James' Beskar Plate

jameslisle

New Hunter
Hi everyone. I'm new at Star Wars costuming (and to the dented helmet!), and have largely been blundering around with support from one like-minded friend since about mid-June. We were both really interested in making Mandalorian armor, and like any resourceful men with nothing better to do on our days off than arts and crafts, we quickly turned to ikea furniture boxes to begin construction. Largely, I scaled up the sizes of the armor on my mandalorian action figures. Note: I'm fairly certain I was doing pretty much the same thing when I was half the age I am now. Building armor out of cardboard and playing with action figures.
Anyway, our cardboard beskar not only looked pretty good as a prototype, but it stood up well in a hilarious game of paintball, so with the end goal of creating a professional level costume at some point in the future, I decided to proceed with designing a prototype helmet and a hardened version of the cardboard armor.
My solution to hardening carboard was casting plaster and gauss. I'll keep you posted on how well this works once the plaster dries and I re-assemble the plates. On a side note, I was wondering if anybody had any experience working with simmilar techniques?

My real question, however, has to do with tomorrow's job. I've had to somewhat speed up my regualr prototype building pace in order to get the costume at least serviceable for halowe'en. Since I am mercifully unemployed for another six days, I should have plenty of time to paint my kit, but, and this is the important part: other than a base colour for my plate, I'm short on ideas for decoration. If anybody has suggestions or can point me in the right direction as far as "this topic has already been covered," it would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if anybody's interested, I can get some pictures of my less-than-masterpeice work in progress.

Thanks!
 
Okay, so rather than just talk about my armor, I figured I could show you! This morning I found my plaster dry enough to start painting, but first i took pictures (exciting?)

first, the plates:

IMAGE_940.jpg


And since I have a picture of it, the unfinished helm- I mean, bucket.

IMAGE_941.jpg


So, as you can see, hardly perfect (you may note that the bucket is missing parts and definition). However, as this is my first suit, and i'm doing it more for the process than the end result, I must say that I was rather pleased with the overall effect thus far.

Then I got to painting. I must apologise for my sub-par cameraphone pictures here, which really wash out the lovely navy colour of the plates. The chest plates:

IMAGE_944.jpg


The back plates:

IMAGE_943.jpg


A detail of one of the shoulder pads, because I was impressed with my weathering (the photo leaves a little something to be desired, I think):

IMAGE_942.jpg


You'll note, no bucket painting pictures yet. thats because I'm still trying to decide what kind of detail I want to paint on it. I'm definitely open to suggestions, by the way.

Overall, I was fairly pleased that the natural uneven texture of the plaster made it really easy to give the armor a nice worn look by lightly washing a mostly dry brush across the surface. The ridges picked by the paint. Let me know what you think, and if you have any questions about my process, I would be delighted to belabour the entire process!
 
Au contraire my friend... I prefer to make things up as I go along.

Actually, you're absolutely right in noting that these plates are all the wrong shape. They weren't designed for accuracy, they were designed for comfort of wearability. It was incredibly difficult to bend over backwards with one solid backpeice, so I improvised by, erm, cutting it in half. Plus, did I mention that i designed the template by scaling up an action figure? Turns out those little 3.75 inch figures aren't exactly man-shaped. Glooping on casting plaster doesn't lend itself ot accuracy of detail, either.

This suit was built with the intention of testing out a number of ideas I had on how to build it (since, y'know, I didn't bother to find this website until three days ago. Honestly, who uses the internet as a resource these days?) I never meant it to be a work of art. Turns out it looks better than expected, but still doesn't count for much when stacked up against the other suits on this forum. Of this I'm aware, but I'll trundle along happily making what I can.

Oh, did I mention that the number two goal of this suit was to spend absolutely no money when making it? So far everything has been done with stuff I had lying around the house.
 
I like the design on the back plate, I was thinking of doing a layered back plate for my 3rd set (since I dont have back plates on #1 or 2)
 
Well, Halowe'en was a success, and my plaster Beskar'gam, (or plaster'gam, I guess) lasted just as long as it needed to. Things started to come apart on me in the end, but thats the joy of a test suit - trying things out so you know what you can do better next time. And speaking of next time...

I had so much fun wearing the costume out in public that I think I need to do it again. I'll be making a second suit starting as soon as I get to it. I don't know if anybody on these forums reads Star Wars Legacy (overall a not very good comic book, which i'm sure we can discuss at our lesiure, if we so chose), but the most recent issue featured the Mandalorians of the Future! The armor is different enough to be a challenge, but similiar enough to be recognisible, and I'm considering making my next suit to match... although I'll likely stick with a more traditional helmet. Anybody have any imput on this matter?

Finally - here's a few pictures of the suit in action. It looks like a really lame party, since I'm the only one in the shot, but I assure you there were other real people there, including a very impressive Spartan (as if in the Halo kind, not the Greek kind).

partybeskar1.jpg


And in a stirring documentary photo of the ride home, here's proof that Mandalore the Frugal rides transit:

partybeskar2.jpg
 
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