This suit is not a natural formation.

Sometimes, when attempting to find the figurative needle in a haystack, you have to pay attention to the specifics in order to achieve success, and a recent situation I found myself in at Halo Fest is proof of that fact. It was the evening of the VIP party, and the cake-cutting festivities were rapidly approaching. A certain Spartan was supposed to assist with divvying up the Halo-themed dessert but I quickly discovered he was missing in action. There was a costume contest going on at the main stage, so—using my sharper than average sleuthing skills—I approached the steady stream of super-soldiers on parade. Instantly confronted with numerous green, near identical cosplayers, I focused my attention on the lower half of the costumes. Within a split second, I found who I was looking for, and quickly escorted the Halo 4 Master Chief to the appropriate destination. I even provided him with a weapon. Assuming you consider a long, serrated knife a weapon, that is.

If you had the pleasure of laying eyes upon that suit, sans or with cutlery, you were undoubtedly impressed by its craftsmanship. That’s because the team behind the creation—collectively known as Blue Realm Studios—have perfected the art of making Spartan armor. Not many people are familiar with the process of bringing fictional Halo items to life, so I sat down, virtually of course, with Adam Grumbo—one of the talented people that make up that particular prop-fabricating group. Here’s what he had to say in response to my numerous awkwardly phrased inquiries.

The only thing I know about armor making is what is being made, which is armor. Can you tell us a little about the creation process? Also, is it super hard, super easy, or somewhere in between?

“The process is a difficult one. Lucky for me, Devin—who was leading us on the project—had to think of all the tough stuff. Since there was only a certain amount of time to plan, start, and finish this project, everything had to be put into overdrive from day one. We created the suit in much the same way as a lot of the existing suits are made, with the exception of a few time-saving methods, including CNCing some parts. CNC is computer numerical controlled milling, which is great for scaling quickly and getting the proportions correct. It does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean it makes life easier for detailing the build, as we had to refine and clean up some parts for at least a week to get them ready for molding. The final suit was cast out in urethane plastic, and some parts in urethane rubber. There was more molding material used in this than any previous Blue Realm costume project.”

You had me at urethane. Well, either that or rubber. But back on-topic, how long did it take you to complete this project, and how many people worked on it?

“Devin and Charlie put in the most hours and really got to know this armor inside and out. It took us right around two months to get the project done. That was some feat for us, as the original Halo 2 Blue Realm suit took around two years to complete. For the Halo 4 suit, there were up to seven or eight people working around the clock on it.”

That is an impressively short time frame! What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome, and did anything go wrong?

“There were so many challenges, I don’t even know where to begin. The first and most obvious was the fact that not everyone working on the suit lived in Dallas where the operation was taking place. Charlie was from New York, Walter from Houston, and I came up from Austin. It was a big slumber party without the slumbering. There were a few points of frustration with the suit, including masters that floated in the silicone, gold visors coming out too dark to see through, mother molds getting fused on, and much more. There were lots of problems one weekend with moisture contamination of the plastic, which turned the urethane into a foamy mess. You might not understand all the details of what that means, but it equaled many hours of lost time and money—something that can happen from time to time when you’re under a deadline and don’t have the luxury to wait for weather to cooperate. We documented as much of the process as we could on video, so hopefully that will be out soon for everyone to enjoy. With so many cooks in the kitchen, the only accident that was pain-worthy was when Charlie dripped a good amount of liquid plastic onto his hairy legs. Upon removal of said plastic, needless to say, they weren’t hairy anymore.”

I was wondering why his legs were smoother than mine. Do you have any other fun stories, either about making the armor or transporting it to Seattle?

“The funniest part to me was the night Walter and I arrived. For some reason, we thought it’d be a good idea to sleep in the airport until Devin and Charlie arrived with the suit. I wimped out, and we got a hotel room and ordered pizza. It’s sad and funny to think that while Devin and Charlie were putting the final touches on the suit at 3 am, Walter and I were watching TV and chowing on pizza in a nice comfy hotel. With some help from other members of the 405th, we picked them up at the airport at 1 am Seattle time. Their flight was delayed, and they were completely beat. Knowing there was a long weekend of PAX-ing ahead of them was probably not a great feeling but hey, who sleeps during PAX, anyway? The suit was checked as luggage and arrived safe and sound. We did wonder for a bit, with the last minute modifications, how well the suit would fit me. They did well though, and the suit looked and wore exactly how it should.”

I thought it looked amazing. Minus the mass amounts of ogling by yours truly, what were some of the reactions people had upon seeing it?

“This is the interesting part. The pressure was certainly on when we had our Halo 4 suit, standing feet away from the masterpieces Legacy Effects created. Plus, the Halo 4 suit is so new, not everyone recognized that it was a new variant of Mjolnir. Those who did recognize it as Halo 4 were blown away. We study the look of armor probably more than most communities out there so for us, it’s very cool to see that certain parts of the armor translate into real world applications. What I mean is you can see where ammo might clip on or where armor might disassemble or connect. Those things make a difference to those of us who really appreciate seeing Halo in the real world. When Frankie made the announcement of the suit on Sunday at the Halo 4 panel, people cheered loudly, and that was a good feeling—knowing that the fans appreciated all the hard work that went into it.”

Speaking of sporting the suit during the Halo 4 panel, what is the best and worst part of wearing this particular costume?

“The best part about wearing the costume is the same great part of wearing any Mjolnir armor, and why we love to do it. Putting it on totally makes you feel like a super-soldier. It feels like so much more than a costume. You feel like the Chief. People come running up and look at you in awe. I’d compare it to when kids first see a life-size T-Rex statue. It’s something they’ve seen photos of, read about, and thought about. But when you see it in real life, it really brings you into the Halo Universe. That, combined with Weta’s Warthog, really completed the experience for many Halo fans. The worst part about it is when the fan inside the helmet runs out and the visor fogs up. It’s only moments before you can’t see two feet in front of you!”

I imagine that last part is probably a good thing if I’m standing in front of you. Regardless, I’d like to thank Adam for giving us a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of the Halo 4 Master Chief suit. Semi-related, I’m pretty sure that interview is equivalent to a year’s worth of Halo 4 information. I now consider us good on Halo 4-related news until September 2012. Man oh man, this job is getting easier every day!

Original Post http://halo.xbox.com/en-us/news/headline/the-halo-bulletin-9811-/230739

 The original 3d model was built by Sloan Hood, the video editing was done by Adam Grumbo

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m going to walk through the steps I took to make the Master Chief / Halo helmet sculpt. Before we begin, I would like to explain some basic requirements needed for such a project.

First things first! Let’s find a good working area. For starters don’t start sculpting in the living room on your mom’s brand new Persian rug. Why, you may ask. Well, because she’s going to take your life when she finds little bits of clay scattered and embedded deep in the fibers of her favorite hand woven rug. So don’t don’t tempt fate my friend! Here are some things you’ll want to consider if you’re using oil based clay. If you get it in the rug, you’re going to have a heck of a time cleaning it out. You’d better have an extra carpet handy because oil, of course, is resistant to water, meaning you can’t steam clean it out. Trust me! I speak from experience. I lost a deposit on an apartment that way. So, find a place that won’t matter getting dirty or make provisions to protect the floor with a toss away rug, plastic, or set of painter floor covers.

Now that you found a spot to work, let’s get the materials.

First you’ll need clay. There is a huge barrage of clays out there – from soft, medium, hard, oil-based, water-based, etc. For this post I will not go into detail about the different types of clay to save time on your reading. For this project, I used Chavant NSP Medium in the brown color. You can find Chavant clays off their website http://www.chavant.com. Be sure to look at their various distributors to see if there is a location that sells it locally. The stuff is heavy, and if you can save yourself on shipping, it’d be wise. One thing I will mention about the clay is the acronym NSP. It means that it is sulfur free clay and that is very important if you’re going to make a mold of the finished sculpt. I won’t bore you with the details, but sulfur will react with the curing chemicals in the rubber that is used for the mold, causing the clay to warp and the silicone not to cure properly. Be sure to check the oil based clays if you decide to go with some other brand of clay.

With the clay in hand we’ll need a few basic sculpting tools. I’ve collected many tools throughout the years so I have a large collection that will handle just about anything. But all you really need are the basics, such as loop tools, small loop tools, rakes, and some small wooden tools. You should be able to find these basic tools at any hobby store or local art supply store.

Alright, now we have the materials, tools, and a place far from the wrath of your mother/girlfriend. Heh, just joking, we know if you’re reading this you don’t have a girlfriend. Alas, I digress. So, now what? Well, we need something to apply the clay to. In my case we took a life-cast of my head, and I used that to ensure the fit of the finished helmet. You don’t have to do this, but it really does help. It would suck to spend days or weeks on a sculpt, not to have it fit. I won’t get into the specifics of life-casting but here are a few pictures of the process.

If you don’t want to try your hand at a life-cast, you can always use something of relative size. For example you can get a Styrofoam head, mannequin head, a bowling ball (only if you have a head shaped like a bowling ball), whatever will get the job done. We’ll be offering a Bust Armature later this year that you’ll be able to purchase off our website as well, so keep your eyes out for that. Once you find the right head-like object, you’ll need to prep it for the clay. The way you do this is spraying a few coats of Shellac on the armature so that it’s all sealed up and has a good surface for the clay to stick too.

Now that we have all the things we need to start sculpting and once you recover from the dizzy feelings from the Shellac, you can start applying clay. There are a few techniques for applying the clay to the life-cast. One is the friction method shown in Adam’s Podcast Number 5. I actually did this project the hard way of tearing off little pieces and applying them one at a time. It works, but it’s probably not the fastest way to start building up the clay.

Because this character has a visor in the helmet, I want to represent that as closely to the game model as possible. In this case, I used a motorcycle visor cut to size, to represent the face shield of the Master Chief. Yes, now you know. If you don’t have to sculpt it then don’t. Why sculpt out a perfectly smooth face shield when you can just stick on in the clay? This lesson will save you hours of work, if you realize, some things are easier when you don’t have to sculpt them from scratch!

Now that we have the visor in place we can continue to build up the clay. During this process you want to look at references of the subject so that you’re building towards the final objective. Don’t go throwing a bunch of clay on life-cast making the sculpt look like bozo the clown when you don’t have too. If you notice in the pictures I found every reference shot I could, and got as many perspectives as possible for guidance. Throughout the entire process you’ll want to view the subject in as many angles as possible so you can truly represent its features. I even went beyond this by mocking up a 3d model so I would know how much clay to build up for the scaling of the helmet. This step is not necessary; the general rule is you just need to build up an inch to two inches off of the life-cast to make sure there is plenty of room for your fat head. Once you have built the clay up to represent the basic blocking of the subject, you can start sculpting it down to get more accurate shapes, contours, and details. Don’t spend a lot of time getting all the fine edges in or straight lines that comes later.

One of the hardest things about sculpting is representing symmetry in your work. In this case the Master Chief has a very symmetrical helmet with mirrored detail on the two sides. So when you sculpt one side you’ll have to do the same thing to the other side as well. This is a tedious process that might take you awhile to master. I’ll give you a few tricks to help speed things up and give you a better end result. One method is making paper templates that you can uses to copy shapes to other parts of the sculpt One way to do this is to use masking tape to trace a shape then pull the tape off as a whole and put it on some poster board. Cut around the tape to get the general shape on a flat surface. Then you can flip it over and use it to make your cuts and build ups on the other side.

Another trick I use is my computer. I’ll take pictures of one side and flip the picture in PhotoShop using the new flipped picture as I sculpt the opposite side. It’s a good trick to use and you can play around with tracing one sides profile and then flipping it over to the other side to see what needs to change, but I’ll let you play with that.

Now that we got the basic blocking and symmetry of the sculpt we need to start detailing it more. We want to represent the sharp edges and grooves as much as possible. The general rule is the more detailed you get the smaller your tools become. So when you’re blocking things out use your big rakes and wooden tools, but once you start getting more detailed you should switch to the smaller more precise tools. You’ll figure out what works for you. When you’re starting the detailing process be sure to keep symmetry in mind when it comes to the angles and lines of the individual shapes and contours. You can always use straight edges and templates to sharpen up edges and details.

Sometimes flats smooth surfaces are the hardest to sculpt. So what you may want to do, and what I’m showing in these pictures, is the use of poster board in and on the sculpt to represent these flat smooth surfaces. Cut some poster board to the required shape. Then make a groove in the clay to allow you to lay the poster board down flush-then you just cover the edges of the poster board with some new clay to keep it in place. This will give you that smooth surface that may be harder to reproduce by hand.

This next step is optional and you should play with it before attempting on your final sculpt. If you dare you can use a paint brush and some mineral spirits on the sculpt. Found at a home improvement center, you can use these to smooth out the clay even more. What the mineral spirits does is chemically melt the top layer of clay, which allows you to smooth it over like a glaze. Be sure to wear a respirator and be in a well ventilated area before attempting this step. It’s a little tricky to master this technique but if you do you can get some really smooth looking surfaces, and it will cut down on your final sanding time.

Well that’s it! You have learned just how to complete an awesome helmet sculpt. Once you’re satisfied, what you want to do is prep the sculpture for the molding process. I like to go over the entire sculpt with a few layers of primer to seal up the clay really good. It will also take out any small scratches that the brush may have left. I won’t be getting into the molding or how to cast the helmet in this post but I will show you what the finished molded piece looks like.

I hope you have enjoyed going over the basics of sculpting a helmet, and I hope you continue to visit our website and subscribe to our blog. This was a fun project and I enjoyed working on it. Feel free to leave comments and let us know if this helped you. Thank you for reading.

For more information about Halo Costumes and Prop Building, visit http://www.405th.com, tell them Blue Realm sent you.

Click here to view the embedded video.