Motivated To Build My First Halo Suit

[lizerb]

Hey guys I have been a member of the 405th for a long time, I have been inactive for awhile now. Anyways I am motivated to start a build of my Halo 3 Spartan. I just have a few questions. I have looked over multiple tutorials by the way.

1. What piece should I start on? I was thinking the ODST helmet.

2. How long would it take for a noob to create a full suit? School is starting real soon and I don't mind taking long breaks between production.

3. How much resin and cloth would I need for a whole suit?

I think I know of almost everything I need, its just how much of everything. Thanks in advance for the replies.

 

[Snortellini]

1. I would recommend starting on easier pieces that you can screw up more on, like the forearms or shins.

2. Well it depends mostly on the complexity of the pieces you choose, HD pieces will take more time and you can screw up more on these pieces causing more time to be used up. But remember there is no wasted time with pepakura because even if you do screw up a piece your abilities with folding, cutting and pasting grow as well.

3. It's hard to say how much resin and cloth you will need for your suit, my friend and I just kind of winged it with those supplies honestly, if we needed more we just bought more. Be prepared to empty your wallet because there are some mandatory supplies you'll need, respirators at Home Depot costed about 30 bucks (you really need to buy a respirator if you haven't already.)

 

[Katsu]

1) If you have never done a build you may want to try and MD or LD helmet. Whether HD MD or LD, the ODST is always a nice one to start with because they always have fairly simple geometry for building. I love the Kirrou helmet as it's very close to the H3:ODST version, but there are some neat Reach ones also.

2) It depends on the work you want to put in and the method. I see it like this...
a) Pepakura + Just fiberglass: About a week for a full suit if you can pep quickly.
b) Pep + fiberglass + bondo: Depending on your ability to sculpt, 2 months to a year. Efficiency is very important for this, but it gets better results than foam with less skill... just more time.
c) Foam alone: About a week to get meh results. You need to be really careful and slow to get straight cuts that line up. This method is fast for everyone but really needs artistic skill to master.
d) Foam + plastidip: Foam alone is not very strong, for long term armor you need to coat it in plastic. It's not a long process but it might get expensive.

3) Two square yards of fiberglass cloth is a good starting point. You can buy it cheap if you shop around. I get it for like 5$ a square yard, which is reasonable to me. If you want a really strong suit, you may want three or four square yards. Resin depends on whether you want to do rondo or not. If you are JUST fiberglassing, one to two cans will cover you. If you also want to rondo, you'll run through the resin quickly.

If you ever have specific questions, it's always good to ask in the "HELP! For XXXX" threads at the top, not only does it keep clutter out of the noob build threads, but it also highlights your question so veterans can answer it (They don't all scroll the noob threads), and also leaves the answer at the top of the page so future people can see it too!

 

[lizerb]

Thanks guys for the feedback, I guess its a good thing that I work at a hardware store and get my employee discount lawl! I would like to do all HD pieces. I downloaded all the pep files and everything, I guess I will do the smaller pieces first to get a feeling with the process. And when I feel comfortable work on the harder pieces. One thing I am worried about though is the detailing, I watched a vid on it but it still eludes me.