The Primaris Space Marine Armor Set has been built from the ground up with the focus of taking one of the most iconic armor sets in all of science fiction and producing a practical and functional suit of armor without sacrificing any details or accuracy.
Full description and file set available on the main product page.
Ornamentation has been included for the Ultramarine chapter, but all ornamentation is separate such that you can build a standard base set of armor and add whatever chapter set you would like. I will be adding additional armor sets in the future.
This Build Guide will list the following:
Required materials to complete the project
Assembly videos to walk you through the assembly process
Recommendations for Print Settings/Orientations for certain pieces
Any additional questions you have concerning the building of this model can be sent directly to me via the contact page on my website
Build Requirements
All the requirements below assume printing around 100% scale. At 100% Scale, this armor is designed to fit a 6ft person. Many of the tolerances for things like magnets and straps should still work 10% in either direction.
Any 3D Printer with build volume as small as 250^3 mm.
All larger pieces come with sliced options that fit the above dimension. Depending on chosen print scale, some default pieces can be in the 400-450mm range.
The armor is very large and depending on the chosen scale and supports, could range anywhere between 10-20 Rolls.
Nylon Straps -
The entire armor set was designed to accommodate nylon straps to help fasten the armor to your body comfortably and securely. At base scale, the channels can support up to 2" straps. I included some links below to different straps/elastic/velcro I have used in the past for you to use for this project.
Magnets-
20mm disk magnets are required for the helmet face plate as well as the power pack access panels. 10mm Disk Magnets are required for the magnetic neck seal on the helmet as well as tac pad cover.
Visor Requirements
The visor can either be printed using clear resin/filament or can be printed with regular PLA and used as a template to cut out visor from your desired visor material. The visor was designed to work as one flat curved piece so no vacuum forming is necessary.
Primaris Armor Assembly Instructions:
The video below will showcase the assembly of the base armor. Below that are written steps and tips that go along with assembly in the order of the pieces shown in the video. All Ornamentation shown must be glued to the surface of the base armor.
Starting with the soles of the boots, these are definitely optional. The foot armor can slip over regular boots as desired. The soles themselves have a pivot point built into them that pivots around the two joint files included. The 8 slots in each sole are to assist with securing the boots to your foot/inner shoe with straps.
The Sabaton and Toe armor both have hidden strap slots for you to secure them to your inner boot/foot
The Shin Guard has a number of different channels and opening to allow for you to secure the Shin Guard to your legs. The rest of the shin/calf armor fastens itself to the shin guard, so this is the piece of your armor that you want to be most secure on your leg.
The Inside/Outside Ankle Joint fits into the Shin Guard and can be glued if desired.
The Calf Guard Upper/Lower slides into place on 10 shin pegs per leg.
The Heel Armor pieces have Strap Loops that allow them to hang from the Calf Guards.
The Knee Guard is placed on top of the Shin Guard and can be glued if desired.
The Thigh Armor has two variants but both have a single large channel to secure the armor to your thigh as well as a top strap loop to help hold the thigh pieces up.
The Hip armor, Belt Buckle, Butt Plate and Cod Piece all have loop support in order to secure to a 2" belt.
Similar to the Shin Guard, the Torso is all built around securing to the Back Plate. The Back Plate is made to secure to the torso like a back pack with two large cross channels.
The Rib Plates secure to the back plate via pegs. The back plate and rib plates should be glued together.
The Strap cover and Rib Port can be placed into the combined Back Plate. The Strap Cover will need to be glued in place
The Abdominal/Lumbar Plates Plates can all hang from an internal harness/vest inside the chest armor via the integrated strap loops
The Chest plate can be placed on the back plate by sliding it on from the top via the pegs in the rib plate and the shoulder hooks.
For the iconic shoulder pauldrons there are two options. You can either mount it on a frame that is directly attached to the bicep armor, or you can strap it directly to your body using a vast number of strap loops.
If you want to mount it to the bicep, you will have to print the Bracers and the version of the Bicep Cuff that accommodates these Bracers. You do not have to mirror the Shoulder Mounts or Bracers, they fit on either the right of Left Bicep equally. The Bicep Cuff will have to be mirrored. Same goes with the Pauldrons themselves. This means that for the mounted versions it will always be righty-tighty for the screws and you can mix and match pauldrons.
The Bicep Cuff features strap loops to help secure it to your arm as well as a top loop for you to attach the bicep cuff to your torso or some sort of internal harness. This will help hold up the Bicep Cuff. This is especially useful if you want to mount the Pauldron to the Bicep Cuff Frame, as the Bicep will now be holding all of that weight.
If you go with the mountable pauldron, the Bracers and Shoulder Mounts should all be glued to the Bicep Cuff.
The Elbow Pads and Forearm Bracers all features Strap Support. The Elbow Pads are symmetrical so you do not have to mirror them.
The Tac Pad Bracer features a magnetic Tac Pad Cover and multiple panel options. There is a generic button panel that matches how it appears in game. There is also a panel meant to hold your phone inside of the bracer so that you can have your phone available at all times.
The Tac Pad cover pivots around the Tac Pad Hinges and held in place by the Tac Pad Pins. The hinges will have to be glued in placed to the main body of the Bracer Type B. All the magnets will have to be glued in place with in the Bracer and the Tac Pad Cover
All of the Glove Armor pieces are meant to be glued to a set of gloves. The Finger armor comes in three segments that should be scaled to each finger.
Switching over to the Power Pack, the Exhaust Vents fit into the bottom of the body and are hollow such that you can actually pump dry-ice/smoke out of the bottom. The Exhaust Vents Power Pack Core and the Side panels can be glued in place if desired. The main body of the Power Pack can be mounted to the Back Plate by 12 mounting pins. These do not have to be glue in place but can be if desired.
The Jet Block is separate piece that should be built before mounting ot the rest of the Power Pack.
The Rear and Front pieces both hold an access panel that attaches via the Access Panel Hing Pins.
The Rear and Front Pieces can be attached via the Magnetic Access Locks, but will be most secure once the Side Jet Inserts on either side are attached to the Rear and Front pieces. The Magnetic Access Lock and the Access Panels both feature slots to inset 20mm magnets to ensure they will stay closed when not in use for power pack maintenance.
The Side Jets screw into the Side Jet Inserts and the Side Jet Shielding can be glued onto the Side Jets if desired.
Lastly, the exhaust covers can be inserted into the Side Jets and glued if desired.
With a completed Jet Block, you can slide the entire assembly onto the power pack body and secure it with the 16 Side Jet Mounting Pins.
Rivets can be glued to the Power Pack as desired.
This completes assembly of the base armor set and all Ornamentation can be glued as desired. Assembly of the helmet will be covered in the following section.
Helmet Assembly
Starting with the Crown, you can insert both Electronics suites. There is a alignment rail to help guide it into place and then you can lock it in place with the Helmet Pins
At this point, you can attach the magnetic neck seal at any time as their magnetic compliment sits inside the electronics suite.
Insert the Side Inlets into the Electonics Suite.
Next you can insert the entire rebreather assembly. You can insert the Mouth Tubes into their Tube Ports and then insert those subassmeblies into the Mouth Piece. Depending on the scale of helmet you want, you can leave the Chin Plate as a separate piece that can be detached along side the Magnetic Neck Seal to widen the opening of the helmet as much as possible in order to fit your head inside. Otherwise, you can attach the Chin Plate and glue it in place if desired. (More information on helmet sizing and the two sizing rings in the Printing Tips Section)
Lastly, you can insert the Face plate over the Mouth Piece and into the crown. Friction will help keep it in place, but there are also 20mm magnet slots on either side to keep it secure within the helmet.
At any point you can insert the visor you made into the crown.
Your base helmet is now done! You can now attach any ornamentation you would like!
Visor Assembly:
Below I have included some pictures of how I used the printable template to cut out the visor. I then attached the visor to the inside of the helmet using a little scotch tape.
General Printing Tips
The pieces are not pre-oriented so you will have to adjust them to ensure they are in an orientation more optimally for printing (flat surfaces touching the build plate). Additionally, for pieces that have no ideal flat surface, I highly recommend using the Cylindric Custom Support downloadable plug-in for the Ultimaker Cura Slicer. It allows you to place custom supports on parts to ensure that you can get much safer and reliable prints on parts with odd geometries. Some of the examples below will show these custom supports, you will need to add them, or something similar to your own prints.
For the Primaris Armor, many of the pieces have a flat face that can directly touch the build plate for easy printing. This is especially true for any of the pieces sliced for smaller printers. All the slices create an easy flat face upon which to print the model.
If you have any specific questions, you can email me directly.
Sizing Rings:
To assist with sizing the helmet, I included two sizing rings. The First Sizing Ring, Sizing Ring A, shows the narrowest part of the helmet. This is actually the cheek bones due to rebreather in the front of the helmet. If your head can fit inside Sizing Ring A, you will be able to put on the helmet assuming you take off the Chin Plate and Magnetic Neck Ring before putting on the helmet.
Sizing Ring B shows the opening of the helmet if the Chin Plate is left in place. If your head can fit past this then you can put the helmet on while only removing the Magnetic Neck Seal. Sizing Ring B is smaller and more constraining than Sizing Ring A
Optimal Print Orientation
Load Bearing Pegs/Pins
All Pegs/Pins/Bolts should be printed such that the layer lines align with the long axis of the pin, this will make them much less likely to snap off within the pieces due to any bending force.
General Print Orientations
I've combined multiple files into one build plate in order to show multiple orientations at once, I do not recommend printing multiple pieces at once as it will increase overall print time due to excessive travel time, and introduces multi-print failure risks.
In general if you see any circular or semi-circular arcs on any of the prints, you can place a support blocker to reduce the overall number of supports. Arcs like that are typically self supporting and print find without supports.
As many of the armor pieces have obvious flat faces or orientation I will be focusing on the helmet pieces for the rest of this section. Ornamentation will likely require lots of custom supports to print, try to avoid supports on the face that will touch the armor.
The bottom of the face shield is a flat face but I would recommend adding some additional supports to widen the build plate adhesion profile. The side mouth tubes and the rear of the tube inlet have rear flat faces. The Electronics Suite has a flat diagonal face on the bottom that can be used as well.
The Crown itself can be rotated -150 degrees from the default load angles to achieve the following orientation, This orientation results in no need for any internal supports. The only required supports will be on the rear face of the helmet where it is easily sandable. I like to add some large supports to the outside just to ensure stability towards the end of the print.
The magnetic neck seal has a relatively flat bottom, but due to the thin nature of the shell I like to add a layer of small custom supports. The Mouth Piece I printed on the forward face because there are thin creases on the top and bottom face that are not ideal for printing. The chin plate has no ideal face but if you print it in the default orientation, standard supports will suffice.
Personal Build
I personally have only printed the Helmet as it was the most complex part of the armor and I wanted to verify that the design worked well.
I was very happy with how everything turned out! I included some pictures and videos below.
Here we can see why the space wolves like to take off their helmets.
