Mark IV (Gen 1) Build

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thatdamnjodie

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Hi guys, not sure if this belongs under the new recruits category as I'm long-time lurker, as my first post finally coming out of the shadows, I have some build goodies.

As a bit of backstory, I've made four Spartan suits in the recent three years, including a Master Chief made of yoga foam, before stupid me learnt that it wasn't actually EVA foam - huge regrets; a Linda-058 made from scratch and EVA foam before any armour files were uploaded, it looked awful but I take a lot of pride in the hand-made crunchy process; and a Prefect, which I had just semi-finished before starting my most recent project on Alice-130 from Halo Wars!

I used files from the archive which were originally pep (credit to all original creators, you guys rock), so as a personal preference I converted them to foam. I started from bottom to top, which isn't usually how I start my builds as I like getting the bigger, more complex parts out of the way first such as the chest piece and helmet.​
I haven't bought shoes to stick them to just yet, as I want to detail and paint them first. I also fill my gaps with Chromacryl texture/modelling paste. Probably an odd alternative to using body filler but so far I've found it works for me, and it helps keep my builds under reasonable budget. Might end up switching to body filler soon though.

Here's a mistake I made, being too excited, I rushed into painting parts without a coat of primer first. Though I did seal the parts with PVA glue first, I'm forcing myself to save the painting for last. Gotta buy some more primer, stop being lazy!

Here you can tell I'm beginning to struggle with keeping my build progressing from the ground up, because I was too excited to wait on starting that nice and bulky shoulder pauldron.


From looking at reference images I saw that it sits atop the normal shoulder piece. I began building one shoulder but didn't have time to take pictures of it before I left town. Seeing that I have to borrow my mum's printer (and ink), it was an arduous process to drag my half-dead laptop over to her desk, set everything up, print the files, and then realize that I scaled the parts too small. So as a lazy alternative, I drew the shoulder pattern by hand, and it looks pretty good so far. I can't wait to show you guys next time.

The same scaling error happened with the shin parts, so I have put those aside for last and moved up with building the thighs.


Did I mention how much I love detailing with craft foam?
The thighs will need a small adjustment however, as they surprisingly just barely squeeze around my legs. I have a general idea of how to scale in pepakura, but sometimes I'll get the length of a part correct (e.g. shins) but the width turns out too small. If anyone can offer me some input for that I would appreciate it a lot!

Also you might already notice that I don't bevel my parts, and it bugs me too. Sadly I don't own a rotary tool at home (yet) so my suits suffer a little without those nice and dimensional edges. My partner owns two, so hopefully I'll be able to borrow one of his before I stamp the project as finished!


Next up, the codpiece. Sorry for the mess, I found this a little tricky. Firstly, the front turned out way too big for my waist so I had to cut it down - but I may just end up redoing the lot later before it gets "adjusted" beyond recognition. The backside looks great, but again, I may just redo the whole thing. Learning curve!

As another personal preference, I made my helmet with pep. I unfolded an .obj file, which sadly I can't credit as it wasn't found on the 405th forums - it popped up on google images on a rather shady site. I was too picky about the other helmets in the archive, which all look great btw! - I was just very surgical about accuracy.


My unfolding skills are still hilariously amateur so don't ask me for my unfold. Trust me, you will hate it. A lot of frustration and confusion went into putting that bucket together, and it's still not 100% finished because of it!
As for the visor, I'm not sure where to go with that. I found a quirky method of using a plastic juice bottle rather than buying a visor online - but then there's the issue of how to tint it gold. So I'm stuck there.

Moving on to the best part that I'm most proud of. You'll see now why I love craft foam so much.


Hell yeah.
I'm still working on detail adjustments, but this is what makes the Mark IV my proudest project. I give huge props to Abgates and SoullessSin for an awesome job modelling and unfolding the chest piece. It was stress-free and I had a ton of fun working with it. It still needs connecting parts at the bottom sides and more accurate detailing, but otherwise I would be happy to redo it in case it needs to be bigger to compliment other parts of the suit. :)

That's all I have for today. If anyone has some input or criticism I would love to hear it! It's on a small hiatus at the moment but hopefully I can get back into the thick of it soon. (y)
 
UPDATE!!!

Got progress pics of the normal shoulder. I free-handed the blueprints because I currently lack a printer with ink. The detailing may need redoing however as it was a rushed job.

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I noticed the shoulder looks different in Halo Wars 2 so I might experiment with both styles as I make the other shoulder piece.
bust_3 copy.jpg


I picked out a whole lot of other differences in both games, especially the chest piece with minor detail additions and all. Since I don't expect to deploy the suit until June at Sydney Supanova I'll have plenty of time for changes and adjustments -- Can't wait for those reference images to pour in upon game release!

That's all for now as I'm currently busy with personal life and work will be returning soon, but I hope to get back into the thick of it again next week!
 
thank you so much for that link!!! i had searched all over lol, work is looking good my friend, dont give up!
 
You're doing some fine progress there!

Also, as for difference between Halo Wars 1 and 2 - there are still GEN1 MJOLNIR armors.
Only Halo 5 features GEN2 Mark IV armor.

- Mara
 
Wow, great FoamFu!!!!!! Your detail foam really brings the whole picece together. Fantastic!!!!
 
Looks awesome to me!! Though I'm working on my first armor myself along with my husband, I've been around this stuff for a few years now....Love it!!
 
LONG OVERDUE UPDATE!!!

Thanks everyone for your comments, I'm sorry I didn't get back to you all. Life has been very busy for the past few months, which delayed my build progress a LOT. But in the past two days I managed to throw together a bucket for Alice. :) This was my first foam build of a helmet rather than the painstaking process of pepping, and the difference in time consumption was a massive difference!

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The file I used came from the hi res version in the 405th archive, modeled by drgon47 and unfolded by jerryboberri224. However, I was really hesitant about pepping the helmet, as I've had nightmarish experiences trying to pep hi res helmets. So I converted it to foam and gave it a go.

Here was the entire build progress which I kept a ridiculously strong track of:
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I built the helmet in sections, from top, front/sides, and back. Here they are laid out before the final assembly began (prepare your necks, it's sideways!):
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I had the most fun constructing the back piece, as it came together so smoothly. I saved those iconic pointy bits of the helmet for last. Then I gave the whole thing a once-over with a seal of heat, hence the glossy shine.

And as I anticipated, the helmet just barely fits me. I'll have to make the back piece detachable by a hook and loop to fit my head through, nothing too major. :)

It's not totally flawless, but for a first attempt at a foam helmet, I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially in two days' time! I'll save the visor and painting for last when the remaining armour pieces are completed. I still have to make alterations to the front ports of the helm where I'll be replacing the foam with black mesh so that I can breathe without fogging up the visor, and hell yes, I will be installing lights on those side parts. ;)

That's all I have for now. The remaining parts to build are shoulders/biceps, waist/codpiece, gauntlets, then shins. This time I'll make sure I keep this thread updated as I go. I've got a deadline of less than four weeks to finish my suit and help my partner finish his Chief build.

Pray for me!
 
Next piece up is rebuilding the codpiece. I wasn't happy at all with the scaling of the first attempt. Now I'm halfway through the second attempt, with the back plate completed and looking mighty fine.

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I will have to make extensions to the sides as I want to make sure the overall scale looked correct without the piece being too big and loose around my waist. I'll be getting back into it after work tomorrow morning and aim to have the whole piece finished before nightfall. :)
 
It took a while but I got one gauntlet done today so far. I had too much trouble trying to make a decent build with the original Mark IV gauntlet file, having a three-week deadline and all. So I got my partner SierraI07 to extract the gauntlet file from Halo 5, unfolded it myself, and gave it a go after a few scaling attempts. It's got a fair few differences of course, but I found it a lot easier to work with!
fold1.PNG


For a comparison between the two versions. Obviously Halo 5's gauntlet is rounder, not entirely identical but it still has the main details.
comp.PNG


My arms are literally the smallest part of my body so they're annoying to scale along with my shins. They always come out either too long or too wide. I'll still have to put some foam on the inside to tighten the fit, but this is as good as it's going to get with the short time frame that I have.
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I'll be trying to finish the second gauntlet tonight and moving straight to the shins tomorrow which are already unfolded and ready to print. After that it will just be the biceps, installing inserts on the codpiece along with buckles, then all pieces are ready for painting!
 
Last update before the final stretch of building. I'm currently on the second shin and then I'll only have the biceps/shoulders left to go.

As with the gauntlets, I decided to use the Halo 5 build of the Mark IV for the shin and knee files. It was just a building preference, as the original shins have been tricky for me to build with the correct scale. I'm still learning as I go with unfolding files, but here's the end result!
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This along with other pieces will require a fair bit of gap filler, and while I'm very happy with the end result here, I feel odd for mixing my suit with two different versions, and I'm especially picky about not being entirely accurate to the original Halo Wars style. The knee pads are very distinguishable between HW and 5, so I might end up using an original file to rebuild them. I don't regret the gauntlets though, trying to wrap my head around those files and converting them to a comprehensible foam build was killing my confidence. :p

The good news is that I'm almost finished! It's just the biceps after this shin is out of the way, then painting and fitting everything to the undersuit. Alice-130 will be ready for Sydney Supanova next weekend!!
 
Last update! Suit is completed and had a successful deployment at Sydney Supanova!! There's still pics rolling out which may take a while but I'll try and upload as many as I can for everyone to enjoy. So far here's my favourites!

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Test fitting part one, still had to paint the emblem plus weathering, and attach velcro

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Test fitting part two, at the hotel

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Deploying with members of the Australian regiment

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Foreshadowing my next cosplay ;)

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Height reference, LOL

Here's my observations of the suit's performance.

PROS:
- Boots lasted the ENTIRE day of the con, only one began to come apart once I got back to the hotel
- Velcro worked wonders for my lower body, nothing came loose
- Legs were surprisingly durable and free to move in, I couldn't kneel too much but I could still bend my knees far enough to get some good poses for photos
- I could also jog, jump and sit perfectly
- No fogging problems inside the helmet, as I had gaps with mesh inserted which helped air out the helmet

CONS:
- Helmet was annoying to put on or take off, as it was just barely big enough for my head and it put a bit of stress on the visor
- Shoulders kept sliding down or slightly backwards, despite all the velcro I used, the pauldron was especially troublesome as it was heavy
- Less freedom with my arms due to chest piece, I couldn't cross my arms or reach my shoulders to readjust them
- Thighs seemed a bit lacking without undersuit pieces
- Kneepads were not positioned symmetrically

Overall, I was super proud of my finished result. I'd like to make improvements on Alice over time, as I'd love to continue wearing her at future cons. Improvements such as including an undersuit (especially for the thighs and to cover my spaghetti gut), making the chest piece a bit thicker and less two dimensional, and ordering that Jerome helmet from Disguise to repaint and use - that way it'll fit much better and I can have that perfectly curved visor!

That's about it. I hope to add more photos in this thread as they emerge, we did a massive 405th photoshoot on the Saturday so stay tuned!
 
Looks great! I love all the photos, especially the ones from the convention :D

Can I ask though, how did you do the helmet? I saw you unfolded it yourself and then built it from paper first, but what did you do to convert it to foam? Was it a process of holding the foam up against the paper model and kind of dissecting it ,or did you have a process of converting the paper unfold to a foam one?
 
Looks great! I love all the photos, especially the ones from the convention :D

Can I ask though, how did you do the helmet? I saw you unfolded it yourself and then built it from paper first, but what did you do to convert it to foam? Was it a process of holding the foam up against the paper model and kind of dissecting it ,or did you have a process of converting the paper unfold to a foam one?

Glad you asked! I did originally unfold a pepakura/paper file for the helmet but it had a lot of problems with it (being a hi res file, those tiny detail pieces were a major pain), so I unfolded it again from scratch and this time for foam.

The process is indeed just conversion to foam, removing the flaps and joining pieces, but it does help to start a paper draft just to test scaling and see how parts join or fold. I still found my helmet to be a bit warped and awkwardly shaped.

I wasn't able to save my foam file for the helmet but I would be happy to do it again so that others can use it. My unfolding skills still need lots of work though so my method isn't perfect and adjustments might be required for personal preference :)
 
Glad you asked! I did originally unfold a pepakura/paper file for the helmet but it had a lot of problems with it (being a hi res file, those tiny detail pieces were a major pain), so I unfolded it again from scratch and this time for foam.

The process is indeed just conversion to foam, removing the flaps and joining pieces, but it does help to start a paper draft just to test scaling and see how parts join or fold. I still found my helmet to be a bit warped and awkwardly shaped.

I wasn't able to save my foam file for the helmet but I would be happy to do it again so that others can use it. My unfolding skills still need lots of work though so my method isn't perfect and adjustments might be required for personal preference :)

Ahh thanks for that. I wanna do my Hellcat helmet but it's also a hi-res file so there's waaayyy too many tiny pieces to realistically cut out and craft. So the main things for converting to foam are just joining more faces and removing flaps? Sounds surprisingly easy haha (thought I'm sure it won't be lol) It's getting to the point where I'm tempted to recreate the helmet by kind of tracing over it in sketchup or whatever in order to simplify it for unfolding.
 
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