Non-Halo , But You Guys Seemed The Best Shot At This.

[Kissker]

First off hello and all that fancy introduction stuff.





I have been working on a suit for... off and on, 3 years now. And really don't have much done. The suit has really never been attempted before - or at least not well enough for my high standards. (lots of shoddy jobs and half-hearted attempts)





I frequently check online to see if anyone has done anything closer to my expectations but, sadly, this isn't the case. A while back I finally just gave up lookin for online help and read up about Clay Sculpting to achieve the results I want, making a clay prop, then taking a mold of it, then Fiberglassing the final results (and putting a lot of elbow grease into it to get it smooth and pretty)



The suit is what I like to refer to as Mark I Power Armor, no, not from the fallout series, but rather from Metroid series (giant shoulderpads included.) This is NOT Samus' Suit, although there have been a couple of "good" suits I have saved pictures of, and even spoke to the creators to get some help on my suit. The suit I wish to build was only seen in the Nintendo Power Comics, worn by a "Houston Armstrong" - it is blue and has a upside down V cut into the visor. The suit is very "Square" and "Masculine" compared to Samus' suit, however I have come into many difficulties since only a handful of pictures are available, and even then they are old-style comics and not really 3D material, so I have defaulted to using some of Samus Armor for it, but then sort of making it more square.



I read up on this paper folding program (pep) but I don't think it's going to help too directly since again.. no one has really made this suit 3D or to my knowledge, at all. There is a side project I wanted to do however, that Pep might help with- much lower scale but a lot of curves...



The point of this is to attempt to get some tips from some of the very well made Halo Armorers I have seen and referenced back to this site, and the use of Pep, face it, you guys do some fantastic work, and you shouldn't be too surprised if Prop builders from other Genre Track you down to see what's up.



I currently have a motorcycle helmet, covered in about 15lbs of clay I have been re-sculpting from it's years of abuse. Finally getting it smoothed out somewhat and "even" for each side. The helmet is unwearable at this weight- but I had planned to actually mold it and make a fiberglass shell of it, of course the helmet is large enough to fit my head in, and without the padding (and with the extra 2inches of clay in some areas) this may make this helmet extremely large (too large for use), but I figure get it done anyway and see how it turns out size wise, and perhaps it will work just fine and I'll have ample room inside the dome for wires/led/extra fun gagets (wireless spycam for a helmet cam anyone?) which would make it well worth the 30+ hours I've worked into it already. I may be able to dig up some old OLD pictures of it when I started it to give you ideas what I am working with.



This is kinda just a thread for some support, although it might get shut down not being Halo related (although I plan to make some high quality SPARTAN armor (Halo not 300) after this project is completed, using similar methods with fiberglass and such)



I was also wondering if Pep could maybe help with some of the smaller bits, not the helmet nor the chest/back but the boots and such as I don't have a Dummy my size to work on directly.



I also did another method for the Arm-Cannon, PVC pipe, 1'foam, Bondo, and lots of sanding, + 2 tap lights (went for a Samus looking prop first to learn from since more of her suit is in 3D then his) it still needs major sanding but kinda gives a good idea of the size/shapes for me, I was using it to scale the rest of the suit.

 

[ACDCrockr209]

Do you have any pics to show us?



It would be cool if you did.



-Pony

 

[Kissker]

I'll see what I can dig up or take real quick , was only taking a 20min break before I got back on the helmet lol.



Alright heres some links for ya:



This is a good ref. Picture of the suit at hand - the helmets size changes a lot , from dome round to helmet square, so I just generically went with what seemed to "look good".



Comic



Here is my helmet front/side:

Front

Side



And here is Samus style arm cannon:

Side

Worn



The cannon has a CPU fan wired to some 9v batteries in a square compartment on the bottom - because wearing that thing was hot and I wanted to do some prototype cooling for the final version (so that's what the switch is for - on/off)



Ignore my cheap camera's time, those pictures were just taken for this thread.



And I was afraid to make the helmet too wide, since I plan to do another comic scene's shoulders - they stick up nearly going over the top of the helmet, and I wanted to ensure mobility and that the sides wouldn't cut into one another.

 

[Yttrium]

Pepakura would probably work pretty well for a squared off version of the Samus suit...heck it would probably be easier to make than the Samus suit because you won't have to do all that sanding needed to make the suit smooth and round.

 

[Kissker]

Not exactly sure how I would use Pep on this particular project however, actually in general, just read about it today. No 3D models pre-generated of his suit - I'd either have to default to samus and her curves or start from scratch in some CAD program.





Wouldn't mind from scratch if I could find a CAD I could learn quickly for this... kinda like WorldCrafter to make things... wait... I wonder if I could use world crafter (Hammer) to make parts.. and use the 3D view.... (obvious it wouldn't work directly for Pep, but be a good reference for other modeling)





Honestly I don't mind sanding for 3 weeks to achieve the results, my father's side of the family are pretty much all carpenters and such and my mother's side are Artistic... so I have some crazy blue-print dreams, I used to Hand-sand everything and got pretty good at it through the years, now I save time with Dremels and power sanders. It's just getting this together finally after all the planning, drawing , and attempts (badly failed attempts I might add) I don't expect it done this year, although it would be nice.





Little side note since proportions are so important a scale variable is in place, it appears that in suit- Houston is ~4inches taller then Samus in her suit, although I have forgotten how tall samus was estimated, wasn't she estimated at 5ft 6inches tall?(non suit) and no comment on her increased chest sizes throughout the years, sex sells, and this means icons change.

 

[Flyerfye]

Don't forget that the creation of all new 3D models and pep files for these parts is WELL within the realm of possibility. 99% of the models in Pep from this site have been lovingly crafted by 405th members, or other members of the community. If you can get a modeler and an unfolder interested in your project (or want to learn to do these yourself), all this armor looks like it could definitely be built in Pep.

 

[Kissker]

How sturdy are these Pep paper resin creations? I plan to do a lot of add-ons to this suit (providing power with packs and such, LED screens, LED lighting, Fans and other coolant, sound effects, and a small smoke machine for effects) to my suit, I don't feel the basic resin is going to hold well on the papers for this, not to mention to wear and strut around in, but Pep version could possibly be used to take a mold for a more permanent version, or even better, Vacuforming with a fiberglass inner shell. Not like the extras have already been made and waiting, but it would be nice to go in 110% since I have spent so much time on this project design already, plus as I stated, after this suit is completed I plan to move to other suits, and probably won't do much more with this besides make a stand to hold it in place in the corner.



Let me compile a image with all the available pictures of his suit from the comic.

 

[TyrDropProps]

Well you normally do a fiberglass backing to pep pieces after you resin them to strengthen the paper so you can fiberglass it without warping too much if at all.



The make great sturdy pieces and if you want an even more hardy piece then make a mold of the finished part and then cast it in plastic resin.

 

[Flyerfye]

How sturdy are these Pep paper resin creations? I plan to do a lot of add-ons to this suit (providing power with packs and such, LED screens, LED lighting, Fans and other coolant, sound effects, and a small smoke machine for effects) to my suit, I don't feel the basic resin is going to hold well on the papers for this, not to mention to wear and strut around in, but Pep version could possibly be used to take a mold for a more permanent version, or even better, Vacuforming with a fiberglass inner shell. Not like the extras have already been made and waiting, but it would be nice to go in 110% since I have spent so much time on this project design already, plus as I stated, after this suit is completed I plan to move to other suits, and probably won't do much more with this besides make a stand to hold it in place in the corner.

Pep and resin itself aren't very durable, almost all the armor that gets constructed around here ends up going through fiberglass reinforcement, as well as bondo (which adds a BIT of strength). There are other ways to reinforce the pep to be EXTREMELY strong, especially one described here. I'd recommend this one if you want extremely strong, durable armor without going through the long, somewhat expensive molding process.

 

[Kissker]

oh I know all about bondo - the arm cannon is covered in the stuff. Lol. It has a dent in it (minor fix) from falling 4ft onto a concrete step, but otherwise nothing damaged.





I have compiled just about every shot of Houston and his armor into 1 image, feel free to rip it apart and organize it or whatever if you want to.



Houston Armstrong Images





I just threw 'em all together since some show some detail some don't, etc, never know which one will be useful in planning.



I have used a latex mask, fiberglass reinforced it, and re-painted it and such (Boba Fett) right now it's waiting for some custom parts to redo the visor and light up the Range Finder and such.





**EDIT**



Why didn't I think of this sooner.... ok so someone with the Samus armor - see if you can measure the width (left to right face facing you) and the depth (front to back) for me, and the width (side to side again) of the torso/breastplate at the shoulders - getting these I can see how scaled my clay helm is and not be so worried or discouraged.



Oh and it'll help to know the height of the girl it was crafted for.