I don’t know if my advice is worth much . You said you have lots of experience with Bondo so looking forward to seeing how they come out.

 

[Burns]

i had the same problem with my torso reign. frankly, i found no good way to keep it straight. the back ended up sunken in pretty bad on one side, so when it was dry, i stacked a crap-load of bondo on the low spots and shaped it straight with a sander and a dremmel. good luck man, i'll be looking forward to your pics!

 

[Reign]

Your pep work looks really clean in the photos but you argue in real life that’s not the case lol I had some warped pieces also. I found gluing some card stock supports on the inside to help pull or support the pieces made a huge difference and this weekend after a few coats of resin on the outside I’ll find out if it does the trick so I can cut them out and fiberglass inside . I’m just a noob so I don’t know if my advice is worth much . You said you have lots of experience with Bondo so looking forward to seeing how they come out.

Yeah, the torso came out pretty badly (partly because I had no numbers to line up; numbers are making all these peps so much easier), but I'm finding it's pretty easy to get the exact shape I want by rondoing small sections at a time and holding the piece to shape near a heater or something while the rondo dries. I've only done the top so far, but it worked perfectly. I've got quite a bit more done and will post a big update in a few days!

i had the same problem with my torso reign. frankly, i found no good way to keep it straight. the back ended up sunken in pretty bad on one side, so when it was dry, i stacked a crap-load of bondo on the low spots and shaped it straight with a sander and a dremmel. good luck man, i'll be looking forward to your pics!

I had the exact same problem with the back. It's pushed in and the whole set is lopsided because of it. What I ended up doing (like I said above) was rondo small parts of it at a time (like joints) and hold them in place near a heater in the exact shape I wanted while the rondo dried. It's worked really well so far, but it can get tiring and boring, hahah.

I'm working on the helmet now (which is going very well; not an unaligned piece so far and over halfway done), and will post quite a few pictures in a few days! By then I should have the helmet, both shoulders, both forearms, backpack, and torso near completion!

 

[Reign]

Sorry for the double post; just an update.

Got the helmet pepped (will post pictures later). There are a few parts that are warped and the visor section came out horribly and kinda messed a bit up. probably should have left it out, but whatever. Also, I managed to fold parts of the top the wrong way (it is going inside instead of upwards; I used the wrong colored pens to score the lines) and it has a few parts I really want to get looking better... If anyone knows a good way to keep parts of the helmet pulled a certain way while I rondo it, I would love to know. Also got a different forearm model (thanks Rhinoc) that I'll be using, so I can hopefully get that done soon.

 

[Reign]

TRIPLE POST....apologies.


WARNING: Do NOT (DO NOT) leave pieces that are not rondo'd outside for a few days...any moisture in the air and they will suck it up. So I am sitting here with some incredibly warped pieces, including my right shoulder, backpack, and torso. It is extremely disheartening and so make sure you store all your pieces somewhere where they won't get damaged!!!

Also, I trashed the helmet. It was too warped and too asymmetrical for me to really, really like it.

I'm also considering doing a different build, but I doubt it.

 

[xBeaver Feaver]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Remember that there are no mistakes, just oportunities to learn. Take what experience you can from your builds and use it moving forward. Im looking forward to your Jorge build, as I think that will be my next project. I have only just started myself, and Im not really happy with the outcome thus far, but I keep pushing forward and learning as I go.

M.

 

[Britannicus]

TRIPLE POST....apologies.


WARNING: Do NOT (DO NOT) leave pieces that are not rondo'd outside for a few days...any moisture in the air and they will suck it up. So I am sitting here with some incredibly warped pieces, including my right shoulder, backpack, and torso. It is extremely disheartening and so make sure you store all your pieces somewhere where they won't get damaged!!!

Also, I trashed the helmet. It was too warped and too asymmetrical for me to really, really like it.

I'm also considering doing a different build, but I doubt it.

Strange that they've all warped like that. Sorry to hear that bud! There's a lot of remakes in this build. Jorge is a hard armor build. My suit is taking forever. It's taken two months to get the helmet anywhere near what I want and it still isn't right. Don't get discouraged man, just rebuild again if you want to continue Jorge But yeah I keep my pieces in a ventilated room inside after they've cured. I don't trust fall weather.

 

[Reign]

Strange that they've all warped like that. Sorry to hear that bud! There's a lot of remakes in this build. Jorge is a hard armor build. My suit is taking forever. It's taken two months to get the helmet anywhere near what I want and it still isn't right. Don't get discouraged man, just rebuild again if you want to continue Jorge But yeah I keep my pieces in a ventilated room inside after they've cured. I don't trust fall weather.

Yeah, they've all warped quite a bit. I can fix most of it, though. The torso is going to take quite a bit of work and holding it in place to get it hardened how I want it, hahah. I've been looking at your build, and it looks great so far. I like how the helmet is coming; keep it up And yes, definitely a lot of remakes. Already trashed a helmet, two right shoulders, a codpiece, a forearm, and a bicep. Fun stuff I just printed off about 70 pages of stuff, which takes care of the entire right side of my body except for the thigh (not looking forward to that). I also may end up remaking the left shoulder!

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Remember that there are no mistakes, just oportunities to learn. Take what experience you can from your builds and use it moving forward. Im looking forward to your Jorge build, as I think that will be my next project. I have only just started myself, and Im not really happy with the outcome thus far, but I keep pushing forward and learning as I go.

M.

Thanks man, that's something I've definitely been finding. If I want this done right, I've got to learn from this stuff and make it work. Good luck on your build!

 

[setabkcin]

It's looking good. I hope you can fix the warped pieces.