FoxtrotZero
Jr Member
Hey guys. FoxtrotZero here. Long time lurker, didn't even know I had an account until I spent all day digging through threads.
If you haven't figured by the title, I'm planning on making an ODST build. I've never done anything quite like it, so I'm doing all the research I can, and I'm looking to get some feedback on my intended methodology. There's a few kinks I need to work out still, as well, so I'm hoping to have those questions answered. I have a little bit of costuming experience, which I'll elaborate on further down, but I've never attempted anything quite this ambitious.
IMPORTANT AFTERTHOUGHT: I seriously wrote a textwall. This is something I've been known to do. If you're really interested in helping me out, I'm going to sincerely ask you read through all my drivel. I've tried to make it clear and to the point. If not, I have added a TL;DR at the end of what I want to do, how I intend to do it, and the specific parts on which I KNOW I need input. If you're just passing through and don't have the dedication and/or stamina for my literary epic, please at least look at that and see if you can help.
I know it's going to be a lot of work, which is why I'm planning on this being a long-term project (like, over the next year or so). It'd be nice to have it done by next Halloween. Despite living in San Diego, I have no real presence in conventions (never even been to Comic-Con, only accompanied some friends to a small one called Anime-Conji a couple years back). Plus, I'm a freshman uni student, and that **** comes first (whether I like it or not), so time and sometimes resources will be thin at times.
So without further ado, I'd like to go through a checklist of the order and method I'd like to go through things, and have some more veteran modelers poke holes in my plan and help me patch them back up.
PRIOR EXPERIENCE
So I've got very little under my belt. What I do have was an attempt to build the NCR Veteran Ranger armour from Fallout: New Vegas. I picked this because, at the time, attempting an ODST was WAY over my head, and I already had a pretty sweet duster. Oh did I ever estimate how hard that would be. The first vest was crudely patterned and cut EVA foam (about half an inch thick) hot glued onto a sweater, and oh boy did it suck.
The Mark II was a lot better. I ripped up the old one, and got a better pattern. I put more detail into the assembly, and the final assembly was stitching with nylon thread, plus some contact cement on the seams and a black plasti-dip coating. I cut off most of the sweater and the back was nylon strapping and some cannibalized backpack straps. Unfortunately, I was still new to the concept of shaping things to the human body, so it was way too long to be wearable.
This past month, in preperation for Halloween, I ripped up everything below the breastplates and started hammering out a shortened pattern. I damn near finished it, too, but I realized the mounting truth first: The Black Armour of the rangers is not realistically designed. It's almost impossible to move in, and between my flexible substrate and no heat gun, the foam plates did not conform. No bending, no twisting, no arms-out-in-front, and if I'd ever gotten the throat guard on, I'd have been unable to sit.
As for the mask and helmet, I never did figure out how to make them. I initially concieved of pepakura modeling it, but the mask is very complicated, with every surface being small, sloped, rounded, or some combination of the three. It also came in multiple parts, it wasn't just a bucket-helmet, so there would have been some way to fasten it all together. By comparison, the ODST helmet is a cakewalk. It's got some intricate parts, but it's all one piece, and it's mostly simple convex curves.
So I scrapped it. Well, I mean, I still have it, and might finish it some day, but I've moved on. I learned a lot, and I decided that, coupled with my need for a hobby (I really enjoyed getting out there and working, and my depleting Steam library agrees), that I'm ambitious and thoughtful enough to work out an ODST BDU.
WORKSPACE
I add this section because, frankly, I don't have a workspace. It's actually what's stopping me from jumping into this prematurely. The Ranger vest was built on top of the washer and dryer in my background, which is impractical for so many reasons I could probably write a book. I'm going to get out there and help clean up my grandfather's garage, which should have some prime working places, as well as enough room to store my WIP armour pieces.
I know I'm going to need a good deal of table space (including an area I can reliably use for cutting things) with a good light source, and if I can get something that will work like a stand, it will make some of my work a lot easier. I don't have a whole lot of tools, and what I do have isn't top shelf. Off the top of my head, I'm probably going to want a new X-acto knife and a nice, dedicated metal ruler. Past that I guess it's "buy it as I need it", so if anyone has an idea for things I WILL need, I'd love to hear it. I'm willing to pay for reliable materials and tools, but I don't have a lot of money, so it's important not to go overboard.
UNDERBODY
This is definitely a suit that needs to be considered as a whole from the inside out. I'll tell you right now I'm going to go with a primarily pepakura build, with as little foam as I can manage, for reasons I'll explain later.
The base layer basically just needs to be a black suit. I figured I'd get a light, black, long-sleeve T-shirt and some rugged black slacks. I'll probably need to make some sort of neck covering, kinda like a dickie I guess, because I don't like the whole exposed-neck thing. For gloves, I'll probably look into buying a set with a nice rigid backhand/knuckle. I know the typical ODST fashion is fingerless, but that's one of the few places I'm considering deviating. I've got a real reliable set of suede Redwings that are grey and black around the bottom, but I read that Gilmortar found a nice set of ANARCHIC black boots with, like, a three-inch heel. I'm not a small guy, but if I'm going to live up to the callsign Kodiak, I'll take every inch I can get. We'll see whether or not I end up buying a pair near the endgame.
TORSO UNDERARMOUR
In my intial concepts, I didn't account for this, but the more reference material and the more builds I saw, the more I realized it's unavoidable. I'm going to need some sort of soft vest-ish underarmour, which will include the bulky sections on the back, the big padding on the shoulder straps, and the neck big collar. I'm primarily going for a Halo 3: ODST style build, but the big bulky Reach collar guard is something I want to implement, because it looks more protective and if I'm going to implement the collar I might as well go big.
I wanted to do a pep build because I want my plates to seem rigid and hard like they realistically should be. This torso thing seems more to me like a stiff, soft armour, probably made of a kevlar-type weave with some ballistic padding. As such, the EVA foam is probably the best building choice. The only problem is I absoultely HATE this ****, and I want to use as little of it as possible, but I'm even more dedicated to this coming out nicely. I know that my fear has mostly to do with the fact that I've had some bad experiences and I'm actually not that great with a dremel tool (I really don't want to try to get a lot of detail in the foam, that sounds like a bitch). A lot of people have made SPECTACULAR foam builds, and more power to them, but despite being the only material I've worked with, I'm not interested in making it my primary material.
I haven't actually seen any designs for the layout of the underarmour, and I'm really skittish about so much as the concept of trying to design it from scratch, but other than the sholder padding (which runs back to the padding over the shoulder blades) and the collar, there's not a whole lot of definition to it. If there are any patterns for it, that'd be nice to know.
I can't see it being more than two layers thick (base layer, plus another one for shoulder pads, and an addon section for the collar), and I'd like the final product to be sort of a one-piece, donned by pulling it over the head and secured with two or three nylon straps on the sides (y'know, kidney area). Ideally I'll put quick-release buckles here, so I can adjust it as I like it and then just use those to take it on/off.
While I'm on the subject, the only other place I see myself using foam as a construction material (I expect I'll be using a significant quantity for padding on the pauldrons/vambraces/greaves, but maybe not the EVA stuff) would be the inside of the thigh pieces, because I'd like a little flex there and it would look good if done right (but for that overlapping appearance I'd probably be better off using something thin, any recommendations?).
HELMET AND RIGID PLATES
Now we're getting to the meat and potatoes of the build. I'm going for a standard issue ODST (but with a bent towards combat engineering and/or heavy weaponry, so I'll just be strapping a lot of pouches and gear on), so nothing special like RECON or sniper pieces.
The first thing I'd like to discuss is the actual manufacturing process, which I understand, but there seems to be a few overlapping method. As far as I can tell, for best results, the procedure is 1) make a pepakura model, 2) resin coat the outside with a brush, 3) apply fiberglass matting and resin to the inside of the structure, 4) apply bondo and sand down rounded/curved areas, 5) repeat step 4 until satisfied, 6) no seriously step 4 is like 75% of this build, 7) prime and paint. If I have anything out of order, it would be good of someone to point it out to me.
The next thing I'd like to discuss is how I'm going to secure the whole thing to my personage. I refuse to permanently mount anything to the bodysuit or soft armour sectinos. I saw a really good post on how to make a rig for MJOLNIR armour sets, and I'd like to follow in that sort of theme. I know it's best to suspend weight from your hips, instead of your shoulders, and people keep telling me this **** gets heavy (though that must be in all the resin and bondo, because I have some fiberglass matting and cardstock and neither is heavy). I'm considering looking into some military surplus stuff, particularly gear suspenders and/or webbing (I'm trying to actually *make* as much as I can, so I'm not going to get a military tactical vest or anything), but I'd need to know if I could make it work with my plans for the soft torso armour.
I'd like the whole thing to be on an adjustable harness, with everything attached two- or three-point by quick release clips, and the reasons are twofold. The first is that I'm not so hyped up and deluded as to think that I'll get everything right the first time. I might **** something up grossly, or I might later decide a particular part isn't high enough quality and want to re-do it. This allows me the ability to remove and replace parts. It should also make donning, doffing, and storing the armour a lot easier. The second reason is that I'm a bit of a pudgy guy, and I'm going to make an effort soon to start to shed some of that pudge. If I lose too much weight, some of my parts (most likely the thighs) might need actual reconstruction, but for smaller shifts, changing the fit of the harness should be enough.
I have a few concepts for *how* this harness should work, but I don't know if they'll play nice with the soft vest, if they'll at all accomplish the stated goal of hanging weight from my hips, or if it will accompadate a method of keeping the pauldrons (and thus vambraces) in place. As such, I'm currently going to refrain from elaborating on my concepts and instead welcome any advice.
As for the exact parts I use, I've seen a few names thrown around. Kirrou's seem to be a favourite, and I see why, but I've only seen one actual thread of the parts, and that was only a certain subset. I haven't yet dug into the database to see what's available, but if anyone wants to tell me what the best parts are and why, I'd like to know.
I intended to start out with a part with the intention that it's a proof of concept, and probably not going to be good enough to be the final product. I was going to make this the chestplate, because it's not extremely complex but it involves the whole process and it's also a good testbed for painting and weathering (as a LOT of decal and a LOT of people's attention go there). After looking through Kirrou's parts a bit, though, I think I might instead use the low-definition helmet. This will be a good introduction to pepakura modeling. It'll also be good practice for scaling, as well as getting one of the most difficult parts right (you can **** up the shins a little bit and not notice, but the helmet also gets a lot of attention). Being the low-poly one also has the double-edged feature of guaranteeing I can't use it in my final build.
Speaking of the helmet, one last thing I want to cover. Faceplate? I want a faceplate with black tint, and I've yet to set my heart on that silver reflective effect (but that might be important, as I want to guarantee I'm not readily visible through the visor). This seems to me like one of the harder and more intricate pieces, and if I were to hand-make it, it would probably be made of flat sections, which doesn't exactly jive with the way it should fit into the helmet. I know there are vaccum-formed ones available, and if the price is reasonable and the quality is good enough, I'm willing to order one.
PAINT, WEATHERING, AND DECALS
This is actually something I've spent some time poring over, and I don't know why. Perfectionism, I guess. As far as I can tell, there are a handful of standard decals. The bottom of the chestplate typically has UNSC painted on in white. The left side of the chestplate has the UNSC globe-and-eagle. Near there, small rotated text reads MK117, because Bungie has to have it's references. The top part of the chestplate typically has the ODST's callsign (e.g. Dutch or Buck, in my case Kodiak - and yes, there's a backstory to it, but the name came first). The left shoulder has a UNSC MED REF patch, which I've seen a few variants on, but as far as I can tell it's literally the words "UNSC MED REF" with the bloodtype (O+ for me), the Optican logo, and a random barcode (can someone say attention to detail? I rather enjoy stenciling, and recently realized I could probably make them a lot neater with some clever cutting of adhesive stencils made of masking tape).
Other than that, people seem to like their chest logos. I threw a custom one together real quick and you can see it as my profile image. It still needs some adjustments, and I'm not completely in love with it (my historical Multiplayer emblem is the sprocket and the phoenix, which I don't think fits here). Mostly I'm not convinced it has enough skulls to be a proper ODST motif. I'm also completely unsure what goes on the right shoulder - officially nothing, but I'm not happy with that. I'm thinking it should probably be a rank and/or a unit (Neither of which am I settled on, but it would probably be a non-com and the 7th Shock Troops Battalion, which served through most of the really cool campaigns like Delta Halo and Installation 00).
I've decided not to attempt the urban camo look, so it'll mostly be matte black. Strong colour is not something I want a lot of, but any colour accents I add (and I think I want some, I just haven't decided where) are probably going to be a dark, flat, cobalt blue (again, reference my avatar). The best paintjob I've seen yet is by a guy who calls himself Breaker. I think he's on the 405th but I don't know his username. If he's shown me anything, it's the importance of good weathering. I understand bare-metal weathering decently (couple layers of gunmetal, disrupt corners, edges, and raised areas with mustard (or hopefully some alternative with less culinary value), couple layers of matte black, remove disrupted areas, clear coat). Like I said, I'm not expecting much in the way of bright colours, so I don't place much weight on the sort of wear-and-tear dark splotches that would show there, but it would be good to learn how to do.
If there are other good opportunities for decals, or some standard-issue ones I've missed, I'd like to know.
ACCESSORIES
This is obviously the kind of stuff that comes last, but I've learned that detais like this are critical to a badass final product, and envisioning that final product is critical to maintaing your motivation. I've got a few concepts for things I'd like to do. The most important one is equipment pouches, probably on the left hip and maybe the right boot. I'm not sure where to buy these, but I'm sure some research will yield the answers. Might want more, but I can't think of where or why just yet.
Next up are attachments like a knife (I could probably pep a decent looking one and paint it gunmetal, I saw a guy do that once, or I could look into buying an actual knife with one of those nice attachable sheathes). I'd place this on the left-side shoulder pad (IIRC, pretty much the mirror opposite of Buck). I also concieved of making a shotgun bandolier (wherein I'd take actual shotgun shells, hollow them out, refill them with the shot and some plaster (but no poweder), and repaint them bright red with the Misriah Armory logo and some flavor text like "12GA TUNGSTEN SLUG"), but I don't know which arm this would go on or even where I'd mount it what with those big vent things on the vambraces.
Grenades! I saw a guy (username escapes me ATM) make some yellow ones into flashbangs using LED light strips. I'd probably make something similar, but just paint them red and mark them as incendiaries, with no real functionality. I could make standard HE/DP frag grenades, but meh, we'll see. The incendiaries have the nice advantage of really just being tubes.
You might notice I'm putting these in the order of importance, the order in which I'd complete them, and the order of percieved complexity. If I've gotten this far, I consider the build beyond complete. Next up is makign an ODST-variant M6 pistol, which I would have to consider a completely seperate proejct. I'd put it on a drop holster on the right thigh. If I complete that, a more substantial weapon is called for, but I don't know what.
FINALE
So there you have it. My entire concept from background to future projects. I'm sorry it's so damned long (over 18k characters!), and if you've actually read it, you're a damned hero. I'm looking for literally as much criticism as I can get, because I insist on going into this well-equipped.
As promised, here is my TL;DR - First time building anything like an ODST BDU, and I want to use rigid (read: pepakura) plates on a nylon strapping harness and a seperate soft (read: EVA foam) torso vest, despite hating working with foam. I need to know what the best pepakure parts to use are, and if there are some patterns or references for that vest. I need to know how to go about making a good visor, or if it's worthwhile to buy a vaccum formed one. I need as much knowledge as I can get on making a harness (up to, but not necessarily including, buying surplus military suspenders/webbing). Also need to know how to get some good gear pouches.
Thanks for entertaining a rookie to the 405th. Here's hoping I can get some good responses, and actually get this done!
If you haven't figured by the title, I'm planning on making an ODST build. I've never done anything quite like it, so I'm doing all the research I can, and I'm looking to get some feedback on my intended methodology. There's a few kinks I need to work out still, as well, so I'm hoping to have those questions answered. I have a little bit of costuming experience, which I'll elaborate on further down, but I've never attempted anything quite this ambitious.
IMPORTANT AFTERTHOUGHT: I seriously wrote a textwall. This is something I've been known to do. If you're really interested in helping me out, I'm going to sincerely ask you read through all my drivel. I've tried to make it clear and to the point. If not, I have added a TL;DR at the end of what I want to do, how I intend to do it, and the specific parts on which I KNOW I need input. If you're just passing through and don't have the dedication and/or stamina for my literary epic, please at least look at that and see if you can help.
I know it's going to be a lot of work, which is why I'm planning on this being a long-term project (like, over the next year or so). It'd be nice to have it done by next Halloween. Despite living in San Diego, I have no real presence in conventions (never even been to Comic-Con, only accompanied some friends to a small one called Anime-Conji a couple years back). Plus, I'm a freshman uni student, and that **** comes first (whether I like it or not), so time and sometimes resources will be thin at times.
So without further ado, I'd like to go through a checklist of the order and method I'd like to go through things, and have some more veteran modelers poke holes in my plan and help me patch them back up.
PRIOR EXPERIENCE
So I've got very little under my belt. What I do have was an attempt to build the NCR Veteran Ranger armour from Fallout: New Vegas. I picked this because, at the time, attempting an ODST was WAY over my head, and I already had a pretty sweet duster. Oh did I ever estimate how hard that would be. The first vest was crudely patterned and cut EVA foam (about half an inch thick) hot glued onto a sweater, and oh boy did it suck.
The Mark II was a lot better. I ripped up the old one, and got a better pattern. I put more detail into the assembly, and the final assembly was stitching with nylon thread, plus some contact cement on the seams and a black plasti-dip coating. I cut off most of the sweater and the back was nylon strapping and some cannibalized backpack straps. Unfortunately, I was still new to the concept of shaping things to the human body, so it was way too long to be wearable.
This past month, in preperation for Halloween, I ripped up everything below the breastplates and started hammering out a shortened pattern. I damn near finished it, too, but I realized the mounting truth first: The Black Armour of the rangers is not realistically designed. It's almost impossible to move in, and between my flexible substrate and no heat gun, the foam plates did not conform. No bending, no twisting, no arms-out-in-front, and if I'd ever gotten the throat guard on, I'd have been unable to sit.
As for the mask and helmet, I never did figure out how to make them. I initially concieved of pepakura modeling it, but the mask is very complicated, with every surface being small, sloped, rounded, or some combination of the three. It also came in multiple parts, it wasn't just a bucket-helmet, so there would have been some way to fasten it all together. By comparison, the ODST helmet is a cakewalk. It's got some intricate parts, but it's all one piece, and it's mostly simple convex curves.
So I scrapped it. Well, I mean, I still have it, and might finish it some day, but I've moved on. I learned a lot, and I decided that, coupled with my need for a hobby (I really enjoyed getting out there and working, and my depleting Steam library agrees), that I'm ambitious and thoughtful enough to work out an ODST BDU.
WORKSPACE
I add this section because, frankly, I don't have a workspace. It's actually what's stopping me from jumping into this prematurely. The Ranger vest was built on top of the washer and dryer in my background, which is impractical for so many reasons I could probably write a book. I'm going to get out there and help clean up my grandfather's garage, which should have some prime working places, as well as enough room to store my WIP armour pieces.
I know I'm going to need a good deal of table space (including an area I can reliably use for cutting things) with a good light source, and if I can get something that will work like a stand, it will make some of my work a lot easier. I don't have a whole lot of tools, and what I do have isn't top shelf. Off the top of my head, I'm probably going to want a new X-acto knife and a nice, dedicated metal ruler. Past that I guess it's "buy it as I need it", so if anyone has an idea for things I WILL need, I'd love to hear it. I'm willing to pay for reliable materials and tools, but I don't have a lot of money, so it's important not to go overboard.
UNDERBODY
This is definitely a suit that needs to be considered as a whole from the inside out. I'll tell you right now I'm going to go with a primarily pepakura build, with as little foam as I can manage, for reasons I'll explain later.
The base layer basically just needs to be a black suit. I figured I'd get a light, black, long-sleeve T-shirt and some rugged black slacks. I'll probably need to make some sort of neck covering, kinda like a dickie I guess, because I don't like the whole exposed-neck thing. For gloves, I'll probably look into buying a set with a nice rigid backhand/knuckle. I know the typical ODST fashion is fingerless, but that's one of the few places I'm considering deviating. I've got a real reliable set of suede Redwings that are grey and black around the bottom, but I read that Gilmortar found a nice set of ANARCHIC black boots with, like, a three-inch heel. I'm not a small guy, but if I'm going to live up to the callsign Kodiak, I'll take every inch I can get. We'll see whether or not I end up buying a pair near the endgame.
TORSO UNDERARMOUR
In my intial concepts, I didn't account for this, but the more reference material and the more builds I saw, the more I realized it's unavoidable. I'm going to need some sort of soft vest-ish underarmour, which will include the bulky sections on the back, the big padding on the shoulder straps, and the neck big collar. I'm primarily going for a Halo 3: ODST style build, but the big bulky Reach collar guard is something I want to implement, because it looks more protective and if I'm going to implement the collar I might as well go big.
I wanted to do a pep build because I want my plates to seem rigid and hard like they realistically should be. This torso thing seems more to me like a stiff, soft armour, probably made of a kevlar-type weave with some ballistic padding. As such, the EVA foam is probably the best building choice. The only problem is I absoultely HATE this ****, and I want to use as little of it as possible, but I'm even more dedicated to this coming out nicely. I know that my fear has mostly to do with the fact that I've had some bad experiences and I'm actually not that great with a dremel tool (I really don't want to try to get a lot of detail in the foam, that sounds like a bitch). A lot of people have made SPECTACULAR foam builds, and more power to them, but despite being the only material I've worked with, I'm not interested in making it my primary material.
I haven't actually seen any designs for the layout of the underarmour, and I'm really skittish about so much as the concept of trying to design it from scratch, but other than the sholder padding (which runs back to the padding over the shoulder blades) and the collar, there's not a whole lot of definition to it. If there are any patterns for it, that'd be nice to know.
I can't see it being more than two layers thick (base layer, plus another one for shoulder pads, and an addon section for the collar), and I'd like the final product to be sort of a one-piece, donned by pulling it over the head and secured with two or three nylon straps on the sides (y'know, kidney area). Ideally I'll put quick-release buckles here, so I can adjust it as I like it and then just use those to take it on/off.
While I'm on the subject, the only other place I see myself using foam as a construction material (I expect I'll be using a significant quantity for padding on the pauldrons/vambraces/greaves, but maybe not the EVA stuff) would be the inside of the thigh pieces, because I'd like a little flex there and it would look good if done right (but for that overlapping appearance I'd probably be better off using something thin, any recommendations?).
HELMET AND RIGID PLATES
Now we're getting to the meat and potatoes of the build. I'm going for a standard issue ODST (but with a bent towards combat engineering and/or heavy weaponry, so I'll just be strapping a lot of pouches and gear on), so nothing special like RECON or sniper pieces.
The first thing I'd like to discuss is the actual manufacturing process, which I understand, but there seems to be a few overlapping method. As far as I can tell, for best results, the procedure is 1) make a pepakura model, 2) resin coat the outside with a brush, 3) apply fiberglass matting and resin to the inside of the structure, 4) apply bondo and sand down rounded/curved areas, 5) repeat step 4 until satisfied, 6) no seriously step 4 is like 75% of this build, 7) prime and paint. If I have anything out of order, it would be good of someone to point it out to me.
The next thing I'd like to discuss is how I'm going to secure the whole thing to my personage. I refuse to permanently mount anything to the bodysuit or soft armour sectinos. I saw a really good post on how to make a rig for MJOLNIR armour sets, and I'd like to follow in that sort of theme. I know it's best to suspend weight from your hips, instead of your shoulders, and people keep telling me this **** gets heavy (though that must be in all the resin and bondo, because I have some fiberglass matting and cardstock and neither is heavy). I'm considering looking into some military surplus stuff, particularly gear suspenders and/or webbing (I'm trying to actually *make* as much as I can, so I'm not going to get a military tactical vest or anything), but I'd need to know if I could make it work with my plans for the soft torso armour.
I'd like the whole thing to be on an adjustable harness, with everything attached two- or three-point by quick release clips, and the reasons are twofold. The first is that I'm not so hyped up and deluded as to think that I'll get everything right the first time. I might **** something up grossly, or I might later decide a particular part isn't high enough quality and want to re-do it. This allows me the ability to remove and replace parts. It should also make donning, doffing, and storing the armour a lot easier. The second reason is that I'm a bit of a pudgy guy, and I'm going to make an effort soon to start to shed some of that pudge. If I lose too much weight, some of my parts (most likely the thighs) might need actual reconstruction, but for smaller shifts, changing the fit of the harness should be enough.
I have a few concepts for *how* this harness should work, but I don't know if they'll play nice with the soft vest, if they'll at all accomplish the stated goal of hanging weight from my hips, or if it will accompadate a method of keeping the pauldrons (and thus vambraces) in place. As such, I'm currently going to refrain from elaborating on my concepts and instead welcome any advice.
As for the exact parts I use, I've seen a few names thrown around. Kirrou's seem to be a favourite, and I see why, but I've only seen one actual thread of the parts, and that was only a certain subset. I haven't yet dug into the database to see what's available, but if anyone wants to tell me what the best parts are and why, I'd like to know.
I intended to start out with a part with the intention that it's a proof of concept, and probably not going to be good enough to be the final product. I was going to make this the chestplate, because it's not extremely complex but it involves the whole process and it's also a good testbed for painting and weathering (as a LOT of decal and a LOT of people's attention go there). After looking through Kirrou's parts a bit, though, I think I might instead use the low-definition helmet. This will be a good introduction to pepakura modeling. It'll also be good practice for scaling, as well as getting one of the most difficult parts right (you can **** up the shins a little bit and not notice, but the helmet also gets a lot of attention). Being the low-poly one also has the double-edged feature of guaranteeing I can't use it in my final build.
Speaking of the helmet, one last thing I want to cover. Faceplate? I want a faceplate with black tint, and I've yet to set my heart on that silver reflective effect (but that might be important, as I want to guarantee I'm not readily visible through the visor). This seems to me like one of the harder and more intricate pieces, and if I were to hand-make it, it would probably be made of flat sections, which doesn't exactly jive with the way it should fit into the helmet. I know there are vaccum-formed ones available, and if the price is reasonable and the quality is good enough, I'm willing to order one.
PAINT, WEATHERING, AND DECALS
This is actually something I've spent some time poring over, and I don't know why. Perfectionism, I guess. As far as I can tell, there are a handful of standard decals. The bottom of the chestplate typically has UNSC painted on in white. The left side of the chestplate has the UNSC globe-and-eagle. Near there, small rotated text reads MK117, because Bungie has to have it's references. The top part of the chestplate typically has the ODST's callsign (e.g. Dutch or Buck, in my case Kodiak - and yes, there's a backstory to it, but the name came first). The left shoulder has a UNSC MED REF patch, which I've seen a few variants on, but as far as I can tell it's literally the words "UNSC MED REF" with the bloodtype (O+ for me), the Optican logo, and a random barcode (can someone say attention to detail? I rather enjoy stenciling, and recently realized I could probably make them a lot neater with some clever cutting of adhesive stencils made of masking tape).
Other than that, people seem to like their chest logos. I threw a custom one together real quick and you can see it as my profile image. It still needs some adjustments, and I'm not completely in love with it (my historical Multiplayer emblem is the sprocket and the phoenix, which I don't think fits here). Mostly I'm not convinced it has enough skulls to be a proper ODST motif. I'm also completely unsure what goes on the right shoulder - officially nothing, but I'm not happy with that. I'm thinking it should probably be a rank and/or a unit (Neither of which am I settled on, but it would probably be a non-com and the 7th Shock Troops Battalion, which served through most of the really cool campaigns like Delta Halo and Installation 00).
I've decided not to attempt the urban camo look, so it'll mostly be matte black. Strong colour is not something I want a lot of, but any colour accents I add (and I think I want some, I just haven't decided where) are probably going to be a dark, flat, cobalt blue (again, reference my avatar). The best paintjob I've seen yet is by a guy who calls himself Breaker. I think he's on the 405th but I don't know his username. If he's shown me anything, it's the importance of good weathering. I understand bare-metal weathering decently (couple layers of gunmetal, disrupt corners, edges, and raised areas with mustard (or hopefully some alternative with less culinary value), couple layers of matte black, remove disrupted areas, clear coat). Like I said, I'm not expecting much in the way of bright colours, so I don't place much weight on the sort of wear-and-tear dark splotches that would show there, but it would be good to learn how to do.
If there are other good opportunities for decals, or some standard-issue ones I've missed, I'd like to know.
ACCESSORIES
This is obviously the kind of stuff that comes last, but I've learned that detais like this are critical to a badass final product, and envisioning that final product is critical to maintaing your motivation. I've got a few concepts for things I'd like to do. The most important one is equipment pouches, probably on the left hip and maybe the right boot. I'm not sure where to buy these, but I'm sure some research will yield the answers. Might want more, but I can't think of where or why just yet.
Next up are attachments like a knife (I could probably pep a decent looking one and paint it gunmetal, I saw a guy do that once, or I could look into buying an actual knife with one of those nice attachable sheathes). I'd place this on the left-side shoulder pad (IIRC, pretty much the mirror opposite of Buck). I also concieved of making a shotgun bandolier (wherein I'd take actual shotgun shells, hollow them out, refill them with the shot and some plaster (but no poweder), and repaint them bright red with the Misriah Armory logo and some flavor text like "12GA TUNGSTEN SLUG"), but I don't know which arm this would go on or even where I'd mount it what with those big vent things on the vambraces.
Grenades! I saw a guy (username escapes me ATM) make some yellow ones into flashbangs using LED light strips. I'd probably make something similar, but just paint them red and mark them as incendiaries, with no real functionality. I could make standard HE/DP frag grenades, but meh, we'll see. The incendiaries have the nice advantage of really just being tubes.
You might notice I'm putting these in the order of importance, the order in which I'd complete them, and the order of percieved complexity. If I've gotten this far, I consider the build beyond complete. Next up is makign an ODST-variant M6 pistol, which I would have to consider a completely seperate proejct. I'd put it on a drop holster on the right thigh. If I complete that, a more substantial weapon is called for, but I don't know what.
FINALE
So there you have it. My entire concept from background to future projects. I'm sorry it's so damned long (over 18k characters!), and if you've actually read it, you're a damned hero. I'm looking for literally as much criticism as I can get, because I insist on going into this well-equipped.
As promised, here is my TL;DR - First time building anything like an ODST BDU, and I want to use rigid (read: pepakura) plates on a nylon strapping harness and a seperate soft (read: EVA foam) torso vest, despite hating working with foam. I need to know what the best pepakure parts to use are, and if there are some patterns or references for that vest. I need to know how to go about making a good visor, or if it's worthwhile to buy a vaccum formed one. I need as much knowledge as I can get on making a harness (up to, but not necessarily including, buying surplus military suspenders/webbing). Also need to know how to get some good gear pouches.
Thanks for entertaining a rookie to the 405th. Here's hoping I can get some good responses, and actually get this done!
