Resculpting my Fett armor

I LOVE this thread. Seeing all the detail and the quality you put into these pieces is so awesome. Its great getting on and seeing this thread has new posts in it.

Man, people certainly can't accuse you of being lazy! Great work!

Thank you very much guys!
I've still got a bit of work to do, but definitely much more on the way

That's looking great! Keep it up!

Thank you GCN

I made some more progress this week. I essentially finished all the secondary weathering and battle damage on the shells and flamethrower utilizing a combination of sanding, scratching/scraping, more spot chipping, pastel chalk brushing, black wash and airbrushing then topped it all off with a matte finish. I finished installing the flamethrower nozzles and added more switches, darts, and other greeblies to the shells. I'm still waiting on 2 momentary switches for the flamethrower I picked up on eBay to arrive. After I install those, I'll attach the flamethrower to the left gaunt and then install another toggle looking switch to the back of the left gaunt (near the red pilot light). The right gaunt is basically completed. Here's pics of everything:










All accessories on the right gaunt are attached with screws (predrilled holes into the resin pieces). I was skeptical about this at first but once I tightened everything down it all cinched up nice and snug for a great fit. Super sturdy too










I acquired this beautiful casting of a glenross dental expander from a good buddy in Arizona. I was very pleased to get this very difficult to find item from him..and such a great casting too






That's it for now until I get those switches I'm waiting for in the mail. Up next I'll be continuing work on the left gaunt rocket. I stripped down the old one and re primed and painted it. It sits in silver for now. I've just got to trace and mask it next.

Looks great. Cant wait to get mine!

Thanks buddy!
Here's a few more pics of the rocket I knocked out today. Thanks to Richard (some guy named Lor) for hooking me up with some copper paint that I needed for the tip.




Up next, I need to attach the flamethrower to the left gaunt and add the momentary rendar type switches and the rear switch looking greeblie and these babies will be done!

Here's a quick little update. This **** thing took about 20 minutes to install cause I had a hard time getting my fingers inside the flamethrower to screw on the nut. I wanted that end inside the flamethrower so they weren't poking me while wearing the gaunts







Now just waiting on three switches to arrive in the mail and these babies will be DONE!

Outstanding job!!!!

Thanks buddy

Outstanding indeed! Where were you 3 years ago when absolutely no one made gauntlets?

Thanks GCN
LOL well let me see, I was still very new to costuming and had just finished assembling my first Fett. I had never even DREAMED of sculpting my own armor after that. I had done very little sculpting for very basic shapes for some molds that I needed for my model scratchbuilding that I was heavy into at the time, but that was it.

I then recently got involved with the mercs (just over a year ago) and decided to give it a shot. I still need to go back and resculpt a few pieces (in particular the backplate), so I know I still have a long way to go to get where I want to be, but it's getting there. Thanks for hangin out and reading the thread..all of you
More to come!

Looking dapa,
I was only kidding about the red
Black and or white as the real ones were white vacformed,
Very sweet work

Originally Posted by jinto

Looking dapa,
I was only kidding about the red
Very sweet work

Haha yeah I know just giving you a hard time back lol. Thanks for the comment boss!

Insane man, just insane. Love the thread. Can't wait for my back plate. PM sent btw.

Thanks Michael! PM replied
Well, since I'm here I might as well update this thread some more. I finally got all of the last of the switches in and got them installed. I'm calling these gauntlets DONE! Take a look:

Once I got the gauntlets out of the way, it was time to move on to the rest of the body armor. So, that being said, here we go:

This is the very same armor that I make for everyone else. I can honestly say that I'm not only the president, but I'm also a client :P
The very first thing I had to do was shape the armor to my body. This required a heat gun, a few clamps and some patience. I didn't take pics of this part, but when I get to the backplate you'll see how it was done. After that was completed, I repeated the same process I did on the knees - Sand, prime, sand again, silver, and then matte coat sealer






After that, everything goes under bauhaus gold, then sanded smooth again and shot with matte finish again

Before that was painted, however, the silver areas were already masked off


Up next I lightly traced with a pencil the areas of the yellow that will remain exposed


After that is completed, the masking fluid is applied to those areas only (no need to remask the silver masked areas)









These are all now ready for some layers of green for the final topcoat...the ab plate will get a different color of green and masked off. Here's a few shots of that masking insanity

After that, I hit it with a few layers of the proper green and then peeled off the masking fluid (also very time consuming)

The wheat logo was also done with a 3 layer/part stencil. I realized afterwards that I made it too large, but it's staying put now :P


Then I went back to the armor to weather it and add the Fett clan logo. Same stencil process as the Jaing skull on the shoulder, then weathered afterwards

Now everything's weathered though it's a little hard to see in the pics

Here's some more pics outside in sunlight on the vest






Up next: Backplate, where I will go into GREAT detail on the painting, masking, and weathering process! Stay tuned!

As always. Looks stunning Will.

Looking swank , Have you or any one else completed a fett using all your parts ?

Thank you so much guys! I believe I am the only one who has completed a Fett using ALL my armor (there's been one or two who have completed Fett's using a few of my pieces). After I post pics of the backplate, I'll show completed pics with me in the armor all together

what color did u use on the shoulder bells? All my colors I gave u looks like very good job BTW

Bauhaus gold, just like you said.
For the armor plates I went with the US medium green 34102 from the bottle (airbrushed) as a base (it was too olivey though) and then misted it ever so lightly with Tamiya's AS-17 Dark green.. I think the color came out just about right, I'm pretty happy with it. Thanks again so much for your tips and advice on the paint, bro

good stuff looks great

Outstanding Job! Your attention to detail is amazing! Nicely done sir... nicely done indeed!

Thanks guys! More good stuff to come...I promise!

Awesome job Will! Great weathering

This has got to be one of the best threads and explanations I've seen. You have made me remod mine! FANTASTIC

Thanks again guys I hope this thread will help those of you who might need to know which direction to go with their armor and what steps to take. I'm just passing along the favor for those who have done the same for me that I learned from

It's a very minor thing but isn't the white detail of the center chest diamond supposed to be an added insert and not painted directly on the plate?

Hmmm..strange, I looked over all the ref pics and couldn't tell. Not saying it's not there, I just never noticed anything like that before. Is it a really thin piece that sits inside? Is there a ref pic anywhere that you could post? Any info would be great.

Here is the center chest piece from the gallery. Fett from C4 I believe..

depends on what diamond...the esb doesnt have one right?

Originally Posted by Fett 4 Real

depends on what diamond...the esb doesnt have one right?

Not sure... I don't have a clear enough pic of an ESB one.

I think they both have it.
Although, that pic looks lie it's molded on or at least the paint was thick enough to hide the seam.

yeh its there just gave it a good look

Wow you guys are ON it! I've never seen that picture before. That's what I love about this community is the crazy attention to detail which fuels our incentive to learn and get better. Great catch on that. That'll be an easy detail to fix/add

Alright [sigh] backplate round 2...Here we go.
I really wasn't that happy with my freshman attempt at sculpting the backplate so I decided to give it another go. I won't get into the details of how I sculpted it so I'll just start off with the raw pull and go from there.




I'm really pleased with this new sculpt, however, the shoulders needed to be formed just a bit in order to fit better ..no biggie though

Before I did that, I decided to finish trim the edges and cut out the JP slots and then sand it for priming



60 grit sandpaper for the edges to smooth them out...it needs it as these are pulled out of 1/8" inch so they're pretty tough



After that I hit the surface with some 180 to prep it for primer



Next I cut out the JP slots with the cutting wheel and then drilling holes in the corners...then finished it up with the file

After that I was ready to form the shoulders. Threw it in the clamp and hit it with the heat gun


One side done...still needed to knock out the other one



Test fit...looked pretty good.

After that I threw it on the mannequin with the flak vest and lined it up

These had to be trimmed to line up better ...I didn't take any after shots till after I painted it, but here's what it looked like before. This will get corrected later

Once I got it fitted the way I wanted it, I was ready for paint. First thing, hit it with the compressor and get all the dust off as well as a quick wipe down.

These are the two primers I like to use. The one on the left works really well, but it's nasty when it's in the air. Definitely gotta use a respirator with it. For this build, however, I'll be using the cheaper stuff on the right. It also works very well.

Here it is all primed up, but it obviously needs to be sanded again


I hit that with some 320 to get it nice and smooth and to help prevent any orange peel down the road.


Nice and smooth

Dry wipe it down and air it off again and hit it with some metallic aluminum



I didn't need to sand it after this layer so I just hit it with some matte sealer to dull it down and seal in the silver. There are two different types of sealer I used on this, Rusto matte clear and Testors dull coate. Both worked very well, but the testor's is much more expensive.

After that I did my pencil markings for the paint chipping and then went to town with the masking fluid


I like to use toothpicks for application of this stuff. They're a dime a thousand and the small tips allow for great detail work

Then it was time for some Bauhaus Gold


hit it with 320 again, wipe it down, air it off and hit with some matte sealer. Trace your yellow paint chip markings, and mask them all off just like before






After that it was time to start the green process. I first hit it with a base coat of some leftover Tamiya DK green AS-21



Looks pretty ****** doesn't it?? Fear not true believer for this is only the beginning..read on
Since I decided I was going to be airbrushing with the testors model master medium green (34102) I was going to need a base coat of green so I wouldn't have so much surface area to cover. I used the stuff in the bottle because it came out a much more accurate green than the medium green of the same brand in the can (I don't know why, don't ask me lol). So, mixing it with some thinner, I was able to get the proper consistency for the airbrush and covered the rest of the back with this little bottle.



Afte that I hit it lightly with some 600, just enough to smooth out any possible bumps. After that wipe it down and air it off again

This part was crucial to get just that right shade of green. The medium green (IMO) was just too olivey for my taste but had ALMOST the right color. I decided to try this color of Tamiya's AS-17 green and lightly mist it over the medium green and... voila!


Next up I decided to shift gears real quick and install the bolts for the collar studs


And a quick overall look of the green

Now that the painting was all done, it was time for the tedious task of removing all the masking fluid. When doing a two part masking process, I discovered it was a lot easier to work from the outside in when removing the masking fluid. I first removed the yellow parts and then the silver. I used a sharp exacto but I imagine a pair of tweezers would work very well too





At this point I realized that I forgot to add the dent on the upper right shoulder blade...but ahhh screw it, too late now lol. I did do some research and actually found a picture of it without a dent though (or at least it looks that way to me in the picture). I just looked for it to justify my screwup :P



The last part of this process was the weathering. There are several different methods with which to approach this and I'll only be touching on a few more relevant ones for that look which I'm trying to achieve. There are also other methods I didn't employ involving dirty/black washes, dry brushing, etc. which are also very effective and make for a great weathered look. Obviously I can't cover them all and I'm sure there are tons out there that I don't even know about or ones that you yourself have discovered. However, there are 2 major rules that you need to bear in mind when weathering:
1.) Weathering is RANDOM
2.) Yes, it is possible to overdo it...keep it subtle. Less is sometimes more when it comes to weathering.
Keeping that in mind, let's move on

The first thing I started out with was scratching. There's a ton of different ways to do it. Here's what I used:
Slicing motion

Scraping motion


Scouring pad

Sandpaper...different grits




After I was satisfied with all that, I got out my pastels and scraped me up some powders


Before going to town with those, I made some marks with the sticks themselves




You can utilize different methods of smearing the pastels. Everything from paper towels and tissues to just using your finger

I also used a colored pencil for a few areas


Next up was the pastel powder process. I just used a simple brush for application




Also, don't be afraid to mix your colors or have your weathering bleed into one another. More of that makes more randomness which translates into more believability as real weathering

After that, I misted the entire back plate very lightly with el cheapo black spray paint from Wmart

Up next was some good old fashioned one on one with the airbrush


Slapping/tapping the airbrush lever will give this splatter effect, which is what I was after

Man, you are so fast that is hard to follow your thread. Your overall job is amazing, easy to understand, easy to apply... by eye. Keep it up like this!

Respect!

Thanks again buddy!
Fast, though? I don't know about that lol. I've been in the process of sculpting, assembling and painting since April of 2010..so almost a year now. It probably just seems fast because of the way I'm posting it all. I usually finish the project (or get really far ahead) and then go back and post pics and progress later. Thanks again for the kind words
Speaking of progress, here's the last little bit for this portion of the report
After all the weathering and airbrushing is done, the very last thing I did was cover the backplate with another coat of Testor's Dullcote. This serves two purposes: To get rid of any gloss or sheen and to seal in the pastel weathering so it won't rub off when being handled or worn.

Remember the collar stud bolts? Well, I wasn't able to purchase any metal collar studs (the member here was sold out) and I really didn't feel like waiting, so I made them from scratch with plastic bonder, styrene, and drawer handle ends that I chopped up for the female bolt ends. Take a look


After I shot them with some silver, I screwed them onto the bolts that I attached to the backplate. I also corrected the collar/backplate lineup issue. It was basically just a matter of cutting off the excess material. But I sculpted it with that in mind in order to have extra to accommodate a wider variety of body types

That backplate looks good.

Thanks buddy!

Out standing work red

Thank you jinto!

wow great job so far. love the paint mask. real cool stuff

Thanks Ken Very easy stuff to work with and peels beautifully!

So I finally finished up my version 2 collar to finish out the set. Take a look:









Here's a pic of the new Version 2 full set with some of the old parts like gaunts and knees:

I've decided to make these sets available. Check out the thread here:
http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f31/i...ailable-41814/

Very nice work!

I had read the thread before and I was going to ask if you were planning on making the gauntlets available as well and now I see you are offering them up, nice.

Thanks Natrix! Yes, I've actually had these available for quite a while now but just recently made them available here on TDH. I am looking into getting some thicker tougher plastic to pull these gaunts in, but it's going to be a few months before I can make that happen...but, still moving forward

Awesome thread!

Man, I just did a quick scroll through this thread and I'm blown away by your skills! Great work man!

Thanks escho, much appreciated my friend. I have to admit that my V2 is still not 100% accurate, but a much greater improvement over the old V1

And here you all thought I was done with this thread! Not quite...
I'm still sporting my old Version 1 chest, collar and cod. Those will be getting replaced with my Version 2 pieces cause I'm really not happy with the flat chest pieces I have now and the way they sit on my torso.
I'll slowly be working on these between filling orders, having a day job, a gf, a real life, etc, etc, :P But I just wanted to let you all see the ones I've started on. I went with V2 collar and chest set in boltaron (minus diamond cause the one I have now is already good) and a V2 cod in ABS...all black. As of right now, all pieces are pulled, cut and finish trimmed. After that I'll be doing some light sanding and prepping for primer and paint...
Also, take a look at that nasty wrinkle in the plastic on the cod. I'm not sure if it was there before I did the pull or not, or what (cause I didn't notice it till I was already well into the heating process). I have a feeling it was already there before the pull...either way it was weird cause I've never ever seen that on any pieces of my plastic before. It doesn't really matter though cause I'm just gonna sand the **** out of it and smooth it out anyway, but I just wanted to point it out as well as to show those of you who are interested how to fix a problem like that. Take a look at the pics below and, as always, stay tuned!!

Got a little more progress for you all. All pieces are sanded and primed (and sanded again). I opted NOT to shape these pieces with a heating gun as I felt they were already good for my body style straight off the table...take a look



Remember that nasty wrinkle? ...Gone! A sanding block took care of that

Now this next part might seem redundant for many of you, but I have actually had a fair number of people ask me how to cut out the chest light display slots so here it is in pictures....there's probably a number of different ways to do this but here's the way I did mine


I swapped to a smaller dremel bit to cut the vertical lines


Still rough, so up next I hit with a few files (some different sizes and smaller ones to get into the tight spots)

To help me speed up this process (cause it felt like I was filing FOREVER and this boltaron is pretty tough) I VERY carefully ran my cutting bit along the edges to flatten them out closer to the lines I had drawn...this also helped tremendously in straightening out the edges before a quick final filing

And the final result after some more filing...I also lightly cleaned up the corners and edges with an exacto knife

After this was done, I hit everything with the same primer that I've been using (refer to the previous posts in this thread) and then sanded it with 400 grit






And here in this pic you can't even tell there was ever a wrinkle in the plastic! I'm pretty pleased with the result


These bad boys are now ready for silver. Stay tuned!

Moving along on this, got the pieces all under metallic silver and some matte clear coat:




Up next will be tracing and masking for the silver layer then some bauhaus gold

OK so it's been a while since my last report. Sorry for so long in between but I've been slammed with orders as well as trying to squeeze in sculpting another new costume....oh and having a life (what's that?? ;P)

So I want you all to take a moment with me and think a little bit different about the way we've all been approaching attaching the armor to the vest. I know there's been about a half a dozen ways to do this, but I've always thought that there has to be another way that might be a little easier and less time consuming...so of course I thought - MAGNETS
I know, I know you're probably thinking "How in the heck can you make that work?" Well, let me now show you
I went online and found some really strong (probably even too strong) magnets that will fit right inside the armor. These are 12-16 pounders if I remember correctly, but after doing this I can honestly say that you'll easily get away with using 8-10 pounders if you decide to go this route...

After that, I attached 5 to each chest plate and 6 to the ab....with the corresponding pieces, that comes to a total of 22 magnets!
I used some trusty Devcon plastic welder and they're not comin' off! lol

Sanded down the areas first of course






After that was done, all I had to do was line it up on the vest and throw the magnets on the back of it. The best part is that if it's not lined up, you can just move them around a little to exactly where you need them and you're not having to mangle the vest or sew anything or punch holes or anything! (vest courtesy of LSFU). Also, if you want to wash your vest, you just need to take them off. Now there is one catch though, I won't be able to do the collar this way because of the way it likes to pull back towards your throat and the magnets won't prevent that, they'll just slide...that piece will have to be done with either snaps or, in this case, I'll be doing mine with bolts. Pics of that will come much later









The bad news, these were EXPENSIVE, running me right around just under $100 with shipping
The good news, you will only ever do this one time and they won't wear out and you won't have to do anything to the vest itself, keeping it in better shape for a longer period of time. Plus it took me only about 20 minutes to do this.
That's it for now! I need to do some painting next! Stay tuned!