My Super Low Budget Fett in 3 Weeks

As posted over at the RPF, I decided to put together six SW costumes in three weeks with virtually no budget for an annual Quiz Night. I was determined not to spend anything, only scratch building from what I had around the house and doing some prop trades for the more difficult/time-consuming pieces.

So, I had the helmet, a Mystery Helmet being finished by marsattack for me:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...DSC_0469-1.jpg

I thought to myself... "I've got the helmet, how hard can it be to put together the rest". :wacko I joined the Dented Helmet and began studying.

I started working out this outfit inside-to-out, from top to bottom. So first, the jumpsuit... I found this great set of overalls at one of my favorite second hand shops for about $8:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/jumpsuit.jpg

I unpicked the reflective bands and extra pockets (I left the thigh pocket just incase I didn't have time to add accurate ones). The result was this:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g.../jumpsuit2.jpg

The next thing I thought I could do was the leather pouch belt. I had plenty of spare brown leather sitting around and I decided I wanted to make the pouches functional. So, first I made a bunch of cardboard boxes:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...belt-boxes.jpg

Then I began covering them in leather. To save time, I made a template, and simply glued-and-stapled the pieces to the side of the boxes:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...es-leather.jpg

Then I cut long leather pieces, added the white stitching and sewed velcro pieces to them. Again, I glued-and-stapled these to my cardboard boxes:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...r-building.jpg

I slid these onto my quickly-made leather "belt" (which was just another long strip of leather with the white stitching added). The end result:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...t-finished.jpg

I found a cheap 80s style light grey windbreaker at another shop for about $3:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...indbreaker.jpg

I put it on backwards, trimmed the neck, cut off the sleeves and added stitching to the new short sleeves:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...rWars/vest.jpg

There was some extra decorative stitching on this jacket. Instead of worrying about unpicking it all, I just lined up the stitching on the sleeve to make it look like it was meant to be there. Inaccurate, but I think it fits well enough:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...Wars/vest2.jpg

More to come...

Kind regards,
Magnoli

I had some chest armor coming from marsattack, but the rest I had to sort out myself. Luckily, after putting some feelers out here in the Junkyard, I managed to get a set of shoulder bells, collar and cod piece. I painted the shoulder bell design by hand:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...ulder-bell.jpg

Next up, for the girth belt, I bought some cheap "red" rope for $1:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g.../fett-rope.jpg

After sewing them together, it looked really pink, so I darked it with some green and black spray paint. I added some webbing straps I had and added two roller buckles that use on my gas mask bag straps:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g.../rope-belt.jpg

I was getting closer...

Kind regards,
Magnoli

DISCLAIMER: All of these costumes were made for virtually no hard cash, within three weeks time and were meant to be instantly recognizable while still maintaining my natural desire for accuracy. Corners had to be cut, I'm afraid... :cry

Let's see, thanks to the generosity of CTF, I was able to get some simply plastic knee pieces. I added a couple of blocks of wood to each side, some greeblies I had in my garage, including the tip of a pen:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...nee-pieces.jpg

Sixxgunn13, don't worry... I converted the cut-off sleeves into the neck seal. ;)

I found a head-band at a local $2 shop with a brown hair plait/braid... but they only had one. So, I braided some yarn, for another scalp, but it looked a bit cheesy.

I had decided early on to do the ESB Fett, but realized that some of the nitpicking wasn't going to do for this budget version. So, I decided to go for an Empire of the Jedi Edition version. For the cape, I had a nice dark khaki piece of cotton denim I used to use for one version of my Raiders sandbags. It looks like a nice "half-way" color between the ESB tan and ROTJ green.

I bought a pair of second-hand school uniform shorts for $2 that I converted into the short sleeves of the jumpsuit. I also found a pair of two-tone work gloves from the hardware store that were the same light/dark grey combo as my outfit. The main downside to the gloves was that they had writing on the backs of the hands. I was hoping that, when worn, the sleeves of the jumpsuit and gauntlets would help obscure this...

So far I had this:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...ars/stage1.jpg

Kind regards,
Magnoli

WARNING: Some of you may not want to read some of the following posts as they contain several accounts of deliberately allowed inaccuracies! :suprise

For the next step, marsattack finished some chest armor for me and I was able to find some more hair braids. (I attached the armor to my windbreaker-vest using snaps.) He also kindly sent me some shin pieces, so I added some shin pockets made from the chest pockets I previously removed:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...ars/stage2.jpg

Yes, I know the shoulder bells are reversed, but I didn't want the cape obscuring my beautifully hand-painted design. :lol You can also see some of the harness I made from one of my kids old backpacks and some more webbing I had laying around.

Kind regards,
Magnoli

P.S. I just read that the SE Fett had his shoulder bells reversed. That's what I love about this costume, there are so many variations, you can't really go wrong! :)

Next up... the gauntlets. As I mentioned above, I was planning on doing the ESB Fett mostly, so I bought all my paints accordingly. I received some raw fiberglass gauntlets from the UK and didn't realize they were ROTJ style until I was ready to prep them. Also ran out of time to do all the greeblies, but here are my mish-mosh quick-and-cheap gauntlets:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g.../gauntlet1.jpg

The hose is a clear plastic hose I had that I quickly sprayed some silver paint into...

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g.../gauntlet2.jpg

Kind regards,
Magnoli

I was almost out of time and wasn't planning on doing a proper Fett blaster since I couldn't find any cheap guns that I could build from that didn't look very wrong to begin with.

Now, a few of my friends heard about what I was up to and asked what kind of gun Fett carried. After describing it, one donated an old .45 Magnum style airgun and another gave me a plastic scope with a working laser on it. The scope wasn't the right size, but I couldn't resist the idea of the laser being on the top of the gun.

So... what do I do about the stock??? Luckily, RPFer Blaxmyth was over at my place helping me out with the back armor piece (more on that later) and he suggested plywood. To which I replied, "you want to try?" ;) A few days layer, there was a great stock sitting on my back step.

I had an steel pipe from an old vacuum cleaner in my garage, which meant I now had the following to work with:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...t-blaster1.jpg

I couldn't find the right sized tube anywhere in my garage for the main barrel... then one of my friends suggested an empty caulking tube. Perfect!. I used some PVC piping to cover the old cylinder, a couple of hose clamps to attach the scope, a bunch of hot glue, spray paint and Voila!

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...t-blaster2.jpg

I modified the leather strap from a vintage camera I had... perfect sling. I couldn't find any suitable greeblies for the stock, but something fell out of the airgun when I was working with it, so I glued it to the new cylinder:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...t-blaster3.jpg

Not perfect, but a heckuva lot better than the Hasbro Droid Blaster I was thinking of giving to Fett originally! :b

Kind regards,
Magnoli

I originally thought of doing the Fett without a jetpack since time and budget were so limited. But then I was talking to a friend of mine (not specifically an SW fan) who, when I told him I was doing a Boba Fett costume said, "I loved Boba Fett... he had that great jet pack...". So, obviously that was one of his key trademarks.

So, what could I use? I had an old plastic kids table in my garage (left over ten years ago by the previous home owners) some PVC tubing, an old sword box (cardboard tube) and a broken coffee thermos from one of the builders working at our house. Using a wooden down for support, some screws, glue and putty I started with this:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g.../jet-pack2.jpg

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g.../jet-pack1.jpg

I felt like the next step should be to build up the rocket top so... using a plastic champagne glass, plastic funnel, toy lightsaber "blade" and a plastic toy stolen from my kids toy box, the next step was complete:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...-pack-top1.jpg

For the rocket itself, another plastic champagne glass, another plastic funnel, a spray paint lid to join the two and another lightsaber blade:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...ck-rocket1.jpg

Now, the side "booster" jets had me stumped. I looked all over for balls I could use and all the funnels seems too wide. I broke down and went shopping. Found these wierd noise making toys at the $2 shop and a couple of measuring cups seemed the right shape:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...k-boosters.jpg

Put them together and you have:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...-boosters1.jpg

I used the legs from the plastic table and some smaller legs from one of my kids little plastic chairs that they broke a few days before I started this project to build up the front the pack. A couple of greeblies (the handle from that wierd toy, some metal thing I found in the garage and some parts from a toy Darth Maul saber). Put it all together and you get:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...unpainted3.jpg

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...unpainted2.jpg

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...unpainted1.jpg

It was sad to see the smiley faces go, but after some priming, painting and weathering, the end result was this:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...-finished1.jpg

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...-finished2.jpg

I didn't have time to add certain details (like the recesses in the side boosters) so I just did some extra surface painting.

Kind regards,
Magnoli

I didn't realize until near the end that Boba Fett had armor on his back. Luckily, Blaxmyth came to my rescue and after a few hours of heat gunning, we managed to get a piece of ABS to form quite nicely into the piece I needed. I connected the back plate with the shoulder piece using some nuts-and-bolts covered by silver-spray-painted keyboard keys.

Here is the finished Boba Fett. Unfortunately, the writing on the gloves was not hidden, and I ran out of time and resources to make some proper boots (I did manage to make a set of spats half an hour before he arrived to get dressed for that evening):

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...-finished2.jpg

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...-finished3.jpg

Here is the entire team... three weeks and virtually no budget:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...ished-team.jpg

Here I am relaxing on the evening, assuming the Han Solo "I'm not going anywhere" pose:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...k-finished.jpg

Boba Fett started sniping one of the other teams with his laser and they retaliated with some shots of their own:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...ormtrooper.jpg

All in all a successful evening, but a crazy three weeks!

I want to extend my thanks to all the RPFers who managed to get me various pieces over those few weeks, especially CMF and TazVader for their advice, marsattack for the great Boba helmet & armor, Blaxmyth for all his help, my wife for putting up with the huge mess in our dining room and to God for the miracle of helping me pull all this together in time. Deo Gratias!

Kind regards,
Magnoli

Fantastic work! You did a great job and the character had all the 'recognizable' parts. Way to go, great job! :thumbsup:thumbsup

Great job on the jetpack!

Great thread, looks like you had a blast......

3 weeks? Man, I've been on it for 3 years and still don't have a complete "wearable" costume. Excellent job.

Thanks for all the kind words. The next step will be to build a PVC pipe mannequin...

Kind regards,
Magnoli

That's really impressive for such a timeline crunch !!!

Congrats :cheers

-Chris

Wow... that is awesome. I should start gathering junk from my Good Will and see what I could do (I'm only 16 and don't have a job yet, the only money I get is from report cards, holidays, and the change I collect from the floor. I want to have a costume by the time I'm 18 so I can join up with the 501st)

I'm slowly building some mannequins to display these costumes and Boba Fett is half-done, literally. I've added the side pouches since the original build and am hoping to upgrade several pieces this month.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...oba-half-1.jpg

The colors are a little washed out due to the backlighting.

Kind regards,
Indy

I'm impressed with the job you with this. Great job on your costume, even if this was posted a while ago.

Brad

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Indy Magnoli

WARNING: Some of you may not want to read some of the following posts as they contain several accounts of deliberately allowed inaccuracies! :suprise

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Love this

Hey my skills are way beyond bad, anyway I could convince you to do a run of pvc mannequins? or at least write up a tutorial w/photos of how you did yours?

I'm still working on getting my PVC mannequins right. The display above is on a ready-made mannequin torso.

In the mean time, here is one tutorial I found on-line: It's That Dude: Making a PVC Mannequin - Part 1, Measuring and Re-Measuring

Kind regards,
Indy

Dude, that is awesome!!!Love the ingenuity...

I think the jetpack was really impressive. The noisemaker thrusters worked out really well!

i recently discovered / learned something that really helps on pvc manequins. don't rely just on the 45 and 90 degree connectors you can get at the hardware store. i used a plumber's torch to heat the pipe, and then bent it to more natural shapes. slight slope on the shoulders, slight bend in the knees.

this was for a sy snootles static display, but the same would hold true for boba.

This is a really cool build! Beyond impressive.

That is one amazing build. I like the smiley face on the unpainted jetpack ! LOL

Amazing work. Little resource, lots of talent...there you go.

I've done more work on my Boba Build. I've replaced/upgraded a lot since the original budget-build (still all through trading). I'm not after any particular Fett, just picking-and-choosing my favorite pieces of each version. I might end up repainting the gauntlets to a dull red or maybe even one red, one yellow. :)

Anyway, here is my full mannequin I put together with bits and pieces around the house:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCF0005.jpg

I wanted a different post than the usual upright mannequin so I made one leg longer than the other and put both at an angle for a little contrapposto as seen in some of the full length Fett poses.

A close up of one of the hands:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCF0006.jpg

My main priority for the hands was strength as I wanted him to hold my heavy EE-3. I tried making the hands realistic as well, but once the gloves went on, they when a bit funny looking.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCF0010.jpg

I also had to add a string around the stock, tying it to his forearm and, by resting the blaster tip on the hand railing, he's fairly sturdy.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCF0009.jpg

Looking across the library:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCF0008.jpg

And... looking up from my study at Fett:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCF0007.jpg

Kind regards,
Indy

I am intrigued with your use of the wind breaker for the vest......... Almost looks like it could be the real item

great job :thumbsup . love the pack work :cheering. the thrusters HAVE A NICE DAY :). love it .

what did u use for the arms under the foam on tha manniquin ?

:cheers
:fettrotj

The arms are pvc tubing (about 1.5" diameter). I heated them up with a heat gun and bent them at the elbow. I let them cool in the bent position and they more-or-less stayed like that.

whoa that is really cool.. it shows that it dosent take much money to have good results.. i also built a very low budget fett. check out the thread its not as good as yours but it was the best i could do with the things avalaible..... the thread name is... WIP:ROTJ Boba Budget

Ingenious use of random items. Looks great! Fantastic job.

Another Fett update...

Since my last work on this, I've got a new vest and neck seal from TK409. The vest was misted with grey spray paint to tone down the bright cream color. I also got a bunch of machined pieces from fenixprops. Because of the gauntlet darts, I took the opportunity to revise my paint scheme. Since one of my strongest memories of Fett was the Kenner toy, I decided to go with the PP2 gauntlet paint scheme:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...F/DSCF0004.jpg

The repaint was easy... I just put Vaseline over all the silver "battle damage", purposely leaving some of the original ESB green showing through, then spray painted.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...F/DSCF0005.jpg
http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...F/DSCF0007.jpg

I know the left gauntlet should have a different side weapon, but I'm not worried about it. I have better gloves, but need to fix up the hands before putting them on. I've also got a new cape coming as well as an LED chest display. Now I've got to decide on whether or not to repaint the jetpack.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...F/DSCF0006.jpg

Kind regards,
Magnoli

The mannequin ... I made mine from PVC and used lots of metal coat hangers bent out straight for the arms ... Was trying to make it semi-posable. I'd nearly redo my mine with heat bent PVC for the arms, just for sturdiness. The coat hangers just aren't rigid enough to hold up the weight of my gauntlets and gun properly. Good idea!

Amazing, so what was the total spend? Still can't believe how well you have done.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by darthbailey58

Amazing, so what was the total spend? Still can't believe how well you have done.

---

That's REALLY hard to say as almost all of it was done through trading. In fact, except for the blaster (which was made from only stuff around the house) all the original "budget" pieces have been upgraded.

not bad for 3 weeks and a limited budget! looks great! better than anything i could've done

Man that looks great! I have a ROTJ version. I plan on building a Mirta Gev set for my wife, but someone told me to get a torso manequin and cut the plastic from it for the armor.

Wow, your work is quite impressive and inspiring!! Thanks for posting the step by step!

Love It!!!

this is a really inspiring build and makes tackling Boba Fett a lot less intimidating. :cheering

Good timing on a bump... I'm in the middle of repainting my pack to a more pre-pro/ROTJ color scheme and plan on installing the digital read-out on the chest very soon.

excellent! excited for an update!

I didn't really take any progress shots of my new paint job, but I took this bump as an excuse to take a couple of photos. So...

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...DSCF0001-1.jpg
http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...DSCF0002-1.jpg

When planning the new paintjob, I realized I needed something to paint blue vertically in the center so I added a strip of wood to my original pack. I've also added some round caps (two wheels recently broken off our ping-pong table) and will add some extra pieces to the thruster balls.

Kind regards,
Magnoli

Just finished my updated low budget pack:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...k-finished.jpg

Awesome work Indy!!! By the way, this is Jess in Albuquerque! Give me a holler next time you come back home to visit! Great job & Happy New Year!!!

Great work. I think you should have kept the smiley faces on the thrusters.

The smiley faces would have worked with the ROTJ paint scheme, that's for sure! ;)

I am current;y working on a low budget Boba Fett, do you remember the brand of jacket you used for your original vest?

It was a second hand windbreaker that looked like something from the 80s, so nothing currently available. I would just do an eBay search for grey windbreakers and sort by lowest price first to see what you can get (aside from the obvious local thrift store hunting).

Kind regards,
Magnoli

very immpressive, you did an amazing job..

That is an awesome suit! Don't know if anybody else feels this way, but it makes building a suit seem like its not as daunting of a task as some of the other posts would have you believe. I'm not saying it makes it look easy, but with a little creativity you can really save some time and effort. And money! Very inspiring. One question: Where did you get the helmet?

Thanks! It was a really fast and furious build, that's for sure. And the key to anything like this is to do a little at a time.

I got the helmet in a trade: it's a Mystery Helmet, painted by marsattack.

Kind regards,
Indy

<------noob! Saw that in first post, but literally though you meant "mystery". /blush

I would imagine these helmets are pretty hard to come by?

Love the Fett Costume as well as the Mannequin. Nice work and Ingenuity. I just got my first helmet which needs to be painted. Great inspiration!

Researching doing a build myself and must say that this is very impressive!

dat jetpack...

awesome work, loved your mannequin, very cool:thumbsup

Great post and amazing work! An inspiration...I hope to borrow your mannequin design in the near future

Great work,I have reread this a few times and it still amazes me.You did an awesome job with what you had lying around. Love how the Fett is displayed. Again fantastic work!

I have a question. How much leather was needed for the belt and bags? half yard?

whoops double post! sorry folks!

Just saw this thread for the first time. Well done!

The line quoted below was the funniest thing I have seen all day, and I nearly had an accident with my drink from laughing. Sometimes during a build you just get crazy and it ends up working quite well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Indy Magnoli

...I couldn't find any suitable greeblies for the stock, but something fell out of the airgun when I was working with it, so I glued it to the new cylinder http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/g...t-blaster3.jpg

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Holy **** dude! That is awesome! My bucket is off to you and your resoursefullness! Inspirational!

lots of great ideas in this thread!

Amazing,amazing!! I find it so inspirational to read and see how you have worked on the costume! I am in awe by the creativity!! Really good work! :D

Fantastic job and shows a lot of creative thinking.

Well done Sir, Well done indeed.

Very cool. Like this. Nicely done.