Fallout 4 Sole Survivor

[Scout472]

Last year I got hooked on Fallout 4. I acquired a PipBoy Edition and decided that it could be fun to put together a full sole survivor costume. I had planned to have it complete for Brisbane SupaNova 2016, and got it finished at 8:30am on the day we were going to attend. So what is to follow is the build thread for my costume (I haven’t included much on the vault suit as I bought that part and it didn’t need too much alteration). This build included a number of firsts for me - first foam build, first use of worbla, first use of airbrush, first scratch build (weapon, armour), and first non-Star Wars costume for me.

This is what I hoped to be able to recreate.





If anyone has any advice or ways to do things better, I would really appreciate the input from those with more experience than me.

Cheers

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The first component was the Pip Boy. I picked up a Pip Boy Edition, but wasn’t happy with the base colour or the lack of weathering compared to the game. It started life looking like this:



First I stripped it back to it’s components, lightly sanded and primed all the parts.





Next, after comparing the screenshots of the in-game Pip Boy, I applied a mottled mix of rusty colours to select areas.





The intent next was to use salt to mask off the rusted areas so when I applied the green colour the salt would chip away to reveal the rust underneath. Unfortunately in my haste to dry the paint and get the next step done, I discovered that the plastic used to make the item has a very low melting point. I left this part in front of a halogen light for ten minutes and returned to find it looking like this



So now I had a new side project…recreate the destroyed component. I used a piece of MDF as the top plate and filled in underneath it with Fimo. Overall it worked out quite well, plus I got taught the valuable lesson of not trying to rush things


(you can see in this first picture how the salt chipping method leaves the rust appearance)







So with that crisis averted, I went back to the main task. Next thing I wanted was to replace all the plastic moulded screws with real ones. After much searching I found the perfect screw and began cutting off the originals and inserting the new ones.


(metal screw on the left and original moulded screw on the right)

With that done it was time to give the Pip Boy its new colours









Then started applying the grime and weathering



Next I bought a 3D print of the 10mm pistol from Traywick Designs on Etsy. The pieces were really clean and fitted together beautifully.



After some sanding and filling, it was an easy job to assemble and weather. The only addition to the kit was that I added in some real screws (again) to add to the detailing.







I also picked up some bottle caps which I had custom printed to match the Nuka-Cola caps from the game. These came in looking really good, but of course, needed to be weathered.



Which left me with these props ready to go.



Next, my scratch build rifle and armour…

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I decided to have a go at building my first scratch built weapon. The combat rifle (below) was what I wanted.



But I loved the barrel magazine on the shotgun



And since there is a real-world barrel magazine available for the AK-47, I figured that that would be an acceptable modification, even if it doesn’t appear in the game.



I started with just an off cut of treated pine that I had lying around in the garage and used my Dremel to etch in the grip onto what would become the front of the rifle. I used a mahogany stain to darken up the timber as well.



Then using a pine plank (again, off cuts) I shaped up the butt stock



Stained and cut a curtain rod to length for the barrel for the first test fitting.



Next I made the barrel magazine from an off cut of PVC pipe, worbla (my first ever use), and the lids off two mosquito coil tins!





I then cut down some aluminium tubing and flat stock to create the gas system



Lastly I created the receiver using a couple of different thicknesses of PVC pipe and filled with Knead-It to close off the gaps, and cut down an ping pong ball to make the rounded rear portion. To top it off I added a real rifle sight to the top.







Finally I used some thin MDF to make the metal plates for around the cocking handle and ejection port, attached the magazine and trigger and it was done. Simple!!

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Lastly the body armour. This was my first attempt at crafting from foam and Worbla (aside from the Worbla I used on the magazine).



From the above I made a pattern and cut out the pieces from two thicknesses of foam and assembled





Then covered in Worbla



Attached the detail and began painting. I used a silver as the base coat and then the same salt method as I had used on the Pip Boy to create some chips and rust.







The process for the front was broadly the same except I wanted to put the BOS symbol on the front like the ref pic



Assembled the foam and covered in Worbla again (I forgot to take pics through that part)



When painting this time I applied the white patch with I would mask off to put on the BOS logo. Some of the weathering was done before and some after to get the logo to look suitably worn



To stencil the logo, I used a decal of the logo which i dusted the adhesive side with talcum powder to reduce its stickiness, then applied, top coated and removed the decal while the paint was still wet. I learned from a couple of testes that if I waited for the paint to dry too much it would lift when the decal was removed. I was really nervous starting the process, but very happy with the final result



And with the salt chipped away to reveal the rust



Next piece of armour was the leg.



Again I formed it from foam



Before covering with Worbla and painting



The final armour piece was the shoulder. For this I used a shoulder bell that came with the vault suit. I added some leather stitching and made barbed wire out of leather cord. Lightly sprayed it with a mix of rust and metallic paints and glued it wrapped over the shoulder bell

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So after all that, the results at Brisbane SupaNova were really well received. Making this costume was really challenging at times, but immensely rewarding and I learnt heaps about a bunch of new techniques in doing it.

Special thanks to Tirilia for so much advice and bouncing ideas off throughout the process. Thanks heaps Liz!!

[Sly]

Sensational work mate.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Imperial Drone]

It was awesome to see in person. And Smart Pups thanks you for the 1 cap donation

[Chiro]

It was awesome to see it at supernova! Great work

[Squid]

As someone obsessed with fallout, this is amazing!!! Such a fantastic build


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Xmez]

Woah!! That's an awesome build! I'm gonna seal the salt chipping technique you've used

[Beanie]

quick question, who are those 2 people standing behind you both in that chair, last pic? are they part of the game?

[Scout472]

Beanie, they are characters from another Bethesda game - Dishonoured 2. The cosplayers are Erri Kitten Cosplay and Artemis Costuming (both on Facebook).

quick question, who are those 2 people standing behind you both in that chair, last pic? are they part of the game?

[blueski]

As I said on the day mate, looks awesome fantastic job!

[Bally]

Salt hey? Nice tip, and comes up a treat.

[Buddy Love]

Wow!! Awesome work! Amazing detail...makes you want to crawl out through the fallout!

[Donut]

That looks incredible!!

[Deltorn]

Great job Noel, I only saw you from a distance at nova. However I do happen to have 1 cap the bank refused to accept. Ill bring it along for you next time we troop together.

[Cavalier]

Freakkin awesome!!!

[Scout472]

Thanks for the great feedback everyone.

It was a really fun build. I have just started working on the shoulder armour. It was the bit that was least accurate. So I will post up some pics when I have finished that rebuild.