Happy New Year - Halo Chest Piece

First off I would like to wish everyone a happy new year.  I have been sick over the past few days, so I have not been working on my blog or any of my projects.  Hopefully I will start feeling better soon and get back to work. 

Halo 3 Assault Rifle

Good news, today I was able to pick up the base gun for my assault rifle project.  I would like to thank my buddy Wes for helping me get it!  I plan to start working on this project this week.  Not sure when I expect to finish this one, I have to order quite a bit of electronics off the internet to get it done.  Like I said last week, this gun hopefully have everything that it does in game, including: flashlight, heads-up display, working ammo counter, and all the cosmetics to make it look perfect.

My Halo armor is coming along quite well, I got a dremel for Christmas so I can sand off all the fiberglass bubbles.  The helmet is almost ready for bondo, just have to touch up a few things.  I currently have 5/15 pieces constructed and waiting to be fiber glassed.  

Halo Chest Piece - Pepakura File

The chest piece came together faster then I expected, I think it took me a total of 3 hours to completely cut it out and put it together.  All together it was about 34 sheets of paper to complete it.  It fits on pretty tight, I might end up having to cut it either in two pieces to be able to get in on when everything is all said and done, I will just have to wait and find out.  But anyways here are a few pictures of it, and one with me wearing the helmet and the chest piece.

Front View

Right Side Angled

Left Side Angled

Back Side

Me with Helmet and Chest Piece on

Projects Update

Well I would like to start off giving you guys a quick status update of my planned out projects.  This does not include any kind of order or anything.

Halo Armor Suit - I have got 5/15 pieces constructed so far.  Due to the weather (I can not fiberglass if its below 45 degrees outside), this project might go on a bit of a hold.  I do not want to build up a bunch of paper armor pieces that I can not reinforce.  If I can find a place I can store all the pieces I will continue to construct them, but the project as a whole will most likely not be finished until spring.

 

Needle Rifle -  I am really excited to be finally starting this project.  The base of gun is going to be a homemade nerf gun.  This will be the first spring powered homemade nerf gun I will have made ( I tried a while ago and failed, did not make the plunger head seal well ).  I will actually be following a guide this time so hopefully everything will work when its done.  The shell of the gun will be made the same way I have been making my armor suit, but because I can not find a pepakura file of the needle rifle, I will have to make this from scratch.  I have not worked out all the fine details of this project, but I am hoping I can add some nice LED lighting on this project.

Halo Assault Rifle -  I came up with this project in the past two days.  I don't know how much I really want to give out about this project.  I will how ever say that the base of this gun will be a modded Nerf gun ( I do not currently have the gun for this project yet ).  I will be replacing most of the internals on this gun to increase the performance, and also adding a flash light, and display to simulate the gun in the game.

 

Halo Spiker - Most of this project will be just seeing how much cosmetic parts I can add to a Nerf Maverick, and it still function properly.  I have two modded Mavericks that I picked up at either goodwill or for a very low price.  Not sure what all I will actually be able to add, have to see as I go, but the I will be making the blades, trying to wrap the handle in leather, and hopefully a few more cosmetic mods.

That is about it for the updates, I will be posting the write up for the chest piece in the next few days.  If you guys have any other ideas for working replicas from video games or another projects you think I can create, I would love to hear about them.  Always looking for new ideas for projects!

Halo Amor Update - Helmet

Pepakura Helmet File

So a few of you have been waiting to see this for quite a while now, its not completely done yet.  I probably have another 30 minutes worth of fiber glassing before I will be ready to move on to bondo and paint.

So I used pepakura to make the base of the helmet.  All the pieces took up about 24 sheets of card stock to print out when everything was scaled out.  It took about four hours to cut out all the pieces, fold all the tabs, and glue them together.  There are about 600 or so tabs you have to glue, and you have to wait for the pieces to dry before you can add more pieces (process is slow).

Right Side View

 I forgot to take a picture of the helmet before I started applying fiberglass resin to it, partly because I did not know where my cord for my Treo was, and partly because I was excited.  You only get about 30 minutes to actually work with the fiberglass, before it starts to get too tacky to brush on.  I probably need to put another coat of fiberglass resin on the outside of the helmet, and finish applying the fiberglass sheets to the inside. 

Back Side View

Left Side View

Inside View (before fiber glassing)

Inside View (after fiber glassing)

Front View

As you might have noticed, it is currently not possible for me to see through this helmet.  I am not sure how I am going to go about the visor for this helmet  Its between using a motor cycle helmet visor (which will probably cost around 20 bucks) or making my own.  I want it so that you can not see into the helmet, but you can see outside of the helmet.  Ive seen some people mold plastic sheets and spray them with spray paint for tinting tail lights.  It ends up giving the visor a nice almost mirror surface, and is still pretty clear to see through from the inside.

I estimate that it will probably take me a few months to actually get this helm completely finished, I have no urge to spend hours outside in the freezing cold of winter.  I defiantly do not plan on doing the wet sanding, that needs to be done before painting, while its cold outside.  Other then that, I have be working on the chest piece and a few other of the smaller pieces.  I am going to try to have the crotch piece and at least one of the boots constructed by this time next week.  Once again if you have any comments or questions I would love to hear them, and thanks for visiting!