Odst - Trooper's Thread Of Stuff

[Dagger06]

This picture is what we call an 'attention getter'.

The rest of the updated pics are at the end of this thread.



My first project. Pepping took a little over a week (I worked slowly off/on), and right now it's got two coats of resin on it. I'll be picking up fiberglass mat/cloth today and starting on that this evening hopefully.



It's the WETA ODST. Original Model by NZ-TK: Updated pep file by RUZE 789



Now that all the Recon helms are out, I'll have to be sure to make one of those...but for now, just trying to get something finished. /wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> " border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> My ODST will be kind of a chimera...mixing and matching WETA and Halo:ODST parts as they come out. ^^



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Safety first! Bought this for a costume once, so figured I might as well use it.



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My workspace. It's nice and well ventilated...but a pain if the wind picks up, and also little bits and pieces from the trees keep floating down into the resin. =| Oh well..more work for me later.



And now..helmet pics!



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[1ManBattalion]

Looking good mate, nice clean folds

 

[CryptKeeper12]

Nice respirator

Helmet looks good. Good luck

 

[chipscolaman]

Looks very nice, I'm sure your bondowork will be just as good.
I also can't wait to see your Recon!

 

[bboyfresco]

man.... these ODST helmets are so cool. I gotta make me one of those

 

[c00ki3monster]

nice job on the odst i'm going to do the same but the full suit. cool respirator where did you get it???

 

[Dagger06]

Thanks for all the compliments! I'm hoping when I get to the bondo stage things will go as well...I haven't done anything along the lines of sculpting since I was back in elementary school...and that was a deformed looking little clay bird. So I think once I get the fiberglass in, I'm going to spend some time pepping other small pieces while reading tutorials before I dive into it.

nice job on the odst i'm going to do the same but the full suit. cool respirator where did you get it???

I got it off eBay over 4 years ago...can't recall how much I paid, but I want to say around $40? It's an M42, the vehicle crew version of the M40 gas masks currently in use by the US military. It works well, and the nice thing is replacement filters are cheap if you look..seems to be only about $5 each.

 

[Killer Koala]

Wow that's a real nice pep! Just curious, how long did it take you to assemble the helmet?

 

[Dagger06]

Wow that's a real nice pep! Just curious, how long did it take you to assemble the helmet?

I did it over the course of about a week and a half, but that's because I had a camping trip, a wedding, and military training mixed in between. Oh, and work...which I'm at now. I'm guessing I spent around 3-4 hours a night folding and gluing, with cutting done either at that time or whenever i had an odd spot of time.

So simply answer, I'm guessing 10-12 hours.

I probably could have saved a bit of time by playing around with the PDO file a bit, moving edges around, reducing the amount of folds, etc.

I did speed up a lot once my brain realized it didn't matter if the tabs were sloppy since they're just being glued down anyways. When I first started I was trying to get a nice cut on every single line which was slow going.

 

[City Static]

The pep model looks great. Remember, thin layers of bondo. And have fun! Good luck mate.

 

[Loganius]

sweet pep ODST helm. And let me guess...was the gas mask for a COD4 character?

 

[Dagger06]

sweet pep ODST helm. And let me guess...was the gas mask for a COD4 character?

Nah...I dress up as CoD4 characters for me weekend job. Marine Reservist in Force Recon, so we had a lot of fun staring at the gear in that game. It's all pretty accurately modeled.

Half Life: Opposing Force
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I got the little Darth Vader voice filter on the front. Too hard to find the green laser lenses though...because no one really uses them.

Well, after four short hours at my temp job and one long shopping trip later...got my fiberglass, so time to go play with that!

Edit: Ah....fail....so messy. I can already see where a bunch of airbubbles and such are going to form and whatnot. I"ll get some pictures of it once it dries up a bit. Time to go reread fiberglassing tutorials and see where I can improve. I'm guessing I may have used too much resin on each little strip.

Other possible issues...trying to start off with cloth. Maybe I should have practiced with mat on some less detailed parts first. >.0

Going to be running around looking at any fiberglass tips I can find. If you got any good ones to share, i'd appreciate it. Hah, guess I got cocky and thought it would be easy up to the bondo part, and then I go and start screwing up.

Specifically tips on fixing any airbubbles and stuff I gave myself to deal with...if I recall correctly fixing it invovled drilling a tiny hole into the buble and filling it up with resin? I'm going to try and find the actual thread I read that in before doing anything more silly.

Edit: Ah, simpler idea. Just let it harden, cut away the part I screwd up on, and lay a new mat...more carefully this time. :rolleyes

Right now I'm using the "dip fiberglass in resin then lay it inside" method...but I'm tempted to try other ways such as spray-on adhesive. Dipping it in works fine...until I get to 3rd piece at which point it likes to stick to my gloves and ends with me desperately trying to get it to stay down with a popsicle stick while I pull my hand away...

Edit: Laid down some mat in the dome area...went a lot smoother this time. Probably helped that the dome part doesn't have any corners or anything....

Anyways, I'm only posting without pics right now because I thought it'd be great to share the tale of how I was outside, being safe...got my gas mask...got my coveralls...got my resin-stained gloves...everything's fine right? Then my dog wanders up, so I turn around to shoo her away from all the super-fun fumes...and inadvertantly step right into a rose bush.

Go me.

Pics of my fail and not-quite-as-fail fiberglass passes once I take a shower.

Edit:
Fiberglass cloth on the side, mat down in the dome
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Another shot of the fiberglass
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My sticky gloves of uselessness +3
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[Killer Koala]

Come on dude!

ODST > rosebush

But quite an epic tale. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

 

[HeavyGunner]

Ok, long story short, Your avatar=Best Ever. I love pearls before swine too

Your helm is looking really good! I do have to ask though, you are fiberglassing the inside right? It's kinda hard to tell in those photos. Overall though it's a good start! Seems like you've really got a handle on how stuff works

 

[Dagger06]

Ok, long story short, Your avatar=Best Ever. I love pearls before swine too

Your helm is looking really good! I do have to ask though, you are fiberglassing the inside right? It's kinda hard to tell in those photos. Overall though it's a good start! Seems like you've really got a handle on how stuff works

Yep, fiberglassing the inside. Like I mentioned earlier, I may have gone a bit overboard with the amount of resin I've been using...

Thanks for the compliments. I try to make liberal use of the search function so I'm not pestering people with too many questions. ;

And yes, Gummy Bear Heaven is awesome.

 

[Atronic]

Looks great dude! Keep up the great work!

 

[Dagger06]

I should have taken a picture of me in my working suit...military respirator, military coveralls...hope my neighboors don't think I'm building a bomb or anything back here.

That being said, a big downside of this fancy military respirator...it sucks in heat...uber sucks.

Anyways, some pics of the helmet again...hasn't changed much. I can see a few slightly warped places I"ll have to fix up, but as you can tell from these shots, it's nothing too noticeable.
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A job of the fiberglass job inside.
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The dome came out the nicest. Go figure..it's the easiest part. :rolleyes

I got a can of the adhesive spray and it helped a little bit, but the biggest thing was just using smaller and smaller pieces so I didn't have to deal with corners as much. I think at the end I started to be a little too stingy with the resin though. As you can see there's actually a few dry ends I need to go over again.

If anyone's got any feedback on my fiberglassing, things I can work on, etc. I'd appreciate it. This is my practice helmet that I'm just trying to get up and running by late september. Eventually I want to do teh Recon helm or newer ODST helm, so any ways you can see I can improve would be great.

I'm seeing a lot of random stray fibers floating around. Maybe this is from not using enough resin? The dome was done by dipping the fiberglass in resin and sticking it in place, while most of the lower portions were done with adhesive spray and a two now-deceased paintbrushes.

I'm going apply another coat of resin on the inside tomorrow morning, then go at it with a dremel after work. I'm going to cut out the visor, sand the inside a little bit so I don't have so many stray fibers poking around, and then maybe put an additional resin layer just so it's smoothed out a bit.

If you see anything glaringly wrong I'm about to do, let me know before tomorrow! ^^;

And now..time for sushi!

 

[xenorogue]

looking great man. On your Gmask make sure that it is airtight. Usually another person will help ya fit it. also check to see the exp date ( if any is listed ) on your filters or the bags they come in. I couldn't tell you what type of filters are out there for the m40 and variants but I just don't want you sucking down vapors or glass particulate. Silicosis
( spelling? ) sucks from what I hear. However enough of that you pep is great and any warpage you get should atleast be made barely noticable in the next few steps. Looking forward to seeing this badboy!

Phil

 

[Dagger06]

looking great man. On your Gmask make sure that it is airtight. Usually another person will help ya fit it. also check to see the exp date ( if any is listed ) on your filters or the bags they come in. I couldn't tell you what type of filters are out there for the m40 and variants but I just don't want you sucking down vapors or glass particulate. Silicosis

( spelling? ) sucks from what I hear. However enough of that you pep is great and any warpage you get should atleast be made barely noticable in the next few steps. Looking forward to seeing this badboy!



Phil

I am slightly concerned about whether the filters are designed to deal with fiberglass dust, which probably isn't exactly the type of NBC stuff the designers had in mind. I don't know of any filters other than the standard NATO one, but i haven't really looked since I still have 3 or 4 extra ones somehow. Right now I'm trusting that it's at the very least still keeping everything out, and I may just want to be sure to swap in a new filter a little more often.



I will be sure to have a chat with my buddy who's an NBC guy the next time I'm at my military reserve training.



But for now the seal seems good. If I plug up the filter, it seals up, and I don't smell any of the nice funny resin vapor smells...so I'm confident enough for the time being. And I probably just jinxed myself.



Sometimes the internet doesn't always translate what we write properly, so I just want to note that I do appreciate the safety concerns. Having messed up lungs does suck. I stopped smoking for the last..almost two months now? It'd be a darn shame if I went through withdrawals and coughed up all that mucus just to put in a nice fine layer of glass dust...:sleep/sleep.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='-_-' />" border="0" alt="sleep.gif" />



Anyhow, on to other things. No more sunlight out, so no more resin work for today. I went ahead and started working on the chest piece.



I was spoiled with the WETA ODST stuff being scaled for 5'11" people. And now I've learned...check the dimensions and measure! Luckily this was a great simple little pep so it wasn't a huge time or paper loss.



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Oh well, guess this will have to wait a day since I'm going to be pretty busy with work tomorrow.



On the plus side, sushi was awesome.



Update:



Cut out the visor and sanded the inside down a bit.











There's a picture for reference on the size. I'm pretty happy and it seems just right for me. I printed out the pep without any modifications. I'm around 5'11" and my head is a hat size...7 1/4 I think? or 7 1/8. Something along those lines. It can be a little tight getting it on, but I blame my somewhat big ears for that.



Anyhow, I think I may hold off on the bondo for a little bit so I can better plan out the the details and whatnot. I figure it's better to see what I can do to get a better base using say...glued together bits of cardstock and such instead of trying to sculpt everything. Time to go look at other great ODST helms like Rube and Pooper's for some inspiration and ideas! As always, if you got anything to share that works for you, I'd love to hear it.



Actually I would like some ideas on one thing...tidying up the inside. I've been going at it with a dremel and sandpaper to try and knock off any jagged edges and whatnot I can find. I even got it down to the point where I felt comfortable squeezing my head in (though I did hold my breath even after cleaning up any fiberglass dust with the air can). Still, does anyone have any reccomendations, or better yet, pictures? I've heard ideas like expanding foam, truck bed liner, spray on rubber, and whatnot tossed around...I'm not talking just padding (I've already got some ideas for that) but about getting a nice surface on the inside of the helmet to put padding on. Would a thin layer of bondo on the inside maybe work



Worse comes to worse, I'l just stick foam in there. Or I may just have to bite the bullet and sand a whole lot more...makes me wish I had used a lot more resin though, so it'd be resin I'm sanding, not pokey bits of fiberglass.

 

[Dagger06]

Ah...double posting. But I can't edit my topic info any more soo....yeah. I'll try and keep these spaced out so I only bump this when I have something new to share (no random rose bush stories!). If this is still a no-no, just let me know and I'll stick to editing until someone else replies.



Anyways, spent the day working on bondo-ing and such. No work for me. I'm supposed to test returned apple-computer parts..but there's only two workstations to test them on and they're training a new guy. Free vacation time! Too bad I have no money to spend on said vacation.



Some random details I tacked on just to see how they look. I probably should have finished bondo-ing first since I ended up having to remove some of these to work. Not sure what I was thinking there.







The little vents on the side. The bottom one on this side is probably the worst looking one. The one on the other side came out nice. I eventually fixed this one up a bit.





What I started out with in the morning.



What I ended up with. Well, that and a fiberglassed chest piece that is slightly warped. =| Oh well...might try and make do instead of starting over on that. We'll see tomorrow how recoverable it is.











The "visor" is a placeholder I ran across. It is from one of those visor/sunglasses things that little old asian ladies wear that are entirely unsafe. My mother is one of those little old asian ladies. She finally switched to sunglasses, thank god. Staring through a curved piece of plastic while driving was not the brightest basis for an invention. Anyways, no cool curve, but it works well enough for now so I can hold off on figuring that out until some later point. Right now I just want to get the various armor pieces done.



I need to finish rounding out the lower-front part of the helmet and form the little bump on the bottom there. After that it's touching up all the little gaps and holes and plenty of sanding. Fun. After that, detailing. I get to carve out all the little lines with a dremel, and do some other stuff (got some ideas for using weather stripping for some details. Anyways, hopefully by the end of tomorrow I'll have this thing all shaped out and detailed!



Edit: And no, I did not glue the visor in already. I do many silly, stupid things, but not that silly!