Kids Halloween Costume

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SevereBruizer

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First, a mild rant. Being a noob on this forum doesn't equal being stupid. This post really belongs in Pepakura, but since I haven't posted before, it's relegated to the noob forum where no one will see it. [nevermind, Doom was kind enough to move it :) ]

Second, my armor is basically done. A hearty UNSC salute to the posters on the Pepakura forum. My oldest son wanted to be Master Chief for Halloween. Without your tutorials and pictures I would never have dreamed of building the armor or even know where to start. I didn't follow the tutorials exactly, but I couldn't have done it without your help. I only managed to Bondo the helmet and chestpiece. I ran out of time to do the arms and legs perfectly, but after painting, and in the dark, no one really noticed.

Third, my son wore the armor yesterday for Halloween. I work at Microsoft and we have trick or treating in our buildings for our kids. Everyone who saw the costume said it was <ul>[*]amazing[*]the best home-made costume ever [*]great[*]best costume seen[*]and did I say amazing?[/list]He then wore it trick or treating in our neighbordhood and got many oohs and ahhs from neighborhood kids and parents.

I put some tips at the end based on my own experiences.

Here are some pix of the final product:

http://www.99centtemplates.net/images/MC1.jpg

http://www.99centtemplates.net/images/MC2.jpg

Last, here's some tips based on my experience creating Pepakura armor:
1) ALWAYS resin the cardstock before doing anything else. I forgot to on a couple of pieces and it sags with the weight of fiberglass later.
2) You can put the fiberglass on the outside too, not just the inside. If you're scaling the costume down, it's really hard to work with on the inside since the armor is smaller.
3) Wherever you put it, one easy way is to use Elmer's spray adhesive to attach the fiberglass cloth to the cardstock form. Once it's completely covered in the fiberglass cloth, it's easier to resin.
4) Tape the cloth to the inside. It's easier than trimming it off later.
5) Use sharp scissors when cutting the fiberglass cloth. Keeps the cloth from fraying.
6) You don't need to get a gold visor. If you get a smoke colored visor, you can spray some gold paint in the air and wave the visor through it to "dust" in gold. Looks great.
7) For an authentic MC color scheme, try using these paint colors in this order:
<blockquote>
  1. Base coat - Rustoleum Painter's Touch Hunter Green Gloss
  2. Second light dusting coat - Rustoleum Painter's Touch Gloss
  3. Third dusting coat - Rustoleum Metallic Gold Gloss
  4. Final coat - Clearcoat acrylic or lacquer any brand (I used Rustoleum)
</blockquote>
 
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Awesome, Glad it worked out!

Moved to the Pepakura section under your request :) . Takes 50 post's to make topics elsewhere just incase you were curious. Just to let you know though, The Noob section is really our most active section at the moment ;).

-Doom
 
Not to be nit picky or anything, but you dont fiberglass the outside, just inside, but overall, it does look nice and clean, good job.
 
AoBfrost said:
Not to be nit picky or anything, but you dont fiberglass the outside, just inside, but overall, it does look nice and clean, good job.
I commented on that. The armor was scaled down to a 9 year old size. I tried putting it inside, but my big fat man hands kept catching strands of sticky, resined fiberglass and pulling it out. It was just too messy and the space was too tight to do it that way. So, I flipped it to the outside. If I had used the Elmer's spray adhesive from the beginning, it might have worked, but I didn't think of that until later on.
 
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Awesome job for your first armor... Now that halloween is over, you may want to try to body filler over the fiberglass and make it smooth.. Great job none the less!!! Great accomplishment eh?!?! :lol:
 
awesome work on the kid size armor.

I just loaded a few post-halloween pics of my youngest, 4yr old, in the gallery. The 7 and 10 yr olds were still at school. Will have to re-stage with all three for some glamour shots in their battle scarred (trick-or-treating) armor.

I went the paper mache route for their armor b/c no need to make it permanent since they will outgrow it and with p-m the kids actually got to help with the build a little.
 
My oldest is almost 10, got one coming along that is 7. He'll wear it next year or following. I figured with at least two more games coming out (Halo Wars and Peter Jackson's project) and the fact that the movie is quietly moving along in pre-production, that the costume would have a long enough shelf life to sell on eBay in a year or two. Before next year, I'll Bondo the rest to smooth it out. I had planned to add a fan in the helmet to give a little fresh air, do a better job on the black hose valves on the front and add some LEDs on the helmet sides. I also wanted to glue some black vinyl or rubber into the indentions on the arms and chest armor to give it a more dimensional realistic look. Alas, a wife, 3 kids and a full time job limited what I could pull off in 6 weeks (after all, Halo 3 came out too, so I had "deal" with that too). Now I've got 12 months to get it done right.
 
Thanks

I personally wasn't happy that it wasn't a professional, movie-grade costume, especially before I painted it. But after painting, it looked alot better. Some of the "movie" posters for Halo 3 shows the armor being really pitted, so I told everyone the nicks and indentations were "by design". But, I hope to get it perfect for my 2nd son to wear next year.
 
omfg ummm just a question does he live in portland?????? just wondering cause the last pic on the bridge looks exactly like a mall brinde ive crossed before...
 
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