Foam ODST Build - Upgrade Time Again

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Fallen

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The first version of this suit was deployed in 2019, but I will continue updating the suit as time goes on and will be updating this thread with those updates until such a time as I start over from scratch.

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Left: v1, Right: v2​


ODST
It's finally that time! After a bit of a hiatus, I'm finally back to building my ODST, or rather rebuilding since I scrapped all but two small pieces from the first build.

After several of my pieces got destroyed when I moved into my first house last year, I decided to scrap most of what was done and restart. Was waiting until all of the pieces I'm certain I wanted to do pep, and then there was this to do:

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Yay! I have a workshop to work in.

Now that things are back in progress, here's two ways to track my progress if you're interested. My Kanban board and progress photo. I update the board every time I do something while often forgetting to update my thread, so Trello is likely to be more up to date than here.

Progress Board: Trello

Progress:


ProgressPhoto.png

Here's a quick photo of everything lined up before I started hardening.
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And for a few other projects in the works or completed:
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Links:
*Note: Some of these are out of date and while they were used on the original iteration may not have been used in most recent parts

Silhouette Cameo 2: Amazon.com: Silhouette Cameo -- Starter Bundle
Brushes: Magnolia Brush 231 Single Thickness Paint or Chip Brush, 1-1/2" Trim, 1" Width, White (Case of 36): Cleaning Brushes: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
Resin: Amazon.com: 3M 20124 All Purpose Fiberglass Resin, 1 Gallon: Home Improvement
Fiberglass Cloth: Amazon.com: 3M 499 Fiberglass Cloth: Automotive
Bondo: Amazon.com: Bondo 312 Autobody Filler Kit Quart Can: Garden & Outdoor
Spreaders: Amazon.com: 3M 357 Bondo Spreader, 3 Pack: Garden & Outdoor
3D Printer: FlashForge 3D Printer Creator Pro, Metal Frame Structure, Acrylic Covers, Optimized Build Platform, Dual Extruder W/2 Spools, Works with ABS and PLA: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
Pants: Amazon.com : TACVASEN Men's Tactical Airsoft Paintball Shooting Cargo Ripstop Combat Unifrom Camo Pants : Clothing (color scheme I bought is no longer listed)
Shirt: http://a.co/10tEfUI (color scheme I bought is no longer listed)
Boots: Amazon.com: Maelstrom Men's Tac Force Military Tactical Work Boots: Shoes
 
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Found some images taken before to show more detail in what the pepped pieces look(ed) like.

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The shoulder pieces are past hardening and onto bondo. I'll be sure to take some pics of that this weekend.

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I made several attempts at the shin pieces setting them up in both Pepakura Designer and Armorsmith. Even going so far as to edit the original in Blender. The Blender adjustments fit the best, but did not leave me liking the shins, and since during this process, I am also working on losing some pretty significant weight (long term goal: 80lbs), I chose that I would rather scale for a middle ground and ensure that the pieces are more adjustable. The plan is that for a time there will be a gap between the front and back of the shins. As I have not decided on material for the thigh plates (the other area of concern), I will also keep in mind adjustable or remake time as part of this process.

This weekend expect fiberglassing of the chest plate to be done and to get some images of the helmet (cast bought from Sean Bradley) up as that moves through finishing.
 
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Anyone out there? I'm hearing crickets...

More progress this weekend. Took two weekends to get the chest pieces hardened. So glad to be able to put a couple of heaters in the garage and get the temperature up.

Shoutout to PerniciousDuke for the tip in his Reach build thread to pour some resin into the piece between laying down fiberglass and soaking it. Helped tons in lessening my frustration with pieces coming up with my brush (even with spray adhesive). Some pieces could have used more of that on the sides, but oh well, you live and learn.

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After finishing with fiberglass (forgot to take pictures between these steps) I like to add a layer of rondo, not too thick, but to help overlay some of the sharp edges from not laying my fiberglass completely flat.

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Over the course of this week, I'll trim any fibers still sticking out that I wasn't able to get with scissors and use my dremel to knock down any sharp edges on the inside.

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On another note, I printed the handle for the MA37 (found here). Whether or not I use it with the costume is yet to be seen, but I always liked the look of that gun. The image above is scaled down by 10% from the original, but it still feels too big in my hand. Due to some imperfections I'll be playing with my printer settings and reprinting it. What do you guys think about size? Should I scale down to maybe 85% size? 80%?
 
I didn't see you started your build again! Congrats on the new place! It looks like it is suiting you well. Your fiberglass laying looks really good. Keep it up.

Sub'd

My only advice, being just a step ahead of you in the suit, try to reinforce large flat paper areas with thicker cardboard (like soda boxes) or tongue depressors. The reason is that they will sag, even if you can't see it. Once you start bondoing you'll realize it's taking way too much Bondo just to fill in the middle area of those large "flat" spot.
 
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I swear I saw this exact thread a year ago, pictures and all... I have a serious Deja Vu problem.

As this is a restart, I do have an abandoned thread floating around somewhere, and it's likely my pictures between the two look similar.

I didn't see you started your build again! Congrats on the new place! It looks like it is suiting you well. Your fiberglass laying looks really good. Keep it up.

Sub'd

My only advice, being just a step ahead of you in the suit, try to reinforce large flat paper areas with thicker cardboard (like soda boxes) or tongue depressors. The reason is that they will sag, even if you can't see it. Once you start bondoing you'll realize it's taking way too much Bondo just to fill in the middle area of those large "flat" spot.

I've been using craft sticks for some of the areas I need to lay flat, I think cardboard could be useful for areas that have a slight curve where the craft sticks wouldn't work well.
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Project is currently on hold. I was planning on fiberglassing the rest of my pieces this past week while I had off work, but due to temps only reaching the low teens (F) during the day and negative at night, I've haven't been able to work out in the garage. Even with the space being insulated, there's enough gaps with the window and the garage door that my heaters can't get the temps up.

This also put another house project on hold (sigh), so instead I took the week to relax instead. When temps start reaching the 30's again I'll be able to work at it again. Looking like maybe next weekend.
 
curious as to what progress has been made. i attempt to follow the same route while building so this might be some good reference material
 
curious as to what progress has been made. i attempt to follow the same route while building so this might be some good reference material

Not at lot has been done from the standpoint of the actual costume. As per my previous post, freezing temperatures limited my ability to move forward with hardening the remaining pepped pieces.

We do have some decent temps this week, so yesterday I was able to get one coat of resin on the outside of the shins, knees, and hip plates after work. Tonight I plan to coat the insides of the pieces with resin and perhaps lay down my fiberglass pieces depending on cure time. Temps drop again this weekend, but likely not too bad.

That said, while I haven't been working on the armour recently, I have continued printing out the pieces for the MA37. Everything for the back half of the gun itself is now printed and I'll start sanding, filling, and gluing those pieces together while I start printing the front half of it.

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Some of these pieces came out a bit rough, but I'm hoping that at a min they will be good practice for sanding and filling some imperfections even before piecing the parts together.

If you want to check out exactly where I am in the process of each piece, you can check out the trello link in my first post. I do tend to update that immediately as a step progresses, while I plan to update this thread in chunks of work.
 
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Been awhile since I've had much of note to post. Progress has been slow but steady over the past couple of weeks. I started working on the thigh plates, but had a fair bit of work before even starting to pep.

I needed to scale up fairly significantly in order to make the pieces fit around my legs, but scaling up that far would make them way too tall and require cutting off too much material in order to fit me in all dimensions. The solution? I pulled the piece into Armorsmith to get the scaled dimensions. From there I got my ratios and pulled the model into Blender to adjust it how I needed. Finally I was able to open the model in Pepakura Designer and unfold it.
Scale_Thighs.PNG Thigh_Plate.PNG

So far one thigh plate has been assembled, and I plan on using 4-6mm foam to make the inner thigh straps. After doing this for the thighs, I'm debating re-doing the shins this way as well. That way they'll stay as a more uniform piece.

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In another step, I finally finished printing off all of the pieces for my MA37 and have started sanding imperfections. I don't plan to get every piece picture perfect before assembling, but I want to get some amount of smoothing done before I glue it and make some parts less accessible.

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Finally, here's my updated progress board (link in first post) of where everything stands. Nothing is moving further than "Harden" as this point as I want to get all pep pieces to "Shape" before continuing forward. You'll notice a fair bit of red labels (blocked). The ones in "TODO" are blocked on everything else being finished. Those pieces are my nice-to-haves and as such, I don't want to look at the board and keep thinking I need to get started on them right away. Shin pieces are also blocked until I decide whether or not to adjust the scale as described above and re-pep. They'll work sliced as they are, but it would be preferable to not have a gap between the front and back of the shins.

ODST_Trello_2_13.png
 
Great work ZP180 !

You'll be happy about rescaling the thighs. I didn't know ArmorSmith did that when I did mine, so I had to print them big to fit my big thighs in and now they are so tall that they press into my groin/hip areas as I move my legs forward. No fun. :unsure:
 
Planning a bigger, pic-heavy post by the end of next week, but for now a minor update on plans.

I've set myself two deadlines, a soft one for the end of May and a hard deadline for mid-August. I'm ok if I miss the first one, but setting that will get me in a good position to be done by the other one.

Current Status:
  • Only one piece is left in construction
  • All pieces in harden have at least a coat of resin on them
  • Chest core and belt buckle in foam will be done once all pep pieces are hardened
  • Optional parts (boot covers, inner shoulder, gloves, pouches) will remain blocked until every other part is at least to painting

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The plan is to finish fiberglassing every piece in the 'Harden' column by the end of the weekend as well as to finish constructing the back plate (butt plate really) while hopefully getting that glassed as well so that I can start with smoothing everything within the next couple of weeks.

Decision on shins was to keep moving with my existing ones for the soft deadline but still work on rebuilding using the updated scaling.
 
I promised an update this week, so here it goes. Success! I said I would get every piece in the harden column glassed by the end of the weekend, and I did.

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Got two coats of resin on the inside and outside of each part over the course of the week. Saturday morning, I laid the fiberglass and poured in some resin to "nail" it down for when I coated the rest of it. Got some pools in areas doing this because I was rushing a little bit and did not worry about it.

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After all parts were done being fiberglassed, and the resin cured, I cut down any fiberglass sticking up or overhangining and knocked it down with the Dremel and a pair of diagonal cutters. Finally, I was able to rondo the insides and place the parts with all the others.


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My stretch goal for last week did not get completed as I ended up restarting the process of building the back plate. I decided to go back to the old way and instead of cutting with my Cameo to hand score and cut the pieces as I need them. That should be done this week and get hardened soon.

Trello.PNG


Finally, here's the updated board with my progress. It's interesting to look at my posts since adding these to see how I choose to change the board structure or move things forward or back as priorities shift.

That said, I want to know from you guys if putting the board images in is helpful to track where things are in the process. Let me know.

Here's to the next update showing all pep pieces fiberglassed!
 
Nice progress! Setting a deadline is great tactic, I should've done the same thing.

What paint job are you going to run with?
 
Oh man, I can't tell you how exciting this is to watch knowing that I don't have to fiber glass anything for awhile. :lol:

So much! So much progress in a short time. It's a really good step to get past too. Did you do anything to celebrate the milestone? You should.

Did you nail down the glass and then coat in resin... or nail down and then coat in just rondo? Worried that the rondo won't soak into the glass which is what really gives the strength. You'll be able to tell once they've cured fully.

As for the progress board I'm a fan of the colored game photo because it's quick to take in. The other thing I'll be honest I don't really understand, but if it helps you that is the only importance. And it seems to be helping you. (y)
 
Nice progress! Setting a deadline is great tactic, I should've done the same thing.

What paint job are you going to run with?

I needed the deadline, or else I'd never finish. As for paint job, I'm going to do a gunmetal primary and leaning towards a dark red for accent, but I haven't fully decided that yet. Really trying to delay that decision until I'm almost done with the bondo stage.

So much! So much progress in a short time. It's a really good step to get past too. Did you do anything to celebrate the milestone? You should.
No, I didn't do anything to celebrate. Just kept moving on. I'm especially glad to get through that step as now I don't have to worry so much about pieces getting destroyed or warped in storage.

Did you nail down the glass and then coat in resin... or nail down and then coat in just rondo? Worried that the rondo won't soak into the glass which is what really gives the strength. You'll be able to tell once they've cured fully.

I nail down the glass and then coat with resin. After the resin I knock down some edges before coating with rondo. I've done a piece in the past for a speed build with rondo soaked into the glass, and it got enough strength for the purposes of that build, but I definitely prefer using resin to soak the fiberglass and use rondo more to provide an extra layer on top.

As for the progress board I'm a fan of the colored game photo because it's quick to take in. The other thing I'll be honest I don't really understand, but if it helps you that is the only importance. And it seems to be helping you. (y)

Ok thanks for the feedback. We use kanban at work, and I find building to fit into the process well. It basically helps me visualize my workflow. I use labels to denote priority, materials, and blockers and each column is a step in the build process.

I took the weekend mostly off to work on another project around the house. Starting a basement renovation and used the weekend to rip out all the old tile down there. Starting on bondo this week after work by finishing off the imperfections of the helmet and then the shoulders.
 
Question for those who have built an ODST before. Has anyone built the HD ODST Back Plate that's modeled and unfolded by Nightshade? Looks like this:

back_plate.gif


I ask because I like the look of this over the full chest and back with the Hugh Holder set. Having it be open appeals to me more especially when thinking about wearing it in the summer, but I don't want to miss out on having the back armor. But I've also not seen a build use this, and am unsure about doing so.
 
Coincidences. I made one. Just left out the stuff in the middle of the lower back. I plan on using foam (eek) for that.

One hint. The two parts in the middle need extra bracing the are just flat planes (with details in the middle) with folded sides. Ill edit this reply once i get home. Can make more pics then

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EDIT:
Better late than never (sorry :oops:) i made some pics. I made the back into 4 parts. I tge reinforced all the sides. Also the collar has another layer of paper on it. After trying it on there will be some tearimg in the paper

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Update time!

Latest status
ProgressPhoto.png


Things are progressing. I'm not going to make my soft deadline. Trying to do so would require me to rush, and I don't want to lose quality for hitting that deadline. So my official deadline is mid-August.

I've been making slow progress, but this weekend I got my helmet painted and mostly damaged.
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I gave it a base coat of silver, followed by a metallic gray.

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After that, I went to town with some 80 and 220 grit sandpaper as well as a file and sanding twig to get some smaller sections as well as kicked it around the garage some to scratch up the surface before installing the visor. When a good portion of pieces have gone through paint, I'll add some black and brown in the crevices.

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Shoulders and butt plate got bondo and a coat of primer to see remaining flaws (no pics of shoulders yet). There's still a few places that could use more sanding or some spot putty. I'll take care of that this week.

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I've also constructed the belt buckle which after filling a couple of dimples and seams will be ready for plastidip.

2018-04-03 06.11.15.jpg vs. 2016-09-22 09.11.48.jpg
Last, I had some time one night when I couldn't work in the garage and decided to see how a more detailed shoulder would look. This model is set up for foam, but I set it up for pep and tried it out. I like the detail, but as they're three separate parts, I'm playing with ideas for how I would best connect them all. These don't have to be done with the main costume, but they'll likely be the first pieces I replace. Whether I use the split model or recreate the same is yet to be determined.

I'll get started on the back plate soon as I'm working through getting it shorter but the neck big enough to fit my head with minimum trimming. It's not a piece I'm wanting to split in order to fit my head if I can avoid it and still meet my deadline.
 
I'm not doing a good job of updating this thing. Things are still progressing, though.

Looking at my board, I've got the back plate in construction. I've started this one a couple of time resizing it more. My first iteration I thought I'd size it on height and cut away material to get it over my head. Didn't care for how much I determined I'd need to cut away. Second time, I left it sitting out on my desk and this monster got ahold of it.

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So we're on to the third attempt one. I just figure each time I redo it, it gets slightly better.

I started assembling the MA37, and the back half is assembled. Realized I have some sanding to do one some pieces of the front half (where I already applied spot putty) before I assemble as I won't be able to get my files in those spots once they're glued.
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Finally, I modeled and printed a possible buckle for where the straps meet the chest plate. I printed one, and I plan on adjusting the model depth before printing again also with a mirrored version to get both and casting for future use.

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Covered in spot putty before sanding.

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Things that will be moving into progress this week include: Bondo on the top chest plate followed by the stomach and sides. Belt buckle has moved to being ready for painting along with butt plate and shoulders.

Likely won't be a ton of work this weekend as my basement project is progressing, but I'll do my best to at least get started on that chest plate and the buckles.
 
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