As I mentioned in my portfolio here, the vanguard armor is something I came up with that I could use in my friends and classmates short films during my time at Full Sail University. It helped to provided a lot of production value to anyone who was making a sci-fi.

The first step in making this armor was to come up with a design. I made a few sketches and decided on this one.

Then I had to decide on what materials to use. I ended up using EVA foam because it was a material I was familiar with, along with the fact that I could make the armor in my apartment and wouldn’t need power tools or a real workspace. Then based on the drawing, I cut poster board as a template for the armor. Once the template looked good, I transferred them to my EVA foam and cut it out with a sharp knife. I, then, glued the pieces together with Barge contact cement. The following pictures are progress pictures I took as I was making it.

When it came to the helmet I had a little trouble due to the fact that it was the first helmet I’ve made. So, it took me a few attempts to get it right. First, I made this helmet following these two tutorials. Evil Ted Smith’s and Punished Props. When making the test helmet the proportions of the pieces were a bit off and the the seams were super noticeable.

I tried to see if some dap kwik seal, plastidip and paint would hide the crimes. It helped a bit, but it still looked pretty bad.

So, keeping that in mind, I made the second helmet trying not to make the same mistakes. Here is what the helmet looked like after I was done.

After a while of looking at it I decided I didn’t like the lack of detail on the face guard. So, I cut it off with and exacto knife and replaced it with this one.

I then gave it a coat of plasti-dip. Before I could really get a chance to fully finish the suit, one of my friends wanted to use it in a short film. So I rushed it out and finished it by attaching a red lighting gel as the visor.

I’ve added onto it and made a few changes since then . I added a small piece of foam around the chin of the helmet so that an actor’s chin wouldn’t poke out, I changed the visor to a teal color, and I even gave it another paint job.

Take a look at some production stills of it here.

One of the things I tried to do with this suit is make it unique enough to be something visually interesting to look at but not make it so unique that it couldn’t fit into any “cinematic universe”. I think it ended up turning out pretty well. I enjoy making things asymmetrical, I think it helps give the suit some character. The only thing I wish was a little less generic is the helmet. Being the second helmet I’ve ever really made I was more focused on making it work rather then creating a good design. It ended up looking a little too much like a motocross helmet. Although I definitely learned a lot from it and used that knowledge in making my Finn helmet, which I will talk about more in my next post.

If your looking to make EVA foam armor I highly recommend looking at Bill Doran’s E-books, His YouTube and Evil Ted Smiths YouTube as well. they are invaluable resources and helped me greatly.

Thanks for reading!

About 2 summers ago one of my friends and I started making a short film called Volition. This project is still in the editing room due to its 200 some odd effects and our busy lives. Part of the reason it’s still in the works is because of this little guy, Jack the Robot. 

Building Jack was an interesting process because many of the techniques I used to build him I hadn’t used before. I used EVA foam before but not much else. Back then I hadn’t heard of things like sintra or pepakura, and didn’t have the means to cast and mold parts. So I decided to take a crack at something referred to as trash can armor. In this case it was a robot, not armor, but the process is still the same.

Essentially, I bought a plastic trash can and used tin snips to cut it it to shapes based on the design my friend drew. After that I used a heat gun to form it. Then I also used a knife and a ball-peen hammer in combination with the heat gun to make the scratches and bullet holes.

After that I look all the pieces I created and bolted them together. I also took an old peanut butter jar and and attached it to the inside of the plastic shell. I then drilled a large hole in the jar and mounted an old camera lens in place.

I then gave It a few coats of black and silver paint. At this point I could then add all of the details. I busted open an old radio, an airsoft gun and some other old electronics and mounded them to the shell with more bolts and hot glue.

Lastly, because Jack is a flying robot I added a PVC coupling to his underside so that we could carry him on a pole.

The only thing to do at this point was to add visual effects. Originally we were going to key out the pole like you would on a green screen, but because of the inadequate lighting and the greenery in the background we ended up having to mask it by hand. Then adding a “heat wash” effect to look like he was flying and a lens flare glow for the eye and he’s finished.

This was definitely an awesome project to work on. It really taught me a lot about working with plastic. Though I would most likely choose a different type of plastic if I were to do something like this again due to the fact that it wasn’t the easiest to work with. It ended up turning out alright though because Jack is supposed to look like a hunk of junk and the misshaped plastic worked for him. I would also add practical lights rather than ones in post production. I would probably even make more connection points for his pole so he could be held different ways.

Here again is a link to some more pictures of him. 

Thanks for reading!