Hey guys,

I decided that opposed to creating another hunter, that I would try something a bit fresh. Being a big Metal Gear Solid fan, I've always wanted to see an actual suit made of the Cyborg Ninja character (Gray Fox) with a great attention to detail. Right now, I'm in the planning phases of this project, and I will continue to post work in progress shots of whatever parts I'm currently working on. For those of you unfamiliar with the character, here is a model:



To start, I'm fleshing out the design for the face mask. In terms of creating it, I'm looking for someone in the U.S. who could possibly make a raw cast of the face and neck as seen in the drawings below. If I'm unable to find anyone to do this, I will probably look into purchasing some latex mask making supplies and sculpt my own mask. However, due to the fact that I have limited experience sculpting, it would be ideal for me to find someone to make a raw cast of my design so I can finish and paint it.

Also, I wish I could have the head broken up into two parts, with the helmet itself made of fiberglass and the neck and upper shoulders made of latex. However, I do not know of anyone who could do this for me cheaply, so I'm hoping one of you could help me out possibly.

One of the aspects of the face I'm going to incorporate is creating some sort of visor that can be lifted just like in the game. It's generally speaking very similar to the Iron Man helmet as I'm sure you can see some resemblance. Also, I want to incorporate an LED light for the fixture on the center of his forehead. Anyways, here are the drawings:





As for the rest of the body, here are my thoughts as to how I could accomplish it:

Suit: Take a super hero costume and glue foam bits to represent the raised bits of armor throughout the body. Then paint over the entire thing with latex and begin fleshing out the colors and detail.

Gloves: Find some black tactical gloves and repaint them in latex to match the color scheme of the suit.

Boots: Find replica Batman boots and repaint them once again.

Sword: Hopefully find a decent Japanese sword in fiberglass I can customize to match Gray Fox's sword.

Any thoughts or suggestions on this project would be appreciated.

Like I said, I'm looking for someone who could either make a rough cast of my Cyborg Ninja face mask design above in either latex or fiberglass. Please message me if this looks like something you can do!

More updates soon to come...

Thanks,
George

Dude You are not the only MGS Fan
I personally like the new Raiden and dream about making hELMET with the clear visor and All.

RE: your face mask, its more like a helmet , should sculpt and cast it yourself man. The fun you would have.
The other body parts looks like plating, should make those out of fiberglass as well. Good Luck!

Yeah, if I were to sculpt and cast my own mask, I would probably invest in a basic mask making kit like this one here:

http://www.monstermakers.com/product/basic...making-kit.html

Also, I'd love for the helmet to be fiberglass and the neck latex for that area, but I have no experience with fiberglass unfortunately.

Hey Man

I saw the kit list pretty much what you need is there. Not sure if you need any latex since you're not making latex mask which is soft.

Check this out (how to section): http://www.bioweapons.com/BIOWEAPONS/

For the Helmet you would need to do something like this:

Alginate face mold of your face and your head to get the size of your head.
PLaster cast of your entire head and neck like a bust
Sculpt on top of this your helmet add the desired thickness (1-1.5cm), keep in mind your parting lines where ur helmet seperates into to pieces
make silicone and case mold of your sculpt 2 part mold

Casting:
use a slush method to get the detailed layers -2-3 coats of resin to build up thickness
then add layers of fiberglass mat - Chopped strand mat CSM is the most used in FRP helmets, also strongest
brush on pre cut strips with resin and build your layers. 2 layers already very good 3 maybe too thick.

You can google "how to fiberglass like a pro" you'll get bunch of info.
I'd recommend doing your research and find out what you really need before you spend millions
on things you don't need. Good Luck

Hey....


You're that ninja....

Sweet, thanks for the links and information, if I'm unable to find anyone to make the helmet, I'll probably take this approach in terms of sculpting and casting the helmet.

Dude if you can get it to look exactly like fox I could probably kiss you. I am expecting great things

That's my goal, I have excellent reference images as well as the action figure by McFarlane toys. I'm going to put a lot of effort into replicating all of the armor and muscle as much as I can. Like I said, biggest hurdle will be getting someone to make a resin version of the Cyborg Ninja helmet.

Hey guys, I'm working on the exact same project. I'm planning to create a Gray Fox costume for a music video.

Question: Why would you use Fiberglass for the head instead of a simple molded plastic?

I planned on doing the cast-mold technique common to creating Storm Trooper costumes, and forming all the bits of armor out of regular plastic. Does anyone see a problem with this?

What is the best method to allow flexibility and movement in such a tightly-spaced armor suit, especially around the joints? Should I just separate the costume into as many pieces as I can, and then attach them to a thin mesh or neoprene skin, instead of forming solid pieces?

Any insight on how to best achieve this would be appreciated all around!

And Polygon, if you want to contact me, I'd love to collaborate with you and share information. I'm a huge Metal Gear fan and I'm sure we could help each other out.

Good luck on your project.
hope it turns out ok

Also, that BIOWEAPONS link to the Guyvers costume is fascinating. The guy used hotglue for the entire armor construction of the second suit! interesting! Any thoughts on this approach?

Hi,

Actually, I'm going with resin for the helmet as it will be lighter and cheaper hopefully. I'll send you a message as I wouldn't mind collaborating on this project either! I'm also very pleased to see another MGS fanatic

hey all,

lol, i myself after compelting MGS4 wanted to make a raiden/grey fox suit. I was going to start with the body suit, being that would be the easiest of the suit. Just one question for you Polygon, what are you going to make the suit out of? I was thinking latex with some resin pieaces.

Cool idear for a project, cant wait to see its progress

Dude ive been wanting to make the Fox outfit since mgs1 and im really happy that you will make this.
good luck with it all and get some pics going on the WIP

What I'm going to do is take a black spandex/lycra suit and attach foam armor/muscle bits and then repaint all of it in liquid latex. This will give me the thick and somewhat glossy appearance like the actual suit without having it look too soft like some of the cosplay costumes out there. After applying the latex, I will then go into actually painting the costume.

Just for an update: I'm waiting on my lycra suit from eBay, and I have all of the painting materials and foam ready to go. Hopefully, I should have the suit within the next few weeks, and when I do, I'll start posting work in progress shots.

My black lycra suit finally arrived today, so now I can get started building the costume. What I'm probably going to do tonight though is the duck tape dummy, so I'll let you all know how that goes and post some pics.

woo cant wait
just 1 question
which lycra is it?
Full Body Lycra Zentai suit black removeable unisex?

Correct, just got mine off eBay from a Chinese vendor. Took about 3-4 weeks to get here, but it did.

D: i cant order anything from ebay idk where to get my suit now <_<

Hey guys,

I worked on the suit for a few hours attaching bits of upholstery foam I sculpted for the chest and pelvis area:



So the game plan is to keep sculpting the foam for all of the detail you see in my photos above and paint everything in latex- two coats. After, I will begin actually painting with different colors.

yautja warrior, go here and try to find your lycra body suit, or any other of you looking for a spandex body suit, go here, found it on the web, my neice saw the ad and i had to get her a catalog, so they sent me a 130 page catalog for free. so here's the address

www.discountdance.com

they have a huge selection. for men women, and kids.


back to main subject, the ninja suit is coming along nicely, can't wait to see it completed. and good luck to you on it.

Thanks, I actually did more work on it yesterday and finished the left arm, and reworked areas on the chest. I'll post pics later this evening.

heyyyyyyyyyy thx!!!!! thxxx ill check it out :D:D

looking good, i can't wait to see this finished

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of updates, took a break on this for a few weeks but now I'm rearing and ready to go. Tonight, I spent about 3 hours and finished the entire upper front of the torso as well as the neck:



So what I'm going to work on next is the front of the legs, and once that is taken care of, sculpt the back upper torso and back legs.

Hey guys,

Have some great progress today-

I finished the entire front body, and most of the back with the exception of some small upper back muscles. Those will be taken care of tomorrow, and then starting Wednesday, I will start painting latex coats.

Enjoy the pics!

The sculpt of the suit is finished at this point, and the next step will be to apply 3 coats of latex to both sides of the suit. I'll probably do that tomorrow, and while it's drying, work on the hands.

Here is a shot of the back which I finished tonight:

Here's my progress for tonight- I applied my first coat of base latex to the front of the suit with a 1/3 gallon of latex base paint I wanted to finish up before throwing away the bottle. The idea is to completely cover both sides so that the latex is opaque on the suit. This will probably require 2-3 more coats of latex to achieve this effect. I'm going to leave this to dry until about this time tonight to apply the second coat.

Hey man, are ya gonna blend the edges of the foam to the suit or sew some dark shiny fabric over each panel so everything looks blended together? The panel cutting is pretty Good.

What I'm going to try and do is apply enough layers of latex to blend the edges of the foam pieces in a bit more with the spandex suit. Hopefully by the 3rd/4th layer, it should look like that.

looking good cant wait to see it painted

Here is the second coat. As you can see, black/green areas are becoming less noticeable overall. Hopefully, once this dries, 1-2 more coats should have this be almost completely opaque.

Hey guys,

The front of the suit has been completely latexed and is just right as far as the amount of layers I have on. I'm currently latexing the back of the suit, which will start again once I have my new shipment of base paint from Monster Room.

In the mean time, I decided to do some looking around for gloves, shoes and a belt that would work best with my costume. Here is what I came up with:





So what I'm going to do is take the gloves and repaint them in the silver/blue/orange color scheme as per the reference images. Originally, I was going to create my own latex hands/feet, but decided it would make more sense to rig something I could buy to suit the costume.

Ditto for those shoes- I bought a pair of Faded Glory black slipons from Wal-Mart the other day and I'm going to repaint those with acrylics + adhesive in blue and apply a glossy sealer to have it match the suit. Those should work nicely because they resemble the shape of the foot both on the reference images and the action figure by McFarlane.

As for the belt, what I'm going to do is use that, buy a shattered Predator bio, and attach the bio on the side of the belt with splattered blood to have it be a sort of trophy Gray Fox picked up in a battle.

More pics soon to come of the suit!

What about the Ninja Helmet?

As for that, Mannowar is currently working on a one piece latex version of the helmet, which should be ready in a few weeks. It's not going to have the adjustable visor, but it'll still look great I'm sure.

Hey guys,

Just finished painting the first color base coat on the suit. What I did was mix a good portion of Elmer's Glue as my adhesive, I would say, at least 30%-40% + blue/white/black acrlyics so that my coat would be nice and pasty to provide a solid foundation for painting on top.

I rather like the way the blue came out myself:

Looking good. I cant wait to see what its going to look like when its done.

Cool, I love the Metal Gear Ninja, cant wait to see this one finished

Thanks guys, tonight I finished painting a base coat on the back side. Tomorrow, I will be blocking in colors for the orange/silver sections on the front.

It looks neat so far, but I'm really not seeing this as Gray Fox just yet, I mean it looks kind of like his suit... but appears to be just a little bulky, and you planning anyway to make the plate separation seem more smoothed?

Yeah, hopefully with some layers of paint, I can try to do that. It's not 100% accurate, but close enough for my tastes. I took a few liberties with the design generally speaking.

I can understand taking liberties, most of the pads I'm going to try and remake and use for my Ao2 inspired armor are going to be heavily altered sports equipment. Moto-cross stuff is oddly less expensive than a decent hockey mask. O.o

I wish you luck with this, I'm a huge Jaeger fan when it comes to MGS... I still think he's alive... STILL!

Did some more work tonight, I painted in the orange/silver sections on the suit. Tomorrow, I will be taking care of the shading, weathering and other details.

Now that's quite snazzy, still looks a bit lumpy, but definitely ninja.

lookin' good! cant wait to c the suit finish

holy crap thats come a long way

Just spent about 4 hours painting tonight, and was able to knock out the basic lights and darks for the body except the silver armored portions which I'm doing tomorrow. I'll probably also tighten up a few things here and there, but this is what it will fundamentally look like. Also, I was going for that airbrushed look as seen in the first reference image of this thread. I didn't use an airbrush, rather just regular painting brushes and tried to blend areas.

Wow. I have been following this thread for quite some time now. I have to say your progress is just amazing. When I first saw the bodysuit glued with all those green foam pieces, my initial reaction was that this will never come close to Grayfox's suit. However you have proved me wrong. When you posted photos of the suit with several layers of latex on it, I thought that there was so much potential to it! I was eager to see what you could come up with mainly because I am a huge Metal Gear fan. People who decide to dress up as this particular character don't come by very often. That's why I'm so glad with how your suit's looking right now. Though I still believe that most of the muscular protrusions look rather geometric and that the suit is a bit too bulky for my liking, you have created a truly wonderful costume here! The shading is well done and your choice of colors is excellent. I used to own a Grayfox action figure and might I say that the colors you have painted on bear a striking resemblance to the toy. I absolutely can't wait to see everything put together! I'm eager to see what your helmet will look like.

All the best!

This did turn out very well! "pat on the back" Good job bro!