I’m currently in the process of starting a Halo CE MK V suit. I’m still trying to track down some good foam unfolds, specifically of the new Infinite version, or ideally, an unfold of the Marcus Lehto render that came out a few years ago. I know ODCA made a good one but the link to the downloads have gone dead, so if anyone reading this has a copy, I would really appreciate a link!
To go with this new project, I have decided to combine my love of creating these suits, with my love for crafting Muppets. Hence, I have begun the process of creating a Muppet of Cortana to wear and operate on my arm in place of forearm/glove armor on my right hand.
I learned how to create these puppets from the Puppet Nerd on youtube, he has great tutorials and I’m basing my work on his free patterns if anyone else is curious about doing something similar.
The process is quite similar to doing foam pepakura, but with sewing in place of contact cement.
After some simple pattern tracing and gluing, I have a basic shape of “her” head:
Most of the processes becomes cutting the pattern out of foam, and then replicating it on fabric slightly large to accommodate for seam allowance.
In hindsight, I wish I had used a slightly lighter shade of blue for the skin tone, but I also think the color adds to the cartoon-ish vibe I’m going for.
Everything was sewn inside-out to keep the visible stitching to a minimum. A lot of it will also be covered up when adding features and details later on.
I did not take as many pictures of the body creation, but here is the head, neck, and torso done:
After that, the arms were created by sewing some blue fabric around a few lengths of foam and quickly attached a couple mittens before attaching to the torso.
Once I had all the major creation and sewing done, eyes were made from some foam balls, the nose is a piece of foam sewn into some fabric, and I began gluing/sewing bits of purple detailing around the body. The result was slightly… terrifying…
For the pattern on the body/arms, I took reference from images of Cortana, but most of it translated poorly to a puppet so I just kinda vibed with it.
After adding the pupils it was slightly less scary, and the basic form is done!
Next steps are adding more fine detailing and most importantly, adding hair. I’ll most likely be doing the bob style cut Cortana is most popular for. I’ve never really made a humanoid puppet with long-ish hair, so im expecting some trial and error with that. I have some blue yarn, so I’ll either try fabricating some kind of wig out of that, or if that fails, see if I can’t find a small wig online.
I’m not sure why I’m making this lol
If anyone has any suggestions for things to add, let me know!
