Project: Reach

[Rosh]

My Eva helmet is a humid foggy mess. I had never heard of a breath box before. I am now going to research and purchase one so I can wear my helmet without going blind and dying of hypoxia.

Also, your work is amazing. I have to erred every page because I look at the pretty pictures and forget to read anything.

 

[WandererTJ]

1) I noticed you said you saw the reference pics, but I wanted to make sure you saw these:

Front View / Front View (Zoomed) / Stomach View (Looking Up)

Top View / Top View (Zoomed)

Side View / Partial Profile View (Zoomed) / Knife-Side Details
​

I used to offer to take reference pictures for people when Reach first came out, but college ended up taking a lot of my time up and I eventually had to stop. While I would still prefer finding better uses of my time than taking requests from others, your work is phenomenal and seeing as you are making certain parts of the armor that I am interested it, if you want a particular reference, just let me know. If all else fails though, you can at least follow the guide I just recently provided in the Reach Reference Pics Thread if you want to take your own pics. If you do this, I encourage you to post them to the thread and share them with the rest of us.

2) When you mention the collar, the middle spacer, and the shell basket, what are you referring to by the "middle spacer"?
Also, "shell basket" is a pretty great term for the section that holds the shells; I was trying to think up a good term for it but couldn't.

3) Is that your own personal model or did you export pepakura files over to .obj files or something?
Because we only have like 1 model of the Collar/breacher so far and it would be nice to have more options.

4) In reference to the 3d-model versus the in-game model, the strap/belt that goes down from the collar to the breacher shell basket looks to travel through the belt buckle looking thing in the middle. However, in your model, it appears as though it doesn't go through the buckle and it instead just connects to each side of it.
I just wanted to make sure that you noticed that it appears to be a strap that goes through.
On the Side View image above, on photobucket, if you hit the zoom button twice it will show you the original of the image which has a surprisingly nice resolution. Looking at the image, you'll see that the strap goes all the way through, and oddly, it sits outward and away from the chest.
Here's some examples of what I think we are essentially looking at:
http://173.255.201.19:8080/26-285-thickbox/milry-italian-men-designer-briefcase-and-laptop-bag-with-shoulder-strap-in-brown.jpg
http://www.strapsandbelts.com/images/replacement-shoulder-strap.jpg

5) Amazing idea with the UA Jorge Collar. I've always loved it and wished I could have had it on other armors, I guess great minds think alike lol.
I wasn't sure how it would work or how it would look with the breacher collar, but I'm really glad you posted that image. It doesn't look bad at all tbh. If I went with it, I think I would tweak the shapes of the lines a little so it would flow more and match with the breacher collar. ....OR you could increase the size of the breacher collar to match the Jorge collar.
Just tossing some ideas out for you to think about!
(Random note: it probably would have been better if they named the breacher collar as a "front-side gorget", and list the grenadier's collar as-is but I guess what they did works)

6) In terms of real-life applications, why not have the Jorge collar on your rear side shoulder to protect your neck from behind? Doesn't the Commando shoulder piece protect your front side enough?
I use the CQC shoulder for my forward shoulder as it has the groove in it for me to look through, while I use a Commando shoulder piece on my rear shoulder to help protect the gap of the neck between the helmet and the torso armor which is a pretty open killshot location. If I were to introduce the Jorge collar though, it could make a difference on what shoulder pieces I use, since it opens up more options since it helps protect the neck and head without needing assistance from the shoulder guards.

Anyways, I totally love having bonus accessories and attachments for anything, and it is good to see you working outside of the box with the Jorge collar.
I'm planning on having HP/Parafoil pistol clip pockets on the belt, assault/sapper grenade canisters (2) on the back of the belt, and a tactical/recon soft case on the underside of the right breast covering the LED in that location.

I'll also agree with you in terms of you saying you are making an assault specialist-- I don't think you'll need the sniper rounds on your shoulder piece. Yeah they look cool, but if you want to work on a specialized build, as an assault specialist you should keep in mind what you'd want to keep with you if you were trying to clear a room from the entrance to the room... whether you knocked on the door or just blew a hole in the wall. Obviously you will need to be heavily armored, but you may not need to have protection on your rear side if you are breaching a room. In terms of weaponry, you'll need to think about whether or not there will be captives. If there are, grenades and shotguns may not be the best options, you might need to be a bit more precise with your kills. It's a shame that neither the BR nor the DMR have under-barrel shotgun attachments.
But this is your armor, do as you please; again, I'm just trying to give you some things to think about to hopefully make what you want to do more clear. If you want to specialize in a certain style of spartan (assault), do it! If you want something that is just a miss-match of parts that you think look really cool, you can do that too!
(EDIT: I just re-read your post, it seems like you have things covered. I missed the part about how you would have the Jorge Collar facing your enemies the first time I read through it, oops!)

7) You do a mix of foam and pepakura parts, right? I was looking through your photobucket and it looked like your Halo 4 Torso piece was made from foam.
If so, what are your plans on addressing the collar/breacher collar piece?
If you end up making foam templates, please share!

And again, if you decide you want to sell some castings of the pieces you've made, I think you may very well have a customer in me.

I'm cheering for you and can't wait to see more. It's nice having someone with similar interests that I'll be able to ask questions to when I start working on my set of armor.


EDIT: I've been looking through some of the foam builds here and it's been slightly discouraging to see how uneven and jagged some of them end up looking. How do you get things to look so smooth? What's your process/methodology after you print and hotglue your Pepakura models together?

EDIT 2: On page 3 or 4, you said you hadn't started on your Commando shoulder piece. I was wondering what the pictures of the Commando shoulder piece you have on your photobucket are. It seems like you have already finished it, but Idk... Sorry for snooping!

 

[NayrDeath]

My Eva helmet is a humid foggy mess. I had never heard of a breath box before. I am now going to research and purchase one so I can wear my helmet without going blind and dying of hypoxia.

Also, your work is amazing. I have to erred every page because I look at the pretty pictures and forget to read anything.

Yeah, I was gonna recommend one to you earlier considering how large of a visor you're dealing with.
Thank you very much, Rosh. I hope to continue to dazzle you with my work in the future.


TJ, I quoted your post originally but it caused my post to exceed the character limit.

1. I didn't notice those, though they will come in handy so thank you for posting them. If you're still willing to take photos, I could use some of the Mark V shoulder; I searched your photobucket earlier for some and couldn't find any. If not I'll take some myself, it's just harder considering the only xbox with live connection is at my friend's house (My internet kinda sucks).

2. By "Middle spacer" I'm referring to the rectangular piece in the middle that kind of spaces the collar and the basket.

3. It's .obj's that I imported into Blender to help me get a better idea of the finished product. I will be editing that one file of the collar/breacher when I get to work on it. The current file isn't friendly to the way I build things.

4. I did notice that. Like I said earlier, when I make the attachment it'll be 3 separate pieces strung together be a nylon strap. I'll be editing the file to aid the creation of said pieces.

5. It appears they do indeed lol. That UA model isn't the exact one I'll be using, I've had trouble fining an HD version so I might end up scratch building one. I totally agree with the idea of calling it a gorget, especially considering they have another attachment called "buckler".

6. Just saw your edit, so I won't touch on the subject as much as I was going to; though like you said I probably won't need protection on my rear side. The Commando doesn't protect as well as most would assume, and I can vouch because I made one out of foam and fielded it with my old suit. The angle of the bicep it's attached to determines quite a lot in regards to how much of your body it protects; I'm installing the UA Collar as a definite guarantee that my neck will be protected from oncoming damage.

I like you ideas for extra attachments. Tactically intelligent/useful armor and attachments are the main reason I love the armor in Reach so much more than the other games, and why I still don't enjoy Halo 4's designs. I haven't thought much about other attachments though pistol mag pouches would seem sensible considering it's my marksman weapon of choice.

As far as weapons, I stumbled upon knowledge on the wiki a while back that claimed there are underslung versions of both the grenade launcher and the shotgun. Said knowledge got me thinking that my Spartan could, in theory, sport a weapon much like the one I use in airsoft; a SCAR-L with a ROF mod and an EGLM 40mm launcher (I nicknamed it 'The Butcher'). With a crazy idea like that in my head I followed this link: http://pimpmygun.doctornoob.com/app.php
And created the closest thing I could to an Assault Rifle with a grenade launcher attachment.



I think it looks pretty damn cool and I'm very much so considering making one to carry around with the finished suit. Though as far as loadouts go, a shotgun will be my primary weapon and a magnum will most definitely be slung on my thigh.

7. Sorta. I'm currently making pieces strictly out of fiberglass, while only using foamies for details when I have to (considering they'll be molded anyways). The main reason I'm not making armor out of foam is I'm not happy with it's flexibility; A lot of people like it, I hate it. I mean, sure it's great for comfort, but I feel if you actually take the time to scale and pad parts properly and make a comfortable undersuit, then hard resin/fiberglass parts won't be much of hassle and you won't run into issues such as your armor getting dented because you sat on it or leaned it against the corner of a shelf, etc.

I plan on making it using the fiberglass method, though if I do make any templates I'll be more than happy to share them. Thank you for the kind words, and feel free to get a hold of me if you want a cast of anything I build or if you're looking for help with with anything prop related. I must also thank you for paying such close attention to my build; a comment with something along the lines of 'great job!' is nice to read, but you go out of your way to ask in-depth questions as well as give suggestions and support, and I greatly enjoy and appreciate that.

Touching upon your first edit, I use a sharp utility knife blades. More specifically, the ones that you can break off portions as they dull. I've done this for so long that I can feel when a blade is getting dull just from how much drag a cut has.
As far as the question regarding smoothness, I assuming you mean my fiberglass pieces. I start with pepping out the model, though I tend to leave out indents (like the holes in my handplate) as I find it easier to just carve/cut out details like that once I'm done sanding. After pepping I give it a few thin coats of resin and pay particular attention to make sure none has pooled in cracks or recesses. After that I use bondo and a straight edge to get the angles down and the faces evenly flat. And finally I finish up with a layer of glazing putty almost everywhere; it's brittle stuff so it sands down to a smooth surface faster and more easily than bondo. If I'm after an extremely smooth finish I wetsand my pieces.

Now for the second edit. No need to apologize, I don't have any nudes or embarrassing photos on there, so all is good. Lol xD
The pieces you see were made from foam a year or two ago, I wore them with my first suit to the Halo 4 premier and then later sold everything to raise money for this suit and other hobbies.

*UPDATE*

Got a fair bit of work done before work today.
My handplate is nearly finished and ready for the detailing stage.
The MK V shoulder got some bondo and glazing work done to it, would look better but I ran out of glazing putty and had to get another tube before work today. As you can see, I'm gonna need to do some serious touch-up work with super glue on the furry bits where the cardstock didn't get soaked well enough.











-Ryan M-082

 

[WandererTJ]

6. I like you ideas for extra attachments. Tactically intelligent/useful armor and attachments are the main reason I love the armor in Reach so much more than the other games, and why I still don't enjoy Halo 4's designs. I haven't thought much about other attachments though pistol mag pouches would seem sensible considering it's my marksman weapon of choice. ....as far as loadouts go, a shotgun will be my primary weapon and a magnum will most definitely be slung on my thigh.

RE 6a) Finally, someone gets me!!! Lol.
Reach > Halo 4

Don't forget to use magnets to attach the pistol to your hip. I'm sure that doesn't need to be said though, you were probably already planning it lol.

What are your thoughts on attaching your shotgun to your back when you aren't using it, do you have any ideas for how you might do it yet?

As for those pistol mags, I already knew I wanted whatever it was that the HP/Parafoil torso had on its belt, but once I realized they were pistol mags, I wanted them even more. Not sure what my plan is on what to make those carrying pouches out of though.

What do you think about the armor plates that go around the belt? It looks to me like the ones that are the furthest left and furthest right on the belt could possibly be storage compartments/pouches/pockets. I could be wrong though, idk... maybe Batman is not hiding inside the Mjolnir armor, maybe he is.

RE 6b) I've also read somewhere that a version of the Assault Rifle has an underslung noob-tube attachment, but I don't think I've seen anything for the BR. It would be nice to put the attachment on the precision rifle since you would be aiming for headshots when you breach a room rather than just spraying and praying. I'll have to check out that link you posted later, in the 5 seconds that I looked at it, it looked pretty cool.
I'm more of a Vector fan than I am a SCAR fan though... lol.

RE 1) For the Mark V pictures I can definitely take some if my Inheritor account still has its save and hasn't been patched yet. I don't think I have the shoulder on my main account.

RE 2) Okay, spacer=buckle=strap adjustor, got it

RE 3) When you get done, I'd love it if you shared your .obj files, but if you'd rather not, I'd totally understand. I've used Lightwave and Rhino in the past, but not Blender, I might have to try it out some time.

RE 5) I see 3 different files in the 4shared folder for the UA Collar, have you tried out each one?

7. Sorta. I'm currently making pieces strictly out of fiberglass, while only using foamies for details when I have to (considering they'll be molded anyways). The main reason I'm not making armor out of foam is I'm not happy with it's flexibility; A lot of people like it, I hate it. I mean, sure it's great for comfort, but I feel if you actually take the time to scale and pad parts properly and make a comfortable undersuit, then hard resin/fiberglass parts won't be much of hassle and you won't run into issues such as your armor getting dented because you sat on it or leaned it against the corner of a shelf, etc.

RE 7 & Edit 1)I completely agree with you what you've said.
It's all about doing things 'properly' and if you do things 'properly', then there shouldn't be any issues you have to worry about.

So your process/method is: Cut pepakura, hot glue pieces together, Resin & Fiberglass (interior), Bondo (exterior), glazing putty (exterior), sanding, create recesses and carve out details, and then wetsand... right? ...and then afterwords you work on creating molds for the parts I would assume.
Do you resin the exterior at all?
Why is resin pooling in the cracks/recesses a bad thing? Doesn't that add structural support to the corners?
How does the straight edge come into play while using bondo? Are you using it to check that flat surfaces don't indent in or out?

I think the biggest challenge I'm facing right now is that I want to make sure I scale everything correctly the first time, especially if I go the pepakura/fiberglass route. I wouldn't want to finish pepping out a part just to find out it is too big or too small, especially when I find cutting and gluing the pepakura to be extremely tedious. My interest in wanting perfection combined with my lack of skills when it comes to this stuff makes the project a bit overwhelming. Then again, I suppose I could use the practice...

I've tried to do pepakura before, but I just didn't have the patience to sit and cut everything out, so I've been thinking a foam build might suit me more in that regard which is why I was asking about it, but I really need to find a way to harden the foam once I've given it its shape. Maybe spraying a layer of smoothcast plastic on might do the trick, I have no idea. I suppose I could always just make molds of the parts too, but that makes things into a much larger project.
I definitely do want the parts that should be hard to be hard though. There are a few spots that I might consider making them soft though. Like under the armpits, I dont mean the undersuit, but where the actual armor is right there. I think having a foam piece right there would greatly assist you in clipping/unclipping the front of the torso to the back. I'd prefer being able to put my armor on and take it off without assistance.

At some point in the next few days, I'm going to try and draw up how I want to do my layers on my undersuit. There are the large scales that will be easier to just attach to the main armor pieces as foam, and then there is the layer of undersuit below that.
In addition, I'll try to draw up what my armor will look like with all the attachments so I can determine if I like them or not. Hopefully I'll have the time.

I think that after I determine how I want to do my undersuit, it'll help me determine how thick the pieces will be and how much clearance I need between the undersuit and the armor.


Oh and the handplate is looking awesome, I like how you decided to remove the indentions/details when pepping it out and then you just carve them in later. Maybe that's what I need to do.

 

[WandererTJ]

In regards to the UA Jorge Collar combined with the Breacher Collar, I think I've found something that you might really like.
I think it is golden, even though the commando shoulder piece would make your mobility slightly restricted since the collar would get in the way of it when you tried to move your arm into certain positions.

Notice how it's essentially a two-piece build. There is the grey collar which attaches to a blue overpiece that sits upon the standard torso. I think the Breacher Collar has also been increased in size.
I think I might attempt to do something like this, or at least have a piece that I can attach/detach depending on the day or how I'm feeling lol.

 

[Lonewolf260]

Man this build is looking amazing so far Not even building a halo reach suit and your work is making me jealous! Keep up the great work cant wait to see the end product

-Ian