Rook's ODST WIP... build finished!

[Rook3]

Since my previous thread was locked due to age, I thought I'd start a new one about my build.

So, in a nutshell...

Since I finally started working on this again after getting the kit almost 3 years ago, I
guess I should do a build thread.

This kit was made by Sean Bradley and was part of a group buy between a couple sites I'm on, including here.

I added an additional helmet visor to my kit (Blue exterior and smoked interior visor, nested within each other) and a set of the silicone rubber glove "armor" covers.

Sean's build instructions are pretty good over all, but need very slight improvement in a couple areas as some of the pics of the plastic are a little confusing.

Overall, it's a great kit.

I've never built a set of armor like this before. My Aliens USCM Marine armor came to me ready to assemble with no additional modding/sanding/cutting required.
I figure if you've made a set of TK (Storm Trooper) armor or even a detailed resin prop gun, you should be able to do this armor kit.

I started with the helmet in 2010 after my buddy Rex showed the work he was doing with his.

Added both front and rear vent cutouts and lined with wire window screen.

Painted silver, then gunmetal, then masked and painted an OD stripe down the top, clearcoating afterward.

Also resin coated the interior of the armor parts to add durability. "probably" should have done actual fiberglass reenforcing, but I worked with what I had available.

Did some subtractive weathering after that. I must not have used multiple coats of paint like I did (2 years later) with
the body armor because I was able to remove the surface gunmetal using blue painters tape.

I tried doing that on the armor and it held up like real armor, resisting my efforts.

I also replaced the cast in screw heads with real allen head bolts. It adds a nice detail.
I actually used one of those as a mounting point for the anti-fog cooling system that I
scavenged out of my airsoft mask.

More to come...

 

[Rook3]

So... fast forward from September 2010 to August 2012. I missed the Halo: Reach game launch, and the resined,
dusty, armor bits sat in the box in the basement.

Halo 4 was coming out in a couple months... Hmmm...

Started trimming and sanding the edges. Sean Bradley does/did much of the basic trimming
on my kit, but there's still a fair amount left to do. I did the majority of the cutting and sanding with
a dremmel cutting disk, sanding drum, and a mouse sander with a 60 grit sanding pad.

After that... more procrastination. Frankly, unlike the USCM armor, this thing takes a lot more planning for
all the webbing and mounting. USCM armor is EASY by comparison, even accounting for the floating shoulder
parts.

So October arrives and I finally get enough courage to start assembling the thing. Okay, okay, I admit I didn't
want to Frak the thing up. Lots of drilling and pop rivets.

Truth be told, apprehension is the biggest enemy when building this suit. It's NOT as bad as I thought it was.
Seriously.

I started with the boot/leg armor like in the build guide. I had to reenforce the knees a bit more from
where I trimmed the plastic. I bent the edges over a bit as well. Could have done a better job on it,
but it is what it is.

The worst part was joining the two halves of the calf armor. Pain in the a$$. I ended up overlapping the
edges instead of just edge butting like I probably should have. I used two entire tubes of 2 part epoxy to
glue the things together, including the internal reinforcement tabs.

After painting, it almost looks like a factory weld line. Kinda cool. The game armor did have a seam there,
so you don't need to sand it smooth. I still need to add some internal padding as it doesn't fit quite as
snug as the USCM shin armor does.

Now comes the BIGGEST TIME WASTE I put into this project.

I had this idea... kind of like a dream...

I had a dream...

In the game, apparently holsters and slings on weapons are too 20th century, so they bond to armor
through some sort of magnetics. So I thought, "Hey, the Wilco magnum pistol I have Isn't THAT heavy, I bet I can
put some metal plates on the side and have it stick to the armor leg with magnets!"

Well, if you know me at all by now, my projects rarely, ever, go THAT easy.

Turns out with a barrier (leg armor+resin) between them, the magnets weren't strong enough to hold
the pistol in place on their own.

Then, I get a deal on an ODST pistol, which I swap for the magnum I was going to use, which
added additional weight.

So, I ordered some more Neodymium magnets, pre-machined, and mounted those to the sides of the pistol.
I had to add a trigger hook for stability. Without the hook it stayed on the thigh when walking, but any
kind of jump/run/bump and the thing would drop free... which explains why I had to reattach the hand/trigger
guard. Doh.

But now, with the trigger hook, the thing is ROCK SOLID and I can even literally sprint with the thing in place.
Pretty cool I think.

Got around to painting it finally...

Base coat of silver, top coat of black, clear coat over that after some light weathering.
Also added white to the 3 dot iron sights.

 

[Rook3]

I screwed up though. Instead of using my normal paint/clearcoat technique that I use for my Indiana Jones
Webley pistols, I used a rattlecan clearcoat... which does NOT give the same results. Not entirely happy
with the final finish on this thing, but heck with it, I'm not stripping and redoing it at this point.
Maybe in the future. If I'm bored. And they stop making video games and movies that give
me ideas for additional projects.

Hey, it could happen.

So after wasting another week on the toys and magic tricks, back to the armor...

Legs are all assembled. Thighs sanded and ready for paint. I start with the forearm armor.

I started with the forearmor first because... there's only 3 pieces to it, and it's pretty
straight forward. Sand edges, match them up, rivet in the connector/bracing plastic, done deal.

Or it would be if I hadn't screwed things up while trimming. Back in 2010 I "started" trimming
the plastic of one forearm. In a nutshell, I made a mistake, and actually cut 1/2" off the back side
of one arm guard. Soooo... I had to make a new one. What I ended up doing was putting some
blue tape over the cut off end sealing it. Then i slush cast some resin in the missing end piece,
then after it cured I cut it to shape. It actually turned out okay in the end. It's still slightly
shorter than the other side is, but you wouldn't notice it if I didn't point it out to you.

So, riveted it all togeather... mis-drilled one side of the elbow armor which threw off the
alignment and introduced some gapping at the seam. Had to drill out the
rivets and redrill it in the proper location.

After sorting that out, steel wool, wash and painted it with 2 coats silver, 2 coats clear and 2 coats
gunmetal... the last of which I apparently didn't take any pictures.

 

[Rook3]

After the forearmor and boots, moved on to the abdominal/chest and then the yoke/back.

I had to cut/sand down the center plate some more after looking at the build pics again.

Now, in pretty much EVERY picture I've seen, everyone has what looks like some sort of
webbing on the L/R plates CAST or sculpted in place. Ever since I first got the kit I thought...

"How hard could it be to put real webbing in there?"

"How hard can it be..." is a curse phrase, like "This shouldn't take long..." or "It seemed
like a good idea at the time..."



Actually, since you already had to drill the moulded in rivets on the bottom to put
real ones in to retain webbing and a fastex buckle on the INSIDE,
doing the top webbing shouldn't be that hard. For realz, yo.

I drilled out the top rivet points and put cuts above and below the cast in brackets.
The webbing will snake under the "brackets" starting at the bottom, going upwards
circumnavigating the armor plate in an optically fuzzy method. or maybe that's just
my camera phone. You make the call...

You like that? I used circumnavigating in a sentence. 'Cause the ODST are Marines.
Associated with the Navy. Is this thing on? Bueller... Bueller?

Anyhoo... Riveted the chest plate on and the mid section is done except for painting.

Did the same thing as everthing else... all at the same time... steel wool, wash, 2 coats silver,
2 coats clear, 2 coats gunmetal, weather, clearcoat.

Then I masked off the chest plate and painted it OD Green and then spent an hour
hand cutting stencils...

Masked and painted and did some more weathering with steel wool that seemed to be one
grade away from being plain wire, because even with the minimal weathering it looked too clean.

For the paint I just mixed an equal amount of Testors battleship grey and white. Mixed them and
dabbed them on with a shop towel. Clearcoated after that. So it's stenciled... but not factory fresh.
I made my stencils all the same size, printed on cardstock appx. 3/4" high. The UNSC is perfect,
the Rook and MK117 slightly too large, but I'm not redoing it. I can live with it.

After that, clearcoated again, and went on to the thigh armor...

 

[Rook3]

For the thigh armor I'd already predrilled all my holes for the webbing. For the Camo pattern I
fired up the game and played for a couple minutes in firefight to get a movie file, which I saved.
Then I fired up the theater mode and used the free flying camera look to pick out details of the
camo scheme.

For paint I used Bondo flat black primer, a Rustoleum "satin" Antique Bronze (I dunno, it kind
of looked green to me...) and an Ace Hardware dark grey primer.

I took a couple of those red shop towels and cut a rough, double ended "Y" shape on one towel,

>--<

and a couple smaller semi-abstract shapes with the other. I sprayed the grey "Y" vertical,
then did a horizontal "Y" in black.

Added a couple greenish-whatever shapes to the top corners and bottom edges.
I had to add a bit more grey to cover up some large areas of gunmetal after the fact,
just used the cutout towels where apppropriate and used a couple more towels to "mask" off
areas I didn't want painted.

Easy peasy.

After that I touched up the "buckles" on the sides with some silver paint, dabbing it
on with a shop towel like I did on the stencils. Instant weathering!

Clearcoated after that and they're pretty much done! I still have to permanently mount the
magnets on the inside of the right leg, but other than that and adding the webbing/buckles
they are done.

For all the armor I also did a bit of acrylic black paint "dirty" to it with a wet towel, which knocked down the
clean, shiny aspect a bit. Doesn't look so factory new now.

For the yoke and back plates I did much the same as above, steel wool, wash, paint, etc.

I'll have to add all the webbing soon and make the shoulder pads. Not looking forward to that project. It's kind of involved.

 

[Rook3]

So after sewing for the last 2 night straight, I've come to the conclusion that machine sewing is
MUCH better than hand sewing!

I'm in the home stretch now. Last night I got all the webbing in place on the thigh armor, tail,
cod and hip plates. I also (finally) got the front and rear torso webbing sewn. I differed from
Sean's plans in that instead of hand sewing the rear torso webbing I actually added velcro to
make it removeable. if need be... plus, it took less time to do that than to hand sew everything.

At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Today I need to finish the shoulder strap/padding and then do final fitting on the boot/shin armor
and it should be good to go. I'm not doing the inner thigh detail as I've run out of time, but last night
I did add padding to the boots and forearmor.

Only a few hours left until launch!

 

[Macattack64]

Great looking kit!! I'd love to build one too.

 

[Frozensnot]

Dude that kit looks pretty sweet. I wish i could get one.

 

[Rook3]

Despite the pain in my fingers from hand sewing/completing the shoulder pad/straps (one done, the other about half way complete...), it's a pretty
nice kit. Worth saving for if you don't have the time or patience to do it from pep.

 

[Privyet]

That gun magnet idea was a stroke a genius. How easy is it to detach the gun, if you're able to sprint with it on?

 

[Tzahalon]

this kit looks great who would i talk to to obtain one?

 

[Rook3]

Sorry for the late reply. Spent the last two weeks getting the armor done for game launch.

The Kit was manufactured by Sean Bradley.

Regarding the magnets, they're strong... but not THAT strong. The trigger hook stabilizer I added to the thigh is what really keeps it secure.
The magnets by themselves are strong enough to keep the pistol in place for walking, but anything more aerobic really needed
some sort retention system, which is why I added the hook.

Because of the curved nature of the thigh armor and the raised "buckles," the pistol by itself has a tendency to want to rock
forward and backward. The trigger stabilizer hook stops the horizontal movement, allowing the magnets to really lock the pistol in place.

You can EASILY remove the pistol for a quick draw down on Covenant scum who decide to attack, and just as easily
"re-holster" it on the leg. It's quite secure and easy to manuver on and off of the leg.

 

[Rook3]

So, to conclude my journey of ODST building...

I didn't have the cash left after buying a million feet of 1" webbing (slight exaggeration) so I used
some cordura nylon I had on hand for the under shoulder armor mount plates and "pads."

I had a black cordura top layer and a dark grey under layer. It seemed to work okay.
Added velcro to the under arm straps and added a scrap velcro circle to the top end
so it would attach to my undershirt.

Test fit... yep, it works.

Spent another weekend before game launch sewing. The shoulder pads/straps were a bear to do. I didn't
use the utility belts as suggested by Sean's instructions, instead I made my top straps completely from scratch
using 2" and 1" webbing. I left unsewn spaces at the ends to allow for the "buckle" attachment.

I also added fuzzy side velcro to each end of the long connection straps for "ease" of removal,
and placed self adhesive "industrial" hook side velcro inside the armor. Didn't have a problem
with it releasing at all during the event.

I used the machine to create a false edge for definition, then cut each adjacent "facet" of the pads apart,
flipped it inside out, and stitched them together. Sadly, I was soo ticked at these things, and how LONG
they were taking to make... that I really didn't take ANY pics of the sewing process. After getting the main body done, I
had to then hand sew the undersides... because you can't use the machine for that. Or if you can... I don't
know how. Oh come on, how much sewing have YOU done lately?

Was running out of time, so I didn't...

A) "permanently" attach the buckles to the chest plate.
B) Sew the rear buckles to the straps. That will have to come later.

The buckles are CNCed Aluminum. While seriously cool (I mean, come on, they're METAL!),
they lack the round "ears" at the bottom that are required to attach them to the chest plate
in Sean's plans. I plan on drilling the inner tabs and adding at least one "ear" at a later date.

I did the majority of the finish sewing on the straps only a couple hours before game launch.
Hand sewing takes FOREVER! I suggest paying someone else to do it. Okay, do it yourself.
It builds character. Yeah, that's it.

So, I was getting seriously tired of sewing at this point, took a break and assembled all the
parts that need the "D ring" straps. Now, in Sean's plans he suggests hand sewing everything.
That takes too long in my opinion. If you have access to a sewing machine, use it. I pre-sewed
the straps, folding over the ends of each strap and sewing a straight line across the end, leaving
a loop. It took all of like 10 minutes to do all 6 straps.

Then I bent the D rings apart, put them into the loop and crimped them tight with the pliers.

After all the straps were made (they're pretty much identical), you feed a zip tie from the
back side of the armor plates, loop it over the strap in front, run it THROUGH
the webbing loop on the back side of the armor plate, and pull it tight. Easy. Done.

I neglected to take pics of ALL the finished plates, but here's the completed hip armor...

So since I was having fun with webbing (sarcasm), I decided to try my hand at finishing the
custom abdominal armor.

I'd already test fit the 1" webbing so I knew how much I'd need to complete the thing.
I cut a couple pieces of scrap plastic that came with the kit to retain the webbing at the top.
I started by feeding the "Y" shaped piece at the bottom, under the cast in brackets, over the
top, looped it around the back and up the front and under the "Y" shaped piece, through the same hole.

You need to leave enough slack so that the webbing hugs the shape of the plate interior.

At this point I also added the lower fastex buckle which will attach to the side plates on the
rear torso armor.

I heated the top plastic retaining plates slightly and bent them to conform to the shape of the interior.

And done!

because I was running out of time, I didn't paint the "brackets" on the outside. I
may touch them up with silver in the future.

And since chaos always pops up in a crisis situation, my new package of elastic went missing,
so I had to use webbing for my other boot armor. Grrr...

And 15 minutes AFTER I finished the replacement boot strapping... the elastic mysteriously reappears
in EXACTLY THE SPOT I LOOKED FIVE TIMES.

I blame the pixies. The supernatural creatures, not the music group.

Some last minute testing and adding of padding to the leg armor and forearms.

So, finally, here it is at 10:30 Monday night. I hustled and got it all ready to go out the door...

For mu undersuit I went with plain black Poly-cotton BDU trousers and a black waffle pattern thermal
underwear top. I added a collar (turtleneck) extension to the thermal shirt made from a streatch
t-shirt type fabric and I wore a generic Underarmor Heat gear style shirt under the thermal to help
keep me cool.

Now, keep in mind regarding the armor... I hadn't actually WORN any of these things together at
the same time.

This was going to be a true trial by fire...

 

[Rook3]

Parked the car a short distance away from Gamestop at about 10:40. With a friend's help spent
5 minutes gearing up in the freezing sleet/snow... boots, belt, thigh armor, torso, forearms,
pistol holstered, helmet on... and headed to game launch!

Actually got a cheer out of the crowd lined up outside the entrance.

So, in the end, all the hours and hours of work was worth it.

A couple things I did discover while wearing the suit. I need to add straps to the bottom of the
L/R torso armor to keep the chest plate from rising. It did want to climb vertical and one picture
actually had the chin of my helmet behind the chest plate. Whoops.

I need to readjust the torso armor a little more as well to tighten the strapping but also get it
situated so it doesn't move.

I also want to see if I can trim the armor a little more. I seem to be getting "hits" between
the elbow, shoulder and possibly the back plate. I'd like to minimize that, tighten it up to be more like
"real" body armor that doesn't impede movement. Also need to possibly trim the thigh armor and add
higher belt placement so the armor doesn't "sag" after being worn for a while. It looks fine, but starts
to hit at the knees as it droops about 3/4".

Also need to make the inner thigh flexible "armor" panel, the boot "toe" armor plates (ran out of time)
and possibly paint the camo pattern on the forearms and some custom "damage" painting for the back plate.

Still also want to get an ODST SMG.

Other than that, pretty happy with how it all turned out!

Edit: Forgot this...

If you put your thumb over the right side of the barcode, the separated part, and scan
the left side at a retail store like Gamestop... you get a surprise.

And in case you're wondering, I'm apparently worth $5 trade in credit.

 

[Carpathia]

If you put your thumb over the right side of the barcode, the separated part, and scan
the left side at a retail store like Gamestop... you get a surprise.

And in case you're wondering, I'm apparently worth $5 trade in credit.

Kinda what I thought it would be, but still very cool! And REALLY, they'd give you $5 for that! Nice. Most games I try to trade in only rack up 2 or 3 at best.

Glad you had fun at the midnight launch and the suit looks great. All you have to do now is get a combat shirt to replace the thermal underwear shirt and look into some boot covers and you'll be set!

Great job!

 

[Rook3]

The thermal shirt's waffle pattern mimics the texture of the game undersuit a bit, which is why I
went with that. I have the boot covers, just don't have them painted/assembled as of yet.

Hopefully soon if I can pry myself away from the game.

 

[Rook3]

Just wanted to mention that I modded ALL the bloody types from another graphic created by another forum
member. I just changed the barcode and adjusted the proportions so that it would fit the Sean Bradley shoulder armor.

If anyone needs copies of the modded different blood types, let me know and I'll post them up.

 

[Hollis DZC]

Just and outstanding job bro, just outstanding! I can't believe HOW LONG we've had our kits before we finally started working on them! I've bookmarked this, and will be calling you as I work on mine!

Thanks again for re-inspiring me on this project!

 

[DBmike]

That's a good looking kit and a great alternative to doing it from complete scratch, perfect if you don't have all the time in the world!

 

[Rook3]

Thanks! Well, it didn't take 6-8 months to build, but it still took about a month or so of nights and weekends, so I guess it's still faster.

The magnet system for the weapon took a few days to work out which could have been better spent actually working on the armor.

There's still more tweaking to do on the fit of the armor and some minor mods to attempt, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Now I just need to make an SMG and I'll be good.