Zercon: Introduction, and Project (Skirmisher)

[Zercon]

Introduction:
Hello, I am both a fan and a blasphemer at once.

I love the creatures and the multiplayer versions of Halo, I have played the game since the first rendition and can hold my own despite 'Being a girl'. However I am super novice and rather… ignorant… with the in game terms and specific class names of things. Heck I don’t even know the names of the main characters or some weapons in it practically. So that’s the blasphemer part in that regard… So be gentle on such things.

I have looked around the site, and read quite a bit. This site is a showcase to the truly skilled individuals making armor and props that look real in multiple facets of the word. I hope that I can stand up with my home taught skills to at least place in the lower ranks and not just be a laughing stock.

I have gone to college for Media Arts and Animation, and have done hours of home research on casting, molding and sculpting, with a couple executions of the skills. I am a slow worker, due to having a full time job, so progress on anything will be very gradual… like watching molasses at times. Nonetheless let's get down to why we are here, the costumes.

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Project:
No, I am not making a suit of traditional armor. I am not making a marine, or the computer. I am not going to try to make an Elite, but I am going to try to make a Skirmisher, something that doesn't appear to be done very often.

I am taking a mix of professional and novice materials to put this together, using many different mediums. My end goal is something that looks nice, while keeping the price range in a moderate region, even though my stilts already put me down a huge chunk…

Could I use some tips and help with ideas? Yes. But I am not asking for it. This isn't a forum for 'What do I dooooo' ramblings. Though if you however have any ideas to help ease this, or make it more readily possible? Please feel free. Below are my ramblings, as typing it out helps me think out my process as I go.

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Blueprints: ((That aren't so blue))
I recently became the proud owner of Digileg Stilts from Area 51. They give you the height needed, and the leg build for such Digileg creatures as the Skirmisher, Jackal, and Elite. For normal creatures ones arms may seem too short, with the legs far disproportionally long. However Skirmishers from all photos harvested, appear to have very long limbs and thusly the exact look to fit the stilt option.

An image of me in the stilts and how the body shape looks next to a Skirmisher Screencapture with all credit to ElectricBlueSkies.com​

Using a tablet and Photoshop, I drew over a different photograph in order to see how the armor will place on a human body. The wearer (me) will see from a red mesh on the throat. To allow proper ventilation, sight, and movement of the neck.

The red parts in the image, are the hard pieces of armor that will be attached to the costume. Fiberglass, Paper Mache, or what medium has yet to be decided, but lightweight is a must due to me being... weak…

The Orange is a cloth material, once more of what is undecided. It must be breathable in some regard, overheating a huge issue I'm trying to avoid. It will need to be airbrushed and painted, to give the look of armor with the flexibility around key joints that’s needed. I am leaning towards spandex.

Yellow is other undecided/mixed materials. Such as the dyed pheasant tail mane, and the mesh for the face. Only material I have no goal or ideas for is the hands, as I do not want to sculpt out and cast huge molds for two sleeve gloves of latex that will be very bulky and cumbersome to wear. And expensive! I am leaning towards cloth coated in latex for a snug fit over foam core and plastic claws. For movement and a Reptilian/Avian look. Plaster is not an option, for if I fall the gloves need to be flexible enough that they won't shatter.
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Head/Helmet
The helmet is being carved out from NSP clay over a base of a screwed down two by four and tinfoil. The white eye blanks are made from a rubber mold of an X-mas ornament that will be used later on to make clear eye blanks for the final mask. Teeth blanks will be constructed and cast to push into the clay until time of casting.

The snout is crooked, I do see that and I have full intention to just grab the snout and wrench it to the side like I am snapping someone's neck to fix it haha.

Further details are being added, and the entire thing will be as smooth as possible before casting. The top of the head will be cast out and finished, before I then construct the bottom jaw, using the head as an anchor. This will allow the top and bottom jaw to fit snugly together when closed, and be able to hinge open realistically with airbrushed fabric tendons/membranes.


That is all I have thus far, and I will try to update regularly as I go along.

 

[Psquiddy]

Already looking great! I like how you chose to sculpt the snout rather than try a pepakura, very nice! You have the parfect *ehem* build for a skirmisher, looking really good so far!

 

[thorn696]

The stilts look awesome, You're clay work is great, as well as you're build lay out. I'm deffently on the subscribe list for this build. :cool

 

[Zercon]

Thank you for the nice words, I am really looking forward to this project.

Just a small update:
I carved the teeth out of NSP and smoothed them down as much as possible with a soft brush and Mineral Oil. I then made a mold and poured simple white plastic into it to make the teeth blanks. The final ones will be fresh cast, and polished down to an enamel sheen.

Inserted the teeth today and sculpted basic linework on the snout.

In the photos I noticed the third tooth from the top is pushed in at a wiggy angle, I'll need to fix that.

 

[Zercon]

Perhaps I am updating too much with too minimal of changes, but I am proud of it and am just excited. So if this is blinding me to some kind of customary action on these forums please slap me around and tell me to wait longer and get further before posting updates D:

Either way I got my better camera charged finally so I have some nicer photos to offer so the details can be seen. I did some smooth passes with sponges, brushes, and mineral oil to slick out the surface and start to even things out. A couple more of these and a bit more tooling and I will possibly consider moving on to the molding process.

The Left eye is a bit closed more, making it look like he's giving a funny face… I will need to fix this… It is sad how you never notice these details until looking at photographs…​

 

[thorn696]

Awesome work. I'm loving all the detail you're putting into this.

 

[Zercon]

Thank you I am taking my sweet time on trying to make it as perfect as possible with the face, as that’s where people's eyes tend to go first. -nod-

I actually just re-did the cheeks, but I don't have any pictures to show, Realized they weren't the right shape and that the bands weren't raised strappings like I thought they were.

Nonetheless I got held up with my building process due to realizing I did not have the plaster compound I needed to make my molds. So while that is coming in the mail I set off to make some resin eyes for the costume.

I cast an X-mas ornament in a tin cure rubber, and once cured popped it out and used the half mold for eye blanks as mentioned above. Instead of pouring white fast setting plastic, I instead put a clear resin and applied a printed out circle of the eye into the material. Below show the flubs thus far.

What you aren't able to see from my crummy pictures, is the fact there are air bubbles or weird veins appearing on the surface. While I hammer this out I can't help but appreciate the cool 'Follow me" effect they have once set into a socket ((Or in this case my hand)). The three images above are all at different angles, and yet the pupil looks right at you due to the illusion. I love it.

 

[Jimmy Da Moose]

I can't believe I haven't noticed this thread! Its fantastic! And its always cool to see someone else try something that isn't an ODST or Spartan.

Your clay model looks amazing, too. I'm jealous of people with that kind of skill, I really should try my hand at it one day. I can't wait to see how the mold turns out. And the eyes look really well done. They look like they follow you.

Keep it up, I'll definitely be watching this thread!

 

[thorn696]

love the eye concept.

 

[ArchieBuildsArmour]

Wow, This looks brilliant! the stilts are an excellent idea, and your sculpting skills are amazing. Best of luck. -Watching this thread.

 

[THRILL]

Wow, this is a first. Great job so far. I'm looking forward to seeing it completed. Are you making any covenant weapon to go with it?

 

[Saber]

Very impressive work! I love the resin eyes and the detail on the head!
Keep it up!
Oh, and don't worry about how frequently you post updates. As long as it's an update, people are happy to see it! I post a lot of little updates too so I keep people interested. And it's the little stuff that just blows people away! Like the eyes for your costume! Those are cool!
Good luck on the rest of your build! I'll be watching!

-Alexis

 

[The Death Angel]

awesome mask and servo-legs!

 

[DefineLuck]

can't wait to see how this turns out

 

[Zercon]

Oh wow, lots of comments, I am so very flattered and grateful. Thank you very much for all your kind words it really does fuel me along to keep going so I can try to show more to you!

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Jimmy- If you want to try your hand at clay modeling like this, then THIS has a lot of really good tips. It's not plastecene which is what I used, but it points out the cardboard cutout technique I used, as well as a smoothing with brushes and sponges one. Make sure if you're going to try your hand at molding etc etc, to buy a Sulpher Free Plastecene, otherwise rubbers you use won't cure and you'll have nothing but a sick gooey mess that ruins your piece

Thrill- I plan to make a weapon but what exactly I have not decided. My first idea was the rifle but I am best at organic shapes, and the symmetrical armors of the body are bringing me enough fear. To try the needle rifle seems way intimidating due to how long it is which means the flaws would be readily visible. My second thought was getting a small needler made. I will cast the spikes out of clear resin like the eyes, but with a bit of ignite black light reactive magenta pigments I have. ((I actually have a test mold curing right now)) The end result I hope is to fit a small LED sized black light bulb inside the round dome so the light goes up the spikes and makes them shine like holographic ink.

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Tonight my rubbers and plastics finally came in the mail. I am a bit scared as the containers were smaller than I anticipated, but I managed to make it work.

I placed layer after layer of Rebound 25 Rubber on, dying each layer a different color as I went so I could see what areas I needed to cover still. For the final layer I did the bright candy red because I found it amusing.

Once this cures overnight, I will make the hard shell, which then I leave to cure overnight as well I believe… If not? I will crack that sucker open and make a first test cast to get any little bits of clay out I miss while cleaning. This test cast if it comes out good enough, will be what I use to start molding the lower jaw to fit in perfectly.

 

[thorn696]

Wow. Already casting this awesome piece, I can't wait to see how this pull comes out. Yes you have me glued to the screen watching you're work of art come to life one piece at a time .

 

[onmi shift]

you know thats one of the few things that piss me off. just cause your a girl has nothing to do with it. your an amature like the rest. even i was at one point. why must people put stress on a gender? male, female, makes no difference. were all halo fans and gamers.


aside from that, great job on the legs.at that angle it makes you extremely tall but less strain on your legs.

 

[Zercon]

Oh boy! Well, I haven't posted in some time and actually dropped from the planet a moment there. My bad. I hit some technical issues that really put a damper on everything.

From my camera and power drill needing to be replaced, ((I was using it to grind the plastic and shape stuff)) to my original plan of feeding the teeth through the plastic failing miserably. I also needed to order hard shell plastics to make the mold casing, and other stuff. There was also some bad news that the office I was working at is shutting down, which kind of put a damper on my muse to work. But I am going to be trying to force myself to get back into the rhythm and keep you all entertained with oodles of pictures.

But first, responses!

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Onmi Shift- Honestly it is somewhat a peeve of mine too, and I found myself falling into the cliché to try to add some poor humor in a silly way to try to break the ice. I tend to feel very awkward coming in to new communities and it was an instant fall back. Nonetheless, for the stilts I have been working on hunching down more, but it still needs a lot of practice still. ((I can't stand in one place without holding stuff, but I can walk just fine.))

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Progress:
Once I got my new drill. ((A very nice little lithium battery Makita)) Grinding off some of the excess material went easy, and I could grind out the shape of the eyes, and holes for the teeth. My initial plan was to feed the teeth through the carved holes, but the plastic slush was far too thick and I ended up blasting away a lot of the gum line, needing to re build it with an air dry epoxy compound that sadly added some heft to it.

I sanded away some unfavorable details, and then gave a nice coat of primer paint to get a good look at it with a test eye.

I need to use more of the epoxy to fill around the eye, to give it a 'seamless' lid, as well as use the opportunity to smooth out other last details. Why I am choosing to use more of the heavy weight epoxy? Is because I am coming to terms with the fact I may need to cast it again.

It is simply too thick with plastic at the snout, and far too thin near the base, meaning a lot of strain will apply to the thin plastic and cause it to crack. ((As well as extra weight on my neck)) So the extra money to re-cast using the refined plastic as a molding base will do much I feel.

I started on the armor itself, fleshing it out with cardboard and oodles of duct tape, but sadly I do not have any images of that thus far.

I am moving slowly to make this as tidy as possible.

 

[TheRabbit]

That head looks incredible. If I hadn't gone back and read this thread from the beginning (all 2 pages of it!) I would have considered it professional movie level prop work. Your work is amazing, and I hope more updates are to come!

 

[Psquiddy]

Really happy to see updates on this build! Looking amazing so far, and it was kinda funny, the first time I saw the cut-out of the eye I thought it was a picture of the Eye of Sauron