My scratch built Boba Fett build! (Hopefully ready by Halloween)

Hey everyone! I've been working on my Boba Fett costume since about early September, and signed up here to get some input and advice from the pro's. Made a few threads for specific parts so far, but I figured it would make more sense to put together a build thread to show my progress. (Might be a bit heavy on the pics)

Nearly everything is being scratch built, cause I'm a cheap-*** and would rather work on the costume all day instead of shelling out $100+ for an already-made part lol. Yes, I realize not everything is 100% movie accurate, and I'm going to be combining a lot of ESB +ROTJ factors of the costume, just cause I prefer one version over the other.

I'll be updating this thread as regularly as I can. With only a couple weeks before Halloween, its turning into crunch time.

This is looking really good!! I am in the same boat as you. I have been scratch building all of my stuff in almost the same exact way haha. You have made amazing progress for just starting last month. I have been working at mine for the better part of six months!! Really nice job!

Thanks man! The only reason I've been able to do so much in a month is because I've been trying to get some progress done each day. May be 6 hours of working or may be 6 minutes lol. My girlfriend isn't too happy about me paying more attention to the costume than her, but its only till Halloween, so she'll be able to deal with it.

I still have yet to start the gauntlets though. The helmet seemed to be the most difficult part, since everyone seems to judge a costume starting at the helmet/mask, so I wanted to get that done first. Nearly all the armor pieces are assembled. They just need to be strengthened and painted.

That's going to be a sweet Halloween costume, within a really tight time-frame!

Just finished building the helmet, all it needs is some resin and smoothcast and it will go to paint!














And here I am goofing around while waiting for the glue gun to heat up one day lol

The Smooth Cast stuff is amazing! Helmet feels solid as a rock, and the dome is nice and hard enough for me to start sanding down the seams to make it nice and smooth. Pics to come soon!

Hey man! I've been looking for a good threat with great tips on how to make parts for a Boba Fett costume and yours is one of the best I've seen. I really appreciate the step-by-step process so I can take notes. Good luck. And may the Force be with you!

Thanks! It means a lot hearin that the work is paying off. But honestly I feel my thread is rather lacking in step-by-step information on my part lol. I just have a crapload of pictures. I studied Antman's thread on how he did the helmet, and then I improvised haha.

So I learned something today... I can't braid worth a ****. Thank god the mrs comes home in a bit so I can enlist her help with the wookie braids haha. The pic is of my highly uneven braid job. The second pic is of the ankle spats, which I will have to stitch together to make a little thicker. Then I'll weather em a bit, add some velcro, and call it a day.






**I ordered a few too many packages of hair, though. I figured they would be too short or not enough hair so I ordered extra. I have 10 of the hair extensions, and theyre blonde, light brown/auburn, and dark brown. The hair extensions measure over 3' long, and are of a decent thickness too. Just straight up synthetic loose hair. I'll make a separate thread listing em for sale if anyone needs em.

A pic of the braids after my gf re-did them for me:

Gloves in progress. I may shorten the fabric that goes on top of the fingers. Judging by reference pics, it ends right at the knuckle. Got some Rit Pearl Grey dye for the gloves, will most likely be dying them tonight.

Ankle spats going in for a little weathering:



This was not a very fun part. Still have one more to do though.

Keep crankin it out!

Tryin to haha, but I just ran out of thread for the side pouches... ****!

I'll have to finish those tomorrow. Weather has been pretty ****** the past few days, and looks like it will continue, so that kinda ruins my plans for resining.

Great work with it all! I am scratchbuilding a lot of my costume as well. The jet pack was a challenged but building those gauntlets is driving me crazy. My forearms are to big and the WOF template doesn't work well without modifications for my arms. I am enjoying watching your build post. Good luck!

Good job!
I'm more of the lazy/unexperienced typ who actually pay $100+ xD
But hats of for you mate!

Got some work done on the first pouch today. Stitched the seams (by hand, no fun), but they seemed a little flimsy still, and I wanted to be able to keep my keys and phone in them (woohoo for fully functional pouches! haha), so i decided to strengthen the seams a bit wish some hot glue (love that ****!) and not only did it strengthen the seams a bit, but it also gave the pouch a bit of flexy rigidity (if that makes sense). Meaning the pouch now looks like it was made out of a thicker canvas material, but it isnt as stiff as a cardboard box.

Now if only I could include a fully functional flamethrower, rocket, jetpack, darts, blaster, etc lol.

Pouches are assembled, just need to go in for some weathering

Weathering done. I personally like the "short deliberate cuts very close and overlapping a bit all in the same direction" weathering technique. Makes some nice scratch damage. Also burning newspaper and sprinkling the ashes on the fabric, then rubbing the ashes into the fabric without smearing em too much, is an effective technique. (Both in second pic)







To bright to see the weathering well. :/

looking good man! I really like that you took into consideration the functionality of the pouches. They do seem a bit too white compared to the pouches I've seen on pictures but that could be easily fixed. Keep it up!

Yeah the pouches will need a little more weathering. Maybe a mist of that dark yellow will help kill the white/ivory.

I'm gonna be resining the armor and helmet today, but I'm worried that the armor might warp while curing. I'm tempted to coat the inner surface of the armor pieces with some smooth cast to retain their curves. Good idea bad idea?

Can't wait to see more progress pics! Keep up the great work! Its looking good. I'm doing something similar I'm trying to piece together something for this Halloween as well. I'll definitely be upgrading my parts as money allows though!

Well, that might be a couple week's worth of work down the ****ing drain. It was supposed to be nice weather (cool but not windy or anything), and about 15 minutes after resining the armor and helmet and leaving em out to dry, it starts raining out of nowhere. It wasnt supposed to rain until midnight or so. The armor looks like it has acne now, and I'm unsure of the helmet's condition. Grabbed em and brought em in, put em in front of the heater and hoping theyre not ruined.

Helmet seems ok, could probably use another coat of resin though. The armor has some spots where it looks like the resin is peeling away from the cardstock, prob where the rain hit it, so I might have to peel those resin pieces off and re-coat it again. The back armor looks like a ***** to do, considering I'm having trouble getting it to curve right. Its not being resined just yet

After some fun with a boxcutter and hot glue, the back armor has a nice curve to it and seems to fit my back pretty well.

My flak vest seems too white, so I'm going to hit it with a little cream yellow misting, as well as some grey mist dying. It will be the same pearl grey I used for the gloves, but instead of soaking the entire garment in the dye, I'm going to put the dye into a spray bottle, and mist the vest and neck seal a few times. That way it will have that nice hint of grey.

Resin seems to have cured on the armor and helmet, so it looks like I get to do some more of my favorite thing... Yep. Sanding. Woooo.....

More pictures man!!! Halloween is right around the corner, how's it coming along?!!!!!

Ask and ye shall receive.

Got a few pics of the armor drying, the helmet post-resin (still looks pretty smooth, looks like just the rangefinder and dome will need to be sanded), the gloves, jetpack getting primer, and a little weathering on the stock of the rifle.

I may have weathered the gloves a little too much though, if such a thing exists lol. On the upside, a little bleach and water will re-whiten the finger strips easily.

All that's really left is to resin the back plate, figure out how I want to attach the jetpack to it, finish the left gauntlet, paint the footwear, install the visor, and paint everything. All the soft parts (belts, braids, jumpsuit, flak vest, spats, and gloves) are done.

Sanding the helmet down is starting to become a bit of a ***** (again). 200 grit seems to take forever and is just polishing. So I might step it up to 100 or 80. Somehow the resin has developed cracks and seams along some of the triangle pieces of the dome. ***? Looks like I'm gonna need to apply a little resin through a syringe or something. Plus the cheekbones seem to be weakening a bit. I dont want to resin the outside again and have it become uneven and whatnot, having to sand it again. Might hit up the inside of the cheeks with some more smooth cast, there's only a thin layer right now.

Front armor pieces are primered and ready for paint (after double-checking for any additional big dents/gouges). Jetpack needs a little more smoothing on some parts (couple creases from the paper-mache).

I still hate sanding. Bah.

Hm. Just thought of something to fill in the cracks and gaps without trying to slather resin all over the dome...



White glue.

Worked pretty well before the resin, and I only need a little bit. It sands smooth easier than hot glue, and is much easier to work with overall. I'll give it a try and post my results.

I like the idea of using the white glue! Great idea. Yeah hot glue doesn't sand very well. I try to knock the hot glue down when I glop it on with the glue gun or I use a woodburning pen. I also have used the cheap old yellow masjid tape to fill holes. It sands pretty well after it is coated with resin. Good luck on the progress.

Well, I took the plunge today and started priming the helmet... Then ran out of primer. I hope that's not a sign.

The strips are still somewhat visible, but its a weak layer of primer, and I'm hoping under more paint the seams will even out/fade.

Got some more pics. I know the knee armor is a little sloppy lookin, but I plan to sand out (ugh) the bigger bumps and then touch em up with a little yellow and then weathering. I had issues getting the darts/dart launchers to stick to the knee armor, they were falling off even with hot glue. So I did a lil thinkin, and put a nail through the cardboard, put the dart/launcher over the front where the nail was sticking out, filled it with hot glue, and ta daaa! Nice and secure without having to worry about bumping into something and having the pieces fall off. Also finished up the shoulder studs and a couple darts.

Dome ridges on the helmet dont seem to be changing much, might have to sand it down and see if it can be saved. Theyre not too noticeable, depending on what angle you view the helmet from. My stuff is all pretty beat up looking and weathered, so i could build on that and make the helmet seem a little more beat up? Idk.

Attached the hoses to the gauntlet, they seem a little stiff but as long as they tuck away ok everything should be fine.




Took the training wheels off the helmet today too.

I am really loving how the armor turned out after weathering!

The dents and deep scratches were cut into the armor using a dull boxcutter (to promote jagged cuts instead of clean straight ones), and then filled in with yellow and then silver. The yellow and silver were applied using a makeup applicator sponge and toothpick, to make the detailing really fine.

Now, the knee armor was formed using cardboard from a box, not the thick cardstock that i used for the torso armor and helmet. So the resin absorbed a little unevenly, leaving some high/low spots, bubbles, pockmarks, and different textures. I sanded out the really bad spots, but I'm glad I left the pockmarks in place because that would help with weathering. After hacking some scratches and dents into the knee armor, I started filling in the first dent with silver, and didnt like how it turned out. I used the sponge to wipe away the excess silver, and accidentally wiped silver over some of the adjacent pockmarks... Which led me to my eureka moment!

The silver had filled in the pockmarks, making em look like mini-shrapnel damage, as well as perfectly filling in some scratches. It made the weathering look a LOT more realistic than applying with a toothpick (some damage spots looked "drawn-on"). Also, the yellow was looking too vibrant against the dull silver. So I decided to add some silver to the sponge and smear it all over the knee armor, filling in each scratch/dent/imperfection, and giving the vibrant bright yellow a bit of a dull metallic/almost greasy look. I was pretty happy with the outcome. All the armor needs is decals, some black misting, and it should be all done!

Yes, of course I took pictures lol.


Stage 1 of weathering


Stage 2


Finished armor


Close up of knee armor

Finally got the decals on, and misted the armor with some black and primer. Im tempted to use my "burn weathering" technique that I've used on the cape, flight suit, gloves, and ammo pouches, but I'm a bit worried that it might ruin the armor, being cardboard and resin and all. Might be tempted to test it on a small part tomorrow.

Screw it, couldnt sleep, decided to try the burn weathering. I think it turned out ok.



He's a bounty hunter, not a stormtrooper, ya know? :P

Looking good. I hope to get a chance to post some of my build later when I get time. I've got to scratch build my boots from a 15.00 pair of old school "converse style" hightops but I'm skipping on the gloves. I'll just use some smooth grey work gloves for that.

What did you use for your darts on your knees(especially) the pointed one. I need to upgrade mine with something different.
The weathering on the armor looks fantastic! Good luck

Thanks! I'm just hoping the helmet turns out ok, still have a lot of painting to do. Plus I'm still working on the back plate, one gauntlet, and codpiece.

For the knee darts, I harvested parts from some cheapo plastic click pens. Not the skinny Bics, but the bigger promotional types that most companies have/give away. Just unscrewed the tips off, and snapped the pocket clips off the tops, then sanded down the little plastic remainder till it was smooth and round. I believe they used to be walgreens pens.

Honestly a lot of the non-cardboard parts I got from stuff laying around in the basement/garage. Yay for recycling/saving money! haha

Helmet finally going in for paint. Let's hope I dont mess it up.

Green seems to look good. Doing the cheekbones next, then the mandibles and any other red parts, then weathering, then visor, then done?

Really nice job with this build. I love the burn weathering on the armour! Gives it that little extra. Did you make everything from cardboard? Even the gauntlets?

Yep, pretty much everything is made out of varying thicknesses of cardboard/cardstock/thick posterboard lol. I did use plastic cups and other plastic parts for the jetpack, but all the armor stuff is cardboard based.

Mandibles are done, moving onto the earpieces today.

The helmet kinda looks "cartoony" to me. The colors seem flat and bland, and I know I didnt go with the exact brand/colors that most other people used, but I chose pretty **** close ones. I figure the weathering will help a lot, cause I felt the same way about the armor.

So. Just finished taping off the helmet to paint the killstripes. By hand. That whole process was a *****. My advice to everyone: give yourself enough time to order the effing decals, unless you're like me and don't give a **** if the helmet is 100% movie accurate.

Most impressive. Seeing how you've done so well, maybe I'll give the cardboard gauntlets a go myself.
And yeah, buying the decals seems like good advice

Killstripes are on, yeah I know they're not completely accurate, but they do the trick. God I'm glad that's done.

I have never posted here but I got a ton of great ideas and templates that I used from WOF, so i figured since I'd post. Well here is my hasbro fett helmet redo for my 7 year old sons Halloween costume. Still a ton of work to do and I will post more info when I am done if anyone is interested. I will be posting the entire fett costume soon as I am done. I pretty much done with the whole costume just trying to finish up today. Here is a tease....

Originally Posted by Red5sixx

I have never posted here but I got a ton of great ideas and templates that I used from WOF, so i figured since I'd post. Well here is my hasbro fett helmet redo for my 7 year old sons Halloween costume. Still a ton of work to do and I will post more info when I am done if anyone is interested. I will be posting the entire fett costume soon as I am done. I pretty much done with the whole costume just trying to finish up today. Here is a tease....

Might wanna pop this into a new thread lol.

I'm kinda new to posting how can I do that...Thanks

Jess

Originally Posted by Red5sixx

I'm kinda new to posting how can I do that...Thanks

Jess

At the top of the page you should see a bunch of links in yellow text (Home, forum, wiki, etc)

Just click "Forum" and it will take you to the forum page, where you can choose the sub-section you want to make a new thread in. (Boba fett costume, helmet, armor). Choose the sub-section, click "new thread" and you should be good to go!

HELMET IS FINALLY DONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!! All that remains is attaching velcro and straps to everything and putting it together.

I'm about 90% happy with how the helmet turned out. Kinda wish the weathering and details looked more realistic, and I think the vertical part of the visor looks really wide compared to the horizontal part, but thats the way it fit so oh well. So far so good with a 45 minute test drive. There's a nice gap (about a 1/4") between the visor and mandibles, so fogging is minimal.

PICTURE TIME!

All the hand weathering took about 2 hours. Couple of breaks for sanity's sake though.



Visor installed:

Everything is pretty much done. All that's left is securing the back plate to the collar armor, and attaching the jetpack to the back plate. How the eff am I gonna do that last part...?

Tried on the majority of the costume, while it isnt perfect, I'm happy with it considering the small time frame I completed it in, and the whole "making everything out of cardboard" part lol.

More pics to come later.

Very nice work

Considering that you used mostly cardboard on your build, it came out really nice.

Looks good mate...happy trick or treating

Very impresive paint up on the helm! For a quick cardboard job its great, give yourself some more time next time and itll be amazing, good work!

Thanks everyone! Yeah nobody believed that the costume was made out of cardboard and posterboard lol. I had to show em progress pics on my phone. Only issues were the jetpack weighing too much and hanging down, causing the collar piece to pull up and dig into my neck. A piece of velcro mightve helped. One of the thrusters broke off, so I just snapped the other one off too for symmetry. No fogging unless I started panting through my mouth, even with it being 30 degrees out last night. I was nice and toasty in the flightsuit haha. All the work paid off though, won a couple costume contests.

I only got a few pics on my phone, ill post em up in a bit.

PICS!






Helmet seemed a little too big for the armor. :\ Could barely see the cool neckseal I custom made lol

Hey your costume looks good. Glad you got it done in time. Well I finished mine for Halloween but still working on completing a 99.9 percent accurate suit for the 501st. Happy Halloween and you did an amazing job in such a short time!

Got a couple more pics from another party I went to. Even saw another Boba Fett. Out of a few hundred people, only 2 Fetts. Not bad lol.

Kinda pissed when I got there though, cause they made me lose the blaster. Had a funny convo with the security guy about it. He seemed to know star wars a bit:

Security: "Sorry Fett, can't bring the gun in."
Me: "Really?" *taps gun* "It's plastic and just lights up."
Security: "Sorry, I know you're a bounty hunter and all, but no weapons are allowed in at all."
Me: *hands gun to friend to take back to car* "Looks like I'm not allowed in then." *holds up gauntlets, then points to knee darts* "I've got like 9 other weapons on this, ya know?"
Security: "Hahaha true, but we only ban the visible ones. Have a good time dude."






Fail.


OOH LOOK A BIRDIE!!