Ok, so part 2 of this write-up is considerably less informative than the first one, but it highlights the all important bits of the costume that make it awesome.

Firstly, detailing on the gauntlets. To make the panels on the undersides of them, I simply sprayed a couple of pieces of 2mm craft foam in the same shade of orange as the rest of the outfit and glued them on underneath. Simple.

Finally was the leg sections.

The lower legs (shins) were super easy, as they’re just two tubes of rolled craft foam painted orange. Couldn’t be much simpler.

The upper leg (thigh) sections, were a tad trickier. With a little bit of help from Andy, we wrapped a large sheet of foam around my leg and he drew a line lower around the inner thigh so that it cut away down the inside. Once I’d cut this out I replicated it for the opposite leg and again shaped them into tubes and painted them orange. Not terribly difficult, but important to size a tad larger than you expect else they end up too tight once you’ve shaped and glued them.

One other consideration was how to make sections (biceps, gauntlets, thighs and calves) stay up, and we decided that the best method was with velcro, so I stitched a few strips to my running vest and my trousers, and hot glued the opposite piece onto the inside of the armour sections, and that worked as a great method for holding everything in place.

Last up was the all important prop that we all know Gordon Freeman for: the crowbar.

This was done by taking a bit of plastic tubing, cutting it to length, shaping, cutting and dremelling a couple of pieces of 14mm foam into the shape of the ends of the bar and then hot gluing them into the tube.

Once the foam ends had been sealed with PVA, I was able to paint the crowbar red and white as it appears in Half Life (it’s black in Half Life 2, but as I’d done the HEV IV suit from the first game, it was best to stick to the original colour scheme).

This meant that I had a super light-weight prop that no-one would have an issue with me taking to a con because it’s not going to cause any damage and it’s easy to carry around all day.

And that’s in. Mr Freeman is ready to splatter some headcrabs.

Here I am in the completed armour with a Hawkman, and below that a quick interview that was done with me at CFCC. Hope you like it.