ODST Build 1: The Journey Begins

I think it's been two weeks since my last update? I don't feel like I have been making that much progress. Just been busy with the rest of life.

I did do a few things tho...

Did a little folding and gluing. I also took advantage of this lovely warm weather to get a first layer of resin on the outside of the chest base layer, inside of the chest plate, inside of the left cummerbund, and inside of the left ab piece.

PXL_20210225_231908326.jpg

Also, I added some black detailing to the helmet. Not sure how to weather it because canonically I don't think it's metal, more like a kevlar kind of thing I think. Anyway it looks pretty cool too.

PXL_20210225_232142406.jpg

I think I'm gonna just smudge it up with some dirt it something to make it look a little less clean.

Also, I finished reattaching the shoulder pieces together. One side I did with some jb weld tacking and the other side I just did more cloth hinges. The cloth hinges approach I think is better but it's fairly time consuming.

PXL_20210225_232633069.jpgPXL_20210225_232638526.jpg

PXL_20210225_232643111.jpg

In other news the magnets installation failed in the helmet and I'm going a different way for visor mounting. Just haven't decided what yet. Probably going to end up permanantly gluing it in. That is all for now. I was going to work more but I got my Covid vaccine and it made me sick as a dog all day so not much progress made today.
 
Hey!
I can't seem to get any photos right now, but my visor is screwed in with thumbscrews like you'd find on a PC, but the lowerprofile ones :p
Works great for me and guarantees the same places every time!
Armour looks good too! Pepakura is mean and nasty and you're really kicking ass with it :D
 
Hey!
I can't seem to get any photos right now, but my visor is screwed in with thumbscrews like you'd find on a PC, but the lowerprofile ones :p
Works great for me and guarantees the same places every time!
Armour looks good too! Pepakura is mean and nasty and you're really kicking ass with it :D

The thumb screws is a really good idea! I have a bunch left over from my pc build too. I will have to start thinking about that! Thanks! And thanks for the compliment. It's slow going but I really enjoy the process.
 
Ok not a ton of progress but definitely some fun progress!

Story time:
Ok so I wanted to make straps that cinched the forearms closed. As nearly as I can tell , the rookie cosplay guide showed these straps as basically ladder straps that you would see on snowboard bindings or rollerblades or something. So that's what I bought. I got them off amazon for like 10 bucks and then had to attach them.

PXL_20210301_183533693.PORTRAIT.jpgPXL_20210301_183545498.PORTRAIT.jpg

Mine were specifically roller blade straps so they had an extra clip that I didn't need. I was going to try to knock out the pin holding the buckles on but that didn't work so I took my trusty shop scissors and just cut the things.

PXL_20210301_183542909.PORTRAIT.jpgPXL_20210301_184044560.jpgPXL_20210301_184051686.jpg

Then I used the included hardware to install the locking side of the strap and just JB welded the other side to the forearm. After 30 ish hours of cure time, I went back and the straps popped off under minimal stress. The JB Weld does not like to grip the plastic that the straps are made of. Fortunately, I had some mounting hardware left over from the clips I am not using, but the screws that came with were too short to bridge through the strap and into the armor. So off to home depot! I found some machine screws that would bite the threads in the mounting hardware. I got 1/2 screws which were super too long. Probably 1/4 inch would have been better but I didn't feel like going back. Some day maybe I will change them out. The excess doesn't bother me as of now so it became a low priority. Anyway after a little trimming, ta-da!

PXL_20210305_014903222.jpgPXL_20210305_014843557.jpgPXL_20210305_014921818.jpg

Super fun to play with although a bit tight. Also, that's not the shirt I am going to wear under the armor so that looks a little wonky.

PXL_20210305_014723190.jpgPXL_20210305_015024351.jpg

I also took the last mounting piece and used it to secure my visor in my helmet. Now that's secure and looks awesome too. Just needs a little more weathering and a black wash and I will call it done. If anyone is wondering for future builds jb weld doesn't really like to stick to rondo. I had to secure the mounting hardware with rondo and resin in order for it to stay. So far that has held well though.

Also I did some more resin on the chest stuff. Not really interesting enough for pics but work that had to be done. They should be getting close to fiberglass stage.

Gotta do some weathering on the forearms and decide about screws still. Once my printer gets back into action I will finish up the screws. And then the forearms will be done. Obviously there's room for improvement but hey, it's a first build.


Its really great to have wearable pieces tho! Excited to keep rolling next week!

PXL_20210305_014925853.jpg

I think that's all for now!
 

Attachments

  • PXL_20210301_183602998.PORTRAIT.jpg
    PXL_20210301_183602998.PORTRAIT.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 151
  • PXL_20210301_183557298.PORTRAIT.jpg
    PXL_20210301_183557298.PORTRAIT.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 153
Ok not a ton of progress but definitely some fun progress!

Story time:
Ok so I wanted to make straps that cinched the forearms closed. As nearly as I can tell , the rookie cosplay guide showed these straps as basically ladder straps that you would see on snowboard bindings or rollerblades or something. So that's what I bought. I got them off amazon for like 10 bucks and then had to attach them.

View attachment 303686View attachment 303684

Mine were specifically roller blade straps so they had an extra clip that I didn't need. I was going to try to knock out the pin holding the buckles on but that didn't work so I took my trusty shop scissors and just cut the things.

View attachment 303685View attachment 303681View attachment 303680

Then I used the included hardware to install the locking side of the strap and just JB welded the other side to the forearm. After 30 ish hours of cure time, I went back and the straps popped off under minimal stress. The JB Weld does not like to grip the plastic that the straps are made of. Fortunately, I had some mounting hardware left over from the clips I am not using, but the screws that came with were too short to bridge through the strap and into the armor. So off to home depot! I found some machine screws that would bite the threads in the mounting hardware. I got 1/2 screws which were super too long. Probably 1/4 inch would have been better but I didn't feel like going back. Some day maybe I will change them out. The excess doesn't bother me as of now so it became a low priority. Anyway after a little trimming, ta-da!

View attachment 303677View attachment 303678View attachment 303676

Super fun to play with although a bit tight. Also, that's not the shirt I am going to wear under the armor so that looks a little wonky.

View attachment 303679View attachment 303674

I also took the last mounting piece and used it to secure my visor in my helmet. Now that's secure and looks awesome too. Just needs a little more weathering and a black wash and I will call it done. If anyone is wondering for future builds jb weld doesn't really like to stick to rondo. I had to secure the mounting hardware with rondo and resin in order for it to stay. So far that has held well though.

Also I did some more resin on the chest stuff. Not really interesting enough for pics but work that had to be done. They should be getting close to fiberglass stage.

Gotta do some weathering on the forearms and decide about screws still. Once my printer gets back into action I will finish up the screws. And then the forearms will be done. Obviously there's room for improvement but hey, it's a first build.


Its really great to have wearable pieces tho! Excited to keep rolling next week!

View attachment 303675

I think that's all for now!
Those are actually awsome! They function well and look great! It also looks like if you wanted to hide them, it wouldn't be that hard. You could probably slip some rings with bullets on them through the strap or have it hold something to sell it even more. I love this idea!
 
I will make a bigger update next week. I didn't get much interesting stuff done this week. Not much worthy of pics at least - mostly resin/fiberglass stuff and a little weathering. Also continued the paper craft for the ab stuff. This time it seems these pieces are taking forever! I also remodeled my screw heads to have rounded tops. I think this will look better on the armor. Here is a comparison pic of the old and new screw heads in PLA.

PXL_20210312_033715447.jpg PXL_20210312_033744525.jpg
 
Hey, remember all that progress I was going to make? Yeah. That didn't happen. Sometimes life be like that. Hopefully will be able to get back to work on this soon.
 
I have gotten little bits of work done here and there. I finished peping the ab pieces and have gotten a first coat of resin on them. I got a layer of fiberglass on the chest plate and one of the hip pieces. Still working on getting the chest base layer resined and ready for fiberglass.

I also had an exciting adventure printing the belt buckle. I was going to pep it but for some reason the file crashed armorsmith for me. Also it looked annoying to pep. Therefore, I downloaded the belt buckle as modeled by the lovely and talented MoeSizzlac and available on thingverse. I was worried about some of the overhangs and so I tried to edit the model to make myself feel better about it's printing chances. However, when I imported the model into Blender, I couldn't find it. I tried scaling up and down and editing the settings and idk why but I could never find it. I'm not very experienced with blender but this seemed odd. Fortunately, my laptop has a default 3d image drawing program that is garbage and I don't recommend at all. I was able to crudely splice a rectangle inside the buckle to theoretically cover up all the questionable overhangs on the inside of the buckle.

Unfortunately, this did not work. After printing, the rectangle was there but not connected to the belt buckle at all. So I cut it out and tossed it.

I was correct that my printer did not like the overhangs and many of them were janky. However, the janky ones were only on the inside and the outside looks great, so I'm cool with it.
PXL_20210402_004113670.jpg
With this printed, I officially have all the upper body parts done being peped ready for hardening!
Finally, I started peping the butt pad. Didn't get very far but it's a start.
PXL_20210402_004104190.jpg

I know that's a lot of text for not much progress, but hey, progress is progress.
 
So, I went in to try these methods. The first one nothing happened. No window opened up for me to select "Geometry to origin". The second one, all those values are at 0 and still no beltbuckle.

I was able to set the geometry to origin through a different means and the buckle did appear. So success!
 
Last edited:
So, I went in to try these methods. The first one nothing happened. No window opened up for me to select "Geometry to origin". The second one, all those values are at 0 and still no beltbuckle.

I was able to set the geometry to origin through a different means and the buckle did appear. So success!
It looks like Moe is using a pre-2.8 version of Blender, and after that the UI and many shortcuts were changed. You could be using a later version. But looks like you got there anyway so that's good.
 
Okey making progress. The past few weeks I have accomplished the following:

PXL_20210408_212004993.jpg
As pictured above, the chest base layer is fiberglassed and has begun the rondo process on the inside. I am going to cut it and attach clips for reattaching before I finish rondo and move on to bondo. The chest plate, and abdominal pieces are all fiberglassed and rondo'd. I am ready to begin bondo on them starting next week or (more likely) the week after. The belt buckle is also fiberglassed for increased strength and rondo'd. It needs spot filling or filler primer-ing or whatever.

The butt plate is in progress still and looks largely the same as it did before. I do think I am going to make it such that it has a comfy pad in it for leaning and napping and the whatnot. Does anyone know how well Bondo and pep would hold up to this kind of strain?

I also clear coated the forearms and realized that I never posted any pictures post weathering. So, here they are:

PXL_20210408_212035077.jpgPXL_20210408_212038135.jpg


I also have been working on several side projects and things. if they work out and turn out kool, I may post about them (they aren't Halo related and may or may not work).
 
Took the baby back home to visit the grandparents and great grandparents. As such, didn't get much done this week. I did print, paint, and attach the screw heads tho for my forearms! I gotta say, it's not a very important part of the piece but it looks awesome.

PXL_20210415_223455862.jpgPXL_20210415_223441976.jpgPXL_20210415_223437554.jpg

Each screw head is printed from the file I modeled way back when. Then, it's filler primered, silver paint, clear coat, gun metal grey paint, clear coat again. Same paint process as everything else. Then I superglued them to the forearms. I used loctite brand super glue and it's officially the weakest adhesive I have used for this build. Everything else is JB weld or rondo. So far its working tho. 18 screws per forearm!


And yes, I know the forearms are kinda shiny. I am using a clear coat that I already had kicking around and I don't think it's particularly matte... I'ma rough it up with some dust and sand to fight that... Eventually...
 

Attachments

  • PXL_20210415_223435259.jpg
    PXL_20210415_223435259.jpg
    1.7 MB · Views: 104
Most exciting week yet!

Did some work on mounting the shoulders and some sewing on the undersuit shirt. My sewing looked like crap so my lovely and talented wife redid it and it's much better now. She's good at that stuff...

PXL_20210423_011129153.jpgPXL_20210423_011133626.jpgPXL_20210423_011115842.jpg

Anyway I got a chance to finally do a sorta-suit-up!

IMG_20210422_222757.jpgIMG_20210422_222752.jpgIMG_20210422_222802.jpg


So hyped right now for this project. So far to go still tho.

Next week hopefully I can get some sanding done and finish off the butt plate pep work. It's been a busy few weeks and there's a few busy weeks coming but hopefully I can squeeze in some work in between the chaos.
 
Sanding and bondo and sanding and bondo and sanding and spot fill and sanding etc...

I got the chest plate done and started painting. I ran out of primer so the ab pieces are stuck until I can get out to home depot (and get a little more money).

I did try a new thing tho. After spot filling on the chest plate, I sprayed a layer of filler primer on the piece. I then sanded that layer with 400 and 800 grit wet sand to make it all smooth. I don't know if it was really any better than not using filler primer but it seemed to work pretty well. The shiny silver, clear coat, and gun metal grey base color. I am going to make the chest plate blue to go with my secondary colors but I didn't get that far yet.

PXL_20210429_194805494.jpgPXL_20210429_194759794.jpg

I didn't get a pic of the other pieces unfortunately but they look pretty good too.

Still gotta finish up the butt plate and figure out separating and reattaching the chest base layer. I have some ideas.


The other thing I have been working on is the SMG. I took the obj from the armory for the ODST suppressed SMG and opened it up in blender. I am in the middle of cutting it up for printing. My printer is little so I'm breaking the model into parts that (hopefully) will fit on my print bed. I'm trying to split the model along pre-existing seams so that there will be minimal seam filling required. I am also instituting a pegs system that should make assembly easier and more secure. That has been very fun and a good learning process for me. When it's done, I will post the modified file if anyone wants it. I'm pretty new at all this so its not gonna be great but it should work and I didn't see another file that was split up for printing here on the forum.
 
This thread is more than 8 months old.

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

  1. This thread hasn't been active in some time. A new post in this thread might not contribute constructively to this discussion after so long.
If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.
Back
Top