Halo 4 Master Chief Costume

I decided to try to kick it up a notch for Halloween this year and attempt a Master Chief costume. Unfortunately I waited until the last minute and only had a month to knock it out. It was a bit of a rush job, but overall I am fairly pleased with how it turned out.

The majority of this suit was a scratch build out of anti-fatigue foam mats and craft foam. The craft foam you can find at your local craft store in a few different thicknesses, and the anti-fatigue mats you can generally find at hardware stores. I used two different thicknesses of anti-fatigue mat, one of which was the thicker interlocking type like this, and the other was a thinner type which came in a roll (sorry I cannot find a handy link to the type I picked up - will update later if I find it).

I started with the chest and upper arm, using the thick flooring foam for the base of the arm piece and the craft foam for the raised details. I shaped the arm piece using a heat gun, and then hot glued a curved section of hanger to the back to maintain the curved shape. For the chest piece I cut small sections of the thinner flooring foam and glued each piece together to form the more complex shape of the torso. The base is a leather motorcycle jacket, which was very thick and rigid due the armor pieces embedded within it. This made for a great frame on which to attach the foam pieces.

The arm pieces were hot glued directly to the jacket, but the chest piece is connected via plastic snap buckles that are attached to the jacket by nylon strapping at the top, and velcro strips at the bottom sides. I attached the chest this way so that I could easily remove it if I needed, and because the jacket zips in the front, so it would have been tough to put on at all otherwise. The next step was to build up the shoulders to cover the plastic snaps, and build the cod piece.

The shoulder pieces ended up being much larger than I intended, but I didn't notice until it was too late to change it (goal was to finish by Halloween, and I made the mistake of starting the last week of September). I used more of the nylon straps and plastic buckles to attach the cod piece to the bottom of the chest and underneath to the butt armor on the back. After the mass effect suit I learned that it was important to be able to easily access your important parts for bathroom reasons (that was definitely a complicated trip to the mens room...). Next up came the forearms.

The forearm pieces were essentially just a slightly conical roll of the thin floor mat the length of my forearm, with pieces of craft foam glued on to form the embellishments. Once they were complete, I sprayed on a layer of black plastidip to act as a sealer and primer for the paint. 

At this point I decided to tackle the booster pack on the back. Like the shoulders, these ended up being much larger than I intended, but time constraints kept me from restarting them once I realized it.

I started these by sketching out a template. then building out from there using the foam. I used PVC pipe for the thruster tubes. To mount it on my back, I bent some 3/16 inch steel rods into a hook shape to go over my shoulders underneath the foam shoulder pieces on the jacket and attached that to a sheet of the thick foam. I made a tongue and groove piece out of the foam (which I forgot to take a picture of - will add later if I remember) so that each thruster pack could be removed easily from the frame piece. I did this so that LEDs that I would later mount into the backpack would be easily accessible for changing the batteries and such.

I had intended to build the helmet from scratch using the Pepakura method, but it was taking way too long, and once I got about halfway through the paper craft portion of it I could tell that it was going to be too big for my head. So... I cheated a little bit. I took one of the Halo 3 Legendary Edition game cases that was shaped like a Master Chief helmet (albeit a very small one), I took it apart, dremeled out everything except the outer shell, and hot glued it all back together (with additional spacing between the pieces to make it a bit larger). I also cut out a section of the front visor and glued in a paintball visor inside it so that I could see.

Sorry about the poor picture quality, I did not take a close picture before I painted the helmet. 

At this point it was the week before Halloween and I had a three day business trip coming up for work, so I figured I had better slap some paint on what I had and I could stress about completing the entire lower half in less than a week once I got back from my trip.

I used Rustoleum Oregano for the base color, then dry brushed with black acrylic to age/distress it, then I went over the edges with some silver Rub 'n Buff for wear and damage. I got back from my business trip on Saturday the 26th at one o'clock in the morning and had a Halloween party to go to at five PM the same day. I rushed through the leg portions and just wore the boots from my Mass Effect costume. Unfortunately (or fortunately since the boots didn't look that great), I did not really get any pictures that night of the lower half of the costume. Instead, here is a shot of my to reaction the wife getting a little too friendly with a David Tennant cutout.

After the party I decided to make some better boots. Unfortunately, Master Chief is much taller than I am. Supposedly he is about seven feet tall in his armor, and I am only 5'11'' on a good day. I decided to try to meet him in the middle a build a pair of boots that would add seven inches to my height, making me six and a half feet tall in the armor.

I built the frame out of two by fours, making the length of boot longer than necessary so that it would look as though my foot sat all the down inside it. I made the "toe" portion as a separate piece, and attached it with a hinge on top and rubber band in a groove in the bottom. This gave the boot a more natural looking walking motion as the toe of the boot would flex forward and back down as I walked in it.Some additional foam and paint and they looked halfway decent.

Here is a short video showing the motion of the boots as I moved in them.

That is about it for the Halo 4 Master Chief build. I will do a short post soon going over the Battle Rifle build. Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think in the comments!

Duct Tape Mannequin Build

I got the idea for this project from The Hero Tutorials youtube video which gives a really nice tutorial on how to make a mannequin out of duct tape which is the same shape as your body. This is very useful when trying to make costumes from scratch.

To start the process you put on some clothes that you do not mind destroying, and then have somebody wrap you in duct tape from neck to ankles. You really want somebody patient who you really trust because this will take quite a while, and you will be completely incapacitated by the end of it. In retrospect, my wife was probably not the best choice...

It is probably a good idea not to wrap the duct tape too tightly. In addition to being really uncomfortable, it can make very difficult and possibly painful to cut yourself out of the duct tape. I learned this the hard way. Scissors did not work very well for me in cutting through the duct tape, but tin snips did fairly well. The wife was kind enough to help cut me out of the duct tape prison, but not quite kind enough to do so without cutting me multiple times. Once she got one of my arms free, I figured I would bleed less if I did  the rest myself.

In her defense, it was really difficult to avoid cutting myself in the process ( I may have bled some from my own efforts as well). Just to reiterate - don't wrap the duct tape too tight, you will probably cut yourself trying to get out of it. Eventually I got the whole suit removed.

Once you have escaped the duct tape suit, you need to build a frame to go inside it so that it can stand up. I would recommend one inch PVC pipe because it is cheap, easy to cut, and all the connectors you need are available at your local hardware store. By the way, it is a lot more convenient to cut if you pick up one of these:

I forgot to take a picture of the PVC frame after I assembled it, so you will have to make do with my terrible MS Paint representation. You will need five T joints and two ninety degree elbow joints to make the frame, or seven T joints if you want to make the arms detachable ( I only did this with one of the arms).

For the dimensions on the frame just measure the width of your shoulders, distance from shoulders to hips, hips to feet, and width your hips, then subtract a bit from each to allow for the size of the joints. Assuming that your shoulders are wider than your hips, you will need to do some adjusting on torso sections of PVC pipe. You can probably just bend the PVC pipe enough to make it fit, or you could use a few 45 degree joints along the way to handle the angles (I just bent the PVC pipe). From there you will just need to put the frame inside the suit, and stuff it full of random crap as you tape it shut to give it form.

I used mostly balled up wrapping paper and grocery store bags to fill the suit. After I built my suit I realized two things that were going to be a pain when using it. One was that I made the hips too wide on the frame and it stretched the torso sideways. This not only looked weird, but would make my measurements off when I was using the mannequin. This was a fairly simple fix, I just cut it back open, pulled apart the frame, and shortened the hip section. The second problem was that the arms were too stiff for me to easily put on and remove shirts and jackets and such. To resolve this I cut off the left arm, switched out the elbow joint for a T joint, put a short section of pipe into the T joint, and added an elbow joint inside the arm to reattach it.

 

This allowed me to remove the arm when I needed to, as well as swivel it when it was on the mannequin. That is pretty much it on the build. All you need is time, a ton of duct tape, some PVC, some padding, and a patient friend.

 

Halo Warthog mod for Baby Car

So my wife picked up a red Step2 Push Around Buggy from Craigslist for our son. He seemed to like it, but I figured we could better. And what could be better than for him to be able to cruise around the neighborhood in his own Warthog? I did some Googling to see what other were doing, and got some ideas from flux83 and his powerwheels mod.

The hood is made form posterboard that I covered in a few layers of resin to provide some rigidity. The windshield is clear PETG thermoplastic that was leftover from another project. The tow line and "tusks" were made from some foam (also leftover), a tennis ball can, and some spare ethernet cable.

It was a bit of rush job, but I am okay with it - and I think that my 11 month old will probably not judge me too harshly on this one.

He seems happy with it so far anyway!

Vacuum Forming Machine Custom Build

I recently decided that it would be nice to be able to replicate some of the costume pieces I have been making (strongly considering Halo 4 Spartan armor for the wife and I this Halloween). Another goal of mine is to make them a bit lighter (the Knight armor in particular was ridiculously heavy - all that sheet metal definitely adds up). After some googling, I decided to try to make a Vacuum Forming machine.

A vacuum forming machine heats plastic sheets until they are pliable, and then uses a vacuum to suck the plastic into the shape of whatever is underneath it. Below is one of the first things I formed with the machine (the Nerf Spectre that I painted for my Steam Punk Costume). It is hard to tell from the picture, but the detail on that pull was pretty spot on.

Volpin Props and Shawn Thorssoli were HUGE sources of inspiration for me on this project. I was constantly referring back to their builds when designing my machine. I originally considered picking up one of the hobby formers that WidgetWorks sells, but you have to put their frames in an oven, and then press it onto your vacuum surface - and my oven was too small for the 24" by 24" sheet size I wanted to make (plus the wife gets a bit cranky when I clutter up the kitchen with all my random crap).

Anyway, the first thing I did was build a frame for the vacuum surface. This consisted of two 24" by 24" sheets of MDF, and a bunch of 2x4s and 2x6s. You may notice some similarities to Volpin's base - this is because I copied that part as closely as I could.

The vacuum surface consisted of a bottom layer of MDF with a hole cut in the middle for the adapter I glued on for my Shop Vac. I then glued in some spacers so that the two layers of MDF would not collapse into one another from the vacuum. The top layer has 1/16th inch holes drilled 1 inch apart across the surface. All of the edges are sealed using 3M Fire Block Sealant because I needed it as air tight as possible, and didn't want to use anything that might melt if the temperature of the unit got too high.

The next element that I built was the oven box. I made a number of mistakes here which cost me some time and money - I highly recommend that you do not repeat them. I read somewhere that standard heat lamps would put off enough heat for vacuum forming - this is a dirty lie. Despite seeing other feasible heating options out there, I decided to go with the heat lamps because they would be easy to mount and wire... this was a mistake.

Needless to say... the heat lamps did not heat the plastic enough to make it pliable (just got one sad little saggy piece directly under each lamp). Mistake number did not require me to start a component over again, though it probably should have. Without really thinking about it, I built the over box out of 2x6s and a sheet of plywood. I later read that Hardibacker cement board should really be used as it is more heat resistant and such... I kept the build as is, but I keep a fire extinguisher handy just in case (probably a good idea either way). I would recommend going with the Hardibacker to start with just to be safe.

After replacing the heating element I discovered mistake number three. Once I had the oven box built, I covered the interior and bottom with Self-Stick Foam/Foil Duct Insulation and sealed the edges with Foil-Backed Tape. Fun fact: If your heating element will deform plastics, it will also melt the adhesive in your Foil-Backed Tape, which will then start to fall onto your heat elements.

I tried a couple of ways to get around the melting adhesive, but ended up making an inner box of sheet metal, placing that inside the insulation/wood box, and mounting the heating frame within there. For the heating element itself, I followed in Volpin's footsteps and sacrificed a couple of cheap toaster ovens for their heating elements. This gave me eight heating elements which provided plenty of heat and deforms the plastic quite well.

I used two more 2x6s to mount the oven box above the vacuum surface. I liked Volpin's idea of using the drawer rails to slide the frame up and down, but I could not find any suitable rails for the height of my system (the rails would have had to be three feet long). My work around was to use a 72 inch Sliding Door hardware set which I cut in half for each side of the frame (two sets purchased, four rails total). 

I took apart the rollers, and bolted them to a block of wood and a corner brace in order to form the brackets that the frame would slide into. I considered bolting the bottom half of the frame directly to the brackets, but I wanted to be able to switch out the frames easily if I decided to make some smaller ones.

The frames themselves are just four pieces of trim connected with more corner braces, and held together using pieces of aluminum L channel (thanks again to Volpin for this idea).

At this point, I had a functioning Vacuum Former, but raising, holding, and lowering the frame was a pain in the butt. Volpin's second former used a lever system to raise and lower the frame. I liked that idea, but I did not want to raise and lower the lever the full height of the forming machine. I used a system of pulleys and picture wire connected to each bracket instead. This allowed me to raise the frame the full distance while only lifting the lever about foot.

The last touches I added were some weather stripping around the vacuum surface for a better seal, and a switch box on the front to turn on the heat sources and the vacuum. The left switch turns on the Shop Vac, and the two on the right turn on the heating elements (I had to put the eight heating elements on separate circuits because they were blowing my breaker when they were all on one and wired in parallel).

Hopefully now I can make some cool stuff to post on here with my new Vacuum Former. Here are the first two pulls I took with the machine:

Mass Effect Gear part 2

I figured that for the Mass Effect 2 suit I would need a gun carry around. Unfortunately I did not have the money to buy one of EvilFX's M8 rifles, or enough time before Halloween to try and build my own.

Luckily for me, Nerfenstein/GirlyGamer blogged about a nerf mod that looks really good, and does not take very much time or money (granted hers looks much better than mine, but I am okay with that).

The pistol is a Lanard Shell Shock X-6, and while it is not an exact match for any of the guns in the game, it looks like it fits and it was good enough for a Halloween costume. While the paint job is pretty cool, I figured I would try something a little extra for the gun mod. In addition to shooting darts, I thought it would be neat if it made a shooting sound when fired (in addition to the click of the spring).

 I went online and picked up a sound maker that people put in teddy bears and such (I will add a link if I can find where I got it...). The sound unit supports a USB adapter which you can use to upload your sound file. I put a black base coat on the gun and opened it up to see if the sounds module would fit inside the handle.

Once I cut as much of the backing off as I could, and tucked the speaker behind the chip board, it just about fit.I had to dremel out some of the plastic in the handle, but no big deal. The push button switch that came with the sound module was way to flat to be immediately useful. Luckily I had a larger one laying around, so I clipped off the flat one and soldered mine on.

At that point, I drilled a small hole if the front of the handle, slipped the button through it, and glued it in place.

After that, I closed it up, and screwed it all back together. You can see the button sticking out slightly underneath the trigger assembly in the pictures above and below. With this in place, the index finger would shoot a dart, and the middle finger will make the blaster sound. I originally wanted to rig the sound to the trigger itself, but figured I would probably end up breaking the firing mechanism if I went that route.

After that it was just a matter of doing the paint job. I used some more silver Rub-N-Buff for the light areas, then I dry brushed on some acrylic black and gray that I had watered down to add some depth. Then I used some masking tape to make a trace for the N7 emblem and the stripes and I spray painted those on. Below are some pictures of the finished product with and without the clip.

The slight bulge on the back of the handle is a piece of foam I added because the edge of the chip board stuck out slightly from the handle (dremeled a hole for it to fit through). The foam did not stab my hand as much as the chip board did.