First Foam Costume - Mass Effect N7 Armor

Hello there RPF, long time lurker & fairly recent poster.

I've been reading through just about everyone's Mass Effect posts and any tips and tricks for foam costuming. JFcustom, AxiomUltra, Stealth, Drack, PreacherMan, Narayas, and Freya Willia being some of the most inspirational.

Anyway, I finally decided to get going with some N7 armor of my own. I have some long term goals of a custom blue paint scheme (ME3 multiplayer-ish) and an Omni-tool similar to Stegodon's. I will probably be stealing some armor components from Iron Man armors (MK IV maybe) for the thighs and shins, and I don't plan on keeping any of the armor exactly as it is in the main blueprints.

First off, I took the main plans from Narayas's site and fit them to my measurements a few months back: Available Here
(This is the same thing Punished Props uses.)

This week I started cutting up some 1/2 inch EVA foam floor mats from HarborFreight (Link) and getting started on molding with a heat gun.


After a number of hours cutting, molding, and gluing I ended up with a full right arm completed. I opted to cut up a spare yoga mat for the center blue line in order to add a little more texture to it. Sharpie lines are being placed temporarily for where I want to add more detail (I probably should have done detailing prior to shaping...oh well).


I already changed the shoulder placement a little because of my arms being fairly long (a long bicep looked odd on me) and because I like the higher angle of the shoulders (that's actually a bad picture of mine since it sits down a little more on the shoulder now).


I realized that I'm going to the Denver Comic Con tomorrow, so I thought I would work on completing the arms as much as possible. Thus, the painting has begun. I'll wear a Doctor Who shirts with N7 arms; I'm sure no one will even bat an eye.


I made some quick stencils since I didn't know what to do with the left arm. For those who don't know, the right arm on N7 armor is typically painted while the left is mostly bland. I opted for a Systems Alliance logo on the shoulder and in doing so thought I should represent with an N7 logo on the right bicep.


I've put in velcro and elastic strips to hold everything up/together last night, and tonight will just be finishing up some placeholder Sharpie detailing, cleaning the white paint lines, and deciding on what other stencils to place (if any). Also, I thought about highlighting the Alliance logo in silver, but I'm not sure if I like it or not. What do you all think?


All in all, this was (and will be) done a few hours at a time here and there when my daughter goes to bed and on weekends during her naps. So, don't expect impressive updates every week.

Thanks for checking it out, and hopefully I can have this beast completed this year.

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