Prof's Halo 3 Marine - Rookie Build

[randomcherry]

Hello all, new blood here, y'all can call me Prof or Tyler. Got dragged into all this by a friend, and ended up doing the whole thing backwards. Went to a con, then went to a shoot, then joined the forums, and finally started a build. Halo 3 was a defining halo for me, even above and beyond Reach, and I had a hell of a time running around with my Marine buddies back when. Figured it'd be a fitting tribute for me to join them, so here we are! I'll be logging down what I do here, once I've got enough to show for a thing, anyway.

This will be my first ever cosplay build, and I'll be going at it with Fusion 360, a 3d printer, no artistic talent whatever, and a determination to make and print my own files. Most importantly, a fellow 405th member is going to provide some assistance with fabric work, in return for some prints and stuff. Its gonna be a fun ride! To get a feel for Fusion and autocad in general, I went ahead and started modelling a Biofoam canister. Figured it'd be a good starter prop for any halo build, and a nice learning platform.

View attachment 321840
Its still work in progress and I'll probably add a few surface details, but in keeping with wanting to have a bit of spin on things, I decided to answer the question of "How does the nozzle not just flop around all the time" with a pull pin - with a pivot pin as well, so hopefully it can be a useful prop for shoots and such. Plus its just fun to make things move.

As for the marine proper, I'm apparently making the circumstances of my introduction a tradition, by starting from the outside and going in. I'm working on losing a bit of weight to better fit what I have envisioned, but my head, hands and feet ain't changing size anytime soon. So I went out, and got some combat boots and gloves, and started sketching ideas for the Helmet.

View attachment 321844View attachment 321843
The boots are more or less perfect. The gloves don't quite match the references I've seen, but they fit flawlessly and I'll take a perfect fit and no glove chafing over a slightly more accurate back rubber any day of the week. Tried to get a BDU as well, but they didn't have anything in the right shades for a Marine, even with some leniency. Gonna check back in a few weeks, otherwise might just order online. Not like there's a shortage of other things to make.

Over the next couple weeks I'll be drafting up the ankle and shin plating, and a first pass on the helmet size plus some padding buffer space. But before I can get into that, I've already been asked to help make a new print for a Reach Magnum - I have even been provided a broken print. Don't know who's design this is, but whoever it is, you did good, and I've seen it around a lot, promise I won't just lift your measurements. The best use of it so far is to help me understand how thick Xmm is actually in the hand, its really hard to judge scale in program. You lose sense of how big a millimeter is when its just on a screen at arbitrary zoom.

View attachment 321842
I'll be making the Halo 3 Magnum alongside it, since they're pretty similar, and the general component and operating technique for the one should be useable for the other. I'm aiming for detachable magazines and moveable slides, but ambition and reality don't always agree, and I'm pretty green to this. An assault rifle is on the plan as well, but not on my active list of works.

My goal is to have all this put together before April of 2023, when my next local convention is. Work and life permitting, it should be doable, but I'd love to hear any of your guys input, thoughts, or advice!

yo so i’m kinda lazy and i’m wondering where i can buy

Hello all, new blood here, y'all can call me Prof or Tyler. Got dragged into all this by a friend, and ended up doing the whole thing backwards. Went to a con, then went to a shoot, then joined the forums, and finally started a build. Halo 3 was a defining halo for me, even above and beyond Reach, and I had a hell of a time running around with my Marine buddies back when. Figured it'd be a fitting tribute for me to join them, so here we are! I'll be logging down what I do here, once I've got enough to show for a thing, anyway.

This will be my first ever cosplay build, and I'll be going at it with Fusion 360, a 3d printer, no artistic talent whatever, and a determination to make and print my own files. Most importantly, a fellow 405th member is going to provide some assistance with fabric work, in return for some prints and stuff. Its gonna be a fun ride! To get a feel for Fusion and autocad in general, I went ahead and started modelling a Biofoam canister. Figured it'd be a good starter prop for any halo build, and a nice learning platform.

View attachment 321840
Its still work in progress and I'll probably add a few surface details, but in keeping with wanting to have a bit of spin on things, I decided to answer the question of "How does the nozzle not just flop around all the time" with a pull pin - with a pivot pin as well, so hopefully it can be a useful prop for shoots and such. Plus its just fun to make things move.

As for the marine proper, I'm apparently making the circumstances of my introduction a tradition, by starting from the outside and going in. I'm working on losing a bit of weight to better fit what I have envisioned, but my head, hands and feet ain't changing size anytime soon. So I went out, and got some combat boots and gloves, and started sketching ideas for the Helmet.

View attachment 321844View attachment 321843
The boots are more or less perfect. The gloves don't quite match the references I've seen, but they fit flawlessly and I'll take a perfect fit and no glove chafing over a slightly more accurate back rubber any day of the week. Tried to get a BDU as well, but they didn't have anything in the right shades for a Marine, even with some leniency. Gonna check back in a few weeks, otherwise might just order online. Not like there's a shortage of other things to make.

Over the next couple weeks I'll be drafting up the ankle and shin plating, and a first pass on the helmet size plus some padding buffer space. But before I can get into that, I've already been asked to help make a new print for a Reach Magnum - I have even been provided a broken print. Don't know who's design this is, but whoever it is, you did good, and I've seen it around a lot, promise I won't just lift your measurements. The best use of it so far is to help me understand how thick Xmm is actually in the hand, its really hard to judge scale in program. You lose sense of how big a millimeter is when its just on a screen at arbitrary zoom.

View attachment 321842
I'll be making the Halo 3 Magnum alongside it, since they're pretty similar, and the general component and operating technique for the one should be useable for the other. I'm aiming for detachable magazines and moveable slides, but ambition and reality don't always agree, and I'm pretty green to this. An assault rifle is on the plan as well, but not on my active list of works.

My goal is to have all this put together before April of 2023, when my next local convention is. Work and life permitting, it should be doable, but I'd love to hear any of your guys input, thoughts, or advice!

im lazy so i am wondering where i can buy a full set of odst armor and helmet and stuff that is ready to wear. anybody have suggestions? also i kinda want an assault rifle but i think ill just take the nerf one and paint it lol

 

[N8TEBB]

im lazy so i am wondering where i can buy a full set of odst armor and helmet and stuff that is ready to wear. anybody have suggestions? also i kinda want an assault rifle but i think ill just take the nerf one and paint it lol

This sort of question might be best asked in its own thread, as it doesn't really pertain to this specific build.

There aren't too many kits out there that you can just buy and wear. Most of the time that sort of thing is done on a commission basis. However, there is a reputable ODST kit seller known as Sean Bradley that sells all of the armour pieces needed to make an ODST kit. You'll still have to do a lot of work sanding, trimming, prepping, painting, rigging, etc. but it will take care of a lot of the time-consuming process of crafting the physical armour pieces.

As for the assault rifle, you may be able to find something on etsy, but for the most part again that's often done on a commission basis and takes a lot of time. The nerf AR is fairly accurate and very durable. Many members have repainted their nerf AR's with lots of success.

 

[randomcherry]

thank u very much. idk why but when i tried to post a thread about this it wouldn’t let me, saying that the title wasn’t valid or something so i just did this. thank u very much however!

 

[ProfugoBarbatus]

Ok, this was a bit of a wild week for me! Right to the meat of it, the printer worked an absolute dream, and got everything out with only one minor failure - Edge of an arm went spaghetti on me, but it was so quick and easy to just reprint it that I went for that rather than trying to fix it up. And despite waiting a week for the printer to arrive, this job got done before the old printer woulda managed it by a couple days.

The print quality was amazing, and I'm extremely happy with how everything came out. Was even able to sleep through the printer running, which is saying something in a studio apartment.

it also barely warped or deformed at all, to the point that this back seam was able to be straight up press fit, which was a big contrast to the helmet where I had to use clamps to bend things a bit back into shape when I was gluing the two halves I had.

Of course, I did glue everything - Just hit it with Gorilla glue, seems to have worked fine. Picked up some cheap clamps from Canadian tire to help with applying pressure, which worked out pretty well on most of it.

Even worked to clamp in the magnets into the lower arms, real nice fit there, seam works perfectly and they slip over each other to interface well.

However, those lower arms were also my bane - I did not give much consideration to the need for clamping forces when I designed them, and frankly the alignment pins were too shallow to do much more than vaguely guide me, they didn't resist pivoting at all. Lesson learned, and in the meantime I had to get exceedingly creative with how to position the parts to apply pressure, and use extra clamps and filaments I bought to orient stuff. - The upper clamp in the first pic is only there to provide another edge as a pseudo flat surface to allow those boxes to balance.

But, once it all came together, its past my wildest expectations for fit. Despite only being retained by pressure and the lower magnets, everything rests in such a way that I can actually wear it, assembled and unassisted, without the upper straps that even hold the chest in place - At least for long enough to take a photo, the magnets and press-fit do slowly slip.

Its actually fairly comfortable and not too restrictive to my movements - my arms can move about fine, and I can reach around, lean etc without interference. I'm a bit worried the armored collar might be too high and interfere with the helmet, but I don't have it here to check. Worst case scenario, I fall back onto the hat I made, as planned.

I've got a lot of sanding, finishing, painting and priming work to do, but at least its an easy enough thing to paint, and with the sheer smoothness of the prints, I shouldn't need to do much finishing work at all. Also gotta sink the threaded inserts for the screws to hold the straps in, just need to get my soldering iron back from a friend. If anyone has any lessons learned or advice to impart about sewing/gluing/working with nylon strapping, I'd love to hear it! I think I can get this done before the Calgary Expo here, but its gonna be a crunch.

If there is an update next week, it'll be a small one, probably just strapping it and initial sanding, because I'm losing the next four days to compete in Ludum Dare - As much as I love video game cosplay, making video games still comes first .

 

[N8TEBB]

If anyone has any lessons learned or advice to impart about sewing/gluing/working with nylon strapping, I'd love to hear it!

One tip is to try and avoid gluing parachute clips directly to the armour. It's much more secure to put a strap through the clip, and glue the strap to the armour.

For thick fabrics like nylon strapping, you'll want to increase the tension on your sewing machine to lift the lower thread up to the middle of your fabric. I don't have an industrial or semi-industrial machine, but I did add a walking foot which is helpful for the thick straps. I forget which needle I used (as I don't have my machine in front of me as I type this), but just ask the person at your local sewing shop and they'll give you some good suggestion on what needle to use. Whichever needle you end up using, make sure it's new and sharp. If your machine cannot accept a larger thread (most household machines cannot) then regular thread will work just fine. You can use a zig-zag or straight stitch. Make sure you go slow! Those older pedals have less control, so be careful! Straps are quite narrow, and you'll have to make lots of 90 degree turns. You don't want to go off the edge of the strap, so there's no need to rush here.

Make sure you are not using anything with adhesive. If you try to sew through anything that has a stick side to it, it will most certainly cause you a world of headache.

Now I'm no expert. This is just what I've learned from the little bit of sewing I've done. If anyone has any extra advice I'd love to hear it as well! Best of luck on your strapping man!

 

[Electraknite]

noooo i like that soldering iron!! lol looks great