TXBolt

This morning I took a few hours to retouch the camo with more green, painted a bunch of the misc parts needing black, and started pulling off some glue to 'reveal' the metal underneath. note... the glue did pull off some silver to reveal the white underneath, but its nothing I can't touch up with a brush later. here are a few pics: I'll admit... I'm currently not in love with the silver. Especially with my intended blast mark on the shoulder piece. I'll have to figure out how to touch that up. Also... the black gun you see in the background is to give me something for Halloween and not intended to be my 501st weapon.

Baby steps man. Baby steps. I was (and honestly still am) overwhelmed by this project too since I have no natural skill or trade experience to lean on. The information is here to help you do it. If it's not, just ask. I have nothing but great things to say about the advice and insight I have received here. I'm as noobish as they get, and I'm not far from being done with mine. Good luck! TXBolt

Like Ferra... I sprayed it on the sponge. It gave me more control

I used the Khaki, Olive, and Brown from this line of paint: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000KKOMVS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I was really happy with it. It didn't run and clump up like a lot of the cheaper brands. And thanks for the kind words on the technique. I was excited and nervous about giving it a go before the drip of paint hit. I'm a CPA... not a painter. LOL!

Oops... can't forget the Bucket.

Oh yeah.... it's time for some Camo. I started with a base green. Like most, I sponge painted. From there, it was detail detail detail. I had NO IDEA it would take 4.5 hours to do just the camo. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Grumpy pointed out that I need to come back with some more green to balance out the brown that is overpowering things a bit, so I hope to knock that out later today (unless I have to go into work more than expected). Once I'm 100% comfortable with the camo... I'll peel off that glue to 'reveal' the 'metal' underneath.

One step back to take two to three steps forward is the theme for the day. I was previously excited to get that silver paint on things as you see above, but I used a primer called "etching primer" to do it. The more I looked at things, the less I liked the finish. I don't know what the heck 'etching primer', but I don't recommend using it. It looked like little flakes were sprinkled in the paint and that made it all look rough rather than a metal smooth. As a result, I spent hours sanding things back down this morning to get a new coat of primer on everything I already did in addition to wrapping up all my other sanding and cutting to get everything redone. (note... all my sanding is done by hand... If I ever make a suit of armor again, I'm going to have to find a better way of going about this. Hours and hours and hours of hand sanding... bleh). Anywho... I'm very happy with the newly primed gear: Then it was on to the black for the under side of things: Now to make things shine. I am SOOOOO much happier with the finish on these pieces. It almost wanted me to make a Phasma KT. As per everyone's advice on the boards, I used the E6000 to make my wear and tear spots. While tinkering with this, I decided that I was going to have a run in with a clawed alien of some kind: As I looked at the clock and realized that I had been at this for almost 7 hours, I decided it was time to wrap up with a tan finish and pack it in for the day:

FINALLY got the soft armor 90% complete with the help of a friend. I cannot sew at all, so I needed help from some friends in making sure i didn't mangle things up. I've got some velcro, sharpie touch ups, and a little minor aging/ tweaking to do... otherwise, I'm pretty excited to call this close to done.

But wait! I'm a horribly impatient person, and I HAD to see how these bad boys looked with some silver. My plan for the silver is to slap some silicone or even elmer's glue on key spots before painting the camo. When done, I'll peel off the goop to reveal the "metal" underneath. That way it looks more like chipped away paint than me trying to free hand in scratches and the like. For those trying to take inventory of supplies used... The pieces you see above took a full can of primer. I wasn't able to coat all of the back sides, so I estimate that I'll need at least 2 more cans of primer to get all the pieces coated. From there, I think that I'll need 2 cans of silver (maaayyyybe 3) to cover top sides like you see above, 4 cans of tan to make sure I get a good base coat, and then just 1 can of each of the brown and olive for the sponge painted camo. I'll keep you updated on things if you guys are interested. (Side note... I did knock out the final touches on the dye work on the soft armor this weekend, and I'm 50% done with the sewing on the BDUs and such. NO pics though... sorry. I was rushing a little before running out to a kiddo's basketball game. )

I still have more sanding to do on other pieces, but I just wanted to feel like I was making more progress... sooooo.... It's Prime® Time!

I got my SHOC lens in last week, and I'm wrapping up the sanding and such on my bucket. Before I start throwing primer and paint on things, I got to wondering... How do I attach the lens to the helmet? Is it just E3000? Thanks!

Thanks dude! That did help. I'm not to making the gloves yet, but I'll definitely pop back for a reference when it's that time.

I have to share... when I said something similar to my wife, she said "work out more."

Great tips Ferra! thanks!

Oh wait... I almost forgot... the bucket... the best part! GRUMPY!.... thank you for your HUGE help on this.

See those shoulder guards up there? Yeah... caked on Bondo. I don't have a belt sander or anything other than a dremel for sanding (don't bother... it doesn't help on these big jobs as far as I can tell). That means... time to get a shoulder work out by sanding by hand. Using 80 and 100 grit paper, it took about an hour (maybe more... wasn't exactly timing it) to sand down the goop to what you see below. It really wasn't that bad. I'm actually pretty happy with it. I have to hit it with two more finer grits to get it where I want it, but overall... it worked out. By comparison... check out what they looked like after the rough cut work... You can see the dips and divits in the plastic: So there you have it so far. I also have a Cummerbund that was made for me (I'll have to adjust it... I lost 30 pounds in the last 6 months and that.. uh... changed my dimensions ), I have dyed and started getting the soft armor sewn (my pics of the camo dying and such was on another phone, so I'll have to see if I can track those down for posting here), and I have a buddy machining a blaster for me for level III approval. If I were to guess... I would say I'm around 30-35 hours in on this thing. I'm sure if I knew what I was doing, I'd be faster. However, it's a labor of love. No complaints. I'm still on target for having most (if not all) of it done for Halloween. 501st approval would be after that because I want to have the attention to detail nailed down before submitting anything. Trick or Treaters won't notice the differences they would. Again... thank you all for your posts, advice, insight and expertise. You are making this happen as much as I am. TXBolt.

But wait... there's more... Bondo time! Alright... I was awful using Bondo 20+ years ago as a kid trying to patch up an old Camaro. Guess what? 20+ years later with no practice... I'm still awful! I gooped it on WAY too thick, but that's about all I could do. I just have a LOT of sanding ahead of me. For those of you that haven't used Bondo or it has been forever, like me, the stuff dries fast. You have 3-4 minutes... that's it. Be sparing on the hardener and you'll get 30-60 seconds more, but that's it. Small batches, mix fast and get to work. You do not want to have it chunk up on you while spreading it. (I used scrap wood as my mixing table and a putty knife to mix and apply)

So once things were cut and I got a little more experience, I know I went back to every piece to shape them more appropriately. Basically, I was learning as I went. Side note... this forum freaking rocks for insight and advice on specifically how to do all this stuff. There IS a lot of trial and error because it's not practical for the guys here to completely babysit your build, but holy cow there are some geniuses here that have really found a way to make it happen. There's no way I would have come this far without the insight found here. If I (a freaking CPA with no craftsman skills) can do this... you can with the appropriate amount of effort. Speaking of the genius of the forums... E3000, for sale signs, and earth magnets... sheer... freaking... genius. Guys... this works so well its silly.

YAY! It worked. OK... so for the boots, I had to search around and ended up with spening around $90USD because my giant feet (size 14/15) are hard to accomodate, and c'mon... who doesn't want comfy shoes? After marking off the boots with a sharpie, I hit the cuts first with a knife. You'll see the square cut on the closeup that I then shaped with the dremel (getting better with this thing). BE CAREFUL THOUGH.... you CAN cut too thin and crack through the base. On one of the boots I'm going to have to superglue a crack in the bottom of the boot so water doesn't get in onto my socks. Nothing that shoes, but could be irritating if I step in a puddle.

Let's try that again for inline posts (sorry guys... I'm learning )

Alrighty... let's give this a shot (photobucket up and running finally). Here are some shots of my rough cuts of the BikerChick gear. My first time using a dremel led to some crooked cuts at first, but as time went on and I tried different bits and got more experience, things went more smoothly. I was VERY slow at first (using the wrong type of bit will do that). Where possible, I would side by side my cut out against an uncut one to see the difference between what arrives and what I did. (edited to remove error in picture posting)

Thanks for the reply guys. I'm using for sale signs and E6000 for the tank attachment to the back as shown in the various WIPs, I'm stumped on how to attached the visor on the helmet, and I THINK I'm going to use E6000 on joining arm/leg/back pieces together. However, I'm seeing fiberglass used in other WIPs, so I'm wanting to ask before I go and screw something up. Grumpy has reached out to me to share his WIP pics and help me out, but in the interim, if you have other advice, I'm all ears.

Howdy all. First let me say THANK YOU to all you experts here sharing your insight and advice. I won't lie, I'm fully intimidated by the scope of the project I am taking on and your obvious skill in building out your gear. You make it look easy. I've said in a couple posts that I'm a CPA... not a craftsman. Everything I am doing on this costume is new ground for me. It's a freaking ton of fun, but a challenge for sure. I thought I'd share where I am on things in case you guys are interested. Since I'm also an IT retard (hey... I'm really damn good at what I do, but I also know what I'm not good at ) I cannot seem to figure out how to get inline pictures to post on threads here. Soooooo... allow me to share you the post where I updated my friends on Facebook: https://www.facebook...199?pnref=story If I can figure out inline pictures to the post, I'll try and do a more complete progress build out and give my noobish experiences to share with others that don't have the background you guys have. Enjoy! TXBolt (Oh... the TXBF was a typo goof on my part that I missed. My handle on other/ unrelated forums is sometimes TXBF... sorry)