New here and I came with questions!

[TehOmbra]

Hey guys,
I've been lurking here on and off for a couple years while I debated whether or not I wanted to invest the time and money into making my own armor. Now that I have more disposable income, and a bit of free time on my hands I thought now would be the best time to dive into this amazing art and hope with my lack of skills I'll be able to do something decent. I have a list of questions and concerns and thought it would be best to throw them all into one thread instead of posting them individually.

1) Is there a good place to start? By this I mean should I start making a small weapon or something to get a grasp of the process before tackling something larger like a suit?

2) I'm torn between making something from halo or metroid and I stumbled across this really old thread: http://www.405th.com/f28/metroid-other-m-3d-models-27892/ I was thinking of doing the galactic federation and haven't been able to find a model for it. Does anybody have any suggestions on where I could find the model, or tips on how to go about ripping assets from a wii game?

3) What is the average cost of a build? I'd like to have a general idea so I can set aside adequate funds.

4) In terms of making the base for the suit, is pepping better than 3d printing? I have access to a 3d printer and a silhouette cameo. I saw a thread on here about using the cameo and it looked pretty awesome. My thoughts are both tools might help me get started.

 

[Mr Boombas]

hey man welcome. i have been working on this stuff sense last year and i can deferentially tell you that you need to start small. when i first got into this i went head first into making an armor, at the time i thought i was doing good then just recently i saw that my work was actually messy. so take your time and start off with something small like pepping grenades or a marine helmet or something and get use to it and doing it right then working on fibreglassing or body filler or whatever you use, so yeah start small. 2nd, out of halo and metroid i'd go with halo as it has more options and you can deferentially find something. 3rd, it depends on the materials you are using. pepakura you have to factor in paper, resin, matting ect and i don't even know what to do for 3d printing, so it depends on your means on working on your armor. for me it's 12 buck for paper and then like $30-50 for a fibreglass kit. and 4trh it depends on the resources available to you and the time and cost it takes. regardless like i said before you will need practice. so my opinion would be to try both and see which one you like better and is more time and cost efficiant as well as its quality. hope this helps you.

 

[Benton188]

Welcome to the group =)
It's safe to say that you should start off with something small, regaurdless of the material you choose to use. The halo 3 Mk IV Handplate is always a good starter piece as it is small, has a few folds, and doesn't take a lot of material. I've worked in 3 materials, fiberglass/foam/and 3D printer, and I find foam to be the easist for almost everything. I still prefer fiberglass for the helmets, but that's just me.
The type of material you choose is definetely going to have an impact on the overall price range, but as a standard it's usually between $100-$200 dollars. Foam is the cheapest, but depending upon how much they charge you to 3D print pieces, it might be cheaper. 3D filament for my printer is $30 per roll, and I can make quite a bit with it. The size of the printer matters as well, cause unless it has a build volume of 2'x2'x2' don't expect a chestpiece in one piece.
As for ripping files.......I haven't a clue. You can ask Elusch99, he's very knowledgable about ripping game files. Hope this answers your questions, and best of luck =)

 

[Theflyingpham]

The type of material you choose is definetely going to have an impact on the overall price range, but as a standard it's usually between $100-$200 dollars. =)

So for a full high quality suit, what would the estimate of that be if you did everything perfectly? Or with like 1-2 retries. a Rough estimate on pricing?